“I live here, John,” Kenny said. “My wife and I bought the place from your mom years ago. I’m a vice president, at the Ravalli County Bank. People call me Ken now.” The pride in his voice was unmistakable.
“Where’s my ma?”
Kenny swallowed hard. “You didn’t know? She passed on, John. Breast cancer.”
Wells found himself staring at Kenny’s perfect teeth, which had been twisted and uneven when they were kids. You could be in a Crest ad, Wells thought. No Afghan dentists for you. And what are you doing in my house?
Wells wanted to live up to his nickname. His fist clenched as he looked at Kenny and Kenny’s white teeth. But none of this was Kenny’s fault. Kenny was a nice kid.
“She’s at Lone Pine,” Kenny said. “With your dad.”
“I know where my family’s buried, Kenny. Ken.”
“I’m sorry, John,” Kenny said. “I don’t know what else to say. Can I invite you in? Get you some coffee?”
But Wells had already turned away.
tears rolled silently down his face as he drove south on 93 to the Lone Pine Cemetery in Darby. Wells couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried, or even when he’d wanted to, but he was crying now. He hadn’t allowed himself to think that his ma might have. passed on. Died. Gone to the Great Prairie in the Sky. Ha. Good one, John.
She couldn’t have died. He’d gone to the end of the world and he hadn’t died. All she had to do was play bridge with her friends and tend the flowers outside her big old house. She couldn’t have died. But she had, and the proof was in the granite gravestone that stared up at Wells near the back of the cemetery. Mona Kesey Wells, 1938–2004. Loving wife, cherished mother, honored teacher. A cross engraved in the stone. His father lay beside her, Herbert Gerald Wells, 1930–1999. Wells knelt before them and closed his eyes, hoping to feel their presence, to feel anything at all. He murmured the eighty-second sura of the Koran, an invocation of Judgment Day:
When the sky is torn
When the stars are scattered
When the seas poured forth
And the tombs burst open
Then a soul will know what it has given and what left behind. But all he heard was the traffic rolling by on 93 and the graveyard’s American flag flapping in the morning breeze. Wells knew he ought not to blame God for the loneliness he felt, but he couldn’t help himself. God, Allah — whatever His name, He was gone at this moment when Wells needed Him most.
Wells walked to the cemetery’s edge. No fence marked its border. The graves simply stopped a few feet before the ground sloped down to a set of railroad tracks. He looked east into the sun until his eyes burned. He could almost see his faith coming loose, pouring out and floating away in the wind. In the distance a locomotive whistle sounded. Wells waited, but no train came. He walked back to his car. He had never felt so empty.
he drove into Missoula slowly, trying to escape the feeling that he ought to give up this foolish journey and head for Washington. Missoula had grown even faster than Hamilton. Subdivisions crawled up the hills where Wells and his family had ridden horses. His ma had loved to ride. His ma. Again he felt tears coming, but this time he choked them back. He had sacrificed those years for a reason. No one in Qaeda would have trusted him if he had come back to the United States on his own. His mother had never questioned his decision to become a soldier. Now he needed to control his emotions and do what he needed to do. He didn’t know how else to honor her.
He edged his way into town. At least he knew Heather wasn’t dead — he had called her from New York. He’d hung up when she answered, feeling slightly dirty.
He parked outside Heather’s house, a nice white two-story. As he looked at the place he felt sure he wouldn’t be welcome. He walked slowly to the front door and rang the bell. A little boy opened the door. “Is your mom here?” Wells asked.
“Mom!” The boy ran off.
He heard Heather’s small feet padding toward the door.
“Yes?” She slipped the chain and opened the door. She was as beautiful as he remembered, a country girl with honey-blond hair and deep brown eyes, tiny and perfect. He towered over her, and he had loved to pick her up and carry her to their bed. They had been wild together. But there had always been part of him that she couldn’t reach, and they had drifted apart after he joined the agency. When he said he was going underground and couldn’t promise when he’d be back, she gave him an ultimatum: the job or me. The job or Evan, who at the time had just turned two. She told him she wouldn’t wait. And she didn’t. He couldn’t blame her. When she saw him her eyes opened wide and a low sound — halfsigh, half-grunt — came from her throat. She opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it.
He reached out for her. She hesitated, then gave him half a hug, holding her hips back so they wouldn’t touch him.
“John,” she said.
“Can I come in?”
