Widows

The rumor had swept through this border town early in the morning, and soon several dozen women were clamoring outside a small government office. The rumor would prove false, as it has on many other days. There would be no distribution of pension payments for the Iraqi widows. Often, months pass between payments, with no provisions made for back payments and no explanations given for the gaps in time. "I have nothing," one widow cried to a government employee peeping out from a half-opened door.

Day after day, the widows sit silently in court, a few feet from the soldier accused of murdering their husbands. They listen as their husbands' violent deaths play out again and again in witness testimony. Sometimes, they say, the defendant stares at them with a contempt that both terrifies and enrages them. Barbara Allen and Siobhan Esposito have put their lives on hold since June 7, 2005, the day prosecutors say Staff Sgt. Alberto B. Martinez killed their husbands in Iraq. Capt.

Red purse, red shoes, red lips. Josephine Chavez primps her hair in the mirror one last time before heading out the door. She and the girls have two parties to attend, nine hours in high heels -- eating, laughing and dancing. It's 9:30 a.m. and she is 76 years old. Irene and Alice are 80; Armida is 82; Ruby, 84; and Mary, 85. Lucy, 88, is the oldest of today's party group because Eva, 91, canceled with a bout of heartburn.

Dahianna Heard's husband was fatally shot while working for a private security contractor in Iraq. Raquel Williams' husband died of sleep apnea and heart problems. Ana Maria Moncayo-Gigax's husband was killed in a car crash while on duty with the U.S. Border Patrol. All three women were waiting for their permanent residency, but their U.S. citizen spouses died before the applications were approved. Immigration authorities later denied the cases because the women were no longer married to U.S.

Patience, the mothers begged their children. Saddam Hussein will fall. Liberty will come. Your father will return. Years went by. The regime fell. Prison doors were opened. Mass graves were unearthed. Still, the women wait. "We still have not given up hope. We expect our husbands to return," says Bahar Suleiman, one of the thousands of black-draped women of this valley of widows.

Elena Zurheide was sitting on her in-laws' couch, cradling her infant son, when an achingly familiar story on the television news grabbed her attention. Another local Marine had been killed in Iraq -- meaning another young widow, another fatherless newborn. And another wake. In an instant she made a decision. She would attend the wake for Cpl. Jeffrey Lawrence, who, like Zurheide's husband, had been on his second tour of duty.

The last time he spoke to his wife from Iraq, Maj. Ray Mendoza urged her to visit the injured Marines from his company at the base hospital and be sure to call their wives. "He prayed every night to bring his boys home safe," Karen Mendoza said. "And that's what happened. I thank God for that." Four days later, on Nov. 14, 2005, her husband was killed as he prepared to lead his men into battle along the Syrian border. He was the only fatality among the Marines of Echo Company.

Chivalry compelled Wafa Abd's husband to cross the cordon line. Qusai Hussein Saidie was driving home from work and discovered U.S. troops had blocked off his neighborhood during a search for gunmen. But he was worried about Wafa, then seven months pregnant. "He told them, 'My wife is afraid,' " she says, recalling what neighbors told her later. "He came into the neighborhood because he feared for my life and honor."

Congress passed a bill Tuesday that would make widows and widowers of U.S. citizens eligible for green cards even if their spouses died before their applications were approved. The measure, part of the more than $40-billion Homeland Security appropriations bill, ends the "widow penalty," which required couples to be married for two years before the surviving spouse would be eligible to apply for residency. Now, surviving spouses can apply for a green card for themselves and their children regardless of when the U.S. citizen died or how long they were married.

Surviving spouses of war veterans have been wrongfully denied up to millions of dollars in government benefits over the last 12 years because of computer glitches that often resulted in money being seized from the elderly survivors' bank accounts. The Veterans Affairs Department pledged to work quickly to return the pension and disability checks -- ranging from $100 to more than $2,500 -- that hundreds of thousands of widows and widowers should have received during the month of their spouses' deaths.