After the Silence

by Rula Sinara

  Hope rubbed her hands down her face. No. This was impossible. People would ask questions and spread rumors that she’d failed somehow. She’d embarrass her parents. She’d disappoint them, and she couldn’t do that after all they’d sacrificed to save her life and to give her nothing but the best. Being where she was in her life wasn’t just hard work, it was a privilege. It was the grand plan. And taking off would be the equivalent of being ungrateful…or worse, incapable. At least that was what people would think.

  Simba was right, though. Doctors really did make awful patients, because if she was honest with herself about how she’d been feeling lately, she’d be surprised if her adrenal glands hadn’t shriveled up.

  God knew, she wanted to help people. She really did. But lately all she was feeling was frustrated and depleted. She didn’t dare admit to her family how many times the idea of escaping all their expectations and all her responsibilities had crossed her mind. Kicking back. Partying. Traveling places she’d seen in movies or read about in books. Freedom. How selfish was that? Witnessing poverty and disease everyday and then yearning for something different than the life she had? Some wishes were better left unspoken.

  She closed her eyes and a tear escaped. She swiped it away.

  “Um, can I get you something?” Jack asked, rubbing the back of his neck. Hope cleared her throat. She needed to get home. This was all too embarrassing.

  “No, no. Thank you, Jack. Simba is making a big deal out of nothing.” She scowled at her brother. “And you’re embarrassing me here. Why don’t you walk me downstairs, Simba? You can buy your little sister a snack to eat in the car.”

  He couldn’t say no to getting food in her system. She really didn’t want to argue in front of Jack, nor did she want to pass out before getting to the car. Jack slipped over to his vials and grabbed a pair of sterile gloves from a box, granting them a little privacy.

  Simba paced in front of her like…well…like a lion.

  “Hope, I know you’re worried about what people will think. What Mama and Baba will say. I wasn’t born yesterday. I’ll handle them. Don’t worry. No one will judge.”

  Hope sighed. “Look. I’ll take a weekend or a week and stare at the walls at home. Will that make you happy?”

  She waited for her brother to say something. The hum of the sterile hood and the occasional clink of Jack’s tubes were the only sounds in the lab. Simba scratched his forehead, then looked around the lab as though in search of a scientific reason to nix her suggestion. He drew back his shoulders and braced his hands on his hips.

  “No. This isn’t about a few nights of sleep. This is about you not killing yourself and having regrets. I know our parents mean well, but the fact is, they’re from a different generation. Even I have a decade on you and can see that. You’re my sister. I want you happy. I want you to have perspective. Choices. Which is why—” he hesitated, scrubbing his jaw and exchanging glances with Jack “—I think you should take a few months and go to America.”

  The chair grated the floor as Hope stood, the bolt of shock keeping her on her feet this time.

  “What? Jack, tell him he needs an MRI.”

  Jack held his sterile gloved palms up.

  “I’m not getting in the middle. A wise friend once told Anna and me his favorite saying—‘when two elephants fight, it is the grass that gets trampled.’ In this lab, that would be me.”

  “Something tells me you’re already in the middle. America? Really?”

  Hope knew her brother had come through for Jack when Jack had discovered the daughter he didn’t know he had was being raised in Kenya’s wilderness. Had Simba cashed in on a favor?

  “I’m helping you here, Hope,” Simba said. “Haven’t you always wanted to visit America? I’ve heard you talking to Anna. This is the perfect time. The perfect chance. Jack’s family needs some help.”

  Jack tipped his head in agreement as he loaded the centrifuge.

  “Don’t feel obligated or anything, but when Alwanga here told me you needed to get away, it did make sense,” Jack said. “Ben, my brother-in-law, could use help with the kids.”

  Hope gripped the sides of her head, then grabbed her purse off the hook and turned back to face the crazy men. There’d be no fainting. Her blood had hit boiling point.

  “You expect me to go from medicine to childcare? A nanny? That’s your idea of a getaway? A break?” she said, pointing at both of them.

  “Whoa. Not really a nanny. Not in the official hired sense. Let’s not complicate visas here,” Jack said.

