CHAPTER NINETEEN

The telephone on the other end of the line rang eight times before a groggy voice forced out a strained, "Hello?"

"Hey, babe. It's me," Al said, resting his aching head against the melamine divider.

"Ugh. Where are you?" Sharon asked thickly.

"The hospital," Al said, annoyed. Did she really think he was out grocery shopping or something? "Stevie's under the knife right now."

Some of the muzziness vanished from Sharon's voice. "You mean like surgery?"

"No, they're holding a meat cleaver over his head for kicks. Of course I mean surgery!" Al snapped. His nerves were frayed and he had no time for stupid questions.

"Don't take that tone with me, Albert Calavicci!" Sharon growled. "I feel like someone did a root canal between my eyes, and I dragged myself out of bed to take your phone call!"

Al flinched. Of course, she was hung over. If he had got any sleep at all he probably would've been too, instead of just having this dull headache thrumming through his temples. "Look, hon, I'm sorry," he said. "I'm just worried about the kid, okay?"

"What's wrong?" Sharon asked, almost concerned.

"Appendix," Al said. "Took them all damned night to figure it out. You feed the dog?"

"I just got up," she protested.

"Please feed Chester before you go back to bed," Al said firmly. "I have no idea how much longer I'm going to be here, but I'm going to see it through with Celestina. Makes me sick the way they tried to treat her. Catch you later, gorgeous, okay?"

"Okay. I love you, baby," Sharon said.

"Just remember to feed Chester," Al told her, hanging up quickly and turning back to the alcove that served as a waiting room for the families of those in the operating rooms.

It was an odd assortment of people. There was an older man happily reading a magazine, and another who looked almost catatonic with anxiety. A young woman was breast-feeding a baby. From the looks of the children's books and Barbie doll that peeked out of the open diaper bag, she had an older child in surgery. At least that didn't seem to be anything terribly serious, for she wasn't particularly fretful. A thirty-something man with a shiny new wedding ring sat with his head in his hands. And sitting with her faded quilt folded into a pad on her lap, Celestina thumbed her rosary beads as if they were her only tie to reality.

Al sat beside her, curling his arm around her and stroking her far shoulder. She leaned into the comfort of the embrace, and her weary head fell on his shoulder, but still her lips muttered the prayers. Al rested his cheek against the silky raven pillow of her hair and stared off into space, reliving the hellish night in minute detail.

After Lenore Ivers had left, it had taken less than twenty minutes for a couple of orderlies to arrive and wheel Stevie in for ultrasound. Al had tried to joke both the boy and his terrified mother through the strange procedure, which the attending physician (an actual physician, Al thought uncharitably, and not some resident!) seemed to think gave proof positive that there was something wrong in the child's cecum, whatever that was. Anyway, despite the contradictory blood work Stevie was booked in for emergency surgery and sent into pre-op at nine-thirty in the morning. It was now almost noon, and they were finally removing the offending organ.

Celestina finished her cycle and let the rosary fall to her lap. Al straightened as she raised her eyes to his face. "Señor, he will be well?" she asked softly.

"Yes, honey, he's going to be fine," Al promised. "Just fine."

"Tell me… what do they do to him?"

Al was torn between laughter and consternation. She didn't have any idea what was wrong with her child: she had been trusting his judgement blindly and exclusively. It was at once gratifying and horrific. "Well," he said, furrowing his brow. "What happened was that a little sack in his stomach got plugged, and then he got an infection. They're going to open him up, right here—" He pointed to the right side of his own abdomen. "—and take it out. Then they'll stitch him up, and in a few days he'll be good as new."

"Good," Celestina repeated, "as new?"

"Sure," Al said softly. "Absolutely."

Her brow wrinkled with worry. "But if they take a piece out, he will miss it. Does he not need it?"

Al chuckled a little. "Naw. You don't need your appendix. I had mine out when I was just about his age, and I've never missed it. Here, I'll show you."

He drew his arm back from around her shoulders and lifted his undershirt, pointing to an ancient pucker where a medical intern at a Catholic hospital in New York had sewed a charity case clumsily up. "That's where they cut me open. They pulled out that little appendix, and in a week I was running around making life hell for everyone again."

Celestina reached out a finger and gently traced the mark, frowning thoughtfully. "And Esteban will have scar?" she asked.

"Yeah. Not as big as that one, though. They did mine almost forty years ago: things have advanced since then." Al smiled as a look of relief eased some of the lines of worry from the mother's face. He'll be fine. Just fine."

