A Shot to Die For Read Online Free PDF Page A

Him freely and willingly.”
    “Hold on. Either there is free will or there isn’t.”
    “We believe there is a destiny to everything, Ellie.” His eyes twinkled. “Even if we must nudge it along now and then.”
    He crossed the tiny yard to my vegetable plot. We’d built it last month, edging the sides with railroad ties. We’d turned the earth, enhanced it with manure, and planted radishes, cucumbers, and beans. The next day, in a frenzy of optimism, I’d added tomatoes. I’d been monitoring the seedlings, watching them sprout and thicken and marveling at the wonders of nature.
    Now Fouad examined them. “You have not been watering.” I felt like I’d been scolded.
    “I have. But yesterday, I didn’t get a chance, and well, you know.…”
    He went back to the pickup. Rummaging around in the bed, he pulled out a yellow sprinkler that had seen better days, brought it over, and attached it to my hose. He nodded at me to turn on the water. A few jets spurted out sideways, but most of the spray landed on the plants. I could have sworn they bent gratefully toward the water. He nodded again and surveyed the rest of the yard. Either it met with his approval, or he had something else on his mind. He turned to me.
    “How is Rachel?”
    I told him about her crisis of leisure. He smiled but again I could see an anxious look embedded in it. “What’s wrong, Fouad?”
    He didn’t answer right away. Then he folded his arms. “Ahmed.” His voice was tight.
    Fouad’s son was about to start his senior year at Johns Hopkins. A premed student, he’d been interested in neurosurgery, although Fouad said that changed whenever he started a new rotation. He was an excellent student and was already being courted by several prestigious medical schools.
    “What about him?”
    “He wants to go to Iraq.”
    “Iraq?” I felt a chill. “Why?”
    Fouad reached into his back pocket for a small pruner and squatted down beside the columbine. He didn’t move, and the pruner dangled from his fingers. “You know Ahmed’s mother, Hayat, is Iraqi,” he said at last.
    “Of course.”
    “We met here in America. Well—since the war, Ahmed has been—voicing strong opinions about the situation.”
    “He’s not alone.”
    “But in Ahmed’s case, it’s more—extreme. He feels he should be over there.” Fouad straightened up. “He says Iraqi blood flows through his veins, and it is time he did something for his ‘countrymen.’”
    I bit my lip. I could understand Ahmed’s need to prove himself. To define himself as separate from his parents. But the thought of a child going to a place a shade short of anarchy was every parent’s nightmare. “What does he want to do?”
    “He met a girl, the daughter of an Iraqi expatriate. She is also a premed student. They want to work in a hospital together.”
    A girlfriend yet. “Have you met her?”
    He shook his head. “Hayat is not comfortable with the idea. For all her American ways, she is very traditional when it comes to her children’s lives.”
    “What are you saying? That she wants an arranged marriage for Ahmed?”
    Fouad shrugged.
    “Oh boy.” I studied the columbine. How much of Ahmed’s desire to go to Iraq was genuine, I wondered, and how much was wrapped up in his girlfriend? He was twenty-one, an age when children often do the opposite of what their parents expect. Pursuing a relationship over his parents’ tacit, or not so tacit, objections—even fleeing to Iraq because of it—sounded like the sort of rebellion a son might wage.
    At the same time, though, working in a hospital wasn’t, intrinsically, a bad thing. It was altruistic. Idealistic. The kind of goal you’d join the Peace Corps for. And a hospital is supposed to be a safe harbor. Theoretically. “How long does he want to stay?”
    “A year.” He ran his hand over his head. “I’m afraid, Ellie…for his—their—safety.” Fouad looked as if his heart was about to break.
    I shook my head.