Given New Worlds

by Rachael Sircar

  At that, Abby completely lost it. Hearing it in her own mind and hearing it from her mother were so very different. She felt as if the cocoon was now broken open and she could finally spread her wings.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  WITH Frank’s connections at the Visa office, he was able to arrange Abby’s documentation without having to return to the United States.

  “You know you can come back anytime,” Frank said. “Just give us a call and we’ll be here.”

  “You should give us a call anyway,” Sandra interrupted with happy tears in her eyes. “We’re going to miss our sweet Beebee.”

  They understood what was happening. They had seen Abby’s actions after the accident, and they had also participated in the meeting at the hospital when Dr. Otieno offered Abby a semi-permanent position until the doctor’s strike ended, and the hospital began running efficiently once again.

  Frank had handled the business end with Abby’s Dad, knowing that she didn’t have the ability to argue with her father about the decision. It had been a heated argument over a scratchy phone line and Abby was pretty sure that her father never said yes before Frank hung up, but she stayed nonetheless. And Frank was supporting her entirely.

  When she watched the white airport van drive off, with Frank and Sandra’s hands lifted in a congratulatory good-bye from the back window, Abby felt a peace. A final thread disconnected from her and she stood on her own two feet. Alone, yet not alone. Scared, yet brave. She lifted her small suitcase from the curb and walked to the bus stop that would take her to her new home, an apartment she would share with Nurse Oyana and two other women.

  She climbed onto the matatu bus and handed over the money that Frank had given her. Next month she would have to handle the bank account by herself. She thought about the lines and crowds in which they’d mingled while walking to the bank. It had been smelly, crowded, and wonderful. Hundreds of eyes surrounding her, but not one of them knowing, or caring, who she was. She was truly free.

  Once on the matatu, Abby sat down next to a woman about her age. She had a pleasant look and immediately began talking to Abby about how she was learning English and looked forward to a career in computer technology. Abby could only understand half of what the woman was saying, but it was still a captivating conversation. Before getting off the bus, the woman turned, “What is your name?” she asked.

  “Jamie Poser.”

  It was the beginning of her new world.

  SECOND WORLD

  CHAPTER FORTY

  WORK at the hospital was brutal. South Mission was a private hospital and didn’t suffer from the loss of doctors like the public hospitals did during the strike, but the influx of patients trying to find help by any means necessary had turned their small seventy-five bed hospital into a chaotic mass of over three hundred patients, turning away those that could wait until the strike ended, and triaging those that needed the most care. Abby and the nurses worked from the moment they opened their eyes until they closed them in an exhausted coma, then five hours later they were shaken awake again to repeat the process. There were no days off, no lunch breaks, no meetings to discuss patient care and disease prevention. Only the task of caring, healing, comforting, praying, and sometimes letting them go.

  During the three months of Abby’s ‘temporary’ employment at the hospital, she watched twenty-three people die. This was twenty-two more than she’d seen before moving to Kenya. The only other death she’d ever experienced prior, was that of a small baby, cradled in Sean’s arms, loved, prayed for, and being sent off by a man who knew true compassion.

  After some of the more heart-wrenching deaths at the hospital, came the moments that Abby locked herself in the equipment closet, sat on the floor, and cried. Those were the few moments that she allowed herself to think about Sean. Those were the moments that she felt herself dying again. But then, a knock on the door would remind her that she was needed in her new world. She would dry her eyes, wash her face, and go out to do God’s work.

  On one occasion, when Abby had been removed from the surgical floor to work triage in the ER, she noticed a woman that had been sitting in the waiting area, quiet and suffering. The nurses tended to work with the louder, more demanding patients, but this woman only sat and stared.

  Ayubu had been beaten by her husband, ribs kicked in, several molars knocked out, baby miscarried. But she had been sitting in that ER for two days, waiting alone and in pain, while others with much less immediate injuries were seen before her. By the time she was brought to a bed, a pool of blood had gathered on the chair underneath her. Ayubu had stooped to clean the mess - Abby had to pull her away.

  There were extensive surgeries to repair her jaw, ribs, and pelvic area. A specialist was brought in. All of it very expensive. The payments came courtesy of the Ellwood family, filtered through a Swiss bank account that went by the name of Gill Kenyan Relief Fund. Her mom and dad had provided a fund for her with Frank Gill, and when she’d emailed Frank, inquiring about the amount in the account, she’d physically weakened. Over two hundred thousand dollars sat in the account that had been created for her to use at her own discretion. She wondered if the U.S. Government would be suspicious that her parents had started funneling money out of the country but didn’t want to think about the whole process of moving money around from one place to another.

  Abby tried to convince herself that she’d paid for Ayubu’s operations out of love, but there was something else, something deeper. She wanted to show the man that had attacked Ayubu that he couldn’t bring this woman down. He could punch her, kick her, and threaten her, but he would not destroy her.

  In a way, Abby was trying to heal herself through Ayubu. While outwardly displaying an air of focus and calm, inside Abby was reeling with anger at the man who had caused the injuries.

