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At an odd inflection in Mark’s voice, Coop’s antennas went up. “You sound worried.” “I am. You know how you said in the car you had bad feelings about this assignment? Well, they must be catching. In my opinion, the faster we can make Monica Callahan disappear, the better off everyone will be.” An ominous chill settled over Coop. Never in the three years he’d been paired with Mark on missions could he remember a single occasion when both of them had been unnerved by a job. Bottom line, they needed to get Ms. Callahan out of sight.
Once upon a time, all of this had seemed exotic. But the years had taught him that exotic was often interchangeable with impoverished. That was true here. The merchandise was the only bright spot in the otherwise bleak, dingy setting. As he’d been instructed, David strolled down the street in an unhurried manner—and with surprising calmness. So much for his worry that when the moment arrived, fear would paralyze him. Instead, the opposite had happened. After all, there were far less meaningful ways to leave this world. At least his death, if that was his fate on this cold February day, would be for a noble cause. Both the hostages and Monica would be—
“... Disney World.” As the last two words of the sentence registered, he swung around. A young boy of seven or eight was regarding him with solemn, dark eyes. His face was dirty, his nondescript clothing a mismatch of drab, ill-fitting items—and he held a bamboo cage containing a pigeon. “Repeat.” David said the word in Pashto. The boy shifted from one foot to the other, darting a quick, nervous glance up and down the street, but he didn’t comply with the request. Instead, he pointed to the backpack. “Repeat.” David tried again, switching to Dari. He had to be sure this wasn’t some freak coincidence, simply a young boy who’d been attracted by his Mickey Mouse backpack and was looking for a handout. The boy spoke again in slow, deliberate English. “I would someday like to go to Disney World.” This was it. David’s heart began to pound as he eased the backpack off his shoulder and handed it to the youngster. The boy dropped the pigeon cage, grabbed the backpack with both hands, and wove his way down the street. In seconds he had disappeared. Slowly David backed away from the cage. There was little chance a bomb could be concealed in the delicate mesh of bamboo, but there were plenty of shadowy doorways and tiny lanes where a sniper could be hiding. Now that his package had been delivered, he was expendable—if the informer had used the lure of information as no more than a ruse to generate some easy cash...and eliminate the courier. Nevertheless, he followed the instructions and headed toward his waiting car, looking neither right nor left. It was the longest walk of his life. When he emerged from the market, the embassy car was parked fifty feet away. As he approached it, the driver started to get out, but he waved the man back into the vehicle and slid in, shutting the door behind him. “Let’s get out of here.” “Yes, sir.” The ride back to the embassy was tense and quiet. Not until they pulled into the compound and the gates swung shut behind them did he allow himself to believe his life had been spared. The informant had kept his bargain. So far. Now he could only hope the man would honor the rest of it and supply the information they desperately needed.
* * *
“Ladies and gentlemen, communication isn’t brain surgery, although the tools of the trade can be dangerous. Words, like scalpels, can cut. But so can silence.” Monica waited, giving the audience in the Jefferson Hotel’s ornate ballroom a few seconds to digest that thought. “You know, I must admit I’m not much of a country music fan.” Her gaze swept the audience and she smiled. “But there was a song a few years back that captured my key message today. It was called ‘I Thought You Knew.’ It’s a song about the danger of assumptions, and wishing for a chance to say all the things you thought the other person knew. “‘I Thought You Knew’ happens to be a love song. But the principle is true in all parts of our life. If you remember only one thing from my talk this morning, let it be this: don’t make the mistake of assuming someone knows how you feel—in your professional life or your personal life. Talk the walk. Thank you.”
Thunderous applause filled the room, and three hundred people rose to their feet as one. From his position to the right of the velvet-draped stage, facing the audience, Coop had an excellent view of the enthusiastic response to Monica’s speech. And the ovation was well deserved. For the past forty-five minutes, she’d made everyone in the room think, charmed them into laughter, and touched their hearts. Including his. No question about it. The lady knew her stuff. He exchanged a glance with Mark, who stood at the front of the room on the other side of the stage. His partner gave a subtle thumbs-up. As Monica launched into the Q&A session, fielding questions with consummate skill and a warmth that endeared her to the audience, Coop altered his position slightly to better observe the people approaching the mike positioned in the center aisle, beneath the huge crystal chandelier. They all looked like typical business types. No one exhibited any behavior that tripped a red alert. Everything seemed under control. A visual and audio check with the agents positioned at the exits and in the red-draped alcoves along the sides of the room confirmed that nothing was amiss.
Still, it was a relief to be in the home stretch. Twenty minutes later, as the president of the organization joined Monica on the podium to end the Q&A, Coop and Mark slipped backstage to relieve the agents on duty there. “Wasn’t she great?” The man’s enthusiastic question was met with another round of applause as his voice boomed through the mike. “Talk the Walk will be available for sale in the expo area, so be sure to pick up a copy. Ms. Callahan, thank you again. I know we all learned a lot this morning. Ladies and gentlemen, lunch is now served in the Empire Room.”
As the man shook her hand and she exited into the wings, Coop took the lead escort position while Mark fell in behind her. Once in the food service area, two more agents joined them. They formed a tight circle around Monica while they wove among stainless steel counters and racks of dirty dishes. As they approached the outside fire door where they’d entered, its alarm disengaged for Monica’s appearance, Coop spoke into the mike at his wrist. Listened to the response. Everything was quiet out there. Excellent. “We’re clear. Let’s make this fast.” He pushed through the door. Maintaining their tight circle, they hustled Monica into the waiting SUV, which was book-ended by two nondescript vehicles. He climbed in beside her, and Mark took the front passenger seat.
Only after they were on the road and headed back to her house did he speak. “That was quite a performance.” A flush crept over her cheeks. “Thanks.” “I second that.” Mark angled toward her. “You had them eating out of your hand.” Her color deepened. “You two are good for my ego. You can come to my speaking engagements anytime. Except I hope you can sit in the audience and enjoy the next one.” “I enjoyed this one. Didn’t you, Coop?” “Yes.” “Learn anything?” Coop sent him a “knock it off” look. His partner ignored him. “In case you haven’t noticed, Monica, Coop’s not the most talkative guy. But I found him reading your book at two in the morning on Sunday, so maybe there’s hope for him yet.” “You were reading my book?” Monica’s eyebrows rose as she gave him her full attention. He shifted in his seat. “I was having a hard time staying awake that first night, and I like to read. I found it on your bookshelf. It sounded interesting.” She waited, as if she expected him to say more. When the silence lengthened, Mark rolled his eyes. “It might be nice to comment on the book.” Heat surged on Coop’s neck. “That’s okay.” Monica stepped in. “It’s not everybody’s cup of tea. What sort of books do you like to read?” “Biographies. But I was intrigued by your book. It kept me awake.” Mark snorted and turned back toward the front. “I give up.” The heat crept past his collar. If ever there was a backhanded compliment, that had been it. Before he could think of a way to mitigate his faux pas, Monica reached over and laid her slender fingers on his hand—as he’d done with her yesterday. “It’s okay. I’ll take intrigued. And trust me, considering that a lot of my students use my book to cure insomnia, the fact it kept you awake until the wee hours is a compliment.” He added graciousness to her growing list of attributes. “Don’t you get nervous in front of a big audience like that?” Mark tossed the query over his shoulder as he surveyed the area they were passing through. Monica removed her hand from his, leaving a chill on his skin where welcome warmth had been moments ago. “Not usually. You gain a comfort level with practice. I thought I might have a problem today, given all that’s going on, but I attribute my calmness to you guys. I trust you to keep me safe.” “No pressure there.” Mark’s tone was teasing. But as Coop well knew, he was more than half serious. Rightly so.
