“Wait for me; I’m going to bring you home!”

   “Mom, come back, come back…,” cried Phil, as his arms flailed about trying to reach out to his mother and bring her back. The miasma clouded his vision as she and her plane with the bloodied passengers drifted further away from him, going down, down, down. He struggled on leaden legs to get to her, but she remained out of reach. He opened his eyes and grasped.  The realization that he had a bad dream did not make it less frightening. This nightmare was a regular one; his mind could not accept what had happened; the loss of  his mother stayed with him like a constant knife to his heart.    

    Although the incident took place many years ago, the terrible memory remained fresh in his mind. He shook his head as if to get away from the nightmares that continued to haunt his dreams, keeping him rooted in that awful time.

   Ten-year-old Phil was home that day, suffering from flu. He remembered his mother’s last words to him, “Phil, I love you so much. Take care of your little sisters and tell them I love them. Be brave, sweetheart!”

   Barely able to comprehend what was happening, Phil hadn’t been able to say anything in return except cry out, “Mom! Mom!” before his father took the phone back and held him close.    

  “I’m going to rush the cockpit with some passengers to stop the terrorists from doing any more damage!” she told her helpless husband in her last phone call from the doomed, hijacked plane.

   The courageous group had forced the terrorists to crash the plane in a remote area instead of going for some other crucial targeted building. Along with the other brave souls, they had helped save many lives while sacrificing their own.   

   As he did most days, Phil looked at the family photo he had placed on his phone, focusing on his mom’s sparkling blue eyes, so much like his own. She smiled lovingly at him now in the dim light filtering through the louvered window. Phil’s mind boomeranged back to that family vacation in Egypt, where the picture was taken just three months before the attacks. One of his younger sisters was walking towards the Sphinx, while one wanted to climb the pyramid steps, and his elder brother was still talking to the camel owner. He had helped his parents assemble his siblings for this classic picture in front of the Great Pyramid of Giza.   

   The grins that everyone had given to the camel owner who clicked the camera made a perfect family portrait, the last one they would have together. Phil could still remember that carefree, loving moment he was never to experience again. 

           Phil Rosenthal sat up in his bed and looked out at the turquoise blue water beyond the beach, brightened by the orange glow of the sun. It was a beautiful morning, as usual. A dog barked, and the squawking seagulls interrupted the gentle sound of the waves that lapped the shore. He was usually the first one to join the coach who led the morning run on the beach. He wondered about his nightmare, which had visited him again after not doing so for a long time. Why did I feel that something was wrong? He brushed his hand over his face and hair to get the sinking feeling out of his mind and got up.

  “Shambu! Wake up, let’s get going,” he shook his sleepy roommate’s shoulders on his way to the bathroom. It always felt good to get in some early morning exercise before work began.

  “My head hurts. I need an excuse for today,” groaned Shambu. “Really, man; I’m a wreck. Phil, please tell the coach I’m sick. I need my sleep. Last night was too much!”

  “That’s not going to work, buddy. You’ve already tried enough excuses. The coach isn’t going to let you off the hook this time. Come on; it’s so nice outside!” Phil pulled his roommate’s blanket off, and grudgingly, Shambu sat up.

   Shambu’s drama in the mornings had become a daily routine over the last nine months since they had been at Borders, a university started by United Nations in Nancowry, one of India’s beautiful Nicobar Islands.  Shambu, Phil had noticed, could go for hours training the monkeys and trailing the peacocks. But, he could not see the benefit of regular exercise.

Rebecca had introduced him to the school. She had discovered the information about the school from her involvement with Doctors without Borders. Phil had just finished his Master’s in Business Administration from Stanford University and was looking for an avenue to make an impact in the world.

   “Why don’t you give this a try, Phil,” she said in messaging him the details, about a year back. “I think this place would be perfect for you!”  

   The place was everything Phil needed. He mentally thanked Rebecca every day for her suggestion. The 27 students carefully selected from around the world were there to become diplomats, trained together to solve the problems of the world. From his early years, especially after his Mom’s tragedy, Phil felt a need to do something; for the world that needed him to make a difference. He spoke of this often with Rebecca, and perhaps some of his ideas had rubbed off onto her when she began to envision a career in the same direction.  

   Sure enough, she earned her medical degree, and after her residency at the local hospital, she joined Doctors without Borders. It wasn’t long before she informed him of her latest plan.

   “Phil, I’m going to Afghanistan in a week,” she texted. “And Ron has also signed up and will be joining me!” She even added a winking emoji.

   “Is it safe over there, Becks?” he asked, concerned for his friend’s welfare. “Afghanistan’s roads are notoriously dangerous, with frequent militant attacks and kidnappings; most of them carried out by the Taliban. Most Western nations advise against all but essential travel to that country.”

   “We have a legitimate program affiliated with the government there,” she assured him. “We’re going to treat and train locals; nobody’s going to attack us for doing good work; be assured that we’ll be safe. Relax, dude!”

      Over the last year, Phil had often heard Ron Clooney mentioned and hoped Ron was the one for Rebecca. Her independent spirit and assertive personality had so far not been conducive to long-term relationships. One had to get to know her to uncover her gentle, loving side; Rebecca would be the first to help anyone with a problem. Perhaps Ron had seen through her tough exterior, and Rebecca had finally found her soulmate. 

   Surprised that Rebecca was on his mind the first thing today, Phil sighed, and leaving Shambu to struggle out of bed,  pulled on a T-shirt and shorts, and headed over to the recreation room to get the newspaper and some coffee while he waited for his friend and colleague. As he sipped the strong, black brew, he glanced through the paper; the headlines on the third page caught his attention.

