Beneath Wandering Stars Read online

  Chapter 2

  Chloe walks with me to the front gate of the U.S. Army Garrison Kaiserslautern, known to us Americans as K-Town. A petite woman in blue Air Force fatigues waits for us.

  No, no, no. A chaplaincy escort means Lucas is already dead, or he’s dying.

  “Gabriela Santiago? I’m Sergeant Doyle. I’ll accompany you to the hospital. If you’ll follow me?” The woman’s red hair is secured in a bun so tight, it stretches the pale skin around her eyes. But with one sympathetic smile, her severity melts. Sergeant Doyle’s freckled cheeks make her look like a little kid, yet the steely glint in her eyes assures me she’s as tough as they come. She has to be. Her job is to tell people the worst possible news.

  What’s strange is that my dad is also a chaplain’s assistant—the perfect job for him, since he’s uber Catholic and probably thinks serving as the priest’s bodyguard is a direct pass to skip through purgatory. Only this time, he isn’t the one comforting the family members of a wounded soldier. He’s the one being comforted.

  I shake the woman’s hand, unable to find words. All I can focus on is the raspberry burn above my right shin guard. The rest of my body is numb, but the raw, stinging flesh assures me this is real, no matter how fake my surroundings now seem.

  “He’s, he’s going to make it, right?” I stutter as we climb into a black car with government plates. Crap, Chloe. In my daze, I forgot to thank her for waiting with me.

  “Last I heard, Private Santiago is stable,” Sergeant Doyle replies. “But I’ll let the doctors explain his . . . condition. Your brother is a hell of a fighter. That’s for sure.”

  Thank God. Lucas is still in the game. I want to press Doyle for details, but the woman’s direct manner means she’s told me everything she knows.

  Time to get a grip.

  Even if Lucas is badly injured, he’s always lived by the “push through pain” philosophy our father instilled in us through extra soccer drills and summer hiking trips. If anyone can pull off a mind-over-matter maneuver, it’s Lucas.

  But if I’m so sure, then why won’t my hands stop shaking?

  “Food is probably the last thing on your mind, but help yourself if you’re hungry.” Sergeant Doyle nods towards a gooey käse-brezel in the car’s cup holder, wrapped in an oily napkin.

  Under any other circumstance, I would never turn down a German baked good, but my stomach can’t handle a cheesy pretzel at a time like this. I focus on the airfield runway strip outside the window instead, where a C-17—the Pacific gray whale of military aircraft—takes off, likely on its way to pick up the next batch of wounded men. A train of Blue Bird buses marked with red crosses speeds across the tarmac, looking like toy Matchbox cars next to the enormous planes. It’s crazy to think that Landstuhl Regional Medical Center—about twenty minutes from K-Town—is the first stop for injured soldiers coming back from the front lines. After all, it’s not like Germany is in Iraq or Afghanistan’s backyard.

  How much agony did Lucas experience in the back of that dark, noisy cargo hold? Was it an IED or a bullet? Oh God, what if he lost a limb?

  I roll down the window for some fresh air. Smells of hot asphalt, jet fuel, and damp canvas sail in with the cool breeze. I picture a much younger Lucas, running through the airplane hangar where soldiers and their families had gathered for a Thanksgiving feast. While the adults set up long tables among the metal beasts, Lucas and I played hide-and-seek in a maze of Huey helicopters.

  This smells the same, minus the turkey. But the memory only makes things worse.

  There’s no time to cry. And as soon as we enter the hospital, I know I have no right to. Not when I’m walking around just fine. Not after seeing all the soldiers covered in bandages, the amputees limping through the halls on crutches, the grief-stricken faces of the spouses and children filling the waiting rooms. These are my neighbors, my extended family. Over fifty thousand U.S. citizens live in this American corner of the Rhine river valley, but I’ve never visited this hospital before. I’ve never had a reason to, never had to see where so many of the men and women missing from our post wound up.

  I follow Sergeant Doyle to the security checkpoint and hand over my military ID card. Over the guard’s shoulder, I see Mom in a waiting area dominated by a gigantic television airing an old rerun of General Hospital (seriously, in a hospital?). Only this woman looks nothing like my mom. My mother is charming and perfectly put together—the model military wife—but the woman sitting in that orange plastic chair has her shoulders hunched forward like she’s carrying the weight of the world. Which makes sense, since Mom’s kids are her world.

