“I printed out that Power Couple meme and taped it underneath Oyana’s bunk. I look at it like a lovesick schoolgirl for the twenty seconds it takes me to get to sleep at night.”
The comment produced enough of a laugh in Sean to display the dimple on his cheek. It was odd. When she’d lived in the States, Sean had driven on the left side of the car. No dimple on his right cheek, but now that they were in Kenya, Abby had a full visual of the small dent that brought warmth to her heart. It didn’t take long for the dent to disappear into Sean’s new normal, the scowl he seemed to have acquired in the past year. She wondered if it was a permanent thing, this unfamiliar, angry Sean. Or did God have different plans?
“Only twenty seconds?” he asked.
“I’m usually pretty tired after work.”
Sean just nodded his head.
“Except for those nights. The ones where I think.”
He nodded again. Abby knew that he understood. He was there too. Surely, he suffered from endless nights of memories and nightmares. Desiring sleep, but not being able to turn off the sordid past. Then, when you did finally go to sleep, the demons took over. Those were the hard nights.
“So, you taped up the picture,” he said. The dimple once again making an appearance on his cheek.
Abby felt a wave of embarrassment but shoved it aside quickly. It didn’t matter, she had no schemes with Sean, no desire to put her best foot forward. He’d already seen the best and worst of her, yet he had come back.
Yes. He had come back. To her.
The realization of it hit, and Abby felt tears press into her eyes again. But she fought them back.
“How did you find me?” she asked.
Sean cleared his throat as if uncomfortable with his next statement. “Jamie Poser’s New World.”
“My blog?” It was impossible. “Did Veena tell you?”
“No. I haven’t talked to…” he hesitated. “I searched for you every day.”
“You mean, you searched for Jamie.”
“Yes. I searched for the new you.”
Abby thought about it. The new Sean searched for the new Abby, or Jamie, or whoever she was now. Every day. He hadn’t left her, hadn’t abandoned her. He just didn’t know where she was. Abby didn’t bother asking about his communication with her parents. According to the news articles she’d read, her father had been the one that had accused him of attacking her. Until he was proven not guilty. But by then, the damage had been done. Abby wanted to ask him what happened, but it wasn’t time. Not yet.
“Did you like the blog?”, she asked.
“I loved it,” he said, then a painful look spread over his face. “But I hated it. All the things that were happening here in front of you. Children dying of disease, men beating their wives, you having to walk two miles back and forth for work every day. It killed me. I wanted to see you so much.” His voice bit back words as he choked on a sob. She couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for him.
Which was harder? Knowing nothing at all? Or seeing every week, the pain and difficulties of a different world. But he was only pointing out the hard parts, there was so much more in the blog. Had he skipped over the joys and accomplishments?
“I have a good life here.”
“I know,” he said, hitting the steering wheel. “I know you think you do. You went on and on about those kids, and the worship services, and the missionaries. But this place… it’s just so…”
“It’s just different, Sean. It’s not better. It’s not worse. It’s just different.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
SEAN continued to drive in silence for another twenty minutes until they pulled into a parking spot and turned off the car.
She found herself approaching a lavish hotel with an Indian restaurant, her hand comfortably tucked in Sean’s arm. “It comes highly recommended,” he said, as they entered the door of the restaurant.
“Are you sure you can afford this?” Abby said. They were words she’d never spoken in her American life but used all too frequently in Nairobi.
Sean didn’t seem to find it endearing. “Of course I can. I’m not just mowing lawns.”
Abby wanted to ask how he was getting his money, but a busy waiter shuttled them to a table and took their drink order before she could even get a breath in. Of course, Sean ordered a scotch that he wouldn’t drink. And Abby decided to go with a martini. The only time she’d had one before was at her aunt’s second wedding, and at the time she’d thought it tasted like hairspray and Kool-Aid. She wondered if her tastes had refined through the years. Probably not, since the only alcohol she’d had in over a year was the one glass of wine at the restaurant with Sean.
Once they received their drinks, Abby decided to find out about the money. “You said you’re not mowing lawns,” Abby pointed out.
Sean raised his eyebrow, her sarcasm clearly not lost on him.
“Are you working? Here in Nairobi? I mean, a month is a long time. Is it some sort of military thing?”
“That’s a lot of questions.”
“What are you doing for money?” She finally settled on one question.
“I’m not in the service anymore,” he said. “Medical discharge.”
She could see that this bothered him, so she didn’t bother asking.
“So, what do you do?” she asked.
“I’m a contractor.”
“That’s a vague term,” Abby said, sipping the martini to find a pleasant blend of fruit without an overbearing taste of alcohol. “Are you building houses or something?”
Sean laughed. Abby was glad to see the dimple appear again.
“Definitely not.”
“Oh. Does it pay well?”
“Not as well as a neurosurgeon, but it’ll do.”
