Given New Worlds

by Rachael Sircar

  “Physically? Yes. Mentally? … I don’t know.”

  Abby nodded her head. Nathan had been through so much. Would this utterly destroy him? Would he become a Keambiroiro? Or would God shower his grace on the boy and bring him through it, only to be stronger? “What about Ayubu’s husband?”

  “It was dark. Hard to tell. He got away in a car he had on standby. There were two other men in the car.”

  Abby sighed and curled into herself on the rocking chair. “So, he’s still out there.”

  “Am I evil for being relieved when I saw that little boy in Keambiroiro’s arms? I thought it was you, Jamie. When your roommate was saying that he was looking for Ayubu, I thought it was you.” Abby could hear the catch in his throat. She glanced at his pained face and saw that moisture threatened to spill from his eyes, but he blinked it back. His eyes became unfocused and ridges of lines and confusion covered his forehead. Abby could sense his mind transitioning from the present to a past that had taken over his thoughts. A past much more distant than that of Nathan and Keambiroiro.

  “I went out there. Out of the hospital. I tried to talk him down. I used everything I knew about hostage negotiation. All that mattered was saving that boy. I didn’t care about myself anymore. There was nothing to live for. You were gone. If I lived or died saving that boy, it didn’t matter.”

  Abby knew that he wasn’t talking about Nathan anymore. It was Afghanistan, or wherever he had been. She sat in silence as horrors stalked through Sean’s mind. She was well aware of the drill, the memories had to progress like a timeline of monstrosities. If you stopped the film halfway through, it would only attack moments later with a vengeance. The whole movie had to play out in your mind before its attack was done.

  “The shots hit me, but I didn’t feel them. I kept walking, talking to him. He had the boy by his neck. That child was dying right there in front of me. So, I jumped forward, but the second shot hit me. I couldn’t save him. Life left him, but I survived. He had so many years ahead of him. But me? The man who could save nobody? The man who had no life worth living? I survived.”

  Once Sean’s breath had subsided to even ins and outs, Abby reached her hand towards him. His weary eyes hesitated, then reached for her. She threaded her fingers through the weak appendage that had once been a strong, skillful hand - a doctor’s hand, a soldier’s hand, the hand of her love. But now, it was only one of the three.

  She knew now where his bitterness came from. It wasn’t merely due to his feeling of failure in her attack. It was so much worse. He’d tried to save that little boy. But the savages of war were too heavy, too brutal. The boy had died.

  “You saved Nathan,” Abby said quietly.

  “I saved Nathan,” he repeated mechanically. She wasn’t sure if he believed it, but at least he’d spoken the words.

  “And I know that you’ll save me.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  ABBY and Sean continued to check their cell phones throughout the day. Oyana had communicated to her that the hospital was secure. Nathan was eating and moving, but he wasn’t talking. Abby assured Oyana that he needed time. Time to not exist for a while. Time for God to heal his little mind while he adjusted to another new world, with new cruel memories, yet new strengths within.

  The three of them prepared lunch, and they sat quietly around the table. Each worried, each of them not wanting to speak the words, not to make them real.

  Ayubu spoke first. “If you have word of Keambiroiro, I’m ready to hear it.”

  Sean glanced at Abby. She nodded for him to go ahead and tell her. He told how Keambiroiro had gone to the hospital looking for her, and for the American woman that stole her. He was planning to kill both of them. He’d made his way to the orphanage and chased the children, only able to grab Nathan because he was slower than the others. Keambiroiro had spent thirty minutes in the dark of the well wall, screaming for Ayubu to show herself or he would kill the boy. Then Sean had come out and negotiated.

  Due to his limited grasp of Swahili, Sean didn’t elaborate on details. He only said that he was able to get Keambiroiro to step out into the light, then several shots were taken and Keambiroiro dropped Nathan, climbed over the well wall, and eventually ran to a waiting car.

