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  I took the paper from his outstretched hand and looked at his beautiful blue eyes again. “Thank you so much for letting us stay with you!” I said and threw myself into his arms to his surprise and mine.

  Aron wrapped his arms around me and squeezed me tightly. “Good luck to you, honey!” he said into my ear. I pulled away and smiled at Aron as Justin walked up and shook his hand.

  “Good luck to you, sir!” Aron said as he took a step back and saluted the both of us.

  I rolled my eyes and got into the car. As Justin and I pulled away I turned around to see Aron still standing in the parking lot watching us leave.

  “Justin,” I said, “I really liked him.”

  “Yeah, he really liked you too. He couldn’t stop talking about how beautiful you were while you were in the shower.” Justin replied.

  My heart soared. He thought I was beautiful? I turned back around. “Justin, thank you for telling me that. That means so much,” I said softly.

  Justin smiled. “I thought that would make your day!”

  I opened my hand and looked at the piece of paper Aron had given me; on it he had hastily scribbled his home phone number and his work phone number and the sentence, “Call me anytime.” His chicken-scratch handwriting made me smile as I slipped the paper into my pocket. “So,” I asked, “how much longer?”

  “Um…now!” Justin said and pointed to a large building in front of us. I looked out the window and saw the ensigns of the marines, air force, army, and navy on the side of the building and its front yard filled with men and women, some dressed in street clothes like us and others in military fatigues. “I am so excited!” Justin said. “Are you excited?”

  “Of course I am!” I answered halfheartedly as I continued to survey the scene around me.

  Justin pulled into a parking spot, turned off the car, and turned to me. “Well, this is it! It’s now or never.”

  I looked over at Justin and took a deep breath. “Well, this better be it because I have nowhere else to go.”

  We got out of the car and started the walk down the sidewalk toward the front doors of the recruiting office where two male military personnel were waiting to greet us. As we approached the doors, one of the men jumped to attention and greeted Justin.

  “Morning, son! Are you ready to be all you can be?”

  Justin grinned and replied, “Sir no sir! I’m ready for the journey to begin!”

  “Ah, a navy boy here!” The man grinned and stepped aside to let Justin past. “And you, ma’am? Are you ready to be all you can be?”

  I mimicked Justin and answered, “Sir no sir.” I paused for a second and then continued, “Actually, I have no idea what I want to be.”

  “Well,” the man answered, “then march right on down the hall there to the army office and they can help you figure that out.” He patted me hard on the back and said, “Good luck soldier!”

  I looked ahead and saw Justin going into the navy recruiting office door, and he looked back and smiled at me. “See you in a little bit,” he called out, then he went through the door and shut it behind him.

  I felt very alone and scared at that moment, like I was on a game show and I had a choice of four doors to choose from, each one containing a different prize behind it—or in my case, a different future. I thought of what the military man had said to Justin when we walked up: “Be all you can be!” and the army song ran through my head: “Find your future in the army!” What do I have to lose? I need a future. I headed down to the army recruiting office door.

  I was greeted by a young man dressed in a military uniform, his chest adorned with colorful ribbons and a short buzz haircut. He grabbed my hand and shook it firmly before saying, “Welcome to the army! I’m Sergeant Wilkinson, and you are?”

  His physical appearance and strong handshake made me extremely nervous, and I cringed back a bit before answering, “Sarah,” very softly.

  “You are going to have to speak louder than that. What is your name?” His voice wan instantly demanding and had a harsher tone to it.

  He sounds like Mom, I thought. Oh God, am I making the right decision?

  “Sarah Burleton!” I forced myself to say loudly.

  Sergeant Wilkinson smiled, showing off his shiny white teeth. “I knew you had it in you,” he said as he circled back around to his desk chair. “Now sit down and tell me about yourself and why you want to join the army.” He gestured to a small chair in front of his desk, and I sat down and nervously folded my hands into my lap.