Abby couldn’t help but glance at his hand. He’d had so much potential as a medical student and now, here he was in Kenya, far from his original plan of becoming a doctor. But then, he probably thought the same thing about her. She could be in medical school in the States, but instead, she was tapping at a computer all day in a small, dusty office connected to a barely thriving orphanage.
They talked through dinner about the Kenyan traffic and weather, not daring to delve into the heartbreaking topics that lay so close to the surface of their thoughts. Keeping it polite was easier. And it was just nice to be with him.
He even managed to kick at her foot jokingly under the table several times, a motion she’d come to love during their time together in their former lives.
After dinner, Abby ordered another martini, and they walked towards a section of the restaurant that overlooked the city, but when they reached the open doorway, Abby hesitated. The lights overlooking the city were too familiar, too much like Mike Minck’s backyard in Hollywood Hills. Sean sensed it immediately and began to pull back.
“No,” Abby said. “I need to face it.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea. We should leave.”
“Well, you go ahead and leave then,” she stated sarcastically. “I’ll take a matatu back.”
She stepped out onto the terrace and let the soft lights of the night swallow her. The bar area was busy with a mix of locals and foreigners. She worried about the exposure, but then worried more about her reaction to the eerily similar expanse in front of her. She finished off the martini and felt Sean come up behind her, his hand at her back.
“I remember the lights… and the gazebo,” she said.
Sean didn’t talk, but she felt his words nonetheless. He remembered it too.
“And I remember that guy. The one with the glasses and the gloves.”
Abby’s heart raced, and she willed it to calm, not wanting Sean to be more worried for her than he already was. She needed to address this, not let it hang in the past. She needed to bludgeon it to death so that it would no longer raise its horrific face in her nightmares. “He said Stacey had overdosed. Did she?”
“Yes,” Sean said softly.
“Is she okay?”
“She ended up in the hospital, but her dad covered it up.”
“Of course he did. But she’s okay?”
“I don’t know. She’s likely hooked on something else by now. Her life is a mess.” Abby felt Sean’s arm tighten on her waist. “We should go. You don’t need to relive this whole…”
“I do need to… It’s time.”
“We’re in the middle of a drunken crowd, Jamie. If you cause a scene…”
“Shut up, Sean.”
It was the strongest words she’d ever spoken to him. He silenced.
“When did they find me? I want the truth. Not the bullshit that my parents fed me.”
“I found you,” he said.
“Oh no,” Abby turned to face him. His face was ashen, and she could almost sense the vibration of pain and anguish in his body. “I’m so sorry.” It wasn’t her that he was trying to keep from reliving it. It was himself.
“I thought you were dead. You were just hanging there. Your neck was bent at a strange angle. Blood was everywhere.” He jerked in memories and his voice became a whisper. “I thought you were dead,” he repeated.
Abby watched Sean’s eyes glaze over as flashbacks shot through, the movie of that night playing over and over again in his head. She needed to get him out of his own mind. She tried pulling on his hand, but he only stood there, fading away in thought. If there weren’t a hundred people elbow to elbow with them on the terrace she would have slapped him.
But there was always another way.
Abby stood on her tiptoes, lifted her hand to the back of his neck, and placed her lips on his. She felt it immediately, the crash of waves as the water turns from ice back into water. He had melted back into the real world. But he didn’t stop kissing her. His arm became a vise around her back and he pulled her closer. Abby too, felt her hands pressing into the backs of his shoulders, trying to soak him up, to become that living statue where you couldn’t tell one body from the other. The flash of a camera light jolted them both back to reality. Abby glanced over and saw that it was just a group of girls at the bar taking a selfie, but she and Sean had both been unnerved by it. They left the restaurant and headed to Abby’s apartment.
“I can still taste your martini,” Sean said as the highway of lights welcomed their car into the flock of vehicles.
“Did you like it?” Abby asked. She was surprised. Her normally gravelly voice sounded husky - almost sexy. She felt her face redden and turned towards the window.
“I want more,” he growled. It wasn’t the angry, hollow growl of the man he’d become, but a man with ambition, desire. “I want you.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
SEAN parked the car and turned off the engine when they reached her apartment. He didn’t make a move, only stared out the front window. She couldn’t help but wonder if he was thinking about how painful it was to once again haul himself out of the vehicle.
“One favor,” Abby said. “Stop playing macho man and just let me get out of the car by myself for once.”
He must have seen Abby’s annoyance, because he continued to grip the steering wheel.
“I wish that night had never happened,” he said. Apparently, his hesitation wasn’t due to Abby’s statement.
She thought about what he said. She’d thought the same thing many times. But in the past several months she’d come to realize that it may have been a blessing in disguise. A brutal, horrible path to a peaceful, fulfilling present. “But if it hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t be here. I would still be trapped in the U.S., hounded by the media, not able to take one step without looking over my shoulder.
“But what you went through. It never should have happened. If only I’d stayed with you. Or brought you inside the house with me.”
“They would have found another way to get at me. It was bound to happen. Nothing you could have done would have stopped them.”