  My father stands erect by her side, rubbing Mom’s neck beneath her strawberry-blond ponytail. She looks up at me with the hazel gaze we share—the one fair feature all her kids inherited despite the dominance of Dad’s Latino coloring. The afterglow of weeping makes her irises pop bright green. When Dad’s eyes find mine, I see that his are also wet with tears.

  My breath catches in my chest. I have never—and I mean never—seen my father cry. Not a single solitary tear. The thin stream sliding down his cheek slices into my heart as deeply as the image of Lucas lying bloodied on some foreign battlefield, far from home. And by “home” I mean us, his family.

  People are the only home the Army issues.

  “Gabi,” Dad croaks in a hoarse voice, hauling me into a hug more heartfelt than his signature back tap. “I’m glad you got here so quickly, mija.”

  Mom’s body shudders as I embrace her next. She doesn’t speak. This is a woman who is never short on words, which is how I know that what happened to Lucas is bad. Change-your-life-forever bad.

  I turn back to my father as he gently pulls my five-year-old brother (another of life’s unplanned surprises) off of his leg. The poor kid has wrapped his entire body around Dad’s army boot like it’s a lone tree in the midst of a tsunami flood. Matteo stares at me with eyes as round as bottle caps. He idolizes his big brother, and I hate seeing his innocence obliterated by life’s dirty little secret: In the real world, no one is dipped in the River Styx and made practically invincible like Achilles. In the real world, heroes can be stripped down to nothing, just like everyone else.

  I turn from Matteo’s confused little face and cut to the chase. “How bad is it?”

  My parents exchange tense glances, but neither responds. A switch flips inside me, igniting enough fuel to power ten fighter jets back across the Black Sea. “How is he, Dad?”

  Normally I would never speak to my father in this tone, and normally he would never take it. Paternal respect is a big deal in Latino culture, and an even bigger deal when that padre is a soldier who lives and breathes hierarchy. Too bad “normal” no longer exists and hierarchies no longer matter.

  Dad’s sigh tells me he’s too sad to be angry, which makes me feel a million times worse. He grabs my hand and pulls me towards a small window on the door of what must be Lucas’s room. Except that when I peer inside, I do not see my athletic, almost nineteen-year-old brother. I see a little boy, shrunken by bandages that make him seem more like a mummy than a soldier. His right leg—the rocket launcher that earned him the soccer scholarship to UT-Austin I really wish he’d taken—hangs in a sling. Behind all the wires and tubes, a small portion of his face is visible. It’s purple and bruised, like an overripe eggplant.

  I press a hand to my mouth, but the sob still escapes my throat. “What happened?”

  My body goes to jelly. I reach for a concrete wall, but it feels like it’s made of foam. The entire waiting area turns to stare at me. I don’t care. I need answers, and my parents are treating me like a crystal bowl they must handle with care. Matteo starts crying, so I resist the urge to rant and rave. But once Mom quiets him, the full-on body ache turns to rage.

  I will kill the person who did this. And I don’t mean the insurgent; I mean Seth, the moron who got Lucas to enlist and go infantry in the first place.

  “Come on, mija.” Dad takes my arm and pulls me away fr
om the view of my brother’s dim room, which already looks more like a tomb. “Let’s go grab a café con leche.”

  Dad doesn’t have to wink or give me a conspiratorial look—I understand his code. Whatever stale sludge this hospital cafeteria is serving, it won’t be anything like the fresh coffee with frothed milk my grandmother made for me and Lucas when she lived with us during one of Dad’s deployments. Mom wasn’t aware of our abuela’s covert coffee ritual and wondered how Lucas and I had so much energy after school. Now Dad likes to use the term café con leche as shorthand for “not in front of your mother.”

  It’s strange—the random memories that assault you in the midst of bone-crushing grief, the childhood secrets only you and your sibling shared. Too bad the aroma of abuela’s coffee dissipates as that distinct hospital smell—rubbing alcohol mixed with latex gloves—attacks my nostrils from the other end of the fluorescent-lit hallway.