  “He’s right. More of an exchange,” Simba said.

  “Yeah. You all are like my family here in Kenya. Mine can be like yours while you’re in America. I think a visitor would be good for them right now. A distraction.”

  Hope raised a brow.

  “Okay, so distraction might be a bad choice of word, but you know what I mean.” Jack looked between Simba and Hope. “I should keep my mouth shut now.”

  Hope closed her eyes. She did know what he meant. His parents had lost a child. His niece and nephews, their mother. And their father—Ben—had lost a wife. She sucked in her bottom lip. Was her brain so foggy that what they were suggesting had merit? An escape while saving face? She felt Simba’s hand close around her shoulder. His voice deepened, and his words came slowly and reassuringly.

  “You help out, and in return, you have a place to stay, people I trust around you, so that I don’t have to worry about you alone in a foreign country. It works,” Simba said.

  Hope wrapped her arms around herself.

  “What if Chuki’s sister needs medicine when I’m gone?”

  Simba sighed loudly.

  “I’ll take it. Give her my number here in case there’s an emergency. Maybe I can convince the pulmonary doctor I got the samples from to see her once at no charge. If you go.”

  Hope studied the braided leather of her sandals.

  “I’ll sleep on it. But don’t go buying plane tickets or anything,” she said. She gave Jack a tired smile for his well-intentioned role of trampled grass. “Or making promises of help. We have another wise saying in Kenya. ‘Thunder is not yet rain.’”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Dear Diary,

  I had a bad dream again last night. This time, I couldn’t remember her face. I woke up so scared. I hate sleeping.

  IF BEN HAD to listen one more time to the mechanical grind of “Frosty the Snowman” coming from the holiday jack-in-the-box Grandma Nina had gotten Ryan yesterday, he was going to explode. He scrubbed his hands across his short, prickly hair and dropped his fists against the kitchen table. A tangerine tumbled off the edge of the centered fruit basket and rolled onto the chair next to him. This was pointless. Who in the blasted universe could think through all that noise?

  The laptop screen switched to screen-saver mode. He’d been staring at it that long without touching a key. He shoved his chair back and marched into the family room, where Chad, kneeling on the carpet in front of Ryan’s bouncy seat, was gearing up to crank that Jack Snowman again. Maddie was curled up against a sofa pillow watching some show starring rainbow-colored ponies that was set loud enough to drown her brothers out. The place looked as though toys had attacked by air, land and sea. And a friend of the real Jack was flying in today.

  That was likely the reason he was irritable. That and the phone call from Maddie’s teacher letting him know that Maddie needed to be picked up at the nurse’s office and asking if he could return after school let out for a conference—especially since he’d missed the routine parent-teacher conferences scheduled at the beginning of the month. All in one day. The teacher meeting meant that he’d have to head straight to the airport from the school. Which had forced him to call Nina to see if she wouldn’t mind coming over to watch the kids. She’d jumped at the opportunity. Zoe’s mom had her heart in the right place, but he was about to get bombarded with the implied “you’re doing this all wrong” and “we know what your kids need more than you do
” from all angles—his mother-in-law and the school. With his bad luck, this Hope person would add her two cents to the pot.

  He’d blasted the idea of anyone living in his house to help. He was managing just fine. Most of the time. Even now, the idea of having a stranger underfoot, on top of everything else, didn’t sit well. However, Jack had made an effective point. Having live-in help would mean that he could focus more on developing his security-business plan. Plus, his mother-in-law would back off a little—or, as Jack put it, “worry less”—and see that he had everything under control. Maybe she’d get used to not hovering. Likewise, Ben wouldn’t keep enabling the situation by having to call her for emergencies. He’d resisted a few weeks ago, when Ryan had come down with another ear infection on parent-teacher conference day, a decision that was biting him today. In any case, if this Hope got on his nerves, then he could have her stay at his in-laws and keep them occupied from over there. Nina loved guests. Either way, he’d have more control…and some quiet time to sort things out in terms of work.

  “Hey, guys,” Ben called over the exasperating ruckus. No reaction. He put two fingers between his lips and blew.