  “Well,” I began, “if you really want to know the truth, I didn’t plan on joining the army until about a minute ago. I just knew I wanted to join the military for the chance to travel and experience new things.” I began to feel like an actress from a television commercial reading rehearsed lines.

  Sergeant Wilkinson leaned back in his chair and flashed me another toothy white smile. “Ah. You must be from a small town; we get a lot like you in here.” He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a brochure and a stack of papers and set them on the desk in front of me. “So tell me, what are your skills and interests? Where do you see yourself in five or ten years?”

  Five or ten years? I don’t know what I’m doing five or ten minutes from now! My mind frantically raced to come up with the right answer to his questions and I tried desperately to think of one thing I was really good at, that I could be proud of. I thought of my graduation day and the pride I had walking across the stage to receive my scholarship to business college. “Business,” I managed to get out, “I’m good at writing and business.”

  “Writing and business, huh? So you’re a math and English whiz?” he asked.

  “Not a whiz,” I replied. “I’m capable, that’s all.”

  He opened up the brochure and started rattling off numerous areas within the army that would utilize my writing and math skills to their fullest. I could be a newspaper writer, a data analyst, a logistics analyst; the list went on and on. The more Sergeant Wilkinson and I talked, the more excited I got, and I started to gradually feel better about my decision to walk through the army’s door.

  “Well, do you want to start on the paperwork? There’s a MEPS session in St. Louis tomorrow morning, and you could be in basic training as early as Wednesday if everything with your paperwork clears.”

  “That fast?” Justin had told me that he thought the process would only be a couple of days, but to actually hear “Wednesday” come out of Sergeant Wilkinson’s mouth made my jaw drop.

  “That fast,” he replied. He took a pen and handed it over the desk to me. “So, do you think that the army is the right place for you?”

  I took the pen out of his hand. “Well, I guess we’ll see!” I said. I didn’t know what I was doing; I was just going with the moment and taking things minute by minute until I finally reached my final destination of peace and happiness.

  I began to fill out the paperwork that Sergeant Wilkinson had on his desk and paused when I reached the medical history page and had to answer whether or not I had prior surgeries. “Sergeant Wilkinson?”

  “Mmmhmm,” he responded, looking up from his stack of paperwork. “I’ve had surgery, but I don’t know much about it.”

  He put his pen down on the desk and said, “Well, what type of surgery? Appendix surgery or something like that?”

  “No,” I said. I stood up and briefly lifted my shirt up slightly to expose a scar located about two inches below my belly button. “I’ve had kidney surgery, or bilateral reflux surgery or something.” I started to hear Mom’s taunts in my head, “Kidney Kate! Kidney Kate!” and I hung my head in shame.

  “Or something?” Sergeant Wilkinson asked. “You don’t know what kind of surgery made that scar? This is important, Sarah, what exactly happened to your kidney?”

  I felt extremely ignorant because I really didn’t know the circumstances surrounding the surgery I had when I was very young. Years ago, I had read a notation logged into my baby book that said I had something
called bilateral reflux and I had the procedure performed in 1984 at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago. The only other thing I knew about my surgery was that I ended up with only one functioning kidney on my left side; the side Mom would kick me in over and over while screaming, “Kidney Kate!” at me during one of her abusive tirades.

  I took a deep breath and said, “Sir, I really don’t know. All I know is that I have one functioning kidney, the one on my left side.” I gestured toward my left side with my hand. “I’m really sorry I don’t know more. Is this a problem or something?”

  “Well,” Sergeant Wilkinson said, “it very well could be. I might have to double check, but if you only have one good kidney and you aren’t even sure how good it is, I don’t think you would qualify medically for basic training.”

  I felt like I had been punched in the stomach, and my knees buckled. I sank back into my chair and looked at Sergeant Wilkinson with my mouth agape. “What do you mean qualify medically? I can handle it!” My tone was becoming angrier and my voice level began to rise drastically. I gripped the sides of the chair and leaned forward, forcing myself to maintain direct eye contact with Sergeant Wilkinson. “Are you telling me that I can’t join the military because I had some sort of surgery when I was five years old? How is that going to stop me from being a writer or an analyst?” It didn’t make sense; I thought this was supposed to be easy. Justin said it would be an “in and out” process and I’d be at MEPS with him and off to basic training before I knew it. I should have kept my damn mouth shut! I scolded myself.

