The waiter set their glasses down on the table and broke the spell. She felt flushed and was tempted to use the menu as a fan.
“Madame?” The waiter asked.
“I’m sorry?” What was the question?
“You were going to order,” Jordan reminded her.
“Oh, right.” She glanced at him again, but couldn’t hold his gaze — it was still too intense. “The shish kabob, tabouleh, and hummus, please.”
The waiter bowed and took the menus. Emme sipped the cool water, taking a moment to slow her heart beat. “Where are you stationed?”
“North Carolina.”
“Do you like the Army?”
He didn’t answer right away. “It was all I ever wanted to do.”
Emme set her glass on the table. “You said ‘was’.”
Jordan ran both his hands over his head. “What I wanted was a lot more clear when I was younger.”
“And now?”
“Now it’s about the men and women in my unit. Making sure they have a leader they can trust and look to when the shit hits the fan.”
She nodded. Her dad had said pretty much the same thing. It wasn’t about the Army or the mission. It had been about the people in his unit — the people he’d commanded.
“What about you?” Jordan asked. “What made you decide on nursing?”
She took a sip of her water. “My junior year of high school, I volunteered at a hospital in the pediatric ward. It struck me that the vast majority of the caregivers were nurses. The doctors would roll in on rounds, but the nurses did everything. Got to know the families and the kids. Could recite every fact about their patients. Then I met one who was a nurse practitioner. She could do everything a family doctor could do, but she still got to spend time with her patients.”
She shrugged and took a sip of water. “I decided that was what I wanted to do.”
“You like it,” Jordan said.
She smiled. “I love being a nurse.” It was the one thing in her life she’d always been sure of.
“And Mali. What made you go there?”
“One of my professors had spent a year in Thailand. She said it was one of the most rewarding experiences of her career.” She shrugged. “The opportunity came up and I took it.”
He fiddle with this straw. “Was it? Rewarding?”
“Yes. It was also incredibly frustrating.”
“Why?”
How to explain in a way he’d understand? “It was hard not to inject my western ideals and morals into their culture. To understand that I was only there for a short time and no matter how much I wanted to change things, it didn’t mean what I wanted for them was better.”
“What kind of things did you want to change?”
She sighed. “To keep girls in school longer. To teach them a skill to support themselves so they wouldn’t have to marry at such a young age. Practice birth control so even if they did have to marry, they wouldn’t get pregnant.” She shook her head. “Frustrating.”
“And the rewarding part?”
“When a girl finishes school and gets accepted to university. The pride I could see in them.”
“Are you going to go back?”