  Maddie turned her cheek against the pillow and frowned at him before taking her time to pause her video. Chad stopped midcrank and looked up, and Ryan stared wide-eyed with his little hands securing his feet tight against his belly. Ben took the snowman from Chad, stuffed it into the box and snapped the lid with the sense of relief one got from defusing a bomb. This stay-at-home-dad stuff was really messing with his mind.

  “That’s better. Mads, keep that down, would you?”

  She aimed the remote at her brothers and pretended to lower their volume. Silent sarcasm. A bit of silence was exactly what he wanted, except from Maddie. He’d change a hundred stench-drenched diapers if it meant she’d say something. Anything, other than the sounds of crying or the shrill, closed-mouth scream she did when she’d been pushed too far.

  He had no doubt the parent-teacher conference he had to leave for in a few hours was going to be about just that. Again. The school nurse had shown him Maddie’s handwritten note. One word: headache. They all knew there was more to it. Frustration twisted the muscles in his shoulders, and he cranked his neck to the side.

  “Yeah, I get it,” he said to Maddie. “Chad, pick up some of these toys before Grandma gets here. A dime a dunk.”

  He was not above bribery. After Zoe was killed, one of the school moms had stopped to check on him in the parking lot and had begun spewing advice. She’d assured him that bribery was a parent’s secret weapon. Everyone used it. Not everyone admitted to it.

  Chad immediately began tossing toys into the giant wicker basket by the couch. Unfortunately, each dunk came with a creative sound effect, and his four-year-old had gifted lungs. Maddie slammed a second pillow over her ear as she zoned out in front of the TV.

  Ben grabbed a chewable and slobber-proof picture book, gave it to Ryan and set his bouncy seat near Maddie. Yes, he’d resorted to the television babysitter a couple of times, but all those colors had to have some visual-stimulation benefits. Right?

  “I’ll tell you what, man. How about you help me inflate a bed? You can push the button on the pump motor. It’s really loud.”

  A superhero landed headfirst on the floor near the basket. Ouch.

  “How loud?” Chad asked, wrapping one knee around the other as though he was holding it in.

  “Jet-fighter loud.” Anything loud served as bribery with this kid.

  “Like this?” The ensuing screech from Chad had Maddie pounding the pillow on her ear, Ryan whimpering and Ben wincing. It wasn’t going to take long for this Hope person to flee to Nina’s house.

  “How about you go use the bathroom and meet me in your room to find out?”

  “Okay!”

  At least getting Chad in a different room would give Maddie some peace.

  The doorbell rang, sending Ben’s nerves prickling up his spine like a row of merciless fire ants, a reaction that hadn’t subsided since Zoe’s death.

  He rolled his shoulders and went to let Nina in. He’d specifically told her he’d leave the door unlocked, but apparently she’d forgotten.

  He found her standing there with a big cardboard box in her hands.

  “I’m sorry, Ben. I had to use my elbow on the doorbell. This box is a little heavy,” Nina said as she bustled past him. His nose twitched from an ambush of fruity hairspray.

  Ben took the box from her and escaped to the kitchen. Nina made a beeline for the baby, after hanging her coat on the wooden rack by the door.

  “So what’s in the box?” Ben said, closing his laptop and stacking his notes on top, then setting them in the cabinet under the microwave. Zoe’s mother did not need to see any of it.

  “Oh, just some holiday decorations Zoe had stored in our basement because your garage was getting too full. I put a tin of chocolate-chip cookies on top. Go ahead and pull it out so you don’t forget,” she said. She unclipped Ryan and hugged him close to her shoulder, then slathered him with kisses and singsong words Ben couldn’t make out.

  He pulled a red tin decorated with elves and snowflakes out of the box, noted the rest of the contents and quickly slapped the flaps of cardboard back in place.

  “Not happening,” he said.

  “Shh. Maddie’s asleep on the couch,” Nina said, turning off the TV and walking into the kitchen with Ryan in her arms. Her lips tightened. “Zoe’s favorite thing to do was to decorate the weekend after Thanksgiving. That’s in just over a week.”

