“She’s running a fever. I’ve given her something for it, but she’s in no condition to go anywhere today.”
Goma held the door open so Jack and I could step inside. Scholastica was sleeping with the covers thrown off.
“Her skin feels clammy,” said Jack, sitting down beside her.
“We can’t leave without her.” I pressed my palm to her forehead. It was hot to the touch.
“We have to. Today is the day Mo and Gabriel are supposed to be picking up the kid in Maymosi.”
“Sumuni,” I said. I had memorized all their names. “But what about Scholastica? I promised Anna I’d get her to Wanza.”
“And we will. Correction. I will. You have to catch a plane when we get back. I’ll make another trip after you leave. In the meantime, we’ll let Anna know there’s been a delay. I don’t think it matters, as long as she’s assured that Scholastica is safe.”
“What’s going on?” Bahati piped in, checking in on us.
“It’s Scholastica. She’s sick. She can’t go with Ro and me today,” replied Jack. “Can you stay a little longer? Until I get back?”
“But Jack, it’s so bori—” He stopped mid-sentence as Jack announced a figure. “I can get new tires for Suzi with that amount. And then all she’ll need are new seats. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I don’t like it here, but I miss The Grand Tulip. The guests, the pretty girls, the movies, the resta—”
“You want in or not?” asked Jack.
“Fine,” replied Bahati. “I’m in.”
“I don’t need a babysitter,” huffed Goma. “I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself and Scholastica. But if you’re staying on, no more hollering for me or Scholastica to check for lizards under your bed at night. Clear?”
Bahati had the decency to look slightly ashamed. “Anyone want breakfast?” He dashed out without waiting for an answer.
By the time I went downstairs, he had coffee brewing and was helping Jack load the car.
“You’ll be all right?” Jack asked Goma when she came to see us off.
“Fine. And so will Scholastica.” She wasn’t one to hug or kiss goodbye. “It’s this one I’m worried about.” She tipped her head toward Bahati.
“What do you mean?” he said. “No one takes me seriously around here. This is why I—”
Jack started the car, drowning out the rest of his comments.
“Bye, Goma.” I waved as we backed out of the garage. “Bye, Donkey Hottie.”
The clouds hung low that morning, muting the trail of dust we left behind. We passed riverine forests and wooded hills with towering termite mounds. Other times, the landscape turned dry and brown, with nothing but scruffy bush for miles. Then the road snaked around the Great Rift Valley, offering sweeping views that took my breath away. This vast trench in the earth's crust stretches from the Middle East in the north to Mozambique in the south. It is also the single most significant physical detail on the planet, visible from space. To be driving along it, hugging the steep walls, where I had once pointed it out on the map to my students, was completely surreal. Across the horizon, not too far in the distance, colossal thunderclouds trailed shawls of rain across vistas as wide as the sea.
As we approached, the rain washed over us in thick, diagonal sheets of gray. The wipers squeaked, double tempo, but it was impossible to see more than a few feet ahead.
“We’ll have to wait it out.” Jack pulled over and turned the car off.
Mother Nature was in full drama, knocking on the roof, the windowpanes, the doors, as if trying to smudge everything into a Monet masterpiece. It was a day of inescapable wetness.
Jack’s mood shifted, turning as somber as the sky. In the thunderous roar of the rain, I almost missed his words.
“She’s leaving me,” he said.
“Who’s leaving you?”
He kept his eyes fixed on his window, watching the droplets trail down the glass in fast, furious rivulets.
“Lily.” He pressed his palm to the pane, meeting the fading chocolate prints on the other side. “I’m losing the last of her.” If torment could be grasped, it would be in the pauses between his words. “My baby’s out there, under that big tree. I always watch over her. Every time it rains, I stand by her side. I think of her little body getting soaked by the rain and I can’t stand the idea of her being cold and alone. But today, I’m not there, and she’s leaving me. I’m losing my baby girl.”
He fell apart slowly, his walls crumbling brick by brick, as if the house he’d been living in was being swept away by a mudslide. When he cried, there was a rawness to it, an agony that spoke of denial, of an open wound that had gone untended. The sobs were stifled at first, like he was trying to hold his grief at bay. How deep he’d buried it, I didn’t know, but it washed over him in waves. He hunched over the steering wheel, his hands clasping and unclasping, as if searching for something to hold on to, to keep from getting sucked into the next surge of pain.
