Spiders from the Shadows

THREE

Caelyn awoke and rolled over, felt the empty bed, opened her eyes and looked at the rumpled sheets and covers, then extended her hand. The side of the bed had grown cold, and she turned to look at the floor. Ellie’s blankets had been rolled up and pushed aside. She heard quiet footsteps in the hall, whispers, a giggle, then two sets of bare feet moving down the stairs. She rolled over to the window. The sun was up and shining brightly through the eastern pane, two full fists above the horizon. It was later than she thought—it had been a long time since she slept in. She rolled to her side, fluffed the pillow, watched the sun stream through the window, then fell back into a warm and peaceful sleep.

* * * * * * *

Ellie followed her dad out the back door and onto the porch. Bono stood for a moment looking across the empty fields. The rain had cleared and the morning was calm and peaceful—a little cold, with light mist along the lower fields, but the air was still and smelled of wet grass, hay and rich dark earth. He took a breath and held it, breathing the smell into his lungs. Beautiful, full and fragrant. He smiled and let the air out with a satisfied sigh. There was something about the earth, the ground, the rain on the harvested fields that surrounded him; he longed for them in a manner that he couldn’t quite explain. It wasn’t like he was an old farm boy—quite the opposite, he’d grown up in a stucco-and-brick house set among the San Fernando mountains—but there was something about the land, the open sky around him, the trees, and the rolling, green terrain that beckoned him in a way he couldn’t explain. Was it old? Permanent?

He remembered talking about his feelings with a fellow soldier in Afghanistan. The colonel had been raised on a cattle ranch in Oklahoma and it seemed all he ever talked about was the Bar-Z ranch back home. Most guys carried pictures of their kids. He carried pictures of his prize bull and his dog. They had just finished a short sacrament meeting in a camouflage tent with dark bread and bottled water when they had a few minutes to talk. Bono explained some of his feelings, saying he was jealous of the colonel and how much he loved the land.

“I think if we understood how well we knew this earth before we came here, we might be surprised,” the colonel had said.

Bono had thought a lot about that and decided it was true.

Either way, it didn’t matter. He loved the farm. He loved the earth. “Caelyn, one day, you and I are going to live on a place like this,” he remembered having promised his wife. “We’re going to raise our family in the country. That will be our reward for what we’re giving up right now, a gentle place where we can be together and get a little rest. We’ll build a little house, a little—”

He caught himself in the memory. Did the things he used to dream about even matter anymore? Was such an ambition even possible, given what had happened in the world?

He didn’t know. He liked to hope. It wasn’t as if all life was over. Who knew what lay in store?

Ellie came up behind him and slipped her hand into h?” he asked her.ing the reachedis. He looked down at her and smiled. “Ready for our walk?” he asked.

“Roger that, Daddy!” she answered. Bono laughed. Something about Roger and Daddy in the same sentence just didn’t seem to work. “You gonna be a soldier?” he asked her.

“Hurrah, Daddy!” she laughed back.

Hurrah and Daddy. Same thing. It didn’t work.

They started walking, Bono glancing guiltily back toward the house. “Shhh, don’t let your mother hear you say that,” he whispered conspiratorially.

Ellie watched his eyes. “It’s OK, Daddy. Mommy knows I want to be a soldier,” she said with confidence.

“She thinks you’ll change your mind.”

“She knows I want to be like you.”

Bono almost froze, his mind racing back to scenes of bloodshed, scenes of violence, the memories quick and jarring. He frowned. “No, honey, you don’t want to be like me.” His voice was sad but not unpleasant.

It wasn’t uncommon for little girls who craved their missing fathers to fantasize about being like them. Some Army staff psychiatrist had explained it to Bono’s regiment at their last pre-deployment briefing. “Don’t worry about it if your daughters talk about wanting to follow you,” she had told the group of departing soldiers. “It’s a way for them to share something with you, even if only in their minds. They imagine themselves going off with you to war, a handsome knight and his little princess. Sometimes it’s the only way they can figure out a reason for you to be together. Don’t try to convince them it is silly. They’ll grow out of it with time.” The briefing from the psychiatrist was supposed to have made them feel better about some of the fallout from their family separations. Bono remembered it as one of the most depressing briefings in his life.

He looked down at Ellie, her blonde hair, so light and bouncy, her beautiful eyes and flushing cheeks. Looking at her, it was impossible for him to think about her growing up at all, let alone growing up to be a soldier, this perfect and innocent little soul.

He shook his head.

A soldier? Not his little Ellie. She’d always be a little girl, playing with her china dolls and squealing over a new set of clothes.

She looked up at him and squeezed his hand. “I want to be like you, Daddy,” she said as if she’d read his mind.

It tore his heart to hear her say it. “That’s not such a good idea, honey. You’d be much better to be like Mommy.”