  “It’s not happening this year, Nina, so feel free to keep the decorations.” He carried the box back to the entryway and set it under the coatrack so that it wouldn’t be forgotten. She followed him.

  “Let the kids have some fun, Ben. It could cheer Maddie up.”

  He looked at the half-tidied living room.

  “I’d say they’re having plenty of fun already. And no, I don’t think it’ll cheer Maddie up. We’re not decorating this year. They can enjoy the decorations at your house. But not here.”

  “You told me yourself that Maddie’s counselor said to make as few changes as possible so as not to stress her more. Not letting her go through the holidays like she always did would be a mistake. One that she might not recover from.”

  A direct hit. Nina and Zoe’s father, Eric, were known in the community for opening their hearts and home to others. Years ago they’d adopted Zoe’s younger brother Jack after he’d lost his parents to drug overdoses. And they’d even accepted Ben—albeit reluctantly—when Zoe had brought him home from college and announced that they were getting married. Ben had always wondered if Nina harbored a nugget of resentment toward him, believing he’d triggered Zoe’s decision to quit college to raise Maddie. Even if had really been Zoe’s call. Nina was a fiercely protective woman, and ever since Zoe died, she’d directed those energies at her grandkids. As if they didn’t have a dad, or at least one whose parenting methods and choices she agreed with.

  He got the message loud and clear every time. She’d been around his kids over the years more than he had. She knew them better. He looked back toward the bedroom hallway. Empty. Chad had either taken himself to do number two in the bathroom, or was trying to pull the inflatable bed out of its box. As long as no little ears were sticking around the corner…

  “Nina. You know how grateful I am for all you’ve done over the years—being there for Zoe and the kids, being here for us, helping me, especially with Ryan, over the past seven months. But with all due respect, this is my home, and they have a father. No decorating this year.”

  “But Zoe would—”

  “Exactly. This was her thing. She decorated for Christmas. And she’s not here. Out of respect for her, it’s not happening. What my kids need is to get through the rest of this year without any more pressure or sympathy or attention that does nothing but remind them of losing their mother. The stuff in this box will only emphasize what they don’t have anymore
.”

  Nina’s chin and brow rose simultaneously, and she turned her back to him. She carried Ryan, who was half-asleep and drooling like a pro on her shoulder, and laid him on his back in the playpen occupying the corner of the family room. End of conversation. Good.

  Ben glanced at his watch. He hurried to check on Chad and found him on the potty buck naked and humming. Or was that moaning? And at what age was he going to stop stripping every time he used the bathroom?

  “Daddy, I think I’m conti-pasted.” Constipated. Ben knelt down and rubbed Chad’s back. He should have known the packet of gummy lizards he’d given him in the car on the way to picking up Maddie had been a bad bribe.

  “Uh, how about giving it a few more minutes? Here.” Ben picked a book from a stack of Chad’s favorites, which he kept in the bathroom for “encouragement.” “Read this. I have to go, but Grandma is here. Call out to her if no torpedoes launch. But not too loudly. Maddie’s napping.”

  “Okay,” Chad said, taking the book.

  Ben slipped into his room and grabbed his sweatshirt. Nina had picked up all the remaining toys and was checking Maddie’s backpack at the kitchen table.

  “She hasn’t done her homework yet?” Nina asked, looking up from the student agenda.

  “No. She can do it when she gets up, if she feels up to it.”

  “But she was watching a video,” Nina said, putting the homework agenda back inside and propping the bag on a chair. Ben closed his eyes briefly and exhaled.

  “She had a headache. Chad’s on the toilet. I really have to go.” He grabbed his wallet and keys. If he was going to make his appointment with the teacher, he needed to leave now.

  “You go. I have everything covered. I really don’t mind helping. Especially since I guess I won’t get to help as much with Jack’s friend around.”

  Oh, for crying out loud.

  “You’ll be busy cooking for Thanksgiving and then the holidays. You wouldn’t want to deprive everyone, would you? Don’t worry, you’ll still see the kids,” he said, opening the front door.