“I’m not going to believe that. And I won’t let them harm you again.”
Abby pulled the car door open and stepped out, then leaned down and pointed an accusatory finger straight at Sean’s face. “Don’t do this to me.”
“Do what?” he said, shoulders heaving, breath ragged.
“I am not yours to protect, to save, to imprison.”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“That’s what you want,” Abby was screaming her quiet wail now. Her voice growing raspier as the emotions flared through. “You want to put me in a little box and keep me safe.”
“Is that so wrong?”
“Do you hear what you’re saying? That is exactly what I ran away from in the U.S.”
“No. You ran away from him. From the man who attacked you.”
“If that’s what you believe then you can just go to hell. You don’t know me at all,” she slammed the car door and raced up to her apartment. After twenty minutes of staring down at his car, she finally saw it make its way back onto the street and away from her anger.
She brushed her teeth until they bled, wanting the taste of the martini and his kiss gone from her mouth. What he wanted from her, from himself, was unfair to both of them. He wanted to believe that she was a piece of fluff, something to be protected and cherished. Just like Dad and Mom had kept her in a gilded cage, Sean had also assumed the role of protector. It made her want to scream, to cry, to beat at him with the rage that flowed through her body. But then, she also wanted to hold him, to kiss him, and to feel that moment that they’d experienced on the terrace of the restaurant. It was a part of her old life that she had been desperately missing. A hole longing to be filled.
Abby stared at the Power Couple picture above her bed for hours before finally falling asleep to memories of Sean’s kiss.
The next day, after completing most of her work, Abby found herself standing in Dr. Otieno’s office, gently sweeping her fingers along the buttons of his phone. At dinner, Sean had given her his cell number and it had only taken a matter of milliseconds to memorize it.
She left the handset in its holder while she pretended to push each number in order, then again, and again, until she had gained enough strength to lift the receiver and hear his voice. Pressing each number as if it were another step on the way to the top of Mount Everest, Abby breathed barely enough oxygen to keep her functioning. Her heart clanged in staccato as the rings continued. He picked up on the fourth.
“Hello.”
Sean’s new voice was short and fierce, nothing like the welcoming charisma that he’d expressed in their past life.
Abby’s own voice was even more worn as she replied. “I’m sorry, Sean.”
The silence on the other end of the line wasn’t reassuring.
“You can make it up to me,” he finally said.
A thrill of hope tingled through Abby’s body. “How?”
“A date,” he said. “Then another, then another, until I’m satisfied.”
“And when will that be?” she asked hesitantly.
“Until we’re normal again.”
It took a moment for Abby to respond. “I guess that depends on what normal means to you.”
“Until we can have a conversation without awkward silences, until we can look each other in the eye without being suspicious…, until we can find what we had before.”
Abby closed her eyes and tightened her hand on the phone. Yes, it was exactly what she wanted as well, but the climb to those goals would be too steep. She didn’t know if she could do it. She didn’t know if Sean was capable either. They’d both been so broken, so damaged. Did they have the strength?
“Through God, all things are possible,” she murmured.
Either he hadn’t heard her, or he was just ignoring her statement, because his next reply had nothing to do with God. “Until you can get some fat on your body. You’re so damn skinny. I’ll take you on a hundred dates until you can gain some decent weight.”
Abby took his comment with a grain of salt. It was walking the line betwe
en concern and audacity, but she would give him the benefit of the doubt. “Many women in America would give their right arm to be this skinny,” she joked, but realizing what she said about the arm, Abby pressed her teeth into her tongue. “Sorry.”
“All right,” Sean growled. She wished she could see his face. Was he angry? “In that case, you’ll have to agree to appetizer, dinner, and dessert. No excuses.”
Breathing a sigh of relief, Abby agreed. “I’ll try my best.”
“How about Wednesday?”
“I get off work at five,” she said.
“That’s not true. You never leave before seven on Wednesdays.”
She rolled her eyes and shelved her question about his knowledge for their next date. “For you, I’ll make it five.” But then she remembered his contracting job. Surely it must go past five o’clock, and with the Nairobi evening traffic it would take him at least a half-hour to come from wherever he was working. “Or whenever you get off work, of course.”
“I’m always working,” he laughed. “Five it is.”
“Good.”
“Dress nice. Buy yourself some decent shoes.”
“I wear what I want to now.”
Sean laughed again, and Abby felt herself smile. Maybe climbing up that mountain wouldn’t be so hard after all.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
THE next day, Abby stole away to the storage room and plucked the abandoned package from the top shelf. She knew now that it must have been from Sean. He had been in Kenya. He was the one that was familiar with the name Jamie Poser. And no one else she knew admitted to sending a package. They didn’t even know the date of her birthday. It must have been him.
It was a plain, brown package. The return address was a postal box in downtown Nairobi. Abby sat on the floor of the storage room and carefully opened the paper. Inside was a velvet jewelry box.
Her birthday jewelry. The ones that had been given to her by Sean.
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