He moved to pull the meager covering over his abdomen, but Celestina's hand prevented it. She was staring at his scars, and not the appendectomy mark. "Oh, Señor Calavicci," she whispered, pulling the knitted fabric higher and following the snaking disfigurements. "Oh, who has done this? Who has hurt you?"

"It's nothing, Celestina, it's nothing at all," Al protested, but the woman was not so easily dissuaded. Imperious hands forced him forward and pulled the garment up around his shoulders. Celestina's hand moved over his marred back.

"Oh!" she cried, grief and desolation rampant in her voice. "Oh, who has hurt you? Who has dared? I will hurt them, I will kill them! Oh, tell me who has hurt you!"

Burning with shame, Al pulled out of her grip, getting to his feet and backing away as he scrambled to hide what he could of the shameful blemishes. "Celestina, it's nothing," he said tersely, aware of the stares of the other people in the room, and hating his body for betraying him to this kind of exposure. "It's nothing. Stop it."

She was crying now. "They hurt you. Who hurt you?" she whispered. "Who would hurt you, so kind, so brave? Oh, the evil that has done this."

Al sat down again, taking her by the shoulders. "You listen to me," he said, bending so that he could see her eyes. "They're nothing. It happened a long time ago, and it's in the past, and I don't talk about it. So knock it off. Understand?"

Celestina raised her head and tried to nod, but instead her hand flew to the white bands encircling the biceps of his left arm. They were mirrored on the right: rope burns infected and reopened too many times to count. "Your arms, your poor arms," she whispered. Before Al could stop her she bent and kissed the hideous marks, murmuring something in Spanish that he didn't quite catch. Then she straightened and took up the rosary again. "I pray," she said firmly. "I pray for you, kind Señor Calavicci who has saved my son. I pray."

Al's first instinct was to tell her that she shouldn't waste her prayers on him, but he knew the kind of comfort such women took in their rituals, and he couldn't take that away from her even if he didn't believe in it. Instead he took the blanket from her lap and wrapped it around his shoulders, hiding the offensive scars. The other people in the room had gone back to whatever they had been doing, but Al couldn't help but sense their scornful thoughts. Shivering, he hugged the blanket to his body and closed his eyes against the humiliation.

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"It was his appendix, all right," the physician said, looking at the rumpled and careworn couple before him. "We've taken it out: there were no problems at all. He's in recovery now and will probably wake up in about two hours. I'd like to put him on antibiotics just to prevent any infection of the incision. Children like Esteban are more prone to complications."

"That's fine," Al said. "Whatever you need to do."

"All right," the man said. "That brings up another thing. I don't like that his blood work didn't show up properly. I think it might be a good idea to run a few more tests, just to make sure it was just a fluke."

Al's eyes narrowed. "What'd cause the blood work to come back negative?" he asked suspiciously.

The doctor shrugged. "Any one of a number of things," he said. "Could be as simple as Pathology got the blood samples mixed up. Just doesn't hurt to be on the safe side, Captain. There's nothing to worry about, ma'am," he added, putting a hand on Celestina's shoulder. "Your little guy's a real trooper."

He moved off and Celestina turned questioning eyes on Al. He smiled encouragingly. "Stevie's sleeping," he said. "The nurses need to get him cleaned up and comfortable, and then we'll be able to go and see him. In the meantime how 'bout I get us some coffee. You hungry?"

A surprised look came over Celestina's face. "I—yes. Yes, I am hungry," she said. It was obvious that the thought hadn't crossed her mind until Al brought it up.

"I'll get some lunch, too. What do you want?"

She shook her head. "What is easy," she told him.

"All right," Al said, settling her on the waiting room sofa. "You wait here, and I'll be back in a couple minutes."

She nodded obediently. As he moved off towards the elevator he saw her draw her rosary out of the pocket of her house dress yet again.

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He found the cafeteria with no trouble. It was in the main floor atrium, and at this time of the afternoon it was quiet. He joined the short line, and was soon filling two cups with coffee—black for Celestina, Sweet 'n Low laced for himself. The entrée was a dubious-looking rubber lasagne, so he picked up a couple of turkey sandwiches instead. The clerk made the mistake of giving him a dubious once-over.

"You got a problem?" Al snarled.

"No, sir. Five ninety-eight, please," she said. As she took his money, however, he caught her running the bills through her fingers.

"That's right," he bit back, annoyed beyond all telling and weary beyond all caring. "I'm a counterfeiter and a drug dealer. Oh, and I drown puppies in boiling tar, and I'm really wasting my time scamming your whole organization to get an appendectomy for my best customer!"

She backed away, the terror in his eyes probably due more to his tone than to his words, but nevertheless very real. Al felt a pang of remorse as he rubbed the rough skin of his chin.