Trust was helpful. It induced cooperation. But there was a downside too. When someone trusted you, it added to your burden. Increased your sense of responsibility. Failure became less of an option. Not that he’d needed Monica’s profession of trust to solidify his resolve to keep her safe. That was his job. But in the past three days this mission had become more than that. Because he was coming to care about her far more than the duties of this assignment dictated.
~~~~~~
Still, convincing the White House and the intelligence community that the risk was worth taking had required every nuance of skill he’d developed in his forty years of diplomacy and negotiating. But in the end, he’d succeeded. Tomorrow he would drive into Kabul and follow the informant’s instructions to the letter. And if all went well…if he wasn’t walking into a trap…if the informant followed through on his promise to provide the information…if they could find the hostages before the terrorists grew impatient and killed them…the end of the crisis might be in sight. He paused outside his office door. Took a steadying breath. That was a lot of ifs. But it was the only hope they had of locating the hostages, and he was willing to put his life on the line to rescue them. And to keep his daughter safe.
Since politics has entered our lives in such a strange and sad way, I find myself interested in books related to our government--as it should be! I routinely tape the FBI TV series and watch as it is convenient for me. I enjoy the diversity of characters that comes with an ongoing program that has not been disrupted by what is happening now in the U.S. I was pleased that this book also followed the normalcy that we have been used to for decades prior to 2016...
Against All Odds certainly is a winner for me... It takes readers into the inner lives of both agents and those who are caught in some type of criminal activity that forces action to help those citizens pulled in, often unknowingly. Of course, the characters are created; however, I found Hannon a writer who is well able to bring life to "real people" even if they aren't... Know what I mean? In Against All Odds, there are main characters who are both successful in their lives, while hiding a side of their lives that has long affected their own reality. Isn't that how most of us are? Yet, it takes a special writer to bring these dual-lives of one character or another, and merge their personal stories into something new and exciting... Kudos to Hannon for this special awareness in the stories she provides to all of us!
I found it ironic that I am turning more and more to fictional books so that good over evil is found... In my earlier days of dreaming about heaven, I pictured that stories were developed there for we who are living... NOW, I know that God would never write such hateful tales of the evil desires of, frankly, mostly, men... For He is Indeed a God of Love... And it is We, humans, who have the choice of who we shall be...
We find a father in Against All Odds, who we see within our governments as well. They are the ones that decide in their own minds that they are needed to help a country's people be saved from this or that... Yes, unfortunately, there is such a need. But it is questionable as to how it is to be accomplished... David Callahan served in the government for more than 40 years known mostly for his great ability to negotiate with foreign leaders.
(You know, like Kerry did in negotiating a peace treaty with Iran under President Obama... Yet was torn up by the present president who started a war for no reason...)
Callahan's dedication to that life had resulted in an almost complete separation from his wife and daughter. He was needed he thought. Plus he enjoyed what he was doing so much! But now, right now, the enemy had honed in on that dedication...
“Sir? I think you need to hear this.” At his aide’s terse comment, David Callahan looked up from the security briefing in his hand. Flicked a gaze at the tape recorder and single sheet of paper Salam Farah held as he stood on the threshold of the small office deep inside the fortified U.S. Embassy compound in Kabul, Afghanistan. David lowered the briefing to his desk. “A new message from the terrorists?” “Yes. And another more personal threat.” “I’m not interested in threats directed at me.” David waved the comment aside. “Let our security people worry about them.” “This one is different, sir.” He studied Salam. After forty years in the diplomatic service, most of them spent dealing with volatile situations in the world’s hot spots, he’d learned to trust his instincts about people. And in the two months he’d been back in Afghanistan trying to help stabilize the local government, Salam had earned his respect. His aide wouldn’t raise a red flag unless there was a valid reason. “All right.” David resettled the thin frame of his wire-rimmed glasses and held out his hand. “Let’s see what they have to say.” In silence, Salam set the recorder on the desk, pressed the play button, and passed the sheet of paper to David. As the spoken message was relayed in the language favored by the Taliban, David tuned out the Pashto and scanned the English translation. The warning was similar to those that had come before—convince the country’s struggling fledgling government to release a dozen incarcerated terrorists and pay a twenty-million-dollar ransom, or the three U.S. hostages that had been kidnapped a week ago would die. But as he read the last line, Salam’s concern became clear. The nature of the personal threat had, indeed, changed. If you do not convince the government to meet our demands, your daughter will be our next target. David’s pulse stuttered. “When did this arrive?” “Half an hour ago. It’s been in translation.”
And only then did he realize just how much his daughter really meant to him... And knew that the government's stance was NOT to deal with terrorists who chose to kidnap and seek ransom as a means of gaining control over their perceived enemy, the United States.
But when the reputation of such a man as David Callahan is brought into a new, deadly situation, things can be looked at more logically and plans follow... Readers will watch as several different individuals or groups are involved with getting money out of the capture of American citizens... The complexity can be confusing, mainly because it is difficult to determine who is working for good. Perhaps that was intentional, in order to sustain a sense of suspense, but I confess the plot got away from me and was only able to be followed by keeping track of the two main FBI characters, the team that had been assigned to keep Callahan's daughter safe...
And because Monica Callahan was a fantastically independent woman who had gained her own reputation and stature and refused to immediately act to follow the rules being mandated for her safety. For instance, she made it quite clear that she would be staying in her own home and participating in her usual or already planned schedule of events... And the first one to come up was attending church that Sunday...