  No. The operations weren’t a gift. They were revenge.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  THE strike ended in mid-November, but it took several more weeks for the public hospitals to stabilize enough to bring South Mission Hospital patient count down to a manageable level. Abby’s dedicated work ethics and quiet servitude had been well-respected, and they kept her on as a communications manager to handle emails and messages that came and went from the United States and other English-speaking countries. She’d been picking up local languages quickly and had even begun to translate for mission groups that came in.

  At first, Abby had been hesitant to work with the missionaries, not wanting anyone to recognize her face, or discover that Abigail Ellwood was hiding out at a missionary hospital and orphanage in Kenya, but after the first few visits, she realized that Jamie Poser was a very different person than the daughter of Senator and Mrs. Ellwood.

  She looked in the mirror and pulled her hair back into a ponytail. It had grown out a bit since she’d moved to Kenya and was now hanging to her shoulders. She would have to cut it again soon. The long strands seemed to be always in the way anymore. Her face was different as well; dark from the unavoidable African sun, and her cheeks were stronger, more defined. The soft curves of her body that had been present a year ago had reduced to bones and flesh, giving her a hard appearance. She was still pretty, but not the striking beauty she had been when she was in medical school. If only they saw her now. Would the boys still get awkward and silly in her presence? Would the girls avoid her?

  Abby thought about her classes and the clinical work she had done the past several years. It was a pinprick of knowledge compared to all that she’d learned in the past two months. But through it all, Abby rejoiced. She was needed. She was doing God’s will. She was free.

  After brushing her teeth and washing the day’s dust off her face, Abby crawled into the lower bunk and tried to close her eyes, but her change in schedule from a mad rush of nineteen hours daily, to a simple employment of seven hours plus thirty minutes for lunch had left her feeling edgy. She needed to move. She slipped back out of bed, went to the kitchen, and hooked up the computer to the line
s that would provide internet access. It always moved faster at night when there were less people using it. She pulled up her email and answered a message from a mission team about a trip they were taking to Nairobi in a few months.

  She pressed send and lifted her hand to close the top of the laptop, but her insides began to melt with that feeling - the one that warned her of memories coming to take hold like a freight train and leave her crushed by hundreds of metal wheels. She took a deep breath and tried to clear her thoughts. Most of the remembrances followed her instructions and dissipated as told, but one held on.

  Sean.

  Abby adjusted the computer screen and clicked on the icon for internet access. She crossed her fingers that it wouldn’t be working, that now wouldn’t be the moment that she would torture herself with her past life. But the icon blinked once, and a screen opened to a search engine that dared her to enter his name.

  SEAN COURT

  Images were slow to appear, but each one sent a javelin through her heart. Sean and Abigail eating ice cream. Sean and Abigail at the shopping center. Sean and Abigail at Swan Lake.

  Tears dropped onto the keyboard as Abby recalled their first kiss. Millions of eyes fell in love with him that night. As had she. She zoomed into the picture and saw his handsome jaw, his contagious smile, and the eyes that made everyone want to be his friend. Those eyes had been on her. Those eyes had loved her.

  Convulsions rocked Abby’s core as she continued to scroll through the images. Sean getting out of his car, Sean wearing his white hospital coat, Sean waving at onlookers as he exited the Italian restaurant where Sean and Abby had had their second date.

  Then came the answers.

  Sean in a black suit, walking into a courthouse, bruises on his cheek, his arm in a sling. Sean exiting the courthouse weeks later, wearing another suit, covering his face, the sling still visible on his arm. Sean sitting in his car, head bent over his steering wheel, camera flashes illuminating the interior of the vehicle with the headlines screaming out ‘No Court for Court. No Leads on Suspect.’

  Abby clicked into the article.

  After the attack, Sean had been considered the immediate suspect as he was the only one seen with Abby after they left the main room of the party. He’d been brutally convicted by the media even before the police had time to obtain full statements from the guests. It was a golden boy gone bad. Sweet, innocent Abigail Ellwood taken advantage of by a cruel, charlatan with a pretty face. According to the day’s trending news, he had been the next Ted Bundy. The public had eaten it up in a frenzy.

  There were so many falsehoods in the links on which Abby clicked. She knew she should stop, knew that it would only lead to more lies and heartbreak. But it had been almost a year. She’d missed so much, had so many unanswered questions. And though the answers she was getting weren’t even close to the truth, her body craved the information like a desert thirst.

  For hours she combed the internet for anything that may have been truth. Then, as the sun rose and Oyana and the other women began to stir in the bedroom, Abby saw it.

  It was a dark, grainy picture, and dozens of people were surrounding her, but she knew what it was. She could see the red silk and the sparkle of sequins on the dress as they shimmered in the dim light of the backyard at Mike Minck’s after-party. She saw the stepping stones that she and Sean had placed their feet upon when they’d strolled to the gazebo that night - and she saw the word carved into her back. The picture was too blurred to make out the individual letters and blood had dripped through her hair and over her entire back, making it indecipherable. But Abby knew what it said.

  “Jamie. Are you all right?”

  It was Oyana.

  Abby clicked the window closed and shut the lid of the computer. “Yes. I’m just having a few memories.”

  “You are homesick?”