  Trailing Dad, who always walks like he’s on a mission, I turn a corner and collide with a nurse heading towards the operating room, a stack of empty IV bags piled high in her arms. The woman locks her jaw like a pit bull and keeps moving, as though she’s walking through a flimsy screen door. The synthetic fabric of her saltwater taffy–pink pants swishes between her thick thighs. Soon that swish is the only sound I can hear as everything else turns to white noise.

  “He isn’t in any pain,” Dad says once we reach the cafeteria. His posture perfect, he sits utterly still, staring into his cup as doctors swirl around us in waves of seafoam-colored scrubs. He avoids my gaze, but that’s nothing new. Ever since “the incident” back in San Antonio, Dad hasn’t initiated a real conversation that doesn’t involve soccer technique.

  Apparently that’s what happens when you almost ruin your soldier father’s career.

  But now is not the time for daddy issues. “What do you mean, Lucas isn’t in any pain?”

  “I mean he hasn’t been responsive since they airlifted him from the battlefield twenty-four hours ago.” My father takes a sip of coffee, his mouth twitching at the bitter aftertaste. “Gabi, your brother is in a coma.”

  I clench my empty cup until the Styrofoam crumples. “No.”

  That’s all I can say. No. My brother—a guy who can’t sit still for more than five minutes—is on his way to becoming a vegetable. Why does this news feel worse than the thought of him dead?

  “The doctors are hopeful. They say these first few weeks are crucial. If he shows signs of response, anything at all, there’s a chance he’ll come out of it.”

  “A few weeks? That’s how long Lucas could be lying there before we know if he’s still in there?” My eyes burn as I picture Mom setting up camp in his hospital room, refusing to leave his bedside. And what happens if he doesn’t wake up? Who gets to make the tortuous decision to play God and take him off life support? Not that God seems to be playing much of a role in this anyway. Otherwise a decent human being like my brother wouldn’t be here when there are rapists and terrorists running around free.

  Dad ignores my question and finishes his drink. “Vamonos. It’s visiting hour.”

  When we reach Lucas’s room, someone else is already seated by my brother’s bedside. The instant I see his combat boots and ice-blue eyes—eyes that always laugh at my expense—something snaps. Every emotion I’ve been straining to hold back washes over me in one massive torrent that no sandbag of self-control can stop. Seth Russo is the last person I want to see right now, so I march over to my brother’s best friend, to the guy who convinced Lucas to turn down his soccer scholarship and suit up.

  And I punch him in the face.

  Chapter 3

  Well, I try to punch him in the face. But his hand—the one that’s not in a sling—is larger and stronger and faster than mine. There isn’t even a hint of surprise on Seth’s face as he effortlessly catches my fist before it can slam into his cheek. After six months at war, I suppose his reflexes had better be top-notch.

  “Gabriela Guadalupe Santiago!” my mother yells from the doorway. She only uses my full name when I’ve crossed the line. Most of the time, I can’t help chuckling at the way she pronounces Spanish words with a Midwestern accent, but today I don’t laugh.

  “Nice to see you, too, kiddo,” Seth mutters, clenching my fist like it’s a live grenade.

  I despise this guy. For multiple reasons, but mainly because Lucas never would have joined the Army if he hadn’t filled his head with glory stories and told him about some “buddy program” that would allow them to stay together their first tour if they signed the dotted line at the same time.

  “What are you doing here?” I haven’t seen Seth since we left Texas. We didn’t get along then, and I don’t appreciate his condescending use of the word kiddo now.

  Seth’s face is humbled only by scrapes and a severe burn across his forehead. Your typical soldier with a buzz cut, he’d blend into any formation line if not for the dark eyebrows framing his big, doleful eyes, which are clueless and forever in mourning.

  At least now they have a reason to grieve.

  Seth doesn’t respond to my question. His bloodshot gaze drifts across Lucas’s bed, like he can’t even believe I could ask it. Encountering an enemy who’s already defeated diffuses the bomb waiting to go off inside me, and the heat of Seth’s palm absorbs my wrath. He has no interest in fighting back, so I have no interest in him. I let my fist fall and take a seat across the room, where Matteo crawls into my lap.

