One September Morning by Rosalind Noonan Page A

the street, closing in on the school. “No don’t come,” she says quickly. “I’ll…I can drive myself. I’ve got the Jeep.”
    “Then come right home,” her mother says emphatically.
    “Mom—” Madison wants to argue, but something in her mother’s voice scares her. She’s shaken, not her usual self. “What is it?” Madison asks.
    And then her mom lets loose. In a sobbing voice, she tells Madison it’s John. Something happened in Iraq. “Is he…?” Madison can’t say the word. Neither can her mom.
    “Just come home,” her mother orders, her voice cracking.
    And that’s when Madison knows the terrible reality.
    John’s gone.
    Goddamn George W! This is all so wrong, and now it’s too late. John is dead for no fucking reason.
    There’s a hand on Madison’s shoulder.
    “I’ll drive you home.” It’s Suz, her brown eyes soft with sympathy. Does she know?
    “My brother…” Madison starts to say it but a huge knot in her throat chokes off the words.
    “I know.” Suz pulls Madison into her arms, where the younger girl sobs against her lime green polka-dotted sweater.
    “My J-Dawg cannot be gone,” Madison whispers against the petite woman’s shoulder. He can’t be gone. The world is not going to make any sense without him.

Chapter 7
     
    Iraq
Noah
     
    H e cannot speak.
    If he opens his mouth the rage will spew forth, a roiling fireball of anger, bitterness, and contempt. Anger at his brother for leaving him here alone. Fury at John for selling him on the patriotic notion of signing up in the first place, his sweeping enthusiasm that brought Noah along for the ride, that led him to believe they could do something to make the world a better place. Hell, if you listened to John you’d think that the two of them could protect their country from nuclear war, intercepting the weapons of mass destruction like two star football players. The ultimate power play.
    When Noah left the bungalow, where he was supposed to be getting rest, and set out into the windy desert without his helmet or flak jacket, he knew it was a foolish thing to do. But now, as he considered that the worst-case scenarios were death or court martial by the army, he calculated that there was so little to lose at this point. Life had suddenly become cheap and tenuous and fluid, like a splash of water that dripped through your cupped hands. So what if it was gone in seconds? It was just a fact of life…and death.
    The temperature is bearable—maybe in the seventies—but a brisk wind blows dust and grit into his face. The Sharqi, a southeasterly wind that kicks up this time of year, can be unrelenting, and he reaches under his desert fatigues and pulls the neck of his undershirt up, stretching it over his mouth.
    He passes the guard at the door of the Communications Center, then steps into the dimly lit, air-conditioned room, the only place on the makeshift Fort Liberation where soldiers have access to computers and the Internet. Sgt. Dawicki, or Sgt. Dweeb, as most of the men call the officer who runs the Communications Center, looks up from the eerie blue light of his terminal.
    “Specialist Stanton,” he says, one eyebrow cocked as he sits back in his chair and rests his folded hands on his slight paunch. “What the hell are you doing in here at this ungodly hour?”
    It’s one a.m. in Iraq, and most of the soldiers at Fort Liberation are either on duty or asleep in their quarters. “I need to use a computer.” Noah pushes out the words, only half lying, and he is relieved to see that the two PCs designated for use by soldiers are both free.
    “Sign the log,” Sgt. Dweeb reminds him. “And sorry for your loss. Your brother was a fine soldier and a good man.”
    My brother was a hothead, he wants to say, but instead he just frowns as he signs the log book and takes his place at a terminal.
    It takes less than a minute to insert the thumb drive and access it. And there, beaming at him from the monitor, is the list of