The Best of Friends

by Sara James

  All through those bleak days, family and friends rallied to support us. Andrew’s sister and my NBC colleagues scoured medical journals and trawled the Net, searching for any condition similar to Jacqueline’s. They sat by us at the hospital. And they reached out to us at home.

  “Sara,” said Andrew’s mom, “what’s this?”

  “Bob and Suzanne Wright,” read the tag on the Moses basket overflowing with food, baby clothes, blankets, and bibs. The chairman and CEO of NBC Universal and his wife. Next to it was a giant box of food from Agata & Valentina, courtesy of Bridget, Linda’s college roommate and now my friend, too. “This is just the beginning,” she warned cheerfully. “You’ll get Elena’s tomorrow.” Twice a week for months the boxes arrived, each with a card listing friends from Nightly News, from Specials, from the front office, and, of course, from Dateline.

  On a quiet weekend near the end of September, I suggested Andrew take his mom and Sophie to the country. They needed a break and Ellen, my friend from Dateline, would join me at the hospital. Jacqueline hadn’t had a seizure in several days and seemed to be improving. She still wore her cap of wires, but at least she was now in a crib. As Ellen and I chatted quietly, a neurologist scanned Jacqueline’s EEG report, appearing increasingly agitated.

  “What is it?” I asked, alarmed.

  He shook his head. “I cannot begin to tell you how concerned I am about your daughter’s brain.”

  It seemed as if the floor were suddenly undulating, even sinking. I put a hand on the metal bar of Jacqueline’s crib to steady myself. “Excuse me?”

  He gestured to the EEG reading. “I cannot sugarcoat this.”

  “But she’s getting better!” I argued. “She’s opening her eyes, looking around—”

  He shook his head impatiently. “I am sorry, but look, I must tell you. The electrical activity in your daughter’s brain is a mess. A mess. This is not about bedside manner. This is about telling you the truth, getting you prepared.”

  Frightened as I was, I fought to remain calm. I did not believe him. I would not. I could not.

  “But her MRI was clear!”

  He shook his head. “This is not a normal brain. This is a brain with problems.”

  “So what are you telling me? What does that mean for the future? Her development?”

  He shook his head again. His only answer was to open his hands, the answer unknowable. But the expression on his face made me shiver.

  I felt vanquished. I looked over at my friend. Ellen’s face had crumpled, too. Tears coursed down her face. She had a daughter, too. Lovely Natalie. She understood.

  I called Andrew. “We’ll be home in two hours,” he said, then paused. “Look, things have a way of working out.” But for once his voice sounded hollow, flat. And I realized how much I wanted to throw my arms around him, realized how much the husband who loved and supported me needed support himself. But to do that, I needed to pull myself together.

  I called Ginger. “I don’t know what to think, what to believe. It sounds like the doctor’s saying Jacqueline could be like Kristy’s daughter Emma,” I finished.

  “Sara, I’m still not sure I believe that. But you must call Kristy.”

  When I did, Ginger’s old friend, a friend who’d become my friend, too, called back immediately. “Sara how can I help?”

  I paused. “Just one thing, really. I just want you to tell me that I’m going to get through this.”

  To my surprise, she didn’t hesitate. “Of course you will.”

  “You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  I drew a shaky breath. I believed her. And to believe her restored my belief in myself. The free fall was over and I’d landed on firm ground. Suddenly I heard the sound of cheering in the background. “Kristy, where are you?”

  She chuckled. “Well, I’m actually at the starting line for a half marathon but figured I had time to call you first.”

  I began laughing, and laughing felt good. “You are too much. I can’t believe how together you are.”

  “Look, Sara, it’s not that we don’t have problems. Emma can’t walk. She can’t talk. We don’t know how much she understands. And yes, she has seizures. I’d be the first to tell you, sometimes it’s scary. But Gordy and Carter are great with her. We all love her. And we’re happy.”