  Ayubu stayed quiet as Sean revealed the information. “He will not stop. He will find me,” she said. Her words were stated not as fear, but as resolved fact. “Oyana is in danger as well. She has given me safety and he will destroy her for that.”

  “I’ve got people making sure that doesn’t happen, so does Dr. Otieno. The hospital is currently under surveillance and a call has been put out to locate Keambiroiro and the men he was with. Do you know who they might be?”

  “Maybe his brothers. He has no friends. He is not well liked in the community.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me. Does he have money? Resources?”

  “Money, not much, but he has worked for a gang in Kayole, they may help him.”

  Sean tapped the information into his phone. “I think we should get you out of here,” Sean said, his rough translation into Swahili halting, but firm. “I’ve got a friend in Eldoret. He has an extra room and his wife is due to have a baby. They could use help and would be pleased if you would stay with them.”

  Confusion sat idly on Ayubu’s face. Abby wasn’t sure if it was due to Sean’s difficulty with the language, or the fact that he’d found a place for her to stay.

  “Why would you do this for me?” she asked.

  Sean’s eyes softened, and he clasped his fingers together in a half grasp. “Because you’ve suffered enough. You’re a child of God. It’s time for you to find the strength he’s given you.”

  Flicking her eyes toward Sean and quickly away, Abby let the words soak in. Was it possible that the rift between Sean and God was closing?

  “I am not a child,” Ayubu said. “But I do trust in God. I know that he has sent you.” She rose from her chair and placed her hands on Sean’s face. “I will not let this favorable circumstance sit idle. I will be sure that God uses me. Thank you for giving me a new life.”

  Abby thought about her own escape into the arms of Frank and Sandra Gill. She knew that opportunity had been via God’s hand. And she’d been able to go out into the world and do His work. Ayubu would now have that opportunity.

  But what about Abby? Would she be able to go back to the work she loved? Would she once again minister to the patients, staff and children at the hospital? Or had the incidences of the past few days turn her world on a new axis, moving her path, changing its course into an unrecognizable world that she could barely fathom. For now, she would stay hidden. Until Keambiroiro was found. For now, she would let Sean protect her. Because that’s what he needed to do. He needed to know that amongst all his doubts, there was a boy that still lived due to his diligence, and he needed to know that he could protect. He could even protect Abby.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  THAT evening, Sean drove Ayubu’s truck while Abby followed with Ayubu in Sean’s car. They settled her into her new temporary home and drove back to Oyana’s sister’s house. During the trip, Sean was paranoid, but not angry. It was good to see the moments of calm in his face, and Abby could almost imagine that they were back to their dating days, before their worlds had changed.

  “I’m going to pay for her to go to school,” Abby said. “Well, I guess my parents will, since it’s technically their money. It’s an account they set up in Switzerland.”

  “Your benefactor would like that,” he stated oddly.

  Abby couldn’t help but notice that he didn’t mention her dad. She wondered how much the man had changed since her attack. She hadn’t spoken with him. Most of the email communications were polite comments about her job at the hospital and a few mentions of his senatorial work. Nothing personal. As if it would be too painful for him. Or too revealing.

  “Tell me what happened with my dad,” she said, watching Sean’s muscles tense at the request.

  �
�I don’t think you want to hear it.”

  “There are a lot of things we don’t want. But we have to muddle through them, don’t we?”

  Sean nodded, but didn’t say a word. Perhaps it wasn’t that she didn’t want to hear it. Maybe he didn’t want to speak it. It wasn’t until they got back to the house and were relaxing on the front porch before he said anything.

  “Your Dad… he went a little crazy,” Sean began. “After I found you, he was the next one to arrive at the sound room. He thought I…” The shake of Sean’s throat betrayed the tension in his body. “He’d thought I’d attacked you, he thought you were dead. He just left me there, holding your body. I knew you were alive by then, I tried to tell him, but he’d lost it. I don’t know where he got the shotgun from. Maybe from somewhere in Minck’s house, maybe another guest. I never found out.” Sean paused, memories visibly flitting through his mind like a ball on a roulette wheel.

