Of Kept Promises

She had always hated mud, even as a little kid when you were supposed to come home with dirt underneath your fingernails and painted on your skin. Crawling through it didn’t change her feelings about it. Neither did the silver barbed wire dancing in horrible, beautiful coils above her dusty green helmet, glinting tantalizingly as if it couldn’t trap you in the arms of death.

Her arms burned as she continued onward, using her elbows to push herself forward at a maddeningly slow pace. The end of the barbed wire was only fifty feet away.

If Ashia risked focusing on anything else besides the sweat and dirt coating her uniform, she would be trapped here forever, and not just physically. When she was a child, she had often played in her neighbor's yard. Mr. Shafaq, her parents had murmured over mushrooms and noodles, had left for Iraq five years ago and came back changed. There were times when Ashia's parents stood over him while he shook and convinced him that the gunshots he had heard weren't real. He would breathe to the steady cadence of their voices, in and out and in and out again, as Ashia ran up and down the hills and tried to ignore the way his eyes grew so distant.

So she tried to tamp out the memories of her husband, Aazz, hugging her with silver lining his eyes, their daughter Isir clinging to her camouflage-clad leg. She knew that it was dangerous to think of home, maybe, in a way, more so than the barbed wire.

Twenty feet.

During the two years she had been here, Ashia had learned too many things to count. Where to hide and when to run. How to shoot without remembering the remorse that constantly hounded her, day and night. How to address at the civilians that fled the fire and stared back at her with haunted, devastated eyes.

She had been a good student when she was young, untainted. But she always failed to keep the raging guilt from her face.

Five feet. Ashia was almost out, almost free...

Her clothes snagged on the wire.

Pure, undiluted terror filled her. She dared to turn her head the slightest bit and found her collar clung tightly by the shining metal. She’d have to be exceedingly careful if she were to get free.

Ashia was distinctly aware of the “if”.

She had heard the stories. Lieutenant Madison had properly terrified Ashia's squadron on the first day of training. She'd learned enough about the mangled bodies to last a lifetime, but she never thought she'd become one of them.

Backing up the barest of inches, she tilted her head back and pulled, her fear giving way to a roaring desperation. She had to make it out, she had to, she had to--

The barbed wire ripped free, and Ashia almost sobbed with relief as she hurled herself forward, out of the barbed wire and into the broiling sun.

She had no option but to survive this battle and continue fighting, even when her very bones sang with exhaustion. She had made a promise almost a year ago that she couldn’t break. Ashia's hands and legs moved on autopilot, pushing herself off of the sandy, pebbly ground; raising her gun and firing one bullet after the other, but her mind dug up the dust-streaked face she had cupped in her hands and a vow she had spoken under a fading sun.

…

“You mean I can come back later?”

It was so hard to promise this when the buildings around her were smoking and the rubble crunched beneath her feet as Ashia walked. But what else could she say? The little girl held on to her as if she were a lifeline, looking up at her with wide eyes that reminded her of freshly brewed coffee. Her name was Nina, Ashia remembered hearing.

Nina was about to break. Ashia could tell from the way she was shaking. But if she could ensure this one bit of security…

“You can,” Ashia murmured. “And it’s going to be brand new, just like you remembered it. Your mommy, daddy, and brother are all going to be there with you.”

Her squadron was firing around her. Gunshots cracked through the air, and she imagined the bullets rending the fabric of the universe, ripping open the sky to reveal an inky black night. Nina’s hand clutched her uniform tightly, and Ashia cradled the child closer to her chest. She hated the look of horror spreading across Nina’s face. She had seen it too often during her station here, had looked in the mirror and found herself with that same hopelessness in her eyes.

Nina closed her eyes as if to block out the scene around her. Ashia recognized that too. “You promise?”

Ashia looked at the girl, quivering and small. She set Nina down and took her small face between her hands. “I promise.”

She swallowed the lump in her throat and tugged the girl into the ambulance waiting for them, waiting to heal the scrapes and bruises they had earned from flying debris. When she handed Nina over to the medics, Ashia felt her heart break just a little bit more. For the little girl who had a dream, who wanted a home, she could help win the war.

…

She had not forgotten that promise. Even when her black hair was silver with age and her hands were wrinkled and curled, she knew that she would not forget. It was a reminder that she had not enlisted for the pay. Ashia had grown up listening to her mother’s stories of a war-torn country that she had once called home, and she had joined the army as soon as Isir was old enough to say goodbye.

It took her a moment to realize her hands were still moving on instinct: hefting the gun, aiming, pulling quickly on the trigger. No, killing wasn’t something you forgot.

...

The airport was uncharacteristically quiet. Ashia felt the silence echoing around her, thought she could hear gunshots ringing in the distance, but she grit her teeth and blocked out her imagination. She was almost home.

She scanned the airport for Aazz and Isir. She allowed herself the small liberty of remembering their faces and held them in her mind, searching for them amongst the small gaggles of people...

There.

Ashia almost dropped her suitcase. Her eyes stung, and she shook with the effort of keeping the tears in until she could no more. They flowed in thick, rolling streams as she half-walked, half-ran to where they were standing. Isir’s eyes were bleary, but her mouth froze in mid-yawn when she saw Ashia. Running. To them.

In an instant, Ashia was upon them, hugging and crying and leaning over to kiss Isir’s cheeks and nestling under Aazz’s arm. God, Isir was tall. Ashia had missed so much. She didn't know the foods that Isir liked, the words she could say, the toys and TV shows she would watch. She had missed everything--

But Isir gurgled, "Mama." Everything was dragged out of her head until only her family remained. She was sobbing now, her arms tight around her husband and daughter. She had missed them so, so much.

It made her remember Nina again. She hoped that Nina was with her family once again, that Nina had returned home and begun rebuilding what once was. Her family was the most important thing she had--above all, they had anchored her in those two years. Above all, they had saved her. So Ashia held on tight to that memory, of large brown eyes and a promise she had kept, and never once let go.