Stephen wanted the phone only slightly more then he wanted out of the one-dimensional monologue. He leaned over and gripped Tomlison’s arm and told the driver, “Give me a minute to land this call.”
“Roger that, Sarge. Of course.” Tomlison placed an elbow on the window seam while keeping his right arm relaxed on the wheel of the humvee and settled back into his happy place among the bumper-to-bumper traffic of the barren desert road.
Stephen did his best to listen for Sarah to answer her phone over the steady rumble of the convoy. He knew it would be evening but not before Hailey went to bed so there was a good chance he could speak with her too. Conversing inside the humvee was a difficult, but not impossible task over the roar from the engines ahead. Satellite phones had a decent history of retaining the connection long enough to have a full conversation with someone. Conversations with Sarah had been somewhat infrequent. Communication during the conversations, even less so. Each of their discussions were an attempt to catch up while trying to deal with the challenges of deployment, separation and the pressures of everyday life.
When Sarah finally answered there was a volley of “hellos” as they both attempted to confirm the connection, appreciate the sound of each other’s voice, and do their best to avoid talking over one another.
“Did you say Hailey’s already in bed?” Stephen hadn’t been able to talk with Hailey the last time he called because she had been running a fever and gone to bed early. Sarah’s insistence that their daughter was routinely exhausted was a compounding of frustration as he already struggled with the fact that he couldn’t tuck his little girl into bed each night. “Can’t you just wake her up?” he complained. “She’s three, Sarah, not thirteen.” Among the challenges he had during his deployment, infrequent conversations with Hailey during his rare calls home tested his patience more than anything.
Sarah sighed, “I can’t right now. She needs her rest. I know it goes without saying but I need you to know we really miss you.” His wife continued on with their conversation but Stephen could read a tone that hinted at something else needing to be addressed.
“You know I would be there if I could. But I know you gals will be fine until I get back.”
“I know. But it’s not just the normal stuff anymore.” Sarah’s voice seemed to quiver.
“Is everything okay? Sarah? What’s going on?” Sensing the fear in her voice, Stephen mentally shifted into fix-it mode.
“Stephen, Hailey’s still sick.”
“What did you say? She’s sick again?”
“No, not again. She hasn’t gotten better since the last time we spoke… I just don’t know,” Sarah’s voice trailed off as the connection began to crackle, and Stephen knew there was a chance they could get cut off at any moment.
“Did you say she hasn’t gotten better? It’s been almost a month. How can she still be sick? Did you take her to Dr. Bennet? What did he say? Did he give her…”
Sarah interrupted but her voice faded, “Stephen, I did. Listen, I spoke to… Stephen, he sent us to…”
“She shouldn’t be sick this long. Has my mother come by?” The abrupt, commanding tone of his voice caused the rest of the humvee to pause their sideline conversations. Each man respectfully pretended to be disinterested and stared off into their own far off piece of unchanging desert landscape.
“Yes, you’re mother has been wonderful. Rebecca’s here almost every day when she’s not taking your father to his therapy appointments.” Sarah tried to regain control of their conversation but she was unsure of what was most important to say during their short chance to talk and the risk of losing the call at any moment.
“Then maybe you need to take Hailey to another doctor off post,” Stephen interrupted again, “they can run some tests and find out why she isn’t getting better.”
Continually pressed by her husband’s aggressive tone, Sarah’s tone turned direct and forceful. “Stephen, listen to me. The military’s program doesn’t work the same way your company insurance did. When you activated with the Guard and we switched over to the Army’s program, sure, we got the lower rates and that’s been great for our budget, but we don’t get to choose which doctors we use now.”
Unfazed by the frustration he was causing her, Stephen unconsciously sought to manage his wife’s efforts. “Okay. Look Sarah, I may not be there but I can still help. On base there’s got to be another family practice we can use.”
“There’s not. Don’t you think I thought of that?” Taking deeper breaths, Sarah held a firm grip on the phone and tried not to let her husband’s lecture spark off her temper. “Stephen, that’s not the real problem. I need you to…”
Grasping for ideas in a situation he didn’t fully understand, Stephen continued, “You should be able to get some kind of referral to a specialist or something. You have to push for it, Sarah. Don’t let them push you around. Stay on them.”
Patiently ignoring the fact that her husband was speaking to her like he would one of his soldiers, Sarah paused and let out a long sigh. “Stephen. Yes. That’s what I was trying to tell you. They are sending us to a specialist.”
A sense of powerlessness came over him as Stephen realized he truly had no way of helping. They seemed to have always struggled with Hailey’s health, more so than other parents. She was that kid who was constantly fighting an ear or sinus infection. The common cold was never more common than with Hailey. But this seemed different; she had never been sick continuously. For a brief moment, he quietly questioned his wife’s ability to navigate their daughter through the confusion of the military medical bureaucracy. A burning anguish filled him as he levied unjustified blame on Sarah, and he dropped his tone from commanding to condescending. “Well then, you tell me what’s wrong with her, Sarah? She can’t be sick for an entire month and the doctor still not know what it is.”
Sarah took in a deep breath as doubt hovered above her next words. Part of her wanted to dump the news on him in repayment for the lecture she had just endured. Another part didn’t want to tell him at all. If she didn’t say it, would it be any less real? Her husband was on the other side of the world with no actual ability to step in and help. Would knowing do anything but worry and distract him? She thought about his own wartime stress and the fear of him not being able to function because he could be distracted by their daughter’s health. What if being distracted caused him to do something that got him killed? Her fears overwhelmed her and as she began speaking before coming up with the words to say.
“They’re not sure but the doctors are worried Hailey might have something called neuro…ma.” A crackle of the phone’s connection suggested a strain in the signal. “It’s a…”
Stephen couldn’t restrain his tone as he fought with the aggravating combination of not being able to hear Sarah completely through the engine roar and periodic breaks of the phone while the signal traveled to outer space and back. The stress of knowing something was wrong with Hailey only compounded his impatience and his voice rose with a harsh edge over the sound of the transports. “What? She has neuro-base, what? What is that? What does that mean?”
“No. We’re not sure if she has it. We don’t know yet. The doctor said it might be a neuroblastoma. It’s a form of …” She sounded as if she was struggling to maintain her own patience with the choppy connection, but Stephen could tell it was more than the connection that filled his wife’s voice with a fearful hesitation.