When All Is Said and Done

© 2011 by Marilyn Joseph. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 06/27/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4634-2385-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4634-2384-1 (dj)

ISBN: 978-1-4634-2383-4 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011910068

Printed in the United States of America

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This book is printed on acid-free paper.

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Contents

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Dedication

On June 13, 2008, the world lost Tim Russert, a self-effacing broadcast journalist who was the teacher of teachers to the media world.

Tim’s honesty, professionalism and sense of humor uniquely qualified him to represent both the news and the audience he served in reporting the news. He and his work will never be replicated. The character of Mitch McGill is the protégé of what Tim exemplified as a broadcast journalist.

On January 18, 2010, another hero went to heaven, our brother and uncle, Bernie Joseph. His first comment to me when he read the first book in the trilogy, Grace Flowing Freely, was, Mare, why so much music and food? I said, Bernie, you’ll understand when you read the third book.

Bernie knows all about the book from his eternal home because we believe in the Communion of Saints as part of our Creed.

When All Is Said and Done is co-dedicated in loving memory to Tim Russert and Bernie Joseph, one of my two rocks. My hope is you have met and, over your Rolling Rock, Tim, and your favorite French Nougats, Bernie, you think the ending to this trilogy is a good one.

BOOK THREE

Fear has the capacity to paralyze. It is a mindset undermining hope. It neither discriminates against nor isolates its victims. Fear is an illusion sticking around until it is no longer confounded by whatever caused its birth. But until the danger passes, if it ever does, fear haunts. And it paralyzes.

M.J.

Prologue

1987-2003

Mamoud Masood held little warmth for his future wife, Sadah, from the first time he was forced to have a meal with her under the powerful gaze of his father. In fact, he had little interest in anything other than his trade as a vendor selling vegetables in the eastern Syrian city of Abu Kamal, a short distance from the Iraq border.

However, traditions being what they were, he was unable to compromise with the tyrant who had strong-armed his life since his early childhood. Once again his father was wielding his wrath by forcing the union of Mamoud to Sadah; Mamoud knew he had no choice. Whatever the outcome, his sights were set on joining a distant cousin in a business located in a far-flung place named Michigan. The only person he would remotely miss was his cousin, Abd, who was like a brother to him.

He knew little about this place in the United States except that it meant release, freedom from the despicable circumstances he lived under with his tyrannical father and his equally fragile mother. Life in the agricultural town of Abu Kamal was tedious, furthering his desire to leave everything behind him.

His cousin in Michigan, Omar, whom he had never met, sent a letter by messenger to his father reciting the merits of moving his family to Dearborn. Mamoud remembered how his father spat on the letter, crumbled it and flung it out the door. He also knew that it was perhaps the luckiest day in his young life when he retrieved it, memorized its promises and then tucked it into the hem of his blanket. The invitation, though not directed to him, would become his ticket to freedom from an intolerable, dismal life.

Only a few months passed after sharing the meal that he married Sadah. Not only did her family provide the necessary dowry for the marriage, it also supplied Mamoud the means to purchase one way tickets to New York and then to the place called Dearborn, Michigan, home of many Arabs. Sadah had no voice in the decision to change her life. She was merely the conduit for Mamoud to realize his dream to one day escape his father’s tyranny.

Omar Khatib lived up to his promise of opportunity by providing Mamoud and Sadah with a small apartment in the heavily-populated east district whose residents were primarily Middle Eastern. Omar made him his assistant at the Dunkin’ Donuts he managed, advising him to learn English by listening to the customers who chatted over their mochas in the café, ordered at the counter or yelled their orders at the Drive Thru. Consequently, the first words he learned after Hi were Take order? and Come to window please.

While the first year for them was one of adjustment to a foreign culture, they settled into a life that mirrored his parents’ relationship. Like father like son, he ruled their lives by either ridiculing her actions or shutting Sadah out by not speaking to her for days. It wasn’t until she told him she was pregnant that he showed the slightest hint of respect to Sadah.

