Toward the end of her studies at UNISA, Charlie volunteered at a mobile clinic for women. It was a shambling old bus that rotated through the townships surrounding Johannesburg, offering basic exams and contraceptives for women who did not have access to medical care in their communities. The care the mobile clinic offered was rudimentary and often insufficient, but it was certainly better than nothing.
During her time at the mobile clinic, Charlie heard firsthand the shockingly commonplace accounts of rape and sexual abuse, and saw the terrible toll HIV/AIDS and ignorance of sexual health took on women and girls. After graduation she returned to the mobile clinic and spent several years working specifically in the area of women’s health. Slowly she began to formulate an idea, a vision that gave direction and meaning to her life. She had gone back to her apartment after one particularly difficult appointment with a girl, just thirteen years old and pregnant from being raped by her uncle, and stared at her bank account with its long line of zeroes. She could do something to help. She could make a difference.
Armed with her public health degree and fired by a new zeal and determination, she set about planning a full-service women’s health center. It would be based in one of the largest townships outside of Johannesburg, a place that currently had no permanent clinic, and would offer health screenings, contraceptives, a sexual abuse and rape hotline, and counseling for women on a range of health-related topics. It would be the most comprehensive clinic for women in any of the townships.
“I feel like this is what I was born to do,” Charlie told Waverly on one of their infrequent calls. “I just wish Dad could see it when it’s finally up and running. It’s going to help so many women here.”
Charlie worked tirelessly on the project for almost two years, determined to help these vulnerable women, many of whom she considered to be friends. She waded through mounds of paperwork, curried favor with local bureaucrats, and recruited volunteers. She hired a local business manager to handle the financial end of things, freeing her to concentrate on the programs and services the clinic would offer.
At last the clinic was set to open in a month’s time. There would be a ribbon-cutting ceremony; a girls’ choir would sing. Charlie carefully crafted the free packets of information about their services that she and a handful of volunteers would give out to every home in the township before the opening.
And then it all fell apart.
Charlie first got wind of the problem with a call from her bank in the US. They had noticed a series of overdraft charges. Was she aware of the issue? Sure there had been a mistake, Charlie logged on to her account. Sitting at her kitchen table under the stark light of a single bulb, she stared at the diminishing columns of numbers in her bank-balance history, confused. Where had the money gone? She’d started with well over two million dollars, and now there was a deficit in the account. The last several large charges had been rejected for insufficient funds.
Puzzled and uneasy, Charlie walked over to the clinic and let herself into the tiny office where her business manager had been handling all the budgets and accounts. She sat down and began sorting through the papers and combing the books, trying to make sense of the numbers. It took hours to unravel the mess. There were glaring errors. Unexplained receipts and a stack of unpaid bills. Over the course of a long evening she slowly pieced together a history of the past financial year. At last she sat back, stunned, the reality of the situation gradually seeping into her brain.
It was gone. All gone. Every penny and then some. And she had not known. She had trusted the money to someone else, and her trust had been misplaced. The clinic was bankrupted before it even opened. Sick with dismay, she put her head in her hands, papers strewn about her in crumpled white drifts, and tried to think, to come up with a plan. She called the business manager’s cell phone, but the call could not be completed. The phone number was no longer in use. She decided to walk to the woman’s house, to confront her in person. Perhaps there had been some dramatic mistake. Perhaps this could still be rectified.
It was well past dark when she locked the clinic door, her head pounding, her heart heavy. She walked the ten minutes briskly, aware that she was a single female out alone after dark. She never went out by herself after dark in the township; it was too dangerous. But these were desperate times. She was on the verge of her entire dream collapsing around her.
When she finally reached the business manager’s home there was a light on inside. Relieved, she pounded on the door. A woman, whom she vaguely recognized as an aunt or a cousin, answered. Charlie greeted her politely and then asked to see her business manager.
The woman wouldn’t meet her eyes. “She’s not here,” she said, her gaze straying over Charlie’s shoulder.
“Where is she?”
The woman shrugged. “I don’t know. She said she had business in the north.”
“When will she return?” Charlie asked with a growing sense of desperation.
Still the woman would not meet her eyes. “She will be there a long time.”
“Do you know how to reach her? I need to speak with her. It’s urgent.” Charlie raised her voice a little, insistent.
Another shrug. “No, there is no way.”
Charlie knew stonewalling when she saw it. She would get nothing useful from this woman. Indeed, she was quite sure the business manager would never be seen in the township again. She was gone, and so was Charlie’s money. There was little Charlie could do. She could go to the police, but nothing fruitful would come of it. The woman had taken the funds and fled.
With a sinking heart Charlie turned away from the house. She had no idea what to do next. Among other things, she discovered that the clinic had not been properly licensed. And the mortgage on the property had gone unpaid for the past few months. The business manager had smoothed over important details and embezzled money earmarked for those essentials. There was not enough to even open the clinic. And she was completely broke.
