"I'm not sure how this is going to work."
"It will," said Cole. "And if I ever actually find a woman to fall in love with, she's just going to have to deal with the fact that I already have one son, this African kid I didn't even meet till he was twelve years old, but he's my son."
"Good for him," said Cecily. "Good for you both. And yes, he can stay with us. And you can visit all you want. And I'll probably even make cookies again."
"Frankly," said Cole, "that's all I really care about right now. Torrent? He can take care of his own damn self."
He reached out, clasped her hand in both of his for a few moments, and then let go of her, stood up, and walked out.
Two days later, Cecily and Chinma got on a plane together. She thought she might find it hard, to take this return flight with a boy who wasn't Mark. But instead, it was a great comfort to her. Chinma's life had been so hard. Harder than hers. And now she would be part of making it better.
SIC SEMPER
A ruler's friends judge him by his achievements, his enemies by the means he used to attain them.
Cole brought Chinma early to the ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, and watched all the others arrive. He greeted them all, of course, but then engaged in little conversation. Not that anyone seemed all that chatty. Everyone had things on their mind. Remembering how close they all had come to death. Remembering those who had died.
There had been a very different feeling at the graveside memorial for Cat Black. Though he died of the nictovirus and not in combat, his service record earned him a place at Arlington. The official ceremonies with military honors were repeated for those whose bodies were sent home while their comrades were still in quarantine in Africa. The actual burial had belonged to the family. But the second ceremony belonged to Cat's comrades. Not all the family was even there—few had a taste for going through it all a second time. So before and after the salute was fired into the air, there was chatter. Old stories about Cat, comic and courageous. Tears were shed but there was laughter, too, and if someone had measured it the laughs would have outnumbered the tears. Cat's death was months behind them now. Before the assault by the Sudanese soldiers. In another time. He was missed and he was mourned, but the keen edge of grief had been dulled by time.
The second ceremony for Mark Malich was different. Cole felt it himself, between him and Chinma. The boy was often playful, and as his English got better, he turned out to have a sly wit, though he persisted in making puns between English and Ayere words that no one on earth except a few professors and some Ayere who had gone to live in cities before the massacre could have understood. Here, though, there was no playfulness.
Cole wondered what memories Chinma was reviewing in his mind. Memories of Mark? Their service together as they cared for Cole and the rest of Reuben's jeesh? Their time together in Mark's family's home, when they shared a bedroom but little else? Or were his thoughts on others—his family, whose burial had consisted of flames and earth piled on by bulldozers? Or his brother, who had died bleeding after a monkey bite?
Chinma said nothing and showed nothing, but Cole had learned by now that this blank, almost fierce expression was what he did when he was feeling strong emotions that he didn't want to show.
When Reuben's jeesh arrived, two by two, there was none of the joviality that had quickly surfaced at Cat's services. And Cole was left to wonder what these pairings meant. Simple carpooling? They were the same pairs that had formed in Calabar—Benny and Arty, who had remained behind and tried as best they could to protect the sick and the caregivers, then Mingo and Babe, Drew and Load, the pairs that had gone out in the city. Cole was the odd man out, of course. He always had been, since he had never really been part of the jeesh until after Reuben's death.
But they had come and saved him when he was pursued through D.C. by the Progressive Restoration's hit squads and then their deadly machines. They had followed him into battle dozens of times, with never a sign that they didn't trust him. He had thought of them as his best friends in the world, and perhaps they were. But there was still a solidarity among them that left him out. And never more so than now.
Rusty Humphries showed up. Cecily had told him she was inviting him, and Cole was pleased that he had not brought any recording equipment. He came straight to Chinma and shook his hand and talked to him with real interest for a few minutes. "I'd like you to come out to Oregon to visit me. My only combat duty was those three minutes at the stairs in Calabar, and you were the soldier standing beside me, so I want my girls and my boss and my producers to meet you."
Soon, though, Humphries retreated to a corner of the tent that had been set up for the ceremonies and was as quiet as anyone. The mood had taken him, as well.
Cecily arrived just before the ceremony was to star
t—not that it would have started without her. She had been to the grave before; Benny and Arty got back to the States a week later than the rest, and she had scheduled the ceremony to give them time to get back with their families before bringing them out to Arlington.
Aunt Margaret was with them—Cole had known her long enough now, both in her house in Jersey and in his frequent visits to the Malich home in the past couple of weeks, that he called her Aunt Margaret to her face. It wasn't as if the kids needed adult supervision. Even six-year-old John Paul behaved with perfect dignity, and Lettie didn't goad her little sister Annie or find any other way to become the center of attention. Nick waved to Chinma and Cole, but that was all the fraternizing before the ceremony. The family went to the front and sat down, and only then did the others find chairs and sit down.
But still the ceremony didn't start. The delay wasn't long, but it was inexplicable, until Cole looked out through the transparent plastic side panels of the tent and saw a lone figure in a dark suit walking toward them. It was Averell Torrent, without Secret Service, without entourage, without media tagalongs.
He came and did not take any place of honor. He sat among the others; took a chair, in fact, right beside Chinma. He shook the boy's hand and nodded, but said nothing to anyone. The only deference to him as President had been to hold off on starting until he could arrive. He had done it perfectly.
The Arlington chaplain said a few words, and then it was Cole's turn to read the citation that Congress, at Torrent's request, had voted for Mark. It was almost identical to Chinma's citation, except that Chinma's did not mention giving his life.
Though it was early October, it was a sunny day with only a light breeze, so they came outside to watch the rifle salute. Sixteen soldiers, an unusually large number, and the regulation three volleys, just as if Mark had been a soldier in the Army.
As President Torrent had said in the message he sent to Congress requesting medals and honors for those who had taken part in the defense of Calabar, Mark was too young to have served in the military, but he did a soldier's duty all the same, taking the place of a soldier who was too weak with illness to hold his weapon. So he was retroactively enlisted, with his enlistment beginning, as nearly as could be determined, at the exact time when he picked up Benny's weapon to fire it into the corridor to draw the enemy soldiers to their door.
And then the ceremony was over. It hadn't taken very long. There had been no sermons or speeches.
Everyone waited in place as long as Cecily and her children stood looking at the two markers, one with Reuben Malich's name and the other with Mark's. For Mark's rank, he was listed as a private, and his unit was Cole's jeesh.
Since his age would be obvious from the dates, Cecily had asked that there be a nonregulation addition: After his date of death were the words "by enemy fire in the line of duty." This would ensure that anyone who happened to see the marker would not think that Mark was buried there merely because he was a soldier's son, but rather because he had earned that marker himself.
Cecily would one day be laid to rest in that cemetery, but she would share her husband's marker and his grave. Mark got his own because he had earned his own.
When Cecily and the children turned away from the graves, then everyone else moved as well, and began to speak in low voices, if they spoke at all.