"Look, I'm sorry," he said, pulling out his wallet again and passing her the Naval ID. "I've been up all night with a sick kid, and I'm a little short-tempered. I didn't mean to tear a strip off of you. I know I look like shit and it's not your fault, but it's been a really long day."

The girl was staring at him as if he was a space alien who had just stepped off the mother ship and announced that he was taking her with him to the ends of the Universe. He scowled in puzzlement.

"What?" he said.

She pointed at his card. "You're… you're Albert Calavicci!" she gasped. "Lieutenant Albert Calavicci, the Silent Warrior of Cham Hoi!"

Al shook his head, chuckling and reaching for his card. "You've got me confused with someone else, kid," he said.

"No, no, you are! Oh! Oh, you're… I'm… oh! Can I… can I have your autograph? I've got the book right here…"

She ducked down under the till and brought up a hardcover book. She opened it to the endplate and grabbed the pen from her breast pocket. "Please, would you sign it?"

Al took the book, but was too busy looking at it to bother with the pen. The cover was painted with the image of a Vietnamese village, in the center of which was a tiger cage, a twisted figure crouching inside. Nearby a couple of VC grunts had another man strung between two posts. The book was written by a Margaret Dawson, and the title proclaimed it to be The Men Left Behind—The True Story of Robert White and Albert Calavicci.

He flipped it open to read the flap of the dust jacket. March 28, 1973, it read. The North Vietnamese government declares that the last of the American POWs have been returned to the United States. That same day, a defector of the last bastion of the Viet Cong informs international press of the presence of two more captives deep in the jungle near Cham Hoi. These men, Captain Robert White, USAF, and Lieutenant Albert Calavicci, USN, become the last Americans ever to return from the shadows. Margaret Dawson takes us inside their four hellish years forgotten at the mercy of the Viet Cong, revealing atrocities kept from the eyes of the world until now, and raising the all important question: who else was LEFT BEHIND?

"Where'd you get this?" he croaked.

"Bookstore!" the girl enthused. "It's the most gripping tale of courage and heroism I've ever read. You're a living embodiment of liberty—"

Al snatched the pen from his fingers. "Name?" he asked.

"Melissa," she sighed dreamily.

Al scrawled To Melissa: thanks for the coffee inside the front cover, scribbled his name and gave the abomination back to her, then snatched up the cardboard cup tray and the two sandwiches and fled.

He couldn't believe it. He didn't want to believe it. He couldn't believe that Bobby, the man he'd escaped hell with, would sell that story to some sensationalist. It was too horrible for words. What had happened over there didn't need to be put in a book. It needed to be forgotten by everyone as quickly as possible. It shook the very core of his being to think what that clerk might know about him.

She couldn't know anything. It was all lies. It had to be, he told himself as he stepped off the elevator and returned to Celestina. Bobby wouldn't… he just wouldn't.

Nevertheless, the very sight of the food sent Al's stomach roiling. Therefore while Celestina ate he nursed his coffee morosely, and when she went to wash her face, he chucked his sandwich in the nearest wastebasket.

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At last a nurse came and brought them to a room elsewhere on the ward, where Stevie, pale and still, with an I.V. in his arm, lay sleeping in a bed with a blanket covered in colourful balloons. Celestina ran to his side with a tiny cry, and Al had to rush forward to grab her before she could scoop the child into her arms.

"Easy, easy," he said. "He's not quite ready to be held yet." He eased her onto the chair next to the bed and gently pulled back the covers. He lifted the hospital gown to show her the bandage wrapped around his abdomen. "He'll be sore for a couple days," he explained, indicating the dressing. "You'll have to be gentle, careful not to hurt him."

He replaced the coverings with care, then took Celestina's wrist and led her back to the bed. He put Stevie's free hand in hers. "He'll wake up pretty soon," he said as Celestina smoothed her baby's cheek, tears glistening in her eyes. "He's going to be fine."

Sure enough, within twenty minutes the dark eyes unveiled themselves, and a stuttering voice evoked the name, "Mama?"

Celestina let out another cry and swooped to kiss the child's cheek. "Esteban! Sí, sí, Mama is here!"

A slightly goofy smile lighted on the boy's face. "Mama!" he said, lifting his arms to hug her. She returned the embrace very gently, holding only his shoulders.

"Esteban, mi corisone, mi angel," Celestina sobbed quietly, kissing the dark curls.

Sensitive of the intimacy of the moment and feeling like a voyeur and an intruder, Al slipped out in to the corridor, leaving the door ajar so he could hear if he was needed.