The organ swelled for the final song, and Monica reached for the hymnal in the rack on the pew in front of her. This service had been the one normal thing in her life since the FBI invasion yesterday morning. Except for the two tall men seated behind her in the last pew, on the aisle—who weren’t there to praise God, but to protect her. Nor were some of the unfamiliar faces in the congregation pious visitors seeking Sunday worship, either. They were on-duty federal agents. Carrying guns. In church. It was surreal. At a touch on her shoulder, Coop’s instruction as they’d entered the church echoed in her mind. Leave ahead of the crowd. It was time to go. Letting out a slow breath, she replaced the hymnal and angled toward him. He tipped his head toward the aisle as his partner exited the pew. After picking up her coat, she edged out and fell into step behind Mark, Coop close on her heels. As Mark pushed open the door to the vestibule, Coop’s lean fingers closed around her upper arm in a firm but gentle grip, stopping her progress. “Give him a chance to verify everything is secure.” His warm breath feathered across her cheek as he leaned close to speak, a mere whisper away as his body shielded hers from behind while his partner conferred with a couple of dark-suited men and a woman in a black skirt and royal-blue blazer. She started to shrug into her coat, but he took it from her and held it as she slipped her arms into the sleeves. A few seconds later, Mark rejoined them. “We’re clear. The car’s in the portico. Let’s make it quick.” Flanked by the two men, she crossed the marble floor, her heels clicking in rhythm to the soaring notes of “Amazing Grace.” The three people Mark had been talking with spread out in the vestibule as a few members of the congregation wandered out. One of the agents pretended to read the bulletin board. Another checked his watch. The woman riffled through her handbag, as if searching for her keys. Yet it was clear they were all keenly attuned to their surroundings, watching for any indication of trouble. Protecting her. As they approached the exterior door, Mark stepped ahead, lifted his left arm, and spoke softly into the inconspicuous mike at his wrist, his voice feeding into the unobtrusive earpieces all of the agents on duty wore. Or so she’d learned when she’d asked for a briefing on what to expect before they’d left the house this morning. Without slowing his pace, Mark pushed through the door. As he exchanged a few succinct comments with the agent standing on the other side, Coop maintained his grip on her arm. When the agent leaned over to open the door of the SUV parked a few feet away, she found herself being hustled forward and eased into the back seat. Coop slid in beside her and Mark claimed the front passenger seat while the agent took the wheel. Their exit was accomplished with such speed and smoothness that they were pulling out of the parking lot before the organ finished the first verse. “Wow. That was impressive.” Monica drew a deep breath. “I take it you two have been through this drill a few times.” “A few.” Coop glanced over his shoulder as he responded. “Checking for a tail?” Her question was only half in jest. The level of security for this little outing had demonstrated how seriously the threat against her was being taken. Suggesting the danger might be more real than she’d been willing to concede. Shifting his attention to the road ahead, Coop watched as a car pulled out from the curb and took up a position in front of them. “Did he just cut in front of us?” Monica leaned forward, gripping the edge of her seat as her heart tripped into a staccato beat. “Yes.” Coop settled back, his posture relaxed. “But he’s on our side. So is the car behind us. Buckle up.” Monica twisted toward the back window. There was, indeed, a car sticking close. “Did we have an...escort...on the way to church too?” “Yes.” And their return route was just as circuitous as the one they’d taken to church. As Coop had explained when she’d teased them earlier about their navigational skills, it was safer to operate “out of pattern,” as he’d put it. In other words, they were concerned that someone had been watching her long enough to know her habits. That was more than a little disturbing. Trying to stifle a sudden wave of panic, she groped for her seat belt and pulled it out. But as she tried to slide the buckle in, it slipped from her shaky grasp, retracting with a thump that had Mark reaching toward his belt. “Sorry.” Heat surged across her cheeks. “Let me.” Coop released his own belt and leaned across her. His broad shoulder pressed against her as he grasped the buckle and pulled it out, and his fingers brushed her hip when he engaged it. Which played havoc with her respiration. Almost like she was attracted to the tall, dark HRT operator beside her who reeked of masculinity and whose very presence evoked strength and competence. And in other circumstances, she might have been. But as appealing as he was, her response in these circumstances was more likely due to the sudden realization that her situation was a whole lot more perilous than she wanted to admit. Though her knowledge of law enforcement protocols was limited, it was doubtful that elaborate security measures like the ones being taken on her behalf were employed without very good reason. She moistened her lips. Cleared her throat. “I, uh, had no idea a simple visit to church was going to take this much coordination. The security was quite involved, wasn’t it?” Instead of responding, he touched his earpiece. And while he listened to whatever a colleague was saying, she settled back in her seat for the ride home—and tried to untangle the knots in her stomach.
I really enjoyed this story. Kudos to the author for taking on a topic which is right out of history--and the present time period as well. Books for me have become more important as writers create stories that both reflect the reality of life, as well as, ensuring that God, indeed, is right in the middle of all events we all face... I especially enjoyed Coop, who has his own history that had affected his life, and, yet, when he had first seen Monica, he recognized that she was different than any other woman he'd ever met... Readers will enjoy watching their relationship develop and, yes, continue beyond the end of the book...
Highly recommended! I've ordered the next two books for this series...
For Biden the process and the substance were intertwined. Although he liked to brag about being a constitutional scholar—on the basis of seventeen years Biden had spent as an adjunct professor at Widener University Delaware Law School—he really had one primary profession in his career: he was a politician. His expertise was nose counting, horse trading, and spreading a thick layer of flattery over his audiences.
~~~
Some call Joe Biden boring... Me, after spending nearly 40 years on a university campus, where nobody was concerned with you as a person unless you made a mistake or a complaint had been received, I'll take Joe's exceptional experience and expertise and never hearing much communication from him because we learned from the news that he was doing his job, even if some were not totally happy with the "how" it had been done, over any individual who had NO governmental expertise. Me, I can guarantee from my professional career on a university campus, I had better credentials to handle a political job than the former president did... especially in the mechanics of getting various tasks done via a simple plan of action.
One major thing this book reveals is that President Biden seeks out, uses and depends upon the input from a group of experts in a specific field. Only then will he begin to formulate a proposal for accomplishing an important mission...
!!!
Just before the New Year, when Biden called his friend Jon Meacham, he plastered on a resolute face. By any objective measure, he was in a terrible place. For months, he had invested his precious presidential time into the pursuit of Build Back Better, only to look like a fool when Joe Manchin sideswiped him on Fox News. Despite the attention he devoted to Vladimir Putin, Russian troops were rolling toward the Ukrainian border. Not so many months earlier, Biden had told aides that his presidency would be defined by his response to COVID, yet omicron was surging through households and schools and workplaces, a triggering reminder of the early days of the pandemic. The primary agenda item for the call with Meacham was hardly more uplifting. The president was looking ahead to a grim milestone. He wanted to discuss a speech commemorating the first anniversary of January 6 that Meacham was helping write. Part of why Biden felt simpatico with Meacham was the sentiment in the subtitle of the historian’s most recent book, The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels. Biden was among the truest believers in the power of the better angels. They might advance only a few yards at a time, but they kept on advancing. That faith, however, had begun to wobble. The past year had chastened him. He began it hopeful that the nation would embrace the blessing of the vaccine. But moral suasion and logic failed to move red America to protect itself. The power of right-wing propaganda inoculated a large portion of the country against reason. By the end of September, the nation had exhausted Biden’s faith in the better angels. Because so many Americans resisted the collective efforts to smash the virus, he tried to force their compliance by mandating the vaccination of the military, the federal bureaucracy, health care workers, and employees of large companies. And he was done politely asking. When he announced the mandates, he bellowed, “We are patient, but our patience is wearing thin. And your refusal has cost all of us.”
Working through drafts of the January 6 speech with Meacham and Mike Donilon, Biden kept pushing them to toughen the language, to harden the speech’s critique of Donald Trump. That, too, represented a shift in his thinking. When he came into office, he felt as if he could destroy Donald Trump by ignoring him. He worried that by going near the fire, he would feed it. So he rarely mentioned him by name. When the former president held a rally or issued a menacing statement, Biden resisted the impulse to respond. As he edited the speech, it was as if he were permitting himself to fully process the horror of January 6. The more he paused to think hard about it, the angrier he became. Even after rioters went in search of Mike Pence’s neck, even after congressional leaders feared for their own lives, the Republican Party remained staunchly loyal to Trump. The party was enthusiastically complicit in Trump’s plot to short-circuit the next election. He said he was done dancing around the subject of Trump. This was the occasion to deliver the indictment of Trump that history demanded and the man deserved. In the final draft, Biden stuck to the literary conceit of omitting Trump’s name. But he now did so derisively. “He’s not just a former president. He’s a defeated former president” was a statement intended to wound what he described as Trump’s “bruised ego.” Even before his writers began working on the speech, Biden knew that he wanted to deliver it in Statuary Hall, where insurrectionists had literally defecated on Congress. Standing on the site of the riot, he wanted to recount history without euphemism, to provide a rejoinder to the right-wing revisionists who sought to soften memories of the day. The threats against democracy were ominous, and he believed that they needed to be described with graphic imagery: “I will allow no one to place a dagger at the throat of our democracy.” Meacham had worked on Biden’s inaugural, a speech that celebrated the resilience of institutions. As he watched the evolution of this speech, he thought to himself that his friend had journeyed from Locke to Hobbes, to a darker, more realistic view of human nature. At the age of seventy-nine, Biden was confronting his teetering faith in better angels. — As Meacham and Donilon finished the January 6 speech, he wanted them to draft a companion address. A week later, on January 11, he intended to fly to Atlanta, to the cradle of the civil rights movement, to lay out his prescription for the crisis of American democracy.
