CHAPTER 2
I followed in my dad's footsteps and became a special agent in ICE – Immigration and Customs Enforcement, much to Mom's annoyance. She didn't like the danger aspect of it. I can't blame her, especially when Dad was killed by an illegal immigrant he was trying to apprehend three months before I graduated. It made me more determined. I know he's up there in Heaven looking down on me and approving.
It wasn't long after I graduated that Special Agent John Nelson came into my life. Tall and blond, with intense gray eyes, I was attracted to him from the moment we first met.
"I haven't seen you around here before," he said. How many times has that line been used? It was true though.
"No, I'm new." His smile was doing things to me that had nothing to do with working.
"Want to go out sometime?" he said matter-of-factly.
I swallowed hard and nodded. My voice seemed to have deserted me. It turned out my common sense and good judgment had also done a disappearing act.
We had dinner and a movie, and he wasn't shy about what he wanted from me. Forget putting an arm around my shoulders. His hand went straight to my butt as we headed for the back seat in the half-darkness, and a finger slipped under my very short mini skirt and through the side of my panties before I could sit down.
Half of me wanted to slap him. Only half. The other half had been shockingly and urgently awakened. I don't remember anything about the movie, except that we left before it had even got to half time. We just made it to his apartment.
After a whirlwind romance, we were married.
When our daughter, Bryony was born, and Mom was the only one who was able to quiet her when she cried, I remembered the crystal ball and the Tarot cards. Puri had left them to me in her will, and I had never looked at them since that last night with her. They were carefully packed in a shoebox in the top shelf of my bedroom closet.
Mom came to live in the same apartment complex as us soon afterwards, and I don't know what we would have done without her.
The next four years, our lives were as normal as any other married couple. John and I had a good relationship, loved one another, and seldom argued. Mom cared for Bryony during the day, which enabled both of us to continue to pursue our careers. I had been trying to convince John that we needed more living space, and eventually he agreed.
We bought a rambling home out into the country on four acres, with a pool. Our commute was a little further, but I was finally able to grow stuff. It was something I had been itching to do for a long time, and I've been complimented on my green thumb now that our garden is overflowing with flowering shrubs. We were used to having Mom close, and she agreed to move in with us. Life couldn't have been more perfect for me.
Drug trafficking was a problem we dealt with daily in our work environment, and we made it our mission to locate and have drug dealers deported. In just a short time, one Mexican cartel rose in power above the others. La Serpiente de Coral—the Coral Snake Cartel was ruled by a particularly cruel drug lord, Jose-Marie Iglesias, aka el Serpiente, who would stop at nothing to make money, and to whom human life was meaningless. The coral snake connotation had been carefully chosen.
In Mexico the coral snake is known as the 'twenty minute snake', or 'serpiente de veinte minutos', because if it bites you, that's all the time you have left to live. If Iglesias took you as his prisoner, he tortured you for twenty minutes and then you died.
Everything changed when John made the decision to join Special Forces and go on a mission whose objective was to penetrate the internal operations of the Coral Snake Cartel, essentially as a spy. We had always gotten along, but this decision caused countless arguments, shouting matches, and bad feelings. "Are you crazy?" I asked him so many times. "I can't believe you're doing this to us. This is like a death wish. Suicide by drug lord. Please, John, don't do it. The kingpin of this cartel will stop at nothing and when he finds out what your intentions are he'll torture you and cut off your head. How do you think that will feel for me, and what about Bryony? She adores you and she needs a daddy to be here for her."
"I've made up my mind, Neelie," he told me. "You're under estimating me. I won't get caught. I know exactly how I'll get close to him, and you'll see I'll succeed in this mission."
He kissed me goodbye on a warm October morning and crossed the border in a remote desert region into Mexico. What is it about men and war or danger? He was as excited as a tick on a fat dog.
There was no way I could contact him, nor he me, and I worried myself sick every day over what might happen to him.
Anyone who has ever followed the news about the Mexican drug cartels will know that they are every bit as vicious and demented as ISIS and Al Qaeda. If someone gets in their way, they are beheaded, their bodies thrown into the streets as a warning to others who may be thinking about betraying them.
I was over the moon when, almost eight months later, John was finally able to come home. My elation soon changed to despair. He wasn't the same man who had left me. He had always been fun-loving and playful, but that part of him was gone. Bryony was afraid of him with his big beard and long hair, and he took it personally and refused to acknowledge her for well over a week. Her crying seemed to irritate him beyond his tolerance. "Can't you shut that fucking kid up?" he would yell. This was not the man I had married. This man was quiet and morose and angry. I agonized over how I could change him back to the funny, loving caring man I had fallen in love with, but nothing I tried seemed to make any difference.
He couldn't talk about the mission because of it being top secret, and anyhow, he said the less I knew the less reason anyone would have to question me.
That was the first time I realized that his quest could endanger me and Bryony.
I tried to make things as normal as possible, but it wasn't easy, and after ten days he left again. I asked him how much longer he would be gone, but he couldn’t give me a definitive answer. I got the idea he was enjoying being there more than being at home. I wasn't sure if I was happy or sad about it. On one hand, I was sure if he stayed he would eventually lose the anger and become the real John again, but on the other, it was a relief to have him gone, especially with Bryony being so fussy and upset all the time. We had only made love twice during those ten days. Although I needed sex physically, and missed having a man around me, it was the emotional aspect that took the greatest toll on me. I couldn't help wondering if I was a hindrance to him. Maybe he didn't have time in his life for me anymore.
I carried on with my life as best I could. What other options did I have? I missed him terribly, and longed for him to come back, and I was determined that when he did, our lives would find a level of normalcy again. I hated the fact that Bryony was growing up without a dad. He was missing so much of her development, something I had always imagined we would share. Was I bitter? Yes. But I was willing to work hard and make my marriage work if only my husband would come home and be there for us.
Thanksgiving was a particularly difficult time for me. It seemed that everyone else in the entire world spent it with their family members. I knew I was blessed to have Mom and Bryony, but I longed to have my whole family together again. On the third Thanksgiving after John had left, my brother Graeme came home from Angola in Africa where he'd been working at providing security on the oil rigs. He stayed a week, and helped to make the occasion more fun for Bryony, who loved the male company.
After he left, I sank into a depression. I hadn't seen or heard from John for over a year, and didn't know if he was alive or dead. I forced myself to smile and act normal when I was with Mom and Bryony, but when I was alone, I couldn't stop myself from crying. It must have shown that I was feeling particularly down after Bryony's seventh birthday when one of my co-workers brought a tiny, mewing kitten into the office.
"I found this little guy outside in the parking lot," he said as he handed it to me. Something, probably a maternal instinct, was triggered in me when I cradled the kitten in my arms. We went outside and
searched for its mother, but I knew we wouldn't find her. That cat had been sent to heal me. She had long, silky fur, and was mostly gray with what looked like smudged eyeliner around her eyes. I called her Smudgie, and she and I developed a special spiritual bond. I found that whenever I held her, I couldn't help smiling. I don't know where I would be now if it wasn't for her.
A few days later, I was standing on a stepladder reorganizing the contents on the top shelf of my closet, when I came across the box.