  “What did he do, Sean?”

  “Don’t hate him. He did it because he loved you. He thought I’d killed his daughter.”

  “Tell me.” It came out in a hoarse whisper.

  “He shot me.” Sean lifted his hand and pointed to the location where his third knuckle should have been located. “The round hit me in the middle of the hand. Tore two of my fingers off. They did one reconstructive surgery, but I didn’t hang around for the rest.”

  Abby’s mind was a whirlwind of emotion. Her dad had shot Sean? It was impossible. Senator Ellwood was a kind, caring man. He didn’t have an evil bone in his body. But then, she recalled hints of Dad’s overprotective nature. His demands on the security personnel around her. His insistence that she be tucked away. Of course, the attack would destroy him. He’d thought she was dead, and that Sean had been the cause.

  “I’m so sorry,” Abby whispered.

  Sean’s head tipped in agitation. “Don’t you dare say that.”

  “That I’m sorry for what happened to you?”

  “Don’t ever. It was not your fault.”

  “Well, either was what happened to me. It’s not your fault that I was attacked. You were going to help someone, Sean. That’s what good people do.”

  “I should have been there to protect you, then none of this would have happened.”

  Abby stood and pounded her foot into the wood of the porch in frustration. “You’re wrong, Sean. It still could have happened. Just like that little boy who died in front of you. You did everything you could to protect him. You almost gave your life for him. But he didn’t survive. That isn’t your fault. This is a crappy world. Some people are dealt a crappy life. Look at what’s happening with Ayubu. She is a wonderful, compassionate, loving woman who was almost killed by the very face of evil. There will always be people who delight in doing wrong and rejoice in the perverseness of evil, but we can’t allow ourselves to feel guilt because of those things we don’t control. You can’t dwell on what could have been better. Those thoughts will manipulate you until they eat you up.”

  Sean dropped his head back into the top of the chair and squeezed his eyes shut. Abby could see the tears sneak their way past his eyelids and down his cheeks.

  “It’s so hard,” he said. “I don’t know how to do this.” His body shook in emotion and Abby felt her heart reach into his and try to take some of the pain, but he didn’t know how to let go.

  Stepping towards him, Abby leaned down and placed her hands on his shoulders and her cheek next to his, catching the moisture that streamed down his face. “It is hard. I don’t know how to do it either. Every day I feel a thorn in my side, those seven letters slicing into my back, telling me how badly I want to get revenge. But in my heart, I know that’s not what God wants. We’ve got to find a way beyond it.” she reassured him. “But we’ll have to do it together, because there’s no way we can handle this alone. Not anymore, now that we’ve found each other.”

  Abby felt his arms come around her back and she climbed into his lap, each leg on either side of his thighs. She sank into his arms and they once again became that statue where one piece fit so perfectly into the other. There was no beginning, nor end.

  She held him as he shook and cried, her own tears mixing with his, into a confluence of rivers, into a new world. Eventually, she felt his breathing relax and the muscles in his jaw soften.

  The touch of his hand on her chin lifted her lips to his. She breathed in as she felt the softness of his mouth against hers. Her fingers lifted to his neck, bringing him closer, needing him. The feel of Sean’s hands sliding under the back of her shirt, warming the skin that had been cooled by the Kenyan evening, sent shivers down her spine.

  “Take me inside,” Abby whispered.

  THIRD WORLD

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  THE next morning, they lay in each other’s arms until the sun was high in the sky. God’s own bright eye streaming through the curtain, alerting them to His knowledge of what they’d commemorated the night before. Two lives became one.

  It had been right. It had been perfect, a collection of joy and rage, wonder and reminiscence. They’d laughed, and they’d cried. It had been the mark of a new beginning. Their new world - together.