  I hung up the phone and I realized with relief that I didn’t feel crazy anymore. Sad, yes. Angry and confused. But not crazy. I could go on, I knew it. I could be strong, as my husband was strong, could support him as he, more than anyone else, supported me. And the person who had helped me get there was the friend of a friend.

  I had been lucky in life, I knew. Blessed to have loving parents and sisters I’d always known I could count on. And blessed to have extraordinary friends. Friends I’d known most of my life. Friends I’d met along the way. And those whom I barely knew, but who’d been willing to help in a crisis, simply because they were friends of a friend.

  ON OCTOBER 1, my sister Susan became a mom. “His name is Sebastian,” she told us, euphoric if exhausted.

  “Oh, Susan, that’s fantastic!” I said, thrilled for Danny and her, and for the chance to be Sebastian’s aunt. And a few days later, on October 5, there was another reason for excitement. Six weeks after her birth, Jacqueline was again coming home from the hospital. This time our departure was muted. We had oxygen tanks, CPR instructions, additional details about administering her medicine every three hours. But we also had experience. We’d learned to prune expectations, to hold fast to hope. It was dangerous to look too far ahead. But then again, it was far more dangerous not to be grateful, to miss out on the chance to savor one extraordinary day. Please, God, let tomorrow be the same.

  33

  GINGER (2005–2006)

  IT WAS THE eighteenth of February 2005. Back in Richmond, Mom said it was unseasonably warm, that a dense ceiling of clouds had trapped the heat but kept the sunlight out. And Sara had called to say that in New York they’d woken up to a blanket of thick snow and temperatures near freezing. But in Windhoek, it was 95 degrees, a light breeze was blowing in over the mountains, and the sky was indigo blue and clear. It was the perfect day for moving.

  “Gin, where do you want this?”

  I looked up. Nad was coming down the stairs from our garage carrying a hand-carved cherry headboard supported by thick turned legs.

  “That’s Kimber’s bed. It goes in his room.” I smiled, thinking how my son’s bed had once belonged to my great-cousin Charlotte. Since I’d been four years old, whenever I visited Charlotte and her parents, my Great-Aunt Oral and Uncle Charlie, on the farm where first Mom and then my sisters and I had spent much of our childhood, I’d slept on that bed. Aunt Oral had tucked me in at night, kissed my cheek. I’d felt the wisps of her long gray hair fall from her bun and brush across my face, caught the clean smell of Ivory soap on her skin. I’d felt so safe, so loved. Soon Kimber would climb into that bed and I’d tuck him in, kiss his cheek, generation to generation, the roots spreading wider and deeper.

  I wandered from room to room. End tables that had been wedding presents to my grandparents from my Great-Aunt Ise were now in our guest room. The twin beds Dona and Tish had shared as children, the ones we’d turned into trampolines, jumping back and forth for hours and driving Mom crazy, were in that room, too. A pie safe from my mother’s prized collection stood in the kitchen. For a decade, my dear friend Beth and her family had lovingly cared for my dining room table, and now it was in our home. In an old flat-back cupboard, a wedding present from my parents to Nad and me almost ten years ago, I arranged Oral’s silver, Lottie’s sugar and creamer, Ceil’s china, treasures from my wonderful great-aunts, who had never traveled farther from their homes in Virginia than to Maine. China, silver, crystal, wood, linens—every piece I unwrapped told a story, a part of my family’s history, transplanted to Africa to begin a new chapter on an ancient continent.

  Added to the memories of flash floods and baboon chatter, of
moving Sara out of New Jersey and then, years later, into the country with Andrew, of elephants’ trumpets and my baby becoming a boy, of my sisters and me together as kids, as adults, and as dear friends, and I wondered where this new chapter would lead. It was tempting to look forward; to attempt to peer into the future and by force of will try to make things happen. But fifteen years in the bush had taught me to be more patient. In a world controlled by devilish winds and the often empty promise of rain, by stalking predators and vulnerable prey, I’d learned not only to question but also to observe, to let details emerge and to acknowledge that there are some things I’d simply never understand, including why Tish was sick, rather than me. Whether it’s a matter of fate, of grace, or the luck of the draw, some things you simply must accept. These are the random blessings we are given. What we do with them is up to us. I had finally learned to accept mine, to silence the voices of guilt and doubt, and to stop questioning why.