He tugged her hand and they cut across the straw-covered field toward the path that led to the windbreak trees. The morning sunshine was bright but slanted and didn’t give much warmth. The air was clean, visibility above the mist a hundred miles. Walking with his daughter, Bono was as happy as he had ever felt. He had only a few days with them, the reminder always tugging at the back of his mind, but the time together was so sweet and happy, it overshadowed the fact that soon he’d have to leave.

They walked for a while in silence until Ellie said, “Something bad happened, Daddy.”

Bono turned to look down at her.

She pointed toward the fields on the other side of the trees. “Miller is dead,” she told him.

Bono stopped and knelt beside her. “I know that, baby.”

“I saw him. It was kind of yucky.” She kept her eyes straight ahead, not looking at him. “Mom knows something about Miller that she won’t tell me, something about how he died.”

Bono thought a moment, measuring his words carefully. He knew everything that had happened, of course. He was the one who had buried the old dog. He knew that Miller had been shot. “Those were some bad men,” was all he answered.

“Yeah. You should have seen Grandma. She was really mad. I thought she was going to hit one of them.”

Bono put a hand down and touched the wet earth to balance himself but didn’t say anything.

“Grandma can get really mad sometimes,” Ellie said.

“Yes, she can. But you can understand that. Those men weren’t very nice.”

Ellie’s eyes turned down as she remembered. “Not nice at all.” She glanced back toward the house. “They said bad words, Daddy.” She hesitated, looking at him with a worried face. “Lots of s-words.”

“Whoa, the s-word. That’s not good.”

“You’re not supposed to say shut up, right, Daddy?”

“No, you’re not. It sounds mean.”

“Well, one man said it to another man at least five times. I knew when he kept saying that, Grandma was going to get really mad.”

Bono couldn’t help laughing out loud. “Well, you can understand that,” he repeated.

Ellie nodded, unsure of what her father was laughing about.

Bono stood and they walked again in silence. “I’m sad about Miller,” Ellie said.

“He was a good dog, Ellie. But good dogs go to heaven. And he was getting old. I think he was ready to move on. In fact, I think he’s glad to be in heaven. He’s happy there right now, barking and playing in the sun.”

“Do you think he misses me, Dad?”

“I’m sure he does, baby doll.”

“But there are other people up there, right? I mean, he’s not in heaven all alone? There are other kids to play with, other kids to scratch his ears? What good is heaven if he’s alone? He needs someone to feed him and give him baths.”

“Yeah, baby, there’ll be someone there to play with him, feed him and scratch his ears.”

Ellie thought for a moment. “Do you think God likes Miller, Daddy?”

“I think He does, baby. I think God loves all of His creations.”

“So He’ll take care of Miller? He won’t yell at Miller if he barks or make him eat that one yucky kind of dog food, you know, the kind that makes him sick?”

“No, baby, He won’t. Miller will be happy. Heavenly Father will see to that.”

Ellie smiled, apparently satisfied.

They walked on, reaching the trees. Bono waited for his daughter to choose the way and she turned left, away from the field where the gang had been a couple of days before. He walked beside her and for a while she sang quietly to herself, a tune that Bono didn’t know. Finally hyphens: none !important; gaphe realized that she was making it up. The path was covered with wet gravel, and the small rocks crunched with every step. The trees were full of blackbirds, hundreds of them calling from the branches, their shadows falling across the path. Bono slowed his pace and looked up at them. “Ellie, you know that I can’t stay with you and Mommy for too long,” he said.

Ellie looked away. “How long, Daddy?”

“I only have a couple more days.”

“When Mom says I can have a couple of jelly beans, sometimes I take eight.”

Her father shook his head. “I don’t have that many, baby.”

Ellie pursed her lips. “Sometimes I take five.”

It broke his heart to listen to her. “Honey, you know that I would stay here forever if I could.”

She didn’t answer.

“You know that it’s the hardest thing I ever had to do, leaving you and Mommy here alone.”

“Mommy’s worried about something, Daddy. I don’t think you should go.”

“I know she is, baby, but she’s going to be OK. Heavenly Father is going to watch over both of you.”

She looked down. She was trying to be brave. Bono recognized the determined crunch across her forehead, but though she tried to hold back the tears, her clear blue eyes brimmed over. She wiped them, embarrassed and unsure. “Don’t go, Daddy,” she started pleading. “Please, don’t go away right now. If Mommy wasn’t so worried . . . .”

Bono suddenly felt like crying, too. He felt like weeping for his daughter, for Caelyn, for himself. He felt like weeping for the world, all the lonely children, all those who’d lost so much happiness, so much innocence, so much joy in this dark time. He felt like weeping for the days that lay before them, the things this little girl would have to endure. The knot inside his stomach crawled into his throat so tight he thought he would choke. He tried to talk but couldn’t—it was just too painful, and he had to catch his breath and look away. He couldn’t let her see the tears. He couldn’t let her watch his shoulders heave. He quickly wiped his face and stood up, looking across the open field, then took a deep breath and steeled himself before bending down to her again.

Ellie kept her face low, frightened and frustrated.

