A Soldier’s Last Mission

Chapter 1

 It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon in October and Marybeth was on her way home from a full day of yard saleing as usual. Her shop, One Woman's Junque: An Antique Boutique, featured recreated and re-purposed items she collected each week from around the greater Pomroy area. She’d gained some notoriety when her shop appeared in the blogs of the few travelers who ventured into the small town an hour and a half outside of Philadelphia. They came out to escape the busy city life and spend a few days in quieter surroundings. Her store offered a nice alternative to the local antique markets, and people appreciated her creative use of cast-off items. Usually, she used the drive home to begin the mental process of re-birthing the day's purchases into their next life. Today, however, she was a little preoccupied.

Josh was arriving in town on Tuesday. She hated to admit how much she looked forward to his visits. She was still guarded about relationships in general, and worried that she was just setting herself up for disappointment. How long had they been doing the long-distance romance now? It was hard to believe it had been almost a year. So far so good, but it took her marriage a couple of years before it started going sideways. So, time wasn't telling anything yet.

As she mentally chronicled the past few months, events from last Fall flooded into her mind. Had they been perched on the edge of her awareness waiting for a chance to charge in? The onslaught didn't surprise her. Initially, it had required a fair amount of mental energy to keep them at bay. It got easier as time passed. Now she wasn't sure how much she could even believe. 

It all began with a strange yard sale and four peculiar items. There was the doll that had helped her to reconnect with her sister, Regina. The music box that had played the song from her wedding, pushing her to get honest about her marriage and divorce. The family photograph took her down the road of her own family history. And lastly, the book, with its message for Josh on the inside cover. And that wasn't even the bizarre part.

Allowing herself this momentary peek into the past, she realized that the whole series of events had begun right around this time last year. Yes, it was a beautiful Fall day just like today. She had been on her way home from yard saleing when she had spotted one more sign that she just couldn't pass up. In fact, it might have been this exact weekend. Was it? How odd that she would be remembering things on just this day.

It had all started with a yard sale hosted by Josh's mother from beyond the grave. The recollection made her shudder. Did it really happen that way? Time gave her the luxury of rationalizing the events as vivid dreams or an overactive imagination. But her relationship with Josh had come out of that moment and there certainly was no dismissing that as imagination. Was there?

Marybeth shook her head, forcing the memories back from whence they came.

“Focus on your driving before you kill someone,” she admonished herself out loud, shifting her attention to the road. “How do I get home from here?”

She began to mentally plot her drive back to the house from her current location.

“Let's see, I think this will take me back to Bramble Road then to Rt. 10, then to Main Street.” She pulled out onto the deserted country road, heading back toward Pomroy. That's when she saw it, on an empty stretch of road just like before. The Yard Sale sign. It wasn’t any yard sale sign. It was the Yard Sale sign. Old wood with hand-painted letters. The same sign she had spotted a year ago under just these circumstances. Her heart rate quickened. She felt a knot forming in her gut. 

She instantly decided to pass it by. After all, if she'd learned anything from last year it was that she didn't have to stop at every sign she saw. Especially this one. Life had settled down nicely and she wasn't about to go looking for trouble. She drove past the sign.

“See,” she said to the air, “I don't have to stop and I'm not going to.”

Just as she was feeling empowered, she saw the same sign at the next side street.

“I will not turn. I will not turn,” she told herself, fighting off the urge to do just that. “Let someone else stop.”

She drove past the second sign. As she rounded the next twist in the road, there it was again, at the end of a rural country lane.

“Damn!” she shouted as she banged on the steering wheel. She pulled over onto the shoulder. Staring at the sign in front of her, she felt anger rising up her spine.

“Why me!” she demanded. “I won't!” she yelled at the sign. It seemed to stare back at her mockingly.

She thought about the old woman. Then about Josh. Truth was, her life had gotten significantly better since that yard sale a year ago and so had the lives of others. But things had settled down to a predictable routine and she wanted to keep it that way.

“Fine,” she said with resignation as she turned down the small road. It curved around, over a brook and past a couple of houses set back from the shoulder, but no yard sale materialized. She was thinking that she might be off the hook when a small farmhouse appeared at the end of the road. The kind with the wraparound porch and window shutters. On the lawn a few feet away from the porch's edge sat a table. She pulled up in front, got out and looked around for the old woman, but she was nowhere in sight. She was about to make a quick get-away when a young man appeared on the front porch. He stood very still, looking at her, hands in his pockets. He was wearing a green army tee shirt with dog tags hanging low around his neck. Green army pants were tucked into black boots. He looked to be about twenty and had a slightly timid demeanor.

“Good afternoon, Ma'am,” he greeted her.

“Good afternoon,” Marybeth replied. “I was expecting an old woman.”