  Sergeant Wilkinson leaned back in his chair and cocked his head at me. “Sarah, this isn’t going to stop you from being a writer or an analyst or anything you want to be in life. However, there is a risk of you getting injured easily during basic training and it could end up damaging or, God forbid, destroying your only good kidney.” He gave me a small smile. “Maybe this just wasn’t the path for you.”

  I leaned back in my chair. “So this means no army, no air force, nothing? You’re saying that no one will take me because of a medical condition?” I was ready to beg, plead, and even get down on my knees if he would just forget I had ever said anything about my kidney.

  Sergeant Wilkinson stood up and held out his hand. “I’m sorry, Sarah, but it’s just not possible.”

  “What if I got you doctors’ reports or something, or a form from the hospital that says my kidney is OK?”

  I was desperate at this point to find a solution to this problem but it was to no avail. I could see by the look on Sergeant Wilkinson’s face that he wasn’t going to let me join the army that day or any day, so I stopped talking and stood up. “Thank you for your time,” I said softly; I couldn’t look him in the eyes because I didn’t want him to see the tears welling up in mine.

  “So you don’t join the army!” he exclaimed. “Go home to Mom and Dad and go to college and be that writer you want to be.”

  I couldn’t stand in front of him anymore and listen to him try to give me advice about going home to “Mom and Dad.”

  “Thank you again,” I said, and I turned around, walked out of his office, collapsed onto a small couch in the waiting area outside of the recruiting office door, and buried my head in my hands. What a fool I am! What kind of a stupid girl decides to do something like this? Where will I go, what will I do? I felt like Scarlett O’Hara for a moment, watching Rhett Butler walk away from her forever. And no one gives a damn!

  I dropped my hands from my face and rubbed the scar underneath my belly button. It’s her fault, I thought angrily, It’s her fault I have this problem, I’m sure of it! I’m not even around her and she is still ruining my life. Once I started blaming Mom for my problem I began to feel better, and I was able to stop crying and compose myself while I waited for Justin to come out of the navy office.

  I stood up to get a drink from the water fountain across the room and shoved my hands into my front pockets. I felt the slip of paper Aron had given me right before Justin and I left for the recruiting office. Call me anytime! he had said to me in the parking lot. Before I could pull the paper out of my pocket, I felt a hard slap on my back.

  “I’m in the navy! I’m in the navy!” I turned around and Justin was behind me with a navy baseball cap on his head and a stack of paperwork under his arm. “So, what’s going on with your paperwork?” he asked. “Are you an army brat now?”

  I hung my head down and I heard Justin suck in his breath. “Oh no, Sarah, what happened?” he asked.

  “Some medical issue, Justin, I don’t know,” I answered sadly. “The guy said that because I only have one good kidney, and we don’t even know how good, I won’t qualify for basic training.”

  “This can’t be right!” Justin said. His voice started to get louder. “Does he know that you have nowhere else to go? Why did you tell him in the first place?”

  I couldn’t answer his questions fast enough, and I finally held up my hand and cut him off. “Look, Justin, it is what it is. I can’t change it. I can’t sit here and feel sorry for myself over something that isn’t even my fault!” I had decided that this was Mom’s fault, not mine, and I wasn’t going to let her win again. I felt a rush of adrenaline flow through my veins as I thought of emerging victorious over Mom, and I held my head up high. “Justin, I will figure this out. This is not going to stop me!” I fingered the piece of paper in my pocket again and thought of Aron and how kind he was to me; my face began to feel warm, and I smiled. “I’m going to call Aron!” I said, searching Justin’s face for a reaction. Justin’s brow furrowed and he sat down on the little couch in the waiting room.