  Abby almost laughed. Home wasn’t home anymore. She could never call that place home. Sean was no longer there. After the police statements and public scrutiny, Sean had disappeared off the face of the earth. It was no surprise. Abby had been surviving in the scrutiny the public eye for her whole life and she wouldn’t wish it on her worst enemy. Wherever Sean was, if he still was, he surely was happier out of the horrendous limelight.

  Abby looked at the digital clock on the microwave. It was already past six. Abby had managed to get the other women in the house addicted to coffee, and usually had it brewing by then for Oyana and the others. “Let me get your coffee for you.”

  “No. No,” Oyana said, patting Abby’s hand as it lay idle on the laptop, exhausted from hours of searching that left her with more questions than when she’d started. “I will get the coffee this morning. You go to sleep. It has been a long night for you.”

  Abby nodded her head and felt exhaustion take over. Her shift didn’t officially begin until nine, even though she usually went in at seven-thirty with the other women. Maybe today she would actually go in at her scheduled arrival time. She pushed the computer away and slid into her bed covers, immediately falling into a pile of dreams littered with memories of the past, some pleasant, some horrendous. Some about Mom and Dad, some about Veena, but most about Sean.

  Sean. Where are you?

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  SEVERAL weeks later, Abby still felt the restless sensation flowing through her nerves. Even Dr. Otieno had taken note of her agitation.

  The hospital staff had been provided dinner at the Panari Hotel near the National Park in Nairobi to celebrate their fifty years of service. It was rare that Abby strayed from the small area in which the hospital was located, and she was constantly looking about, wondering if she would be recognized.

  Surely not. She was wearing a tattered shirt and a thin denim skirt with worn patches along the sides, far from the outfits that Abigail Ellwood would wear. She tried not to think about clothes of her past - or people, but it wasn’t working. Her mind did what it did, without her consent.

  During the dinner, Dr. Otieno pulled her aside. “Miss Jamie. Are you no longer happy with us? You like it better when we have hundreds of patients beating down our doors? This work is no longer a challenge for you?”

  He said it in a joking way, and Abby knew that he wasn’t accusing her of being unappreciative. It was his way of showing concern.

  “I’m sorry, Doctor,” she said, not knowing how she could explain it. “I’ve had a few disturbing memories come through and it’s been gnawing at me. I’ll be fine in a couple days.”

  Dr. Otieno crossed his arms and pursed his lips. She’d seen it often, usually when he was deep in thought. “I think that maybe God is pushing you again.”

  “Pushing me?”

  “You are having a spirit of unease. It is time to do something you do not want to do.”

  Abby didn’t bother asking, she knew he would get around to a point eventually.

  “I know that you are not comfortable speaking about the past. From your comment, I now know that this past has come knocking on your door. Perhaps it is time to confront it.”

  Abby felt the walls blow back and her heart shoot into her stomach. No. It was definitely not the time. She wasn’t even close to healed. Sure, her body was better and even the scars on her back had become less visible, but her mind was not healthy. Not yet. Not enough to deal with the part of her that was still battered and broken.

  “You should call home.”

  He’d already mentioned to her that Mom and Dad contacted the hospital at least once a week to check on her. At first, Dr. Otieno had dismissed their calls in frustration due to his overwhelmed work schedule, but now that the strike was over, he had time to talk on the telephone. And Abby could tell by his stance that her parents had gotten to him.

  “I have three daughters,” he said. “One of which is a year older than you.”

  Abby was surprised. She’d never considered the fact that Dr. Otieno had children. He was always at the hospital. She wondered if he was even married. He wasn’t wearing a ring, b
ut then, he didn’t seem like the type of man that would sport one even if he did have a wife.

  “I love my daughters very much. If they left me to move to the United States I think my heart would break in two.”

  She didn’t bother explaining the circumstances to Dr. Otieno. Either he knew, and he wasn’t saying anything, or he didn’t know, and Abby would keep it that way. He continued to look at her and Abby could almost feel the fatherly glare of her own dad as he tried to get her to do his will by using reasoning and sensibility.

  “I guess I could call home,” she said.

  “Good.” A smile lit up his face and he patted her on the shoulder. “I will let you use my telephone.”

  “Right now?” Abby asked. She couldn’t call now, she wouldn’t know what to say. She hadn’t spoken to her parents since she’d told Mom that she was moving to Kenya.

  But Dr. Otieno placed his hand on her lower back and guided her out of the restaurant towards the lobby of the hotel, then he pulled out his cell phone and motioned for her to sit. The phone loomed in front of her, calling her ‘chicken’ and daring her to press her fingers on the button icons. “Well then, Jamie. I shall leave you to it. Do not worry about time. It is all paid for.” At that, he left the lobby and walked back into the restaurant, the door closing quietly behind him.

  Abby knew what ‘it is all paid for’ meant. Mom and Dad were providing money to the hospital. Abby didn’t earn much, but she managed to pay Oyana her share of rent every week. And she ate lunch at the hospital cafeteria on discount. She never had any funds left over. But she didn’t need anything. She looked down at the worn shoes on her feet. Yes, actually, there were a few things she needed. But she had no desire to use any money that her parents would provide. This was, after all, her new world. Her independent world.