not give a good rat’s ass what you want or expect. All I want is for you all to go and leave me alone. Damn it, just go already, she pleaded silently.
“Whatever you’re comfortable with. I imagine you have some questions.”
Bella felt herself nod. No, she really didn’t, but knew she had to ask something. As it was, it was bad enough, they thought she was some weirdo. She wished she had a rule book and that she had read it. “Where . . . how?” she asked in barely a whisper.
“Major Nolan was the only survivor of a roadside bomb. His whole team was killed. This happened eleven months ago. Major Nolan was paralyzed from the neck down on his right side. He had partial use of his left arm and leg at first; then he couldn’t use either his arm or his leg. He deteriorated very quickly. In the beginning, he could talk coherently. He knew how badly he was wounded. He could more or less feed himself finger food with his one good arm; then his voice gave out, he couldn’t swallow, and he had to be fed through a tube. He was flown to Walter Reed Army Medical Center here in the area within days of being injured,” Colonel Atkins said, then let loose with a heavy sigh as she heard Bella shriek.
Bella jumped to her feet like she was spring loaded. “Are you telling me my husband has been at Walter Reed, practically within walking distance from me, and no one in the goddamn army thought I had a right to know! Is that what you are sitting there telling me? Do you have any idea, any idea at all what I went through not hearing from my husband in all that time? Well, do you?”
No one responded verbally; however, they all bobbed their heads up and down.
“Damn it, say something,” she shrieked again, the sound vibrating off the walls.
“It . . . it’s complicated, Mrs. Nolan. We . . . the army . . . didn’t know about you. As we said earlier, Major Nolan did not update his status after you got married. As far as his sister, his relationship, his bank account where his pay went, that was his personal business, we had no control over his affairs. Just so you know, Major Nolan’s sister had his power of attorney. All of that information is in the packet Captain Kimball gave you. Right after his leave, when I assume you were married, Major Nolan deployed. You can’t blame the entire United States Army for his failure to change what needed to be changed,” Colonel Atkins said gently. “I understand your being upset, but—”
“When, exactly, did my husband die? You say he was injured eleven months ago. The officers said that his sister claimed his benefits, but when they found out about me, they tried to find her but couldn’t since she had apparently moved. So how long ago did he actually die? A few weeks? A few months?” Bella asked through clenched teeth.
Colonel Atkins took another deep breath. “Eight months ago.”
“Eight months! Is that what you said? Eight months?” Bella started to wail and scream at the top of her lungs. The nurse, Lieutenant Gibson, rushed to put her arms around her. Bella shook her off but allowed the lieutenant to lead her to the sofa and sit down with her.
“Andy, and he asked me to call him Andy since I was his full-time nurse, talked about you all the time in the beginning, when he had the strength. He didn’t want you to know how badly he was injured. He hoped, and we in the medical field encouraged the hope, that something could be done for him. He said you were too young to be burdened with what he called his condition. He never called you by name until the very end. He would just refer to you as the love of his life. Or his soul mate. One time, he said that the minute he laid eyes on you, he knew you were his destiny. He loved you, Mrs. Nolan, heart and soul.”
Bella sniffed. “Not enough to trust me. I would have been at that hospital twenty-four/ seven, doing whatever I could. I filed for divorce today because I could not understand how and why he couldn’t get word to me when the other wives had FaceTime and shared messages. I thought all kinds of crazy things during all those months. I didn’t know. How could I not have known, felt something? How? Now I have to live with that.
“I had mean, evil thoughts during those months. There were days when I hated Andy for not getting in touch. The truck he loved so much has not been repaired. I can’t pay for it. I don’t have any money except my salary. And now you’re telling me I won’t even get his insurance.
“How did you find me? For eleven months you couldn’t find me, when I was living in the same place I had been when we got married, then suddenly, after I move, you show up. How goddamn convenient. This smells like a cover-up of some kind to me. Well?” she screamed again, only this time it sounded more like a frog croaking. Clearly, she was losing her voice.
“It wasn’t easy, I can tell you that. Like I said, your husband’s entire team was killed. All we had to go on was his military personnel file, an absentee sister we couldn’t find at first, and what little Major Nolan shared with Lieutenant Gibson. The last week, when Major Nolan’s condition deteriorated, he asked me to write you a letter or, if possible, to go and see you. I said I would. But before he could tell me where you lived, he died. All he told me was that your name was Bella. He did not even tell me that you were his wife. It was not until one of his buddies told us that he had gotten married on his last leave that we knew a wife even existed. Once we knew, we went back through his file and discovered the letter I had written, the one that was addressed to Bella, but we could find no one named Bella Nolan until you moved and changed your telephone listing.”
“My God. I changed everything else, but the one thing I did not do was notify the telephone company of the name change, never dreaming that it could make a difference,” Bella said, the anguish clearly heard in her tone of voice.
“All those months he . . . I didn’t have a clue . . . he really was trying to protect you and didn’t want you worrying about him. I guess it never occurred to him that not hearing from him was worse. Sometimes, men are not . . . not as . . . intuitive as women. Sad to say. The letter . . . the letter is inside the packet.
“If it is any consolation to you, Mrs. Nolan, I made sure I visited your husband twice a day when possible. I was with Major Nolan when he passed. I was holding his hand. I went to his funeral. I prayed for him. I just want you to know that. He didn’t die alone. If I had known how to find you, I would have defied him and broken my promise to him and fetched you to his side.”
Bella nodded, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I believe you,” she whispered. “Is Andy . . . is he buried in Arlington National Cemetery?”
“Yes. Everything is in the packet, all the information you need. Major Nolan’s body arrived here with no belongings, so there is nothing to turn over to you. I’m sorry.”
Bella nodded again. “Thank you. I really would like to be alone now if you don’t mind. And before you can ask, no, I am not okay. I won’t be okay for a long time to come, but I do know how to cope, and if I feel I need a shrink or a therapist, I will get one. Right now, I think I’ve earned the right to wallow for a while. You all don’t need to see me bang my head on the wall or hear me cussing up a storm. So, please, just go now and leave me to myself. I have your cards, and I will call you if I feel the need. I am being as truthful as I can be right now.”
Bella literally jumped to her feet, ran to the door, and threw it open. Her guests had no other choice but to get up and leave. There were no hugs, no handshakes. “Just go,” Bella said.
The sound of the dead bolt shooting home once the door closed was the loudest sound Bella had ever heard in her entire life.
Chapter 3
Joseph Espinosa knew that if he walked any more slowly, he would come to a full stop in the middle