The consistent underestimation of Joe Biden was his diesel. It propelled him to keep chasing the image, over the course of three presidential runs. He pursued it into his late seventies, even though diminishingly few of his peers considered it plausible—and even though his inability to surrender his ambitions occasionally verged on the undignified. He believed that fate—a word strewn across his monologues—sometimes required him to travel the ugly path to success. At every station in his adult life, joy marched in lockstep with trauma. And when the image in his head transposed itself into reality on January 20, 2021, it seemed entirely fitting that the inauguration, which he had so long desired, deviated so wildly from his expectations, and was stalked by death...
In the dream version of the day, he solemnly strides onto the stage erected on the west front of the Capitol, through doors held open by marines. But when that day arrived, the glass in those doors was shattered. Two weeks earlier, right-wing paramilitaries battered them with flagpoles and purloined police shields in a violent quest to prevent him from ever taking office. The inaugural dais looked down onto steps, where police officers trying to fight off the surging mob had slipped in pools of blood. Instead of a democratic extravaganza, his inauguration was surrounded by wire fences and Jersey barriers, guarded by armored vehicles and twenty-six thousand members of the National Guard who descended on Washington for the event, determined to prevent a reprise of the violence of the sixth of January. Even if the public had been permitted to pass through the checkpoints surrounding the city center, it wouldn’t have come. Through the winter, it sheltered at home, worried that it might die by inhaling particles of disease wafting in the air. A global pandemic was at its lethal peak. On January 19, the eve of his inaugural, COVID’s death toll surpassed four hundred thousand. Despite the development of effective vaccines, the government had scant doses—and no effective plan for distributing them. To fill the expanse of the unoccupied Mall, inaugural planners planted two hundred thousand flags across the lawn, representing the absentees. Biden couldn’t address an adoring crowd, just sheets fluttering in the wind. This was not the image in his head. It was a postapocalyptic tableau—and the nation that he inherited. — The electorate turned to Joe Biden as a balm. Postmortems of his victory ascribed his success to the fact that voters hoped the kindly grandfather might impose calm and decency, a bit of boredom, and a dose of competence, after four erratic, enervating years of Trump. But voters’ expectations for Biden didn’t line up with his own.
“I’ve never done anything like this, where everything you write gets mined and turned into clickbait,” Frank Foer told me about his new book The Last Politician, a detailed study of the first two years of Joe Biden’s presidency. “Fox News and the New York Post pull something out and act like it’s a critique of Biden. And their audience buys the book and writes Amazon reviews that trash it, saying it’s a puff piece.”
I wouldn’t call The Last Politician a puff piece or critique. It’s an attempt to understand a White House that has conducted much of its business outside the spotlight, perhaps to its detriment. It’s a chronicle of a presidency at a time of transformation, while it drives some of that transformation itself. It offers the opposite of lazy narratives about an old president, disconnected from events shaping the nation. But it also shows how the White House reinforces that narrative through its theory of politics. Continue on with another review...
While pulling things together to begin my review of Franklin Foer's latest book, this time, moving into the first two years of Biden's presidency, I took the time to check Amazon reviews. Over 46% were "1s," a clear sign to me that MAGA members had moved quickly to place their negatives, whether or not they even read the book. Things like "if you like Biden" you'll like this book??? What exactly does that even mean? The book was written by Franklin Foer--Franklin Foer is a staff writer at The Atlantic and former editor of The New Republic, commenting on contemporary issues from a liberal perspective.
As you can see, Foer is already identifying himself as a liberalist, or, at least, it is his assignment to write on those issues that are defined as liberal. But does that mean he is a Biden supporter? Not necessarily.
I am a Biden supporter... That does not mean that I have the prerogative to trash a book in comparison with those I might read written by conservatives. In fact, in my opinion, it is clear that Foer freely shares any secrets he might have found out about during his time with this administration's staff.
First, of course, when reading a book, you begin to get a feel about whether the book is well-written. This one is. Indeed, his extensive index and footnotes provides readers a chance to confirm or even speak against those ideas that were shared by others. He also does a neat trick with the footnotes, he links back to where it is placed in the book, so that, if we want to compare, we can. As a footnote "professional" you might say from when I was working on university master or doctorate submissions, (I was editing), I loved this up-to-date methodology for how to handle research references.
So, please consider my titled statement as being related to the issues as they happened, versus either what the book says or what I had already learned via news reports. What I mean is that, given what has happened within the republican party and the spread of lies and misinformation, it seems that Joe Biden or any democrat's activities, will be damned if he does--or doesn't... What a waste of time for the central governing body of our Nation!
It is sad to me. I would hate to think that, in my own life, that my value would be based upon how any one individual might feel about me. You see, I have both sympathy and empathy for Joe Biden. We are clearly close in age. Therefore it rankles me, just as it probably does him, when others empathize his age as opposed to his very real acts of performance! And, you know, folks, I have learned more than I ever wanted to know about the political world of the United States. And, in my opinion, if we had more people like Joe Biden, as well as many who are acting on behalf of democracy, the running of the government would NOT be a major daily source of News... Boring, but informative. We Need That Now!
Thankfully, I am aware that the world itself has changed dramatically over the last decade. Perhaps more than in any other period of time. The volume of acts to affect our basic freedoms, performed by the republican party, has not only increased, but has changed to be based upon hate, prejudice and violence. I ask you: Could you be bombarded with so much crap without getting angry once in a while? Then I say, let the President speak his mind and if he makes just one statement that could be taken wrong, then let it pass away... Goodness knows anything that Biden says will at least make sense, which is new over the last administration's one statement said one day, changed the next day, and then moved back and forth just for good measure... LOL And, yes, anything that is being denied these days are surely the truth...and there is documentation to prove it!
~~~
First, it should be noted that Foer spent no time with President Biden in writing this book, other than being able to sit in on some group sessions. In fact, readers will see so many new and different names used, you may not follow the "characters." I was impressed with this. But, at a minimum, a list of characters in front would have allowed readers to learn who these people were as they read.
Foer's book somewhat follows a chronological view of major issues during the two-year time period starting post election. Remember that we were all dealing with the Covid Pandemic that had already begun in the previous administration. We know from Woodward's book, Rage, that Trump had worked to keep the true facts of the severity of the virus from Americans. In this book, at the point where the transition of administrations should have started to occur, those individuals who came in routinely to pick up on the status and reins for this monumental task, after being held off by outgoing staff for as long as possible, finally had to realize and accept that no plans had been made to actually distribute and administer the shots! Thus it was the Biden administration who had to "move the mountains" to get millions vaccinated. And succeeded!