Charlie started toward the main road in the darkness, dazed and disheartened. She needed to find a taxi, get back to her apartment and try to muster her resources. Already she felt the courage of her convictions draining from her. How could she possibly succeed now? She walked down a dusty side street, paying scant attention to her surroundings. Halfway to the main road she realized she was being followed. She was on a stretch of dirt lane with no houses, just a high wall on either side. There were no lights and no one around. She picked up her pace, trying to reach the nearest cross street, hoping for people or at least a little light, but it was too late.
She never saw her attacker’s face, just felt the crushing weight of an arm hooked across her windpipe as he grabbed her from behind. She inhaled the acrid smell of him, stale sweat and cigarettes. She was strong, but he was far stronger. She struggled and kicked at his shins.
He grunted. “Scream and I snap your neck.” He lifted her to her tiptoes, cutting off her air until she went limp in acquiescence, then he forced her down into the dust of the road. Something sharp dug into her back and she tried to twist away, but he held her fast, struggling to undo his trousers and keep her pinned down at the same time. She broke free for a second and opened her mouth to scream, but he choked her again, livid and reeking of alcohol. He clubbed her in the side of the head with his fist so hard she saw fireworks. And there was no one to hear her anyway.
When he was gone, she scrambled up and sat in the dust for a few minutes, trembling, in shock. He had taken everything—her bag and phone, even her shoes. Bleeding and barefoot, she stumbled to the nearest house and banged on the door, begging to borrow a mobile phone. The occupants of the house, a sturdy older woman and a thin young man, her son, took her in and treated her kindly. The woman gave her rooibos tea laced with sugar and then sent the young man with her in a taxi to the hospital. As Charlie left their home, the woman slipped her own house shoes on Charlie’s feet. Her eyes met Charlie’s for a moment.
“You are strong,” the woman said, her eyes kin
d. “In a little while this suffering shall pass away.” The shoes were too large, but Charlie was grateful for the gesture.
In the ensuing hours, as Charlie was examined at the hospital and interviewed by a jaded police officer, she sat dry-eyed and stunned, unable to comprehend how things had changed so quickly. She was penniless, alone, and violated. Her beloved clinic was unlicensed and bankrupt. She wanted to be brave, to be bigger than the violence and the corruption that was robbing her of so much. But she could not undo the damage. That night broke something inside of Charlie, something that she could not repair no matter how much she wanted to. A week later she left South Africa. She never went back.
Charlie opened her eyes and shivered in the wet cold seeping through the stones of Fisherman’s Bastion. It had begun to rain harder. By morning it might turn to snow. She had run far and long, but it had all come back to face her once again. Not the same story, but a similar one. Violence against the vulnerable, corruption, greed, the loss of innocence. It was a story she had wanted so badly to forget, but she was learning she could not.
It just keeps coming back to find me.
Since that night in Johannesburg, she had been running from her failure, hiding in plain sight from the pain of her shattered idealism. The attack had violated her body, but the loss of her beloved clinic had scarred her even more deeply. She had lost her vision and her sense of purpose. She had not been strong enough to stay, to save herself and the clinic despite the crippling setbacks. She had buckled under their weight, and that failure sat in her stomach like a stone, bitter as wormwood, hard as granite.
If I could have been a little stronger, better, I could have made it all work. Charlie shook her head. She would have been able to offer so much through the clinic, benefit so many women. But instead, she had turned tail and run, leaving everything behind. With that decision Charlie had lost her vision for the future. In that act of running, Charlie had lost herself.
Feeling again the weight of the old grief, the stale sense of shame, she stood for a long time looking out at the beautiful golden glow of the city she had come to for refuge. How she wanted to rewrite history, to be stronger than the circumstances, stronger than the perpetrators who had robbed her of so much. But she had fled to Budapest and hidden away with a job that required little of her heart and a life she shared with no one. It was safe—safe and sterile.
In an instant she remembered again what had been taken from her, with a stab of grief so white hot it made her grit her teeth not to cry out. How was this her life—her half-empty apartment with no art on the walls; her nonexistent love life; the bookshelves groaning with books, a replacement for relationships and friends. She felt as though she had wandered into some other person’s life. Surely she was meant for greater things. She had done her best to forget, but here it was again, the same quandary wrapped in a different set of circumstances. And she was faced again with a question, the question.
“What do I do now?” she asked aloud, the question ringing off the stone arches. She had run once. Would she run again? Or would she have the courage to face the darkness, to square off against those who inflict violence and pain on the vulnerable? In Africa she had not stood against the ones who had inflicted it on her. Instead, she had run to Budapest. But the darkest places of human nature knew no borders. She had seen it again on that road in Serbia; she would face it in the world wherever she went. She could not outrun the evil that flourished in the dark recesses of the human heart.
For a moment she pictured her hero, the Red Cross Knight. How she had idolized him and admired his bravery. As a child she had wanted to be brave, imagined herself to be as brave as he. But when she had faced her own dragon, she had dropped her sword and run.
