This Time by Kristin Leigh Page A

who was that?” Madelynn skipped up to her side.
    “It was my friend Michael.” Tara ran her fingers through Madelynn’s hair. How should she handle this? Should she tell Madelynn about her daddy and let her figure her feelings out or let her become friends with Michael first?
    “Why did he say thanks?” Madelynn, ever curious, asked.
    Tara knelt down in front of her daughter. “Michael is very lonely and very sick. He said thanks because he’s very glad to have friends. When he gets better, he’s going to come see us. He wants to be your friend too.”
    Madelynn chewed her lip thoughtfully. “Why is he sick? Does he have a temperature? Or strep throat?” Madelynn had been plagued with strep throat the year before and had finally ended up getting her tonsils out.
    “No honey, he’s a different kind of sick. But he’ll get better soon and come see us.” Tara stroked Madelynn’s hair gently. “Would you like that?”
    “Can he play Candyland?” Madelynn knew exactly what her five-year-old priorities were. Tara laughed and thought that it must be nice to have everything so well-defined.
    “If he can’t, then you can teach him.” Tara grinned at Madelynn and leaned over to press a kiss to her forehead.
    Madelynn grinned back. “Okay, Mommy, I’ll teach him.” She hesitated and then asked, “Can we play Candyland now? Just so I don’t forget how.”
    Tara smiled down at Maddie, sure her daughter probably had a successful career as an attorney ahead of her. “Sure honey, we can play now.”
    * * * *
    Someone was screaming again. Mike woke up from the nightmare, his throat aching and his leg throbbing. Another flashback.
    Two nurses ran into his room as if they were on fire. Were they running from whoever was screaming?
    The explosion rocked his Humvee. He felt himself fly upward, and his head hit the roof of the vehicle. Blackness.
    “Chief Davis!” One of the nurses yelled. “Chief Davis, you have to calm down!”
    A mortar went off somewhere close-by. Sand, rocks, and shrapnel sprayed his body as he gained consciousness again. Turning over, he looked around for his soldiers.
    “Chief Davis, we’re going to have to sedate you!” A voice yelled from just inside the doorway. Two male nurses held each of his arms. Why were they holding him down and yelling? Sedate him? Why?
    “Your soldiers are gone, Chief!”
    Gone. His leg was gone. Where was it? Dazed, he looked around, expecting to see a whole leg that could be reattached like a Lego block.
    “Go ahead and sedate him,” he heard a voice that sounded like Dr. Walters say as if from a distance. Someone was still screaming, but hoarse, sporadic cries now that sounded panicked and terrified. Poor bastard. He felt a pin prick in his left arm. Why were they sedating him? The screams died down to whimpers and gradually faded.
    “Tourniquet applied approximately seventeen hundred thirty two hours. Limb was missing upon arrival.” He was hefted into a Blackhawk with the medic symbol on the side.
    Blackness again, deep, endless blackness and the bliss of dreamless sleep.
    * * * *
    “Why do you think the memories come back in dreams, and you have flashbacks of those while you’re conscious?” Dr. Andrea Walters asked, blinking behind her glasses.
    Mike squirmed uncomfortably. “Aren’t you the shrink? Aren’t you supposed to tell me that?”
    “Perhaps. But I’m interested to know what you think.” She wrote something down on her yellow pad.
    Mike sighed. “Same old, same old. Because it was a traumatic event, and my subconscious has repressed the memories, so they come in flashes, and while I’m asleep, and blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda.”
    Dr. Walters put her pencil down. “That’s a very good recital of a typical diagnoses. Now tell me what you think. Why can’t you recall these things while you’re awake without believing you’re there?”
    Mike shifted on the couch. It was hard to sit down, and it was even harder to get up. It