An interesting tidbit was the fact that Trump's "Warp Speed" designation for ordering the necessary vaccines, actually put many on alert since they weren't sure that the vaccines had received full testing. But, then, of course, we all knew that it was Trump himself who refused to wear masks and his rhetoric led to the unwillingness of many republicans to not accept the tested and approved vaccine(s). It was actually fascinating reading the details of what happened to deal with the monumental task facing the new administration. However, as we read, it was clear that the competency of these incoming people could not have been better prepared to brainstorm and move forward...
One of the fascinating pieces of new information I learned is that this president and administration had many aides that were either just out of university(s) or in early years of working. (These aides were those I mentioned above as new characters.) To me, this awareness allowed me to realize and approve of the fact that Biden is quite aware that he needed people with more up-to-date methods and information, while at the same time, he was then able to merge his own significant wealth of experience and knowledge, to bring about the best possible decisions or plans of action. To me, this totally takes away any concern about Biden's age, since he, in effect, is providing the perspectives of both the old and the new in all issues affecting the United States.
“I’m now the fourth United States President to preside over American troop presence in Afghanistan: two Republicans, two Democrats.” Pushing his finger into the podium, he intoned, “I will not pass this responsibility on to a fifth.”
One of the early decisions of the new administration was to make a decisive act that had been "talked" about for over 20 years, but never acted upon. Here is where I began to think about that old saying: You are damned if you do and damned if you don't. Specifically, it was a goal of President Biden to bring back our American soldiers... And he had the guts to follow through and do it...
Now here's the key point of the situation. Trump had met with the Taliban and given a date by which America would withdraw. Did action begin at that time to actually plan for and implement? No. We begin to see a pattern, do we not? Trump talked and claimed of actions... But then never really followed through on dealing with the entire picture and its potential ramifications... So, really, few actual accomplishments were made.
Consider two specific points. There had been no early preparation for an easy withdrawal. Indeed, there had been no review and judgment analysis with the country's president and Afghani military leaders. Could we, Biden's administration, not expect to have the Afghani military, after 20 years of training with Americans forces be fully ready for this occurrence, no matter how seemingly last-minute it was announced? Could we not have expected that the past administration would have been working with his people toward that day? Or, as with Covid, had anything been done...at all?
Indeed, No... The president soon left the country and the Afghani military were not prepared to act on their own plan, without the involvement of the U.S. Whether or not, during those 20 years, "anybody" had guided the people of the country as to the future, without "protection," it is and perhaps will never be clear.
BUT, there were at least three previous presidents who were involved with this issue...and, undoubtedly did nothing significant, except one thing. Trump met with the Taliban as opposed to the Afghani government, military and people. Indeed, he set a date for withdrawal. Why? What I personally believe is that, once again, Trump met with who he considered "his" autocratic peers, scheduled a date pulled out of his or the Taliban's hat... And didn't give a damn about the country or its people. He was going to bring the soldiers back to repurpose the money he wanted to spend for his own uses...just my personal opinion, of course...
What I also believe, is that nobody in America felt the pain of what actually occurred more than Joe Biden and his staff. He had done what Americans had wanted him to do. Yet, because of the non-activity planning that should have accompanied the set of a date of withdrawal by Trump, Biden was caught holding the crisis created by Trump and having to deal with it. How many times has the country been left in the lurch due to lack of follow through by that president?
You may even be correct in saying, not many, because, let's face it, the last president was not a planner who could deal with many multiple issues at the same time, keeping up-to-date on them, and being able to, importantly, direct and give specific details as to who, what, when, and, sometimes, how, to subordinates, peers, et.al., were to be handled.
Foer spends considerable time sharing an overview of the interaction with the Chinese President during this time. Personally, I wondered whether Foer, himself, was finding the exchange fascinating and wanted to talk about it. I was more intrigued by the way Biden moved forward to speak of former meeting times between the two men, while, at the end, Biden then went straight to the points that he wanted to bring forward in the meeting...
And then there were the two Senators who went slightly rogue within the Democratic Party. If this daily display played on news didn't keep you aware of what was happening, Foer presents a, may I say, delightful look as two aides were caught in this seemingly power struggle, with even a little break for a song! LOL
Sullivan was an earnest Minnesotan with carefully parted blond hair who vigorously defended the artistry of Billy Joel to his friends. When he would describe himself as the type of kid everyone hated for having memorized world capitals, he also evinced the sort of self-deprecation that disarmed skeptics. His mother, a guidance counselor at a public high school in Minneapolis, burned with ambition for her children, four of whom went to Yale. Tony Blinken hired one of them, Sullivan’s younger brother, Tom, to be his deputy chief of staff for policy. After starring on the high school debate team, Sullivan embarked on the long march through the Institutions: after Yale, a Rhodes Scholarship, followed by a Supreme Court clerkship for Stephen Breyer and a seat at the State Department. He was a favorite of Hillary Clinton, who kept handing him portfolios of ever greater importance. Richard Holbrooke once hailed him as a future secretary of state...
Of course, every newsman wants to include a little dirt in any political story, so Foer included an entire chapter and called it The Spring of Self-Pity... You know how it goes...
As Klain watched the explosion of joy, he thought, Why aren’t we receiving any credit for making this possible? The whole nation could rush to see Top Gun: Maverick in theaters thanks to the White House,
because of the steps it took to disseminate vaccines, and its guidance for safely reopening the economy. The public wanted a return to normal; well, this was normal. Yet the public seemed to think that Joe Biden had almost nothing to do with this feat. Judging by the polling, the public had little regard for his presidency. Only 38 percent of the nation approved of his performance—roughly the same response that Donald Trump consistently mustered. Klain saw something darkly humorous about the White House’s inability to move that number. Each time the public grew exercised about a problem—the lack of COVID tests, a shortage of baby formula, container ships unable to unload in ports—the administration would drop everything to solve it. These were the practical details of life, where the government touched the quotidian, and Biden obsessed over them, spending hours, say, sorting through the logistics of using the air force to import baby formula from abroad. But each time the Biden administration made progress fixing an issue, it suddenly disappeared from the public’s list of top concerns. The public only lashed the administration, never rewarded it. There was no glory in technocratic troubleshooting...
And, of course, Foer covers overturning Roe vs. Wade. One of the things I learned was that there was a SCOTUS Blog--in fact, several...FYI...
In the chapter Dobbs vs. Biden, we become privy to the actual issues that confronted Biden. As a Catholic, he has had years of being told that abortion was a sin. I'll be talking about this issue more when I finish reading my present book... But I want to finish with what happened when Biden began to be confronted with what happened because of this reversal...in reality.
But Biden seemed entrenched, and kept privately citing statements that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops published, excoriating him from the right. It was as if the group understood that it could prey on his guilty conscience. Faced with the messy psychological dynamic at play, aides debated enlisting Biden’s sister, Valerie, to make the case for signing executive orders. Their best ally, in the end, turned out to be the radicalism of the antiabortion zealots in the states, who were quickly availing themselves of Dobbs to institute draconian restrictions. In Ohio, a trigger law imposed a sweeping ban on abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy. Reports began circulating about a ten-year-old girl from Columbus, raped and pregnant. Because of Ohio’s ban, she needed to travel to Indiana to find a doctor to perform the abortion. This was the sort of morality tale that roiled Biden’s imagination, the bullying of the defenseless that set him off, allowing him to shift into the role of fatherly protector. Two weeks after Dobbs, he signed an executive order protecting access to medication abortion. As he did, he found himself growing unexpectedly emotional, invoking the case that rattled him so badly. “Ten years old—ten years old!—raped, six weeks pregnant, already traumatized.” He chopped at the air with his hands and seemed to almost vibrate with anger. “Imagine being that little girl!”