  It was a lesson Sara was learning, too. She’d had to step back from a world of breaking news and live reports, of sound bites and instant answers. Jacqueline’s illness had taught her to wait, to watch, and to never, ever give up hope.

  In my early twenties, I’d thought I had life figured out. That if I wished for something hard enough, it would happen. I’d expected to marry my old boyfriend, Kevin, settle in his adoptive state of Texas, and live happily ever after. A life that was easy, comfortable, and secure. Yet now it was a life I could barely picture, of a girl who would have become a completely different woman.

  Since those heady days at Wimbledon, I’d stumbled, fallen, and literally eaten dirt in my quest to discover the person I wanted to be. At times I fought hard against the changes, clinging to a perception of the woman I had once thought I would become, wanting the adventure without the risks, the safety without the fight. When I’d been down to my last dollar and my last idea, the image of the boy next door shadowed me, curling his finger as if to say, Come, there is an easier way out.

  But for me, there wasn’t. Twenty years later, I’d learned that the challenges you face shape your life. How odd that I couldn’t see this when I was at home, surrounded by examples from every generation in my family. Instead I’d had to run halfway around the world to find my own version of the yellow brick road to Oz, to figure it out. But it was a path I needed to explore. Full of detours, dangerous curves, and lucky breaks, the journey taught me many things.

  From embracing a home without walls in the desert to moving into our new home in Windhoek, I’d learned that conventional and unconventional lives can be married. That neither had the exclusive right to love or adventure. It was up to me to combine them, no matter where I was. The chance had been there when I lived in Manhattan, but I wasn’t strong enough to take it. I’d needed to be pushed, to learn the language of baboons, to feel the power of a Bushman dance so potent that it heals, and to find a love so strong that it leaves an elephant powerless. And I needed my son, Kimber, who in his own backyard fought fires, buried baby birds, saved rhinos, and defeated the Evil Zurg, to teach me that adventures are great, but that real joy is found in the heart.

  In time, I realized that my parents’ constant love and support and the grounding I had from my childhood in Richmond—plus treasured friendships that have sustained me ever since—had given me the security to later buck and kick, reinvent and change. Yet it had taken the unconditional acceptance of baboons and elephants to make me realize that sometimes you don’t have to change at all.

  Without Nad’s constant, quiet commitment, I might never have known how healing and liberating it could be to trust the right man with your heart. And I’d learned how great a heart could grow from the love of one precious boy. Now, without betraying my roots or my soul, I knew that home was a state of mind larger and more wonderful than just one place. Part of me was American and part was African, and Kimber embodied this.

  As I watched Kimber dart up and down the stairs, happily lugging furniture and moving boxes, my heart swelled. As much as I longed to hold his dimpled cheek close to mine for as long as possible, I knew that one day he’d set out on his own, following his own path and creating his own destiny. I could only hope that I’d be as brave and as generous in letting him go as my parents had been with me.

  I stopped unpacking boxes of china and followed the laughter into Kimber’s new bedroom. “Ginger, we need your help!” Our beautiful friend Rieth, who had generously opened her home to us when the building of ours wasn’t complete, was standing in the middle of the room with three rugs in her arms.

  “Which do you want to use in here?”

  “That one.” I pointed to the multicolored karakul wool rug in her left hand. “The one Sara gave us.”

  Rieth propped the others against the wall while I unrolled Sara’s rug. Like our friendship, the textures were dense, the colors true, the pattern intriguing, even after all these years. In lilting English infused with her native Afrikaans, Rieth pronounced, “It’s perfect.” And it was. And in that moment, that rug became a sort of talisman, a perfect blend of old and new friends, those friends who link our past, our present, and our future.

