Graves In The Sand

Chapter 1 – Normandy Coast-2

Isabella turned Marie in her lap to look at Cole and pointed, whispering, “Papa,” into Marie’s ear. She perked up for a second, looked at Cole and tried to control a giggling smile on her face. Her dark hair was already starting to curl just like her mother’s. He couldn’t help but smile and laugh to himself. Isabella smiled the same way she had in Martinique when they first met. In that moment, as random as it was, Cole felt weightless. He was, for so many reasons, remarkably happy.

Isabella asked, “What will you do today?”

“I’m going to sweep up a bit, then maybe go for a run. Will you be long?”

“Back for dinner, I’m sure. You could take the car?”

Cole thought for a moment. Isabella’s parents had given the OK for Cole to take their car out from time to time when the opportunity arose. Driving gave him access to the monuments, museums, and beaches of Normandy, and it was a way to unwind from the occasionally monotonous work at the bakery.

“Oui. Maybe I will.”

“Dinner at five, then?” Isabella asked.

“Oui.”

With that, Cole gave Isabella a kiss, cupped the side of Marie’s head with his hand, and kissed her gently on her curled hair. Back downstairs, he found the broom and went to work, first in the kitchen. Isabella’s mother was done with the baking and kitchen work was all but done for the day. It took him the better part of an hour, but by the time he emptied the pan and took out the trash, it was clean and ready for the next morning when she would be up in the cool pre-dawn air to start baking again.

The shop itself was small and took little time to clean. Cole started with the counters, then on to cleaning the glass dividers, and then lastly to the floor which he swept out and into the street. Finally, he swept off the sidewalk and checked the cooler one more time. By the looks of it, the day was slow. On weekends, the children of Carentan often liquidated the ice cream by noon.

He checked in once more with Isabella’s mother who waved him off with a simple, “Merci, Cole.” It was a cue to get on with his day. Changing upstairs, he was back down to the sidewalk and paused to look again down the street at the small flags running on clotheslines perpendicular to the road. American, British, and French flags were evenly distributed up and down each line and they flickered back and forth in the steady midday breeze. Cole smiled. Perhaps it wasn’t his home, but there was nowhere else in the world he wanted to be.

With the sun on his shoulders, he stepped off and started to trot for a few steps before working into a stride towards the water. He’d only been running for the last two months after his injuries in Panama. It felt familiar, but at the same time he had one lung now that wouldn’t keep up with the other. Running now was more about control and restraint so as not to overwork himself. He found that somewhere between an eight and nine-minute mile was a pace he could sustain for a bit. Anything faster triggered a shooting pain in his chest. As he checked his pace and worked his way back and forth between the alleys and roads, Cole looked up to admire the rounded tops of the stone walls and the steeply angled rooftops dotted with patches of green, brown, and yellow moss.



AN HOUR LATER he was showered and into a clean set of clothes. Isabella’s father was at the desk on the second floor and Cole called out, “Bonjour,” as he passed. Without looking up from his work, he replied simply, “Cole.” Stopping and doubling back, Cole caught the keys as her father tossed them at him and said matter-of-factly, “La cuisine est proper.”

Cole was pretty sure it meant literally the kitchen is clean, but he wasn’t sure if it was a question or a compliment. Isabella’s father smiled just a bit, barely enough to even call it one, but it nonetheless seemed a turning point for Cole and the old man. He went back to his work at the desk and said simply, “Au revoir.” Cole smiled to himself as he walked down the last flight of steps.

A Nissan Micra was by no means a racecar, but Cole’s guilty pleasure was to take the absurdly tiny excuse for a vehicle to the ends of its envelope in the roundabouts, blind turns, and straightaways between Carentan and Utah Beach. Outside of Carentan, the countryside was a series of softly rolling hills and narrow roads lined by hedgerows. It was those same hedgerows that had proven such a challenge for the allied forces, and it was a fact that was not lost on Cole as he worked the diminutive gears up and over the hills. There were sleepy cattle huddled in many of the fields and lush green crops growing in the others. The smaller villages all looked remarkably similar in construction. It was the old style of hand-laid stones, tiled roofs, and low stone walls marking the perimeters. Looking out over the expanse of northern France from the crest of each hill, a picture emerged each time worthy of a painting.

Utah Beach was a quick 20-minute drive, one that Cole had already taken several times. He’d been to Omaha as well and walked the American Cemetery, but he preferred Utah as it was the more quiet of the two. For good reason, Omaha drew tourists each day that visited the cemetery and toured the battlefield. On summer days, it was crowded. Utah, on the other hand, had a bit more of an original feel to it. Other than a museum tucked into the sand, it was relatively undisturbed by modern construction. The dunes were lower and the secluded beach nearly always allowed for a quiet spot to sit and look out on the English Channel. To the east, Pointe Du Hoc jutted out into the channel, concealing Omaha Beach from view.