Compared with his performance on June 24, he sounded far more convincing; that was because he was far more convinced. This was Biden’s method for working through issues that conflicted him. He needed to vent, brood, and process his own doubts.
On August 2, Kansans went to the polls to vote on a referendum to amend the state’s constitution to remove the right to abortion from the document. Most prognosticators predicted that Kansas, hardly a bastion of social liberalism, would remain true to its social conservative self. But women, roused by Dobbs, turned out en masse and overwhelmingly rejected the amendment. It lost by a margin of 18 percent. Districts that Trump had won decisively, like the swath of suburbs and farmland north of Wichita, voted pro-choice. The referendum affirmed Biden’s strategic instinct. It would have been counter-productive to embrace the more aggressive response to Dobbs proposed by others. But as he watched the results, he couldn’t quite believe what he saw. Whatever his qualms, he now possessed the issue that provided his party with a fighting chance of surviving November’s midterms. The issue that tormented him was the issue that could save him.
And that, folks, is why, no matter his age, I believe we must support Joe Biden as our continued president. There may be issues that he had promised but had not been able to achieve (but, of course, there have been major achievements that have surpassed any recent president, while they fell short of what we all know is needed, especially for schools, teachers and children.) But, for me, and I hope for millions of you, it is, in the end, the man's concern and, yes, love for our nation and all of our citizens. We must fight against the hate, prejudice and violence now being used by the republican party against our citizens and against the constitution itself...
“You,” he confirmed. The marching band started playing the theme from the latest Batman movie.
“Why didn’t you just ask me?”
“I was afraid you’d say no.”
“What if I say no right now?”
“Do you want to?” I watched the band move in and out of their formations.
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“You could sit and eat while you’re thinking about it,” he suggested. We sat on the blanket, the cheeseburgers, fries, and flowers a border between us, watching the little kids and the band until halftime was over. It was marginally less awkward when the game started again, if only because there was so much to mock. Finally, the ref blew his whistle and it was official. The Belmont Machinists had lost their sixth game of the season and I had no idea what would happen next. I didn’t know what I wanted to happen next. The stadium slowly emptied; the families on the hill gathered their kids and shepherded them toward the parking lot, and soon we were the only ones left.
“Okay, here’s the tricky part,” Finn said. “The security guard is going to walk by to see if anyone is up here partying. I’m pretty sure we’re far enough away that he won’t be able to see us, but we should lie down for ten minutes or so, to be safe.”
“That is the lamest attempt ever to get a girl on her back,” I said.
~~~
I hitch a ride back to the outpost in a truck filled with ammunition, pork chops, and two guys from Bravo Company. Private first class Mariah Stolzfuss drives, telling me about Jaden, her dancing toddler in Arkansas. We follow a Humvee that is filled with boys barely enough old to shave. A star goes supernova in the middle of the road. We fly. Wingless birds. Shock waves ripple through metal, glass, and flesh. Bone crumbles. Skin explodes. Nerves snap. Brains slosh and spill in dented tin skulls. Arteries spray like high-pressure hoses, painting the world a bright, sad red. I swim through the smoke. Private Stolzfuss still sits behind the wheel. I wipe the blood off her face to find her mouth, make her breathe. She doesn’t have a mouth. She doesn’t have a face anymore. Boys pull me away, strong boys with faces and mouths. They help me sit in the dust and try to get Private Stolzfuss out of the truck. Her arm comes off in their hands. Her blood trickles, drips. Her heart exploded in the middle of her story. In Arkansas, her son dances, waiting.
~~~
I didn't realize the complexity of this story until much later... Perhaps that is the way in life, when we notice a much louder member of the family, even in a book. For surely, this is about Hayley, a teenage girl who has just entered school--for the first time--in her teens... I quickly became engrossed into "her" story, so much so that, when the lives of other characters seemed to erupt out of nowhere, I was confused... As I think about it now, that really doesn't make sense, does it? There are always many other characters besides the main one, yet, that's what happened...
Family life is always much more complex and confusing than many outside of the family will ever know... Unless one or more chooses to make their "issues" come alive outside of the walls in which they live...but...silently cry at nights, alone, even surrounded by the family who supposedly are those who love you, who make you feel safe... who place their children before themselves at all times... NOT...
Laurie Halse Anderson made an impression on me when I read my first book of hers. Speak - Check out my post!
Now, in The Impossible Knife of Memory, age 15+, she has once again amazed me in her very real awareness of interpersonal relationships within and without the family unit. She then has a unique ability to find the rhythm, the words...and the guts to share her understanding of what is real and important to most of us...
Hayley Kinkaid and her father move back to a town where they once lived. Her father told her he felt that she should begin going to school now... There was at least one girlfriend that remembered Hayley so that she had a friend to at least be with her as she tried to adjust to interacting with the zombies and freaks that she was meeting daily.
The halls surged with a parade of beautiful strangers. They laughed too loud. Flirted. Shrieked. Raced. They kissed. Shoved. Tripped. Shouted. Posed. Chased. Flaunted. Taunted. Galloped. Sang. Fully assimilated zombies. I could laugh at them when I was with Gracie.
When I walked through their herd in the east wing hall—alone—I was transformed from my confident freakself into a gawping pile of self-conscious self-loathing. Their shiny-teeth smiles made happiness look easy. They never tripped over their own feet. They could laugh without snorting and tease each other without sounding dumb. They could remember being six years old together and eight and eleven and giggle about all of it. The flaunts, the taunts, the poses, they were all part of the lie.
My brain understood this because I’d heard the whispers. The Honor Society officers who started their day off with a little weed that melted stress like chocolate. The cheerleaders who cut themselves where the scars wouldn’t show. Debate team members busted for shoplifting. Mommy’s pills being shared like cookies, and the way Daddy’s vodka made first-period Latin fly by. As I walked down the east wing hall, I could feel their sticky fingers reaching for my brain. Puffs of yellow smoke curled toward my ears, my eyes, my nose and mouth. The hivemind wanted to penetrate and infect. Colonize. The danger was so real, so close, I didn’t dare open my mouth to ask directions. Or to howl.
~~~
Her choice of adjectives never really jelled with me...Yeah I get the zombies, but are there really that many of either? So the Urban Dictionary says that we should stay away from freaks in public...so.... there's that... Anyway, there is little interaction between Hayley and others in school, except for the four who become close friends...
The trick to surviving an interrogation is patience. Don’t offer up anything. Don’t explain. Answer the question and only the question that is asked so you don’t accidentally put your head in a noose.
~~~
Yes, there really is a guy who finds Hayley attractive, even though she didn't know what exactly to do with the growing relationship... That's alright, because I think that is true for most school students, even if they have had more experience in dealing with it... Unfortunately, Hayley's father was adamant about her getting into a normal living situation...