“Yes, Ma'am. Are you Marybeth? She told me you'd come by.”

“Oh, she did, did she?” She looked up into the sky. “And it's MB now, thank you,” she corrected, annoyance clear in her voice. She turned back to the soldier. “What? Do I have some kind of reputation in the afterlife now?”

“I can't say, Ma’am. She just said that you'd be able to help.”

Marybeth let out a huff. “Very well, then.” She resigned herself to the situation and her attitude turned a bit kinder. “What do you think I can do for you?”

“Well, Ma’am, I have a couple of things that I need to get rid of.” He walked to the spindly railing at the edge of the porch and nodded his head toward the table. Marybeth turned to look. On the table sat two items, an army helmet and a stack of papers tied together with string. They were sitting close to each other as if they belonged together.

“These are yours then?” she asked, turning back to the young man.

“Yes, ma’am. I don't recall much except that I have these things that I don't need anymore.” He pulled a hand from his pocket and gestured to the table with a slight shrug of his shoulders.

Marybeth walked slowly over to the table. Her insides were considering the options, to run like hell or stay the course. When she got to the table, she looked up at the man who had asked for her assistance. He seemed almost childlike, barely a man, really. Too young, she thought, to be dead. 

“Is it okay if I pick them up?” She knew it would be the point of no return.

“Yes, ma’am.”

She reached down to pick up the helmet and braced herself for what she suspected was coming. And she was right. 

* * * 

Suddenly, reality turned fuzzy and she found herself in what appeared to be an army compound. A truck with a canvas cover and open back was heading out of the yard carrying twenty or so soldiers. The young man from the porch was hanging off the open end, reaching out for a helmet offered by a soldier on the ground just out of Marybeth's sight.

“Thanks, man,” the young soldier yelled from the retreating truck. “I'll get it back to you. I swear. In the meantime, mine's in the mess hall. You're welcome to it.”

“No problem,” a voice called back.

“Hey, it was good talking to you.”

“Likewise,” replied the voice. “Keep your head low.”

“Low as I can go.” And with a mock salute, he passed through the razor wire fence and around the bend.

Marybeth could see the shadow of the man standing near her as he watched the truck drive out of sight. She couldn't be sure, but he seemed oddly familiar. 

* * * 

Then she was back on the lawn, reaching for the table to steady herself.

The young man spoke. “You know how sometimes the briefest of conversations can make the biggest difference?” the soldier was asking.

“Yes. I do.” Marybeth thought for a moment of the women's shelter she donated to and how sometimes even the shortest of conversations can be uplifting to another human being.

The soldier continued, “That man eased my burden just a bit that day and I never got a chance to thank him.”

“Is that it, then?” she asked, sounding a bit put-out. “Is all this about an overdue thank you?”

“No, ma’am. I think that man can save my son's life.”

She immediately felt bad about her attitude. “Okay,” she softened. “What can I do?”

“All you need to do is give him that helmet.”

“Okay. Who is he?” She was thinking this was sounding easy.

“I don't know. I just met him that day. I can't seem to recall his name.

“Great.” Marybeth asked a bit incredulously. She stared at the young soldier waiting for more information.

“The old woman said you'd know.”

“Oh, she did?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Not hiding her irritation, she placed the helmet on the table and turned her attention to the papers. “What's this?”

It appeared to be a leather journal and a pile of letters tied together with twine. Before she could think twice, she was picking it up. 

* * * 

Marybeth found herself in a large crowd of people, some crying, some hugging, some in army dress uniforms. She spotted her soldier standing with a young woman. Cradled between them was an infant wearing a blue bonnet. They were holding each other tight. The woman was crying.

“I love you Becky, with every breath I take, until the day I die, and then maybe some more after that. But if I don't come back, James needs a father, so you find him a good one. Promise me.”

“I won't have any of this talk, Bobby. You're coming back. I just know it.”

“No, you don't know it. So, promise me. Promise me James will have a good father.”

“I won't.”

“Promise!”

“I can't,” she broke down into sobs. “I can't even think of it. I love you too much.”

“Promise me before I go, Becky. Please," he was almost begging her.

“Okay. I promise! But I know I won't need to because you'll be coming back.” Becky was regaining some of her composure now.

A loud horn sounded.

“That's it then. I have to go. I love you.”

“I love you back. Be careful.”

Marybeth watched as the soldier headed for the bus that would take him and the others off to war. 

* * * 

Then she was back on the lawn in the setting sun. Her eyes were moist with tears as she contemplated the items on the table. She turned to address the soldier, but he was gone.

“Great.” She looked around. No soldier, no neighbors, no other cars. Just silence. She collected the items and headed to her car.

“Here we go again.”