Almost one year to the day of their marriage, she bore a son. Knowing not the procedures of the Oakwood Hospital maternity ward nor English, Sadah assumed that the child would be brought to her bedside when he had been properly examined.

Hours passed before Mamoud entered the room, his face ashen. Not capable of going to Sadah to comfort her in the news he was to give, he stood at the end of the bed. In the angriest voice she had ever heard from him, he spat the words in Arabic that would change their lives, Walati moukholo ayouha al-emra-at. (You bore me a cripple, woman.) Not waiting for her response, he turned and walked from the room.

Malik, as Sadah named him, was healthy in weight and length. She stared at his perfect facial features and ran her hand over his thick black hair. Through her endearing whispers to him as his eyes opened and closed to her murmurings, she avoided what lay beneath the blanket covering his body, afraid to look after her husband’s startling words.

Before the nurse retrieved Malik from her, Sadah caressed his toes and ran her hand over the smooth skin of his legs. She adjusted the blankets to reveal his chest and left arm as he reached to grasp the air. She could not nor would she look at what should have been his right arm and hand.

Ten years passed. Mamoud now managed his own Dunkin’ Donuts. Sadah attended to her duties in their home including Mamoud’s directive that Malik would speak only Arabic there. The contradictive aspect of the Syrian’s presence in his new country was his roving eye. While he demanded that his home be run in the tradition of his former home in Abu Kamal, he had twice been chewed out by his cousin for staring at two Dunkin’ Donuts regulars, particularly since they were both blondes.

The home, a two story clapboard, located in the heart of the Middle Eastern section in Dearborn, was Mamoud’s pride and joy. He had, after all, found his way to America, worked hard to learn its language as he climbed the ladder in having his own Dunkin’ Donuts location. Within these accomplishments he rarely acknowledged his son who was now nine years old and in the fourth grade. His vitriolic response to Malik’s presence was that of disgust. In his eyes Malik was an intruder, his mere presence abhorrent.

Sadah was the parent who took Malik to school on the day he entered Kindergarten. Though she struggled with the English language, she alone attended parent conferences. She was the only person in Malik’s existence who he could talk with. And he did talk to her. He talked to her about everything except the pain he experienced every time his classmates ridiculed him. In essence, he hid the horrific words from her so as not to hurt her feelings. In his young mind, he sensed his mother’s love would be the only acceptance he would ever experience.

His handsome face could not dispel his physical impairments. His right arm was withered, having the appearance of skin stretched over a six inch pole extending from his shoulder blade. At the end of the appendage was a hand the size of a newborn’s. On that hand was a protrusion that may have been the development of a small finger.

Crip and Retard were two words mostly used when his teachers were out of hearing range. Jeers and pointing occurred when no adults were around to witness his hell on earth. Even students younger than he taunted him; one in particular made it a daily habit of slapping the empty right sleeve of his shirt with all the might a six year old could muster. Another ran up to him to the glee of his classmates, pushed him and sneered, Don’t give me the finger, Tard.

Malik Masood had no recourse except to hold within him the anger that became so pent-up that he ultimately felt he had two choices: withdraw or attack. He chose the former, at least for now.

He was brilliant, grasping elementary concepts with ease, not gone unnoticed by his fourth grade teacher. Science and Math were his forte. Concepts in both curricula were so elementary to him at his grade level that he went to the library every weekend, pulled Chemistry books into a pile at a corner table, immersing himself as long as he could before returning home. Chemistry tables in particular captured his attention. He was fascinated with the Periodic Table of the Elements, memorizing the symbols and their names without quite understanding their chemical meanings.

That would change.

Chapter One

April, 2003

Mitch’s homecoming was as welcoming as the sand storms had been unrelenting leading to Baghdad. For more days than he wanted to remember, he had been in a different world, not knowing if he would live to see the next day’s dawn.

The USBC newsroom came to life as he stepped from the elevator. His employees embraced the moment he would once again be on terra firma, in their midst. As they flocked from the vast studio outreaches, he watched particularly for Adam Clarkson, his immediate boss and the CEO of USBC, who made a trip from the city to debrief him. What Adam did not tell him was he also planned to take him into his confidence about Mitch and Amanda McGill’s plans for the development of a new cable venue, Global News Channel.