  “Sarah, you just left Matt, and I’ll tell you, Aron is kind of a playboy. He travels every weekend for his job and is only home about two or three days a week. He’s a nice guy and all, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to call him. Maybe you should just…” his voice trailed off and he shook his head. “No, you can’t go back. Call Aron, even if it’s just for a place to crash for a few weeks until you find a job or get enrolled in college.”

  It was as if Justin had read my mind; even though I had an immediate attraction toward Aron, my focus was not on getting into another relationship, it was on my survival. Then Justin said something to me that I will never forget: “Sarah, you are a survivor and you always have been.”

  I had never considered myself a survivor before. I lived my life believing that I was being punished for something I had done wrong and that I was a bad child for making my mother act the way she did. Mom had spent so many years beating me and degrading me to make me feel that I wasn’t worth being alive and that I was lower than the dirt under her feet that my entire sense of self-worth was gone and I truly believed I deserved everything I got. Being called a survivor almost felt like a badge of honor, and I thought of all of things I had survived to make it up to this very point in time. There were numerous occasions in my life where Mom could have killed me or I could have killed myself, but something had always stopped her or stopped from completing the task. I am a survivor; she could have killed me a million times but I’m still here. I made it!

  “Come on, help me find a phone.” I held out my hand and helped Justin off of the couch. As absurd as it sounded, I was placing all of my hopes in Aron allowing me to stay at his place for a week or two until I figured out my next move. Justin stood up and we walked down the hall to the main desk. “May I use your phone for a local call?” I asked the military woman behind the counter.

  She picked up the receiver. “Phone number?” she asked with her fingers poised over the numbers. I pulled Aron’s phone number out of my pocket and read his note again. “Call me anytime.” I looked at Justin with fear in my eyes and he patted me on the shoulder.

  “It’ll be fine,” he said, “just give her the number. Aron will let you stay with him for a little bit. I’ll talk to him too if that makes you feel better.”

  I shook my head. “This is my business, and I can take care of it.” I read the number o
ff to the military woman, and she dialed it and handed me the receiver. As the phone rang I started to tremble and shut my eyes. And hold my trembling hand today. Amen.

  “Jewelry Lab!”

  I snapped my eyes open and stammered, “Uh…uh…yes. Is Aron there?”

  “Yeah, hold on a second, I’ll get him.” I heard the person on the other end put the receiver down and holler, “Aron!”

  Oh God, I should just hang up. I can’t believe I’m doing this. He is going to think I’m so stupid. But before I could hand the receiver back to the woman behind the counter I heard, “This is Aron.”

  It was now or never. “Um…Aron? This is Sarah, Justin’s friend?” I was ending every sentence with a question mark as if I didn’t expect Aron to remember who I was.

  “Yeah!” Aron said. “What’s going on? Is something wrong, do you guys need me to pick you up or something?”

  I smiled. “No, no, no, everything’s fine with the car,” I answered. “I have a problem and I…I…” I couldn’t get the words out. I took a deep breath and hurriedly said, “I can’t join the military and I have nowhere to go.” I tensed up, gritted my teeth, and gripped the phone receiver until my knuckles turned white. I was fully expecting Aron to express sympathy for me and regretfully inform me that he couldn’t do anything for me and that I called the wrong person for help. I turned around to Justin and he gave me a reassuring smile as I waited for Aron’s response.

  I didn’t have to wait long; after a brief pause, Aron said, “Of course I’ll help you out. What, do you need a place to stay for a little bit or something?”

  My heart leapt and my teeth began to unclench. “Yes, it wouldn’t be long; just long enough for me to get enrolled into college,” I replied.

  “Well, I’m actually on my way out for a remount show and will be out of town until Monday evening. You can stay in my place while I’m gone.”

  Aron’s chivalry was blowing me away; I couldn’t believe how easy it was for him to say yes to me and be so willing to help me out in a tough situation. “Are you sure?” I asked hesitantly. “You don’t even know me and you’ll let me stay at your place?”