  They’d ignored the buzzing of their cell phones, blocking out everything else, leaving only themselves to rediscover each other in a new way, a new normal. Sean’s arms wrapped protectively around Abby’s body.

  “I don’t want to be the one to ruin this, but we need to get up eventually,” Abby said.

  Sean groaned and pulled her closer, his chest molding perfectly into the scars of her back, covering them, erasing them. She had also seen the scars that he bore from the shots he’d suffered overseas. Red, angry rivulets that still marked the urgency of the operation they’d performed to remove a bullet from his pancreas. It was clear that he wasn’t completely healed.

  Abby found it more than coincidence that both Sean and Ayubu had suffered from attacks within days of each other. And they’d both denied themselves treatment after the initial surgeries. For what reason? Because they didn’t feel they deserved it. They’d thought so little of their lives that they’d pushed their own health to the wayside. But Abby wasn’t going to let it continue. She would insist that Ayubu work with a doctor in a hospital, thirty miles from Eldoret, far from Nairobi. She would be safe there. Abby’s money would ensure it.

  And she would also insist that Sean have the additional surgeries on his hand, as well as his torso wound, if needed. She wanted him around for a while, even though he was angry and damaged. This was her new Sean, and she wanted him in the best condition she could have him. Not for her own sake, but for his. She knew that the lack of mobility in his hand bothered him. He was hanging onto it out of his own guilt. But she would prove to him that he had nothing to be guilty about.

  Sean was the first out of bed, eventually dragging Abby out from under the blanket and to the small shower where they washed the endless night from their bodies. Then they had a late breakfast and eventually subjected themselves to the countless calls that had taken residence on their cell phones.

  Oyana was safe. She and Abby’s two other roommates would be staying at the hospital until Keambiroiro’s threat was no longer hanging over their heads. The police department was assisting with the search and had several leads but had yet to make any arrests. Dr. Otieno had strongly suggested that Abby stay at Oyana’s sister’s house until they had more news.

  Sean’s phone calls consisted of the same information. Lay low for now. The photo of Abby and Sean in the garage had surfaced on a few local sites, but they hadn’t been identified yet. And there was no mention of the shooting. Sean’s guys managed to stem the flow of internet coverage on the photo but said it could just be a matter of time. Once names were put to the faces, it would be all over.

  “So, what then?” Abby asked. “I can’t just hide out forever. It would still be better for me here, working at the hospital, than in the U.S.”

  “Once people around here find out ab
out your money, and your political advantages, you’re going to be a number one target for kidnapping.”

  Abby shook her head, trying to deny Sean’s suggestion. But it was true. The higher up the rung of politics and money, the bigger the chance for crime against you. It was part of the deal. She would have gladly given all the money and fame away for peace and stability in her life. If only she could trade places with some of the women she knew. They were poor, they struggled, but she wanted so much to be one of them right now.

  “Let’s see what the day brings,” Sean said, curling his arm around her waist and bringing her forehead to his lips. “We’ll just take it one step at a time.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  THE next step arrived three days later.

  Abby had been going stir crazy in the house. There was still no word on Keambiroiro, and she would have been beside herself if Sean hadn’t been there, caring for her, kissing her, loving her.

  For three days they discovered each other’s new worlds. They discussed fears, argued about lies, and tentatively placed hope in their hearts. It was a new world for both of them. They were keenly aware that things would never be the same. Decisions had been made that included so little of their old life, Abby knew the future would be an entirely unfamiliar road. They didn’t know God’s plan for them but did know it would be both of them - together.

  Sean’s cell rang at two in the afternoon. Abby was scrubbing the bathroom floor for the second time since they’d been there. If anything, Oyana’s sister would be grateful for the repairs and cleaning they’d done in the three days of sitting idle. Sean had managed to rewire the electrical system, add linoleum to the ragged kitchen floor, and spruce up several cabinets throughout the house. It was amazing what he could do with just one hand, and a little help from Abby.