Cole most often parked a bit down the road, walked a new meandering route each time, and found a spot to sit and catch his mind up with the past days’ events. He’d toured the museum as well, but after two visits the displays became less interesting. The trip was more about the beach, anyhow. One picture that was cemented into his memory from inside the museum showed American troops climbing down rope ladders to the waiting landing craft. It was that photo, more than anything else, that Cole always found himself thinking about. Sitting on the beach, he’d stare out at the calm blue water and wonder what had gone through the minds of those men as they climbed down to make their mark in history. The sheer will it must have taken to advance towards what many thought would be their death was not lost on Cole.

Most of the white crosses and stars at the Omaha Beach cemetery bore the names, units, home state, and date of each service member’s death. He was never certain who had it worst, the ones who died on the sixth of June, or those who trudged through the hedgerows and flooded low plains for months only to be killed later in the summer by Germans who still hadn’t found the good sense to accept their fate. With these things on his mind, he preferred the solitude of Utah Beach. That was not to suggest that he ever found answers to his questions and his mind usually turned at some point back to Carentan and his new life. Had there been palm trees tucked back from the water and a rock jutting out from the sea, the beach could have easily been a near-perfect recreation Le Diamant, where he and Isabella had spent one of his favorite afternoons. An hour at Utah Beach was usually all it took and he’d make the drive back, finding a parking spot on the street to return the Micra with no one the wiser about his manner of driving.



BACK BY MID-AFTERNOON, Cole took one last run through the kitchen to clean up. Isabella’s mother had cooked something, as a few bowls were dirty and in the sink. He quickly went about cleaning them, returning each to its proper place then swept up some flour off the floor just as she was coming in. Startled for just a second, she said a quick hello and then, “Merci,” when she saw that Cole had already cleaned up what she had come back for.

It wasn’t much longer before Isabella was back with Marie and Cole quickly scooped up his baby to get her ready for a bath. In a small antique tub upstairs, he’d mastered the art of bathing an infant. With a mat for Marie, he could lay her down and manage to keep the girl happy long enough to scrub her down, shampoo her hair, and dry her off. Cole’s routine consisted of a series of out-of-tune noises he could make with his mouth while he washed her. Marie found them hilarious, especially when she’d had a good night of sleep the night before. If she hadn’t slept well, it could be a different story, but even under those circumstances, Cole could work quickly to get her dried off and into something warm for the cool summer nights.

Dinner was never elaborate, but it was always good on account of Isabella’s mother. Afterwards, Cole usually took Marie into the living room and spent some time with her while Isabella chatted with her parents. His game of choice was to call out body parts and point to them. Marie was just now beginning to point to her nose when Cole did and by the time he’d worked through all the parts of a human face, Isabella was usually there to join him. They’d talk in English, as Cole’s French was still not at a decent level for conversation. A rug in the corner with some toys and stuffed animals was a play area where Marie would give crawling a go and work out the last bits of energy before Isabella or Cole put her to bed for the night.

As they sat on a couch, both watching Marie, Isabella put her head down on Cole’s shoulder and asked, “How was the beach?”

“Quiet, as usual.”

“What do you like so much about it?”

Cole thought for a second before replying, “It’s just nice to see the water sometimes.”

“You are quiet when you come back from there. I wonder about you, Cole.”

He turned to face her. “And what do you wonder about?”

She smiled. “Just what you’re thinking. Sometimes you are so serious about things.”

Cole poked at her ribs and tickled her just a bit. As she wiggled to stop him, he laughed, saying, “I’m pretty damn serious about you.”

“Maybe you could go work on a fishing boat, if you miss the water so much?”

Isabella was serious, but Cole laughed.

“You’re telling me you want me to smell like fish every night?”

She shook her head, but continued, “No, but if you miss the water so much….Do you want to be back on the water? Driving boats again?”

Cole smiled and shook his head. “No, not at all. I like this life, our life. And I like those pizzas for lunch over fish, so long as your mom leaves off the egg.”

With that, they were both back to their old selves. Cole could feel it and he could see it on Isabella’s face that she was happy. But there were these moments, just like this last one, where she seemed to be probing to get deeper into Cole’s head. It was as if there was some new element to their relationship that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Was it motherhood? He couldn’t see outward signs of it all the time, but he would catch her at random moments as if something was on the verge of troubling her. She’d been entirely carefree on those nights in Martinique and part of Cole longed for that innocence.