“I’m so sorry, baby. Do you know that? I’m so sorry I have to go.”

“You could tell them you have a stomachache.”

“I could do that, baby, and they might let me stay awhile. But Ellie, there are other little kids out there, little boys and girls just like you, who don’t even have any grandmas or mommies to take care of them. They live in places around the world where they don’t have anything at all. I need to help them. I need to help their mommies and daddies. If I can help them, then maybe I can make things a little better. I know it’s hard for you to understand, but I think that’s what I should do.”

“I don’t care about those other kids.” Her voice was angry now. “I want you to stay here with me and Mommy.”

He reached out and touched her cheek, and she leaned against his palm. “I know you do, Ellie. I understand that, I really do. But there are things I have to do over there, things that I can do hands moving constantlyro finger to help. And I’m not the only one. There are others too. Other soldiers. Firemen. Policemen. Doctors and nurses. People like that. They have to leave their families, at least for a while. Do you understand that, honey? Do you see why it’s important?”

Ellie didn’t answer.

Bono cupped her face against his palm. “Look at me, baby.”

She shook her head defiantly.

“Ellie, can you look at your ol’ dad?”

She kept her head down, brushing her hands against her face, first one side and then the other. Then she took a deep breath, firmed her shoulders, and looked up.

“Do you believe in Jesus Christ?” he asked her.

Ellie thought, then slowly nodded.

“Do you really believe He loves you?”

“I know He does, Daddy.”

“How do you know that, baby?”

“You and Mommy taught me. And I believe you. And I can feel it sometimes,” she moved her hand, “here, inside my heart.”

“That’s true, baby. That’s the way it is. Everything you’ve been taught and believed is true. Jesus loves you. He knows your problems. He is our Savior. And that’s the only thing that matters. This is going to be OK.”

“But Daddy, when you go away, I get so lonely. And I feel so bad for Mommy. I think she misses you lots more than you know. She needs you, Daddy, like I do. I think sometimes she gets scared.”

Bono quickly straightened up and held his hand to hide the tremble in his chin, the tears wetting the creases around his eyes. “Heavenly Father is going to bless you,” he finally told her. “Sometimes I have to leave you, but He will never go. He is always with you, Ellie, He never leaves your side. He knows you. He loves you. He wants you to be happy, and He will provide a way.”

“But I can’t be happy when you are gone. I worry about you, Daddy. Mommy does, too.”

Bono shook his head and closed his eyes. Help me, Father, to know what I should tell her. Help me, Heavenly Father, to comfort this little girl.

The answer came to him in a rush of warmth and peace. It didn’t make any sense, and it wasn’t something he would have ever thought of himself, but he knew it was the answer.

“She wants to help!” the Spirit told him.

He thought, then knelt down and looked into his daughter’s face. “I need you to do something for me, baby. Something really important, OK? But it will be fun.”

Ellie looked up, her eyes expectant.

“Mommy’s birthday is in a couple of weeks. I want you to make her a special cake, OK? I’ll talk to Grandma and make certain she gets the things you’ll need, but I need you to make the cake. And when you do, I need you to tell her that it’s from both of us. Can you do that for me, baby? Can you make a special cake for Mom?”

Her face brightened. “Can I decorate it the way I want?”

“Any way you want. I know you’ll make it beautiful.”

Ellie looked off, her face scrunching up as she thought. “I could decorate it to make it look like Miller, a cute dog the PCASS had provena28 with floppy ears. I saw a picture of a cake decorated like that in a magazine. The doggy was so cute. He was brown and had chocolate kisses for his eyes and licorice strings for whiskers. It was so neat, Daddy.”

“Beautiful, Ellie. You make it look like Miller. Grandma will help you, but I’m going to tell her that it needs to be your cake.”

Ellie broke into a smile.

“There’s something else I need you to do for me.”

Ellie nodded urgently.

“I won’t be here to take care of Mommy. And I think you’re right—she is a little worried. So I need you to help take care of her, OK? Keep her smiling. Keep her spirits up. Make sure she says her prayers at night. Make sure she thanks God for all the blessings we’ve been given. I know we’ve got some problems, Ellie, but Heavenly Father loves us. He loves you more than you could ever know. You remind Mommy of that, OK? You tell her every day. Every day, you go up to Mom, pull her down to you, put your arms around her neck, and look into her eyes. When she is looking at you, Ellie, then I want you to say these words: ‘God loves us. Daddy loves us. We’re going to be OK.’

He looked at Ellie and waited until she nodded.

“If you do that for me, it will help both me and Mommy. If you do that, then every day I’ll know that, no matter where I am, someone gave Mommy a hug and reminded her that we love her and that everything will be OK.”

“I’ll do it, Daddy. I’ll never forget.”

He put his hand out. “Pinky swear.”

She interlocked their little fingers. “Pinky swear.”

They pressed their thumbs together, making a snapping sound. “I’ve got your promise now,” Bono said, stattp://www.w3.o