  “UN Team bombed in Afghanistan,” he read, andimmediately, his heart began to race; he put the coffee cup down on the table and read on. With each word, he plunged deeper into shock and despair.

  “Oh, no, no!” he cried out aloud as he got up and began pacing up and down, rereading what he had already read, hoping and again praying there was some mistake in the names and dates and locations. “Oh, God, no!” 

   Hair still wet and tousled from his shower, Shambu wandered into the room and saw the anguish on Phil’s face. He glanced over the American’s shoulder at the headline.

  “Bad news?” he asked. 

  “She’s my friend,” said Phil, pointing to a paragraph in the article. “This girl, Rebecca Fainey, we were neighbors.   Not only neighbors, but she’s also my best friend; we’re very close.”

  Phil continued reading as he sat down at the table, forgetting his coffee that was now cold. He browsed through the pictures of the United Nations team members who had died. There was no picture of Rebecca.

  “They don’t have a picture of Rebecca,” yelled Phil as he frantically searched the paper as though her picture could have ended up somewhere else; the sports page, business, and finance, the entertainment section. … Where was she?

   “That’s understandable,” assured Shambu as he glanced through another copy of a newspaper from the pile neatly stacked up next to the coffee machine. “It could mean they haven’t found her body. The papers have probably been asked to keep her photo out of the news so that she has a good chance of survival in case she’s still alive in that area among hostile elements.”

   “In these times of social networking, once an identity is known, it won’t be difficult for anyone to get a picture,” added Ismail, who had joined them and was scanning the newspaper with Shambu.   

   “She’ll be exposed if she has posted on social media,” Ismail insisted. “It’s shocking how much information you can get about people online. But over there in the mountains, there might be no newspapers, let alone the internet.” He contradicted himself and sat down next to Phil browsing through the article.

     “This is terrible,” cried Phil as he slumped in his chair, suddenly looking like a lost little boy. Ismail and Shambu looked at each other. Their friend was in pain, and they had no idea of  how to comfort him.

   “True. What a tragedy! And what’s most upsetting about the situation is that Rebecca had gone to the country to help. God help us!” bellowed Ismail raising his hands to the sky. Phil studied Ismail. Yes, he had the same question, and he thought Ismail would be closer to answering the question than him. Ismail was from Jerusalem and had always been patient about answering the endless questions Phil had about the religious philosophy and the mentality of the fanatics. He shook his head.

   “I have to do something,” lamented Phil desperately with his face in his hands as if to shut out the mental image of his best friend in peril.

   Ismail put his arm around Phil’s shoulder.

   “Phil, are you sure this is your Rebecca? Could it be someone else in Afghanistan?”

   “Yes, how can you be so certain this is your friend? There could be many people with that same name,” suggested Shambu. “Just Google Rebecca Fainey, and see what a long list pops up!”

   “I’m sure it’s my friend,” he replied quietly. “What are the odds of more than one Rebecca Fainey working with Doctors without Borders’s in Afghanistan…with Ron Clooney?”

   Phil realized that even if Rebecca had survived, Ron had not, and his heart went out to her, knowing how hard it would be for her to endure the loss, wherever she was. He went back to the newspaper and saw Ron’s smiling face. Phil then tossed the paper aside and began to pace the floor.

  “First Mom, and now, Rebecca!” his mind reeled. “What have I ever done to deserve this?”

   Back and forth, he went with his fists tightly clenched. He wanted to strike out at someone, something, but who, what, where? He wanted to lash out at anything even remotely responsible for his pain and forget all rationality. The frustration of the unknown drove him crazy, and his mind raced through all the possibilities that his friend might be facing so far from home. What if she had died? He groaned.

   “Let’s hope that at the end of our training, we join a team and go on assignments together,” she suggested when they had parted; they had high fived then and that wish now seemed so long ago. Her messages on Instagram repeated this theme. “Wish you were here!” or “Missing you!” They were always added to her bubbly images. He wanted to scream, but mostly he wanted to weep for his loss, just like he did on that other fateful day, also in September. 

   His mother was the glue that kept the family together, and after her death, the whole family fell apart. Phil thought about his sister, Maggie, who had become a drug addict. The medication she had been taking to help her cope with the trauma of losing her mother had taken over her young life.

    What went wrong? Phil wondered. Was Dad’s second marriage to be blamed? Did he ignore Maggie in the process of healing his pain? Did I?

   Whatever the reason, and he realized they were all coping, Phil would have done anything to stop the conflict that raged between them whenever they spoke. He’d have given anything to have his sweet sister back, but that was impossible. 

   Rebecca had been the one constant in his life throughout, a steady rock that bolstered him as he dealt with his heartbreaks. She filled the void left empty by his losses –mother, sister, and friend. They were inseparable and discussed everything that was going on in their lives, openly and honestly, valuing each other’s opinions. The strong bond between the pair saw them through good times and bad into their adulthood, as they relied on each other for friendship and comfort. He could never have gotten through the tragedy without her, and now, there was a possibility he would never see her again.

  Rebecca, I’m going to find you and punish the fiends who did this to you! He tried to communicate his message mentally, hoping that their strong bond would allow her to hear him. He wondered what she could be doing right now and shuddered at the thought that she was tortured or dead.   

   Rebecca, please hold on, be strong, my angel! he pleaded. Wait for me; I’m coming for you; I’m going to bring you home if it’s the last thing I ever do … I promise!