It was true that he’d left her at a critical time, but at that point he had no idea she was even pregnant. Nor did he have any intention of being caught with a boatload of cocaine, dragged back to the States, and then turned into a double agent. If that hadn’t been enough, he certainly had never planned to end up back in Panama shooting it out with David outside of a whorehouse. f**k David, he thought.

Cole was done with all of that. In the days that followed the shootout, he’d rid himself of the uncontrollable adrenaline that had guided his decisions in the past years. Once he’d found out Isabella was pregnant, Cole more or less felt himself grow out of those reckless ways. Even if he’d wanted more of it, he was smart enough now to know the risks outweighed the reward. When Tony had followed through with his promise to get Cole to France, that was where it all ended and a new life began.

Cole had missed the bulk of Isabella’s pregnancy. Maybe that was it? He’ been truthful with her and they’d talked at length once he got to France. They had both been candid and Cole was made aware of the strains she’d been through. But once Marie came along, it seemed they were stronger than ever. He thought back to her last question—about boats. Perhaps it wasn’t her at all that was different. Perhaps it was simply his past that worried her. Cole hated to admit it, but his dark side worried him at times as well.

Snapping him back to the moment, Isabella lifted her head from Cole’s shoulder and looked down at Marie. Cole had not noticed that she’d slowed down considerably from her earlier movements. Isabella smiled and nodded to Cole, looking down at their daughter. She slid down from the couch where they were sitting and scooped up Marie into her arms. Bringing her over to Cole, he kissed her on the forehead and Isabella walked softly across the room and up the steps to put her into the crib, whispering a lullaby softly and in French.

Cole walked to the kitchen, nodded to Isabella’s parents and took a Heineken from the refrigerator. Walking back across the second floor, he took a new seat by a window and opened the wooden shutters to look down on the street below. The flags still danced a bit in the evening breeze as the sun made its late June departure. There was light still in the sky at nine o’clock when Cole made his way upstairs to their bedroom. Isabella was tucked in to their bed and he could hear Marie breathing softly in her crib. He stopped next to the crib for a moment or two just to watch her before stepping around to his side of the bed, laying his clothes down on the floor, and climbing in.

Isabella’s dark and curly hair was mostly up and over her head, draped over the pillow just as Cole remembered from that unforgettable first night in Martinique. She was facing Cole and as he laid down she opened her eyes with a shy smile across her face. He was lying right next to her, their feet touching when Cole pulled her in close and they kissed in such a way that would have embarrassed her parents. After a few minutes, Isabella lifted her head back just a bit and stared intently into his eyes. With her left arm across his neck and her hand on the back of his head, she reached up and grabbed a handful of his mangled dirty-blond hair. Gripping tightly, she wrestled his head for a second before pulling him in close to her and whispering, “I love you, Cole Williams.”

Cole looked at her for a moment and replied, “And I love you.”



THE FOLLOWING morning played out much the same as the previous. Cole woke, on his own, shortly after five in the morning, and made his way downstairs to start the day. Cooler than normal, Cole walked quickly to shake the chill from his bones. He made several trips back and forth from the bakery, each time with two full bags. Some were for restaurants, but many were deliveries to the local families around Carentan that had come to rely on Isabella’s family for their weekly bread.

After finishing his last delivery, Cole walked a different route back to the bakery. That afternoon, he planned to once again go for a run and perhaps start working on some pushups and pullups if he could find something suitable to hang from. The military doctors that released him had given some clear instructions on when Cole could work out again. He was only supposed to be walking at this point, but he knew his limits far better than some doctor in a starched lab coat.

On the way back, he traced some of the walls with his fingers along edges that seemed to bear holes and deformations from the war and he stopped from time to time to look at them more closely. From local knowledge, he knew of the verifiable damage and some of the intersections that saw the most intense gunfire. With many of the other roads and junctions, there was no way to know for sure what was what, but Cole enjoyed the guessing game and would stop at intersections along the way to draw out lines of fire in his mind.

Back at the bakery, Cole went to work cleaning up in the kitchen. Not long into the task, Isabella’s mother called from the store for him. He walked casually from the kitchen and looked for her, but his eyes stopped short of halfway through their scan of the bakery and focused squarely on the shadow of a man standing just inside the doorway.

“Tony?”

Cole stood in the narrow hall leading in from the kitchen for just a second, unsure of what to think.

“Hey Cole, how you been?”

Cole smacked his hands against his legs back and forth to shake off the flour from the kitchen and asked, “What are you doing here?”

Tony never let his gaze leave Cole’s eyes.

“We need to talk, Cole.”