Charlie thought of Aunt Mae, of the words she had lived by. “Whatever the Good Lord puts in your hand you give back to others.” It had been her guiding principle, her gospel. There was no doubt in Charlie’s mind what Aunt Mae would do if she were faced with this dilemma. Charlie had only a little in her hand—a few words to speak before a court of law, the truth about what she had seen that frigid night on the road in Serbia. It was not much, but perhaps it would make a difference. Perhaps it would be enough.
She stood looking out at the city for a long while, weighing the dilemma and the possible consequences. She stood waiting for a flash of inspiration, waiting for salvation in whatever form it might take. But none came. This was her decision, her chance to choose a different path if she dared.
Okay then. Charlie sighed, feeling tired to her core but no longer afraid. She knew what she had to do. There was really only one good answer, only the conviction that seeped like liquid metal into the marrow of her bones, giving her strength.
She had been running for too long; it was time to turn and face her dragons. She did not have a brilliant plan, only the sure conviction that she must speak up in defense of those who had no other voices to speak for them—and that she must protect the baby from whatever her courage cost her.
I will keep you safe, she promised, cupping her hand over her belly in a gesture of protection, but it’s time to stand and fight.
CHAPTER 16
March
The Bahamas
I do believe there’s nothing in the world a little Caribbean sunshine won’t cure,” Waverly mused, tipping her face back and drinking in the strong, lemony March light.
Andrew glanced up from his paper and smiled at his wife across the breakfast table, noting the look of delight on her face. “You may be correct in that belief, my dear.” He took a sip of his coffee, strong and black, and continued to browse the financial section of the paper for any interesting articles.
They were enjoying a leisurely breakfast on the veranda of the Paradise View Hotel on New Providence Island. Their table looked out over the brilliant shimmer of blue water, stands of coconut trees, and a strip of sand as soft and white as icing sugar. A few other tables were occupied but set at a discreet distance away. They had one corner of the veranda all to themselves.
Andrew and Waverly had stayed at the hotel twice before, once when they’d been engaged and then again a few years after their marriage. Although he preferred vacationing in cooler temperatures—skiing in Verbier, for instance—Andrew enjoyed the Bahamas. They offered excellent sailing, a strong enticement for him. Waverly adored the islands and this hotel in particular, with its long cotton-candy-pink main house festooned with a wide white second-story veranda and a tranquil sea view.
The sun was warm on the crown of Andrew’s head and a fresh breeze was blowing in from the water, bringing the salt smell of the ocean. Even with his British bones, which were leery of the sun, he had to admit that it felt like a balm after a particularly frigid New England winter.
“My dear, thank you for arranging this little surprise getaway,” he said, meeting Waverly’s eyes over his coffee cup and smiling. “It is both an unexpected and a much-needed reprieve.”
“It’s perfect,” Waverly agreed, buttering a fresh croissant and taking a small bite. She vigilantly monitored her carbohydrate intake, but Andrew knew she had a particular weakness for fresh croissants. “Truthfully, I’ve missed you,” she admitted. “You’ve been so consumed with work and I’ve been so worried about Simply Perfect’s future that I feel like we’ve barely seen each other. And of course I’ve been preparing for the baby, which has taken quite a bit of time.”
“Ah, yes, I suppose that’s true,” Andrew murmured, shifting uneasily in his very comfortable deck chair. He had been busy with work, but only because he had no idea what to do in his own home life anymore. In some way he felt as though he’d lost his wife. They saw each other so little, and when they did her conversation centered entirely upon either excitement about the baby or concern over the show. She and her team spent hours each week brainstorming ways to boost Simply Perfect’s ratings and save its future. Half the time if Andrew awoke in the night and went to the kitchen for a glass of water, he would find Waverly bent over her
recipe books, furiously scribbling ideas. And when she wasn’t preoccupied with her show, she was browsing baby blogs, buying items online, and getting ready for their new arrival. There was little room left for him, it seemed.
Frankly, he found this new dynamic worrisome. He missed his wife. He was lonely in his marriage. And the baby hadn’t even arrived yet. He felt both trapped and a bit resentful. But he didn’t know how to change anything, and he certainly didn’t know how to bring it up to Waverly. His lack of enthusiasm and growing concern over this child would shatter her.
“Isn’t this just heaven?” Waverly sighed, smearing homemade marmalade over her buttered croissant. Andrew hmmed his agreement but did not look up. He needed to just keep his chin up and endure it, he told himself firmly. He had, after all, agreed to the baby, or so he kept reminding himself. With strong reservations, it was true, but he had agreed. But when he thought of the next years, truly thought of how this baby would change their lives permanently, he felt only a cold, leaden dread. How could he possibly bear this feeling through so many days and weeks and months and years? How could he continue living a life he was more and more uncertain he wanted? He should tell Waverly, but he couldn’t find the words.
Waverly watched Andrew perusing the paper across the breakfast table and frowned. She’d planned this trip to be a reconnection point, but so far her husband seemed distant and preoccupied, much as he had since before Christmas, actually since around the time of Aunt Mae’s funeral. He was courteous with Waverly as always—she couldn’t imagine Andrew any other way—but he was not present. She missed him.
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