Love Leads the Way

Prologue “Love is the Last to Die” “The love of a mother is like the ocean, toe tickling at the beginning—growing deeper with every step.” ~ Granny Mae Afghanistan, May 2015: The left side of Kinah’s delicate face lay crushed against the unyielding dirt floor of her one-room home. Her smooth, olive skin bore the brunt of retaliation for her unwillingness to surrender to her captors’ ruthless questioning. Rendered helpless by the enemy’s heavy boot pressing against the side of her head, Kinah’s blood and tears moistened the hardened earth beneath her cheek. The coolness of the mud soothed her burning skin, but did little to dampen the fire raging within her. War had been ravaging Kinah’s country longer than she had been alive. Dating back as far as Alexander the Great, her homeland had been a hotbed for external invasions and internal warmongering. While the infiltrations of the Greeks, Persians, Soviets, and the British made a definitive impact on the boundaries and evolution of her native Afghanistan, the Taliban had all but destroyed it. When the Taliban supported al-Qaeda rained terror upon the United States of America, Kinah’s native country became host to more defending nationalities than she could readily identify. Despite the fact that Kinah was nearly illiterate, she understood her people well. It perplexed her that amidst the vast pool of foreigners fighting in and for her country, her greatest threat came from her own kind. She and her attackers shared the same skin tone. They spoke the same native Pashtu tongue. They lived in the same village. It was her own fellow tribe members who had burst into her home, violated and beaten her, and were now drooling at the prospects of claiming the life of her young son, Armagan. “Tshe’eri hagha halek?” (Where is the boy?) the lead captor shouted. This time it wasn’t her own aching ribs that felt the sharp stab of a swinging boot. From where she lay naked and pinned to the floor, she could see the bleeding face of Asa, her cherished husband. He lay in a crumpled heap just a few feet away. He grimaced as yet another fierce blow from the attacker’s foot lifted his broken body several inches into the air before gravity sucked his lifeless form back to the ground with a heavy thud. As limber as a doll made of rags, Asa appeared void of physical or emotional presence, yet his eyes still spoke to her. They stared at her with deep conviction, willing her to remain strong. Kinah could hear her beloved struggling to stay alive. He fought valiantly for life, but the sounds of his laborious breathing confirmed that the battle was almost over. Refusing to watch Asa draw his last breath, Kinah clinched her eyes. The sight of his passing could not penetrate her sealed eyelids, but her ears could not escape the tormenting sound of it. Although his last gasp for existence was barely audible, Kinah found it deafening. The sound was unearthly – the ghastly groan of a reluctant spirit being snatched away from an unwilling donor. Grief-stricken sobs racked Kinah’s entire being. A combination of sorrow and rage transformed human into animal as her fingernails dug deeply into the hardened soil beneath her. The fury within her nullified the agony of fingernails ripping away from fingertips. Compared to her emotional torture, physical pain from her bleeding hands held little significance. She continued to tear at the ground. If only she could free herself. If only she could reach the face of her foe, she would claw his evil eyeballs from their sockets and crush them like grapes beneath her bare feet. Feeling them squish between her toes would give her satisfaction beyond measure. The thought of that rewarding revenge made her almost giddy. With violent contempt now directed solely at Kinah, the main assailant dropped to his knees next to her bloody body. His booming voice ricocheted off the walls of the confined space. He swore viciously. “Tell me where he is!” Spittle sprayed from the man’s mouth onto Kinah’s face. No longer a question, but a command expecting a lightning swift answer, Kinah knew the remainder of her life would be measured by mere moments. With the end in sight, there was no earthly way she would divulge the whereabouts of her treasured child to these disgusting monsters. All she had to do was hold her tongue for just a little while longer. Defiantly, Kinah stared at the ugly man with the long, jagged scar that traversed the left side of his face. She attempted to writhe away from her captor one last time. She managed to raise her naked frame only a few inches before the sole of her attacker’s right boot slammed her pelvis back down against the floor. He then shifted the full weight of his body onto her back and head. A loud grunt and a forceful gush of air spewed forth from Kinah’s mouth. One split second of indescribable pain consumed her before she gratefully lost all bodily sensation. She would never feel pain again. The pressure of the man’s left foot against Kinah’s skull, muted all outside noise, but magnified the sounds within. The internal vibrations and crunching of her own bones permeated her brain. Organs within her ruptured, expelling their contents from every orifice of her body, still, she felt no pain. The suffocating weight bearing down upon her made it impossible for Kinah to draw another life-sustaining breath. The breath that had just vacated her lungs would be her last, taking with it the need to fight. The battle was over. Kinah won. Continued abuse from her assailants meant nothing to her now. The loving mother’s eyes remained transfixed—staring straight ahead at a seemingly insignificant clump of clothing in the corner of the room—gazing into a pair of small, terrified brown eyes that were peering back at her. Her spirit pleaded with the frightened child behind the unblinking stare. Stay quiet, my sweet baby. Please stay still. The precursor to Kinah’s death came in the form of supple, soothing tentacles that reached for her through an engulfing sea of darkness. They caressed her skin and calmed her spirit. Her battered body relaxed in their care. Swaddling her body, the gentle feelers tugged at her—tempting her with the sweet liberation that death would bring. Tension ebbed from Kinah’s muscles allowing her clinched jaws to soften. As she began to succumb, a silent prayer formed on her lips. Mother loves you, my precious little Armagan … my baby. Please, Allah, please send someone to care for my beautiful boy. Please, Allah. With trust in a power greater than self, the devoted mother willingly relinquished her own life for that of her precious child. Chapter 1 “Do the Right Thing” “A truly wise man makes decisions with his heart, not his head.” ~ Granny Mae Alabama, July 2015: “Come on, Jesse.” Emma waved her hand-held radio in the air to indicate that they had just received a call. Her urgent stare prompted flight medic Jesse Daulton to his feet. With his cell phone pressed to his ear, Jesse nodded affirmatively in the direction of his insistent partner. “I gotta go, honey,” Jesse apologized into the phone. “I’m sorry, but we just got a call. We gotta …” He listened for another second while unconsciously raking his fingers through his thick hair. “Don’t worry about the test results, Mikayla, and please stop crying … please don’t cry.” Jesse paced the length of the cramped flight staff’s lounge while attempting to comfort his disappointed wife. “We’ll talk more about it when I get home tonight, okay? It’ll be all right, Mikayla. I promise.” Jesse lowered his voice to a whisper. “I love you, baby.” Handling the phone as gently as he would his wife’s delicate face, he breathed, “Bye, darlin’,” into the receiver just before he ended the call. It pained him to end their conversation so abruptly. He hated to leave Mikayla so distraught, but he had no choice.