Hell of a job, Mitch. You made a believer outta me about what’s goin’ on over there, Bernie Ketcham yelled across the room. He made long strides to reach Mitch to slap him on the back.

For once in my life, Bernie, I can honest to God say this trip was no walk in the park. We had a plate full of danger going in, but I haven’t a doubt we have tumultuous years ahead of us.

You’re kidding, right? Years?

It was just too damn easy. We have Saddam and those creepy sons on the run, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Too much has gone on to believe we can plow our way into the city and that’s the end of the story.

Was it worth it, Mitch? I mean for you personally?

Mitch studied his employee’s face. Too much had happened to him and his family in the preceding ten months to honesty answer Bernie. It was the same question he expected Amanda to ask. In the few days since his return, she provided his creature comforts but was mute about why he deserted his family at the most precarious time in their lives. Her grieving was indeed deep and, it seemed, perpetual.

Time will tell, Bern.

Mitch, my man, Adam said as he approached him from his office. "Hey, I was planning on throwing candy and flowers, but thought the parody might be lost in the welcome. Well done, maestro, and I have over two hundred thousand e-mails saying the same thing. My God, for a while I thought you were the coup d’etat, not the invasion itself."

Thanks, Adam, but we have miles to go with this saga. he said, giving him a bear hug. I think we opened a can of worms we weren’t ready for. Now we better prepare for what comes out of those cans.

Grab some coffee and join me, huh? I’ve got more to add to your plate.

As he walked to Adam’s office, he had no intention of repacking to go anywhere. Even Bethesda was off the radar. He knew he had selfishly left the person he never wanted to hurt; yet he had crushed her. Amanda was like a lifeless doll, filled with grief even as she attempted to go on. But her gaunt appearance belied what she attempted to make seem normal. Family meant more to her than her own life as she proved three years earlier when she defended Matthew and Patrick’s reputations against Ozzie Maxwell’s radio swill. Time after time Mitch swore he would be stronger for her and their children, but he knew he had again come up short, this time by becoming embedded in a convoy traveling northward across the desert to Baghdad.

Their conversations remained nonjudgmental, but he found it difficult at times to communicate, especially when there was no emotion in her words or when her eyes clouded over. He felt powerless to help her. This was her greatest moment of need, and he was looking for the next big news story.

He set his coffee and Danish down near the sofa rather than at Adam’s desk. Their relationship had long ago become informal. Adam respected him as much as Mitch’s peer journalists; that said nothing compared to his prestige as a news analyst both in the states and around the globe.

Tell me everything, Mitch, even the minute details you couldn’t report from the Humvee.

"In a nutshell, nothing can be taken for granted, there or Afghanistan, Adam. I have no doubt Saddam and his perverted sons’ll be found sooner than later. But the big questions are gonna be where the hell are the WMDs, are we prepared for snakes in the form of insurgents to wreak holy hell on our troops in Iraq and whether we should have started this mess to begin with. Throw in for good measure the potential for all-out civil war down the road."

That’s’ a mouthful, Mitch. My God, you sound like the Prophet of Doom.

Want more?

Why not? You’re on a roll.

We need to watch our backs right where we’re livin’.

We haven’t had a problem going on two years; someone’s doing something right. Be specific.

If I was a bettin’ man like poor Spence, God rest his soul, I’d wager we’re in the storm’s eye right now. The shoe’s gonna drop because we don’t have all the bases covered. With the time I have left at the network, Adam, I wanna start a clandestine investigation into the country’s security, especially our ports and food supplies.

Adam’s face clouded over. If I didn’t unconditionally trust you as a visionary, I’d say you’re daft, my man. However, and this is a big however, let’s talk about the time you do have left with us. I want to sit down with you and Amanda before everything’s in concrete with GNC and talk about a way to possibly sweeten the pot.

You gonna let me take Andy?

The question did not amuse Adam. Andrew Kearney was a rising star at USBC. "He makes