  “Private Russo, I apologize for my daughter’s disrespect and lack of maturity.”

  Thanks for taking my side, Dad. Oh wait, I forgot. When it comes to supporting me or supporting a soldier—no matter how big of a Neanderthal he is—the Army will always win.

  “We’re glad you’re here.” Dad nods at Seth’s arm, cradled by the sling. “Is it broken?”

  “Just a sprain, sir. Nothing major.” He sounds so guilty, like he can’t accept that whatever happened to them downrange didn’t even break his arm when it left my brother with a broken body and maybe a broken brain.

  Good. I can’t accept that either.

  Mom’s bloodshot eyes travel from the tan blanket draped across my brother’s motionless body to the taupe walls behind Lucas’s bandaged head. I know exactly what she’s thinking.

  This drab room needs some color.

  It’s the thought of a seasoned military wife who knows that even the most temporary landing pad should feel like a home. Only this time, she has her work cut out for her. Mom touches the plum swirls of Lucas’s bruised hand, pulling back like she’s grazed a hot stove.

  Hold his hand! Squeeze it! He can’t feel a thing, I want to scream. But I don’t. I just clench Matteo in a death grip, breathing in graham crackers and Elmer’s glue, which is what Lucas smelled like as a kid. Maybe it’s what we all smell like as little kids.

  “Lucas,” Mom whispers, as though he can actually hear her. She looks up at the rest of us, a hint of crazy on her lips. “He’s so dark. Why is he so dark? His name means light. Lucas means light!” As the panic in Mom’s pitch increases, Matteo starts crying again.

  “Come on, cariño. Let’s go for a walk.” Dad lifts Matteo from my arms, gently grabs Mom’s shoulders, and guides them both from the room.

  Alone with Seth, I approach the bed and see that my mother is right. Everything about Lucas was goodness and light. He was the perfect son, the perfect brother, and, I’m sure, the perfect soldier. Yet a shadow hovers over his face, suffocating his light with a darkness that goes much deeper than bruising. Wherever my brother resides in this state suspended between life and death, he is far, far away from all of us. I wipe a renegade tear from the corner of my eye, my cheeks burning beneath Seth’s concentrated gaze.

  “What happened?” I ask, my eyes never leaving Lucas. And by that I mean: Where were you? How could you let them do this?

  “I don’t know what happened. You’d have been proud of him though,” Seth says softly as my dad re-enters the room with a doctor.
<
br />   I was proud of Lucas before he got himself blown up, but I’m too drained to get into another confrontation with this meathead G.I.

  Dad and the doc are in a tense conversation of their own. “Months? I thought you said a few weeks.”

  “Early signs of movement are the best reason to hope, but even if your son responds over the next few weeks, the coma could last for months.” The doctor places his hand on Dad’s shoulder. “I don’t say this to discourage you, but so that your family can prepare for a potentially long haul.”

  The doctor leaves and Dad turns to me. “Your mother and brother are beat, mija. We all need to go home and rest. The nurses will call us if anything changes.”

  I can tell by his tone that he doesn’t think anything will. At least, not so soon.

  Eyes closed, Dad kneels before Lucas’s bed for a moment, then kisses my brother’s cheek—something he hasn’t done since Lucas was about eight. He herds us out of the room.

  “Wait, Sergeant Major.” Seth follows us into the waiting area. “There’s something Lucas wanted me to tell you. To tell both of you, I think.” His eyes meet mine, searching for an ounce of openness.

  This soldier may be on my bad side, but if he’s here in this hospital, he’s been to hell and back, too. I suppose the least I can do is make an effort to be a little less hostile.

  I sigh. “What’s that, Russo?”

  “I wasn’t going to share this so soon, but seeing how long the doctors think the coma could last, I don’t see any point in waiting. Hell, maybe it will even help.” Seth reaches into his pocket and pulls out a paperback. The instant I see the cover, my heart scrambles up my throat.

  The Iliad. By Homer. Ancient Greek Homer.

  “Where did you get that?” I demand.

  Seth stares at me like I’m nuts to be getting so worked up over a book. “Lucas left it on my cot the night before he . . . .”