To make matters worse (was that possible?), I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted with Finn. Did I like him? My opinion about that changed several times a day. Did I want him to like me? Ditto. How could I like him, how could he like me, if we didn’t know each other? The little I was able to learn about his family (perfect, middle-class people, apparently) make me pretty sure that he’d run screaming if he ever met my father. That would be a logical reaction, of course, but did I really want to fall in love (fall in “like”?) with someone who didn’t give my dad a chance? We had to get to know each other. Gradually. Baby steps. In order to do that, we’d have to break down and talk about things that were more significant than font size in online newspapers and his fevered delusions about his time studying telekinesis with a group of monks in a Himalayan ice cave. I had no idea how to do that.
~~~
Hayley's mother died when she was very young. Because of money issues, her dad chose to take her with him as he drove trucks across the nation, home teaching her well enough that she, perhaps, was more educated than most of the zombies who were dead-walking through high school... It was fun for readers to watch as she encounters teachers, students, and, the reality of public schools, including, yes, drills for shutdowns due to possible shootings! Of course, the latter not fun, but it was, she thought, a possible reason to tell about and hopefully convince her father that she should not be forced to attend school--she had done fine with him teaching her what she needed to know...
Trish is also an important character for Hayley, since she was a "step-mother" who live with Hayley and her father for a short period... The thing was, she left... and Hayley had learned to hate her--for leaving her--and her father... When she came back, it was difficult for Hayley to see her in their new home and, later, to hear that her father had asked her to come--and why!
What was fascinating in the book was that in every single family of her friends--of her three friends--together with Trish and her father... They ALL started sharing about the troubles being experienced and negatively affecting their lives! So, you might stop as a reader and think...Is This Really America where so Many Families are in Distress Over Things Like Drugs, Sex, Money, Violence, et.al.? Or is this just another author writing a fictional novel for entertainment? Thing is, Anderson's books are, perhaps, too real to be entertaining... Perhaps, compelling is a better word...
And suddenly we know why Laurie Haise Anderson's novels and nonfiction books are not only well-read...but also, by some, designated to be banned--for those who don't want to have their children aware that there is so much turmoil in family lives today...that they don't want, even more, specific information about what their children might be facing in schools...or, worse, what their children might be doing at any given time...
And that's why I'm recommending that White Parents Start Reading books that speak to the lives that teens are experiencing in today's world... Else, plan on those White teens who are acting based upon incitement of white supremacists and other cult-like groups...and, worse, getting OFF from murder when they come before biased judges! And contrary to what some may think, that is NOT a good thing when somebody who is guilty is, instead, found not guilty--just because of who they are...
We MUST work to teach love instead of hate against those different by virtue of race, religion, or in any other way! Else, our country's democracy will not stand... If you cannot see how this division has been created by those who are White and seek Power over all others... You Do Not See America As It Now Is! Take the time to read the books that your children want to read...Don't Ban them because of content...Believe me, they are hearing and seeing and talking much more within their peer group members! And, if you don't believe that Rittenhouse, for instance, a 17-year-old boy not yet old enough to carry an assault weapon, who crossed state lines with it...and murdered people, should have been punished for what he did! Then, just think about what God has Said... Love Your Neighbor...That includes people different...from...YOU... And those who love do not need, or want, assault weapons because they are "cool..." (Rittenhouse got a gun purchased for him by an older man...)
PTSD of those who fought in the military is NOT being properly addressed. Hopefully, the changes and funding for veterans will improve this problem.
However, the needs of the families who have been affected by what has happened to their parents or spouses is often not as apparent--unless somebody like Laurie Halse Anderson, is willing to speak out and make the specific concerns that arise-- and dramatically demonstrate their effects--then we fail to help our children live within the chaos that is now known, even more so than in past years, by helping them to first understand...and... prepare to help if and when that need may arise... This is a Must-Read, especially for families of those who have family members in the armed services...
They met at the worst possible moment...or maybe it was just in time. David McClain was about to go to war and Lindsey Wood was there at his going-away party. Capturing his heart when falling for a woman was the last thing on his mind. While David was serving his country, he stayed in close contact with Lindsey. But war changes a person, and when he came home very little had the same meaning that it had before – including the romance that had sustained him. Was love truly unconquerable, or would it prove to be just another battlefield casualty?
Gooseberry Island is the most nuanced, dramatic, and romantic novel yet from a writer whose ability to plumb the depths of human emotion knows few peers.
~~~
Gooseberry
Island excerpt
David had been home for six weeks when he pulled into
the market, preparing to locate everything on his mother’s grocery list. As he
approached the store, he spotted a young teenage boy walking out; he was
holding a brown bag. An older man approached the boy and reached out his hand.
David gasped and his dizzy mind immediately raced back to Afghanistan and the
horrific beating of the young Afghani boy:
There was movement three hundred yards out on the street
below. Unusual, David thought. It was
a teenage boy, maybe fourteen, carrying a burlap bag and hurrying home before
dark. Never seen him before, David
thought. In a flash, a man—a Taliban fighter—jumped out of the
shadows and grabbed the boy’s arm, pulling him to the street and spilling the
contents of his sack. As the teenager yelled for help, another Taliban soldier
emerged from the darkness. The boy screamed louder, but not a single soul came
to his aid…
It only took a few seconds, but the whole scene played out
in sequence in his mind—both men yelling and slapping the boy as he screamed
for help; the slaps turning to a vicious beating until finally the boy was
dead. He could almost hear Command say “Negative” again after he asked if he
could intervene. He felt the anguish in his soul threatening to overwhelm him,
but it was quickly replaced by a burning rage. His eyes filled with tears, David returned to the present
and started for the man in a mad rush. He was three steps from the shocked
stranger when reality clicked in. It’s
the boy’s father, he realized. He’s…he’s
okay. David’s body convulsed. He’d forgotten he was home, and the
reality of it slapped him hard in the face.
The man pulled the teenage boy close to him; both of them
were frightened by David’s sudden charge toward them.
“Sorry,” David said, though it sounded more like “Sigh.”
Trying unsuccessfully to smile at them, he turned on his heels and hurried back
to the Mustang.
For the next hour, David sat alone in his car, trying to
calm the physical effects of his anxiety. Once he’d reined that in, he spent
another two hours beating back the depression that always followed in anxiety’s
wake.
His wasn’t sure whether the abyss existed within his heart
or mind, but he knew that he was now filled with a great void—nothingness.
There was no light there, only darkness. There was no hope, only despair. In
time, he’d learned to embrace the silence, as the screams and whimpers of
faceless victims became echoes that returned again and again, pushing the line
of madness. Yet, the solitude was relentless, enveloping, merciless. It would have been better had I never
existed, he thought, fearing another moment more than cashing in and
leaving it all behind. No love, he
thought, no peace. His memories were
slanted in such thick negativity that his entire past would have been better
off erased. And no one knows I’m dying
inside, he thought, inviting another wave of panic attacks to crash onto
the shore of his weary mind.
He closed his eyes tightly and tried to calm the short
labored gasps. Just ride the wave, he
told himself. Just ride the wave.
But in another room in his mind, he knew that even if he
rode that wave—and didn’t crack his skull on all the rocks beneath him—he’d
have to take the ride again and again. It didn’t take long before the jagged
rocks seemed like the more merciful option.
~~~
Enough time had passed for Lindsey to realize David was
not coming after her. He’s obviously in a
lot of pain, she thought, and doesn’t
want to burden anyone with it. She shook her head. But I care way too much about him to let him go through this alone.
