Dead Things I Gave Birth To

The first person I killed didn’t run. I never knew his name, just his crime, so I called him One. “I didn’t know I should run because I couldn’t hear the rotor blades chop-chop-chopping,” he said, sitting beside me on the porch—not the way I left him; the way I met him: whole, covered in Afghan dirt and barefoot, hot from digging.

We could only see heat, so I don’t know what color his clothes were or if he was sweating, but I knew he was hot, alive. I sipped my G&T and nodded. My soldiers made a t‑shirt to that effect. Don’t run; you’ll only die tired. The Apache helicopter on it had eyes and teeth. They didn’t think it was funny exactly. That would be too simple, and people are never that easy. Still, I thought it was best not to mention it to One. “Drink?” I said instead.

He laughed. “I am not sure that would work.”

I smiled. “You’re the first dead person I’ve talked to, so I don’t really know the rules.” And the first ghost I created, I didn’t say.

“I have to say I am disappointed to have been gunned down by a woman. No offense, of course,” One said.

I didn’t reply. I was done proving myself to my fellow soldiers, and I had no intention of proving myself to a dead guy.

He looked around and added, “This place is so different from home, so green and bright and clean.”

I’d thought the same thing many times. The unspoken parts, I mean. Why was I born here and not there? Why did I leave it for the gray-brown of Afghanistan? I took a deep breath and asked the one thing I tried never to think about. “Did you have kids?”

One looked out across our South Georgia neighborhood from his rocking chair. “I do not remember my name, but I will not let myself forget theirs,” he said.

I went inside and closed the front door between us so he wouldn’t hear me cry. It wouldn’t have done him any good.

***

One and I met on a dusty night in 2013. To me, he was a white human outline on a green background that I could see through the monocle over my right eye. My left eye never saw him. To him, I didn’t exist. The area my attack helicopter company patrolled was monitored by huge balloons tethered to infantry positions, like blimps. A ground unit had been watching One lay explosive lines to kill US forces for over a day before calling it into us. But he was my first, so I watched, too, taking nothing for granted. I watched until we were low on fuel, and it was time to act.

Afterward, my commander invited the rest of the leadership outside his tent for cigars to celebrate my successful first engagement. Someone offered to nominate me for a combat action badge, and several others expressed their relief that I could do it. “Because, well, you know,” they said. “Women need to be nurturing to be good mothers. It’s just science.”

***

He started visiting me after my first miscarriage, always after dinner on the porch. “One for one,” he said. “Kind of ironic, right? Is that the word?”

I turned sharply to him, regretting telling him about the baby, but just sighed and said, “I guess it is.” Anger would have been too hypocritical even for me.

“At least you get another chance,” he said thoughtfully.

“Tell me about them. Your kids.”

He didn’t say anything for a minute. “Girls,” he said. “Afhak and Adiam. I do not know how old they would be now. How long have I been—”

I didn’t hear the rest as the door slammed between us, and I took up my familiar crying position on the entryway bench. Two girls. Girls without a father to protect them in a place where girls needed a father to protect them.

For the first time, One followed me in. “They will be okay. They are survivors,” he said quietly.

I ignored him, choking on my breath, my face buried where I couldn’t see his.

“It is better that you killed me. If I’d been supporting the US, they would all be dead now. This way, they have a chance.”

I didn’t really believe him, but I looked up. Eyes I never actually saw held something like pity. “I won’t have another chance. I can’t have children.”

He nodded slowly. “One for one,” he said.

But, of course, he didn’t know that he was the first person I killed, not the only one. He wouldn’t have thought it was comforting, otherwise.