The Colonel Came Home With Her Chapter 07
Doyle’s personal effects arrived at the battalion.
The parcel was small — a standard military personal effects box, corners sealed with clear packing tape, mortuary affairs red tag on the top.
Ethan opened it. Inside, a neatly folded set of Class A dress uniform, a pair of boot laces, a folded twenty-dollar bill, and a letter that had never been mailed.
He opened the letter.
It was addressed to Lily.
He took it to Chaplain Harding.
The two of them closed the door and spent the afternoon in the office.
That evening Mrs. Harding went to Womack to see Lily.
She didn’t bring anything. Just the letter.
Lily was propped up in bed. Only the bedside lamp was on. The light was dim.
Mrs. Harding sat down at the edge of the bed and handed the letter over. Said, Mike’s effects came back. This is for you.
Lily opened it and read.
She’d only made it through a few lines before she pressed the pages to her chest.
Mrs. Harding held out a tissue. Lily didn’t take it — just wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, again and again, and couldn’t dry them.
The letter was two pages.
She read it a long time. Over and over.
Mrs. Harding walked to the end of the corridor and called Chaplain Harding.
She said two things. First: The baby is Doyle’s.
Second: Tomorrow you put an end to this. No more waiting.
The next morning, Chaplain Harding announced over the base PA that the entire battalion was to assemble at the battalion hall.
The announcement played three times, each time louder.
Captain Reyes went door to door. When he knocked on Mrs. Miller’s door, she was hanging out a bedsheet. Her hand jerked and the sheet slid off the line into the dirt.
The assembly hall was packed. There was even a row standing in the back.
Mrs. Miller sat in the third row, center.
Chaplain Harding walked to the front carrying a manila folder. He didn’t use the microphone. He just started talking.
“I’ve called you here today to make one thing clear. Concerning Ms. Lily Carter, and the child she is carrying.”
More than two hundred people went dead quiet.
Someone coughed and got elbowed by the person next to them.
Chaplain Harding took three items out of the folder and laid them on the table.
Left to right. Naming each one as he set it down.
The first was a DD Form 1300.
Name: Sergeant Michael Doyle. Four years of service. Recon Platoon, 1st Squad Leader.
Location of death: Kandahar Province, war zone.
The second was a letter.
Doyle’s last letter to Lily. The envelope wasn’t sealed. By the time the paper had made its way from theater to Fort Bragg, the fold lines were already fraying.
The third was a classified document.
Red stamp on the top. Ninety-day OPSEC classification hold.
Chaplain Harding lifted the DD Form 1300 and read the name, rank, date, and place of death aloud. He set it down, picked up the letter.
He didn’t read all of it. He read only the last line.
“Colonel — the kid’s yours to look after. — Doyle.”
He set the letter down, picked up the classified document, and held the red stamp up under the light so everyone in the room could see it.
“This sergeant, before he died, entrusted his pregnant fiancée to your Colonel. He didn’t do it alone. He did it in front of several officers of this battalion. I was there myself.”
“The classification hold runs ninety days. It concerns HUMINT networks still operating on the forward line. During that period, no one is permitted to disclose any of this to anyone outside authorized channels — violation is a court-martial offense.”
The room was dead silent.
Mrs. Miller went white.
After the meeting broke up, no one moved.
Mrs. Miller stayed in her seat, her face the color of paper.
The woman next to her poked her.
“Diane, you were the loudest of any of us. Don’t you have something to say?”
Mrs. Miller stood up. Then sat back down.
After a long time, her lips trembling, she squeezed out one sentence.
“I didn’t know.”
Mrs. Harding stepped down from the platform.
Mrs. Miller looked up at her. Mrs. Harding looked down.
“You know now.”