With Craig’s permission, she slammed David’s front door behind her and
marched through the living room into the kitchen. “Don’t you dare play
the coward with me, David McClain,” she shouted before even reaching the room.
As she expected, David had been staring out the kitchen window into
nothingness. With tear-filled eyes, his head snapped up. “Don’t you ever
call me that word…ever!”
She stared at him for a few long moments before her heart
softened. “Then go ahead, tell me that you don’t want to see me anymore and
I’ll leave you alone forever.” He looked at her with tormented eyes but didn’t say a word. “But you can’t, can you?” she said, her entire insides
starting to tremble.
“It’s not you,” he vowed. “It’s me. I’m just not…”
“Don’t you dare feed me that tired line! I spent a year
praying for you…writing letters and wishing for us to…” She stopped, trying in
vain to contain her emotions.
His face looked panicked, as his
mind obviously spiraled out of control to gather the right words. “I
don’t have the words,” he said in less than a whisper.
“After the first time I came here, I thought for sure you’d
chase after me,” she said. “I’m not stupid, David. I realize something happened
over there that has you all twisted up. But I also thought that once you saw my
face, you’d…” She stopped again and began to cry.
David placed his hand on hers. She started to pull away, but
he stopped her, intertwining their fingers. “Lindsey,
please…please don’t say anything until I finish. Just hear me out. Okay?”\
“Okay,” she said, her tears threatening
to flood her face.
He took a few deep breaths. “I've given this a lot of
thought, and I want you to know that I've never lied to you…and I don't plan to
now.” He shook his head. “I’m so messed up right now, Lindsey, I can’t even
explain it.” He could barely hold eye contact with her. “I really hope we can
be together someday…more than you can ever imagine. But I’m just not ready yet.
I…I need to heal,” he stuttered.
She took a deep breath and held
it.
“Torn isn't even the word for what I’m feeling over this,”
he babbled on. “The last thing I want to do is hurt either of us.”
“I don’t think we have to say goodbye, though,” she said,
feeling the panic of desperation creep into her soul. “Don’t you remember the
night we shared on that bench?”
His eyes grew even more distant. “I really wish things were
different,” he said, “that life didn’t have to be so difficult.” He shrugged.
“Time will tell, I guess.”
“You guess?” She returned his shrug to him, perturbed.
“Lindsey, I don't know what
the future holds, but I do know that I don't want to destroy any chance we
might have at it …just because I might not be ready
for it yet.” He grimaced. “I
need time to find myself, okay?”
Lindsey, the
child of a PTSD victim, shook her head. “You don’t have to find yourself, David. You just have to remember who
you are…who you’ve always been.” He nodded, tears streaming down his face. Lindsey took a deep breath and surrendered. “David, I’ve told
you the way that I feel for you and what I want for us. That’s all I can do.
The rest is in your hands.” She peered into his dull eyes. “I can only hope
that you’ll think of me every day, as I will you. I hope a lot of things,
David.” She paused to collect herself. “Most of all, I hope the day will come
when Afghanistan is behind you and we can fall in love all over again and catch
up on all the things we’ve missed.” Mimicking him, she shrugged. “Maybe you’re
right. I guess time will tell.” She pulled her hand away from his and felt her
heart rip clean out of her chest. “Until then, you’ll be in my thoughts,” she
whispered.
“I’m so sorry, Lindsey,” he sobbed, his shoulders rocking.
“I love you, David,” she said and, with one final attempt, grabbed
his chin and forced eye contact between them. “Now tell me you don’t want to
see me and I’ll leave you alone,” she whispered. As he looked at her, Lindsey could clearly see the anguish
in his eyes.“You can’t, can you?” she said, hopefully.
His tears continued to leak down his cheeks. “I don’t want
to see you…for now,” he said, and turned his eyes away from hers.
It felt as though someone had just slugged her in the gut.
“Okay,” she gasped and ran out of the house crying harder than she’d ever cried
before.
Long after Lindsey had run out of the kitchen, David remained
catatonic—until he grabbed a drinking glass off the counter and threw it onto
the floor where it broke into a hundred pieces. Enraged, he began smashing
everything he could get his hands on in the kitchen. At the end of the violent
outburst, he collapsed to the floor and began to weep. With his head in both
hands, he screamed, “I love you, too, Lindsey.”
Day turned into dusk and, like most nights, just beyond the
sobs and sniffles the world turned quiet and black.
~~~
After four or five weeks of self-imposed solitary
confinement—a punishment filled with death-defying panic attacks and long,
treacherous tunnels of depression—David decided to reach out to the men he had
served with. They’re the only ones who
can relate, he thought. And I wonder
how they’re doing…really doing?
~~~
Author Bio:
Steven Manchester is the author of the #1 bestsellers, Twelve Months and The Rockin' Chair. He is also the author of the award-winning novel, Goodnight, Brian, as well as the critically-acclaimed novel, Pressed Pennies, A Christmas Wish (Kindle exclusive), Wilbur Avenue (novelette), Just in Time (novelette), The Thursday Night Club (novella) and Gooseberry Island. His work has appeared on NBC's Today Show, CBS's The Early Show, CNN's American Morning and BET's Nightly News. Three of Steven's short stories were selected "101 Best" for Chicken Soup for the Soul series. When not spending time with his beautiful wife, Paula, or their four children, this Massachusetts author is promoting his works or writing.
Visit: www.StevenManchester.com
Steven Manchester's next book will be out on January 6, 2015. Voted one of the Must Read Books of 2015 by Cyrus Webb Presents, Gooseberry Island is sure to be the next hit from one of our #1 bestselling authors. The book looks at the budding relationship between Lindsay and David, who have to deal with David's deployment overseas and his recovery from the trauma he witnessed in the service of his country.
PTSD is one of the biggest problems facing soldiers as they return from war. As an experienced veteran himself, Steven Manchester understands that. That's why, during the promotion of this book, Steven and The Story Plant are going to be working toward helping returning veterans. And we need your help to do that.
From now until January 31, 2015, we will donate $1 to the Wounded Warrior Project for every copy of Gooseberry Island that is pre-ordered and sold. All you have to do is emai lus a copy of your receipt and we will make the donation. In addition to that, we will also donate a copy of the e-book to returning soldiers, one donation for each copy sold.
Here's the really important part - we need your help to spread the word about this campaign! Tell your neighbors, tell your family members, tell the person working the checkout line in the grocery story. Just tell as many people as you can and ask them to help spread the word too. We want this campaign to go viral! Let's do something good this holiday season and celebrate those who protect and serve our country!
Curious about Wounded Warrior or want to make your own donation? Visit their website here.
Book Review
Gooseberry Island: "Mr. Manchester handles [PTSD] with great compassion. He brings to life the hardships that are suffered by our returning servicemen. His characters have depth and the story is compelling. It is not only a novel, it helps to inform the reader of the difficulties experienced and the silent life and death struggle that goes on every day around us." -From Book Bug Blog
Book Review
Gooseberry Island: "I’ve said it before – Steven Manchester has a very definite style of his own. His books all display beautiful descriptive writing, poignancy, and include an inspirational message, and this one will simply warm your heart." -From And The Story Unfolds
Book Review
Gooseberry Island: "This author did a wonderful job with this novel showing how war can change a person and how so many of these military people die of suicide and bringing to life the many hardships along with disorders (PTSD) that are suffered by many of our returning military men and women." -From Arlena, Goodreads member