  One more thing I’d learned along the way was that I couldn’t imagine my life or my future without my friends, a sisterhood that included my sisters, Marsha, Tish, and Dona, and sisters I’d chosen, like Beth, Stacy, and Kristy, and especially Sara, who helped shape and who’d shared so much of my journey. It seemed she had always been there. From young girls sharing secrets in the dark to adult women revealing, chasing, and changing our dreams. The threads of friendship we cast as children had grown into a deep, sustaining bond.

  Many times when I’ve looked in the mirror, I’ve seen Sara looking back, daring me to dig deeper, to aim higher, to let go and risk failure. Because she believed in me, and I believed so strongly in her, I summoned the courage to take chances, and to run headlong after my dreams. Her vision of me helped to inspire the person I am, and it will remain, inspiring the person I hope to become.

  When almost everyone else thought I was mad, Sara still believed in me. I paused as an irony hit me. I knew there’d been people who thought Sara had lost herself when she arrived on the set of network television. But I’d known exactly who she was. Though wiser and wounded by heartache, softened by the love of her husband and two dear children, and chiseled by the incredible stories of those intrepid, endearing, and occasionally awful men and women whose tales she has shared through the years, she was still at her core the same thoughtful, bright girl I had been drawn to in middle school. The woman looking back in the mirror had the same sprinkling of tawny freckles, but her green eyes now were flecked with knowing and compassion. I’d recognize her anywhere.

  I cannot imagine my life without Sara. Our friendship centered me when I was lost, rallied me when I was defeated, and comforted me when I felt empty and alone. Along the way, the image in the mirror of two women gazing at each other seemed to fuse, until sometimes it seems we each reflect what is best in the other. And the masses of beautiful, tangled threads that bind us have become essential to my life, and to where it will lead.

  June 2006

  “Nice shot, Kimber.” Kimber’s tennis coach, my friend Elizma Nortje, clapped her hand against her racquet. Kimber threw his arms up in the air, a real little champion. Forget Wimbledon, this was true happiness.

  We had been living in Windhoek for just over a year. In the mornings I’d sit at my computer, alternately typing and gazing out the window at the purple mountains surrounding the city. Just after noon, I’d pick Kimber up from school. I’d help him with his homework, do my share of car pools, enjoy spending time with other mothers, and four times a week I’d take Kimber to cricket and tennis lessons.

  I sat on the bench on the sidelines, surrounded by little kids running on and off the court. Elizma was wonderful with them all, a positive, loving force in such a competitive world. About five years before, I’d been introduced to her when she’d visited Etosha for a weekend.
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br />   “Nice to meet you.” I’d smiled, and her radiant smile beamed back.

  “Oh, you won’t remember but we’ve met before.”

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I don’t recall. When was it?”

  “A long time ago. You were with Kevin at an exhibition tennis match. I was a ball girl, and…” She giggled.

  “And…”

  “Well, I have your autograph.”

  I laughed, and it felt wonderful. “No! Burn it!”

  THE EVOLUTION CONTINUES. From globe-trotting girlfriend, to wildlife filmmaker, to car-pooling tennis mom, the progression feels right. I know it’s only a matter of time before life will change again. I’ll adapt into another version of the woman I was meant to be, and at heart, I know the next change will likely take us back to the bush, to the place where Nad and I fell in love, the place where I imagine we’ll grow old. But for now, I plan to enjoy these days, every single one of them.

  On the court, I heard Kimber cheer. Elizma turned and smiled. “He’s really good, Gin. I think we’ll be seeing a lot more of you guys at the courts.”

  It was my turn to smile. I wondered if Sophie or Jacqueline would learn to play tennis. Kimber, mixed doubles, mothers-in-law?

  I had to call Sara.