by Leylah Attar
The silence that followed was thick and heavy, like the knot that clogged my throat. I knew I should excuse myself, but I couldn’t move. Bahati was staring at his hands, no doubt feeling the same way. Even Scholastica, who had not understood the words, sat stiffly in her chair.
Jack looked at Goma and started to say something, but turned to me instead.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you.” He tossed his napkin onto his plate. “I can’t help you. I couldn’t even help my own kid. I wish everyone would just leave me the hell alone!” His chair scraped against the floor as he got up and stalked out of the room.
Goma remained seated and finished her breakfast. When she was done, she wiped the breadcrumbs off the table, her skin stretched tight over translucent knuckles. “Growing old isn’t for sissies,” she said softly. “You lose the people you love. Over and over again. Some get taken away from you. Some walk away. And some you learn to let go.”
Bahati, Scholastica, and I cleaned up in silence as she sat there, staring out of the window. The previous night’s storm had cleared to reveal glorious blue skies.
“Where to now?” Bahati asked, when we were done.
“Back to Amosha,” I said. “Someone at Nima House must have an idea of what I can do.”
“I’ll get my keys,” said Goma. “My Jeep is still blocking Bahati’s car. I’ll meet you out front.”
I tidied my room and left Goma’s muumuu folded at the foot of the bed. When I stepped outside, Bahati was already waiting by his car.
“Ready?” he asked.
I nodded and gave him a small smile, but I had no idea what I was going to do.
“Sorry it didn’t work out,” he said.
“I’m sure we’ll find another way.” I wasn’t sure at all, but with Scholastica in tow, there was no turning back. I slid into the car and shut the door.
Goma was putting a hat on Scholastica’s head. “She has no pigment,” she said. “That makes her sensitive to the sun. Pick up some sunscreen when you get to Amosha.”
“I will,” I promised. “Thank you for your hospitality.”
“You’re most welcome. Kwaheri, Rodel. Kwaheri, Scholastica. Goodbye.”
She opened the car door for Scholastica to hop in, but Scholastica went running to the porch instead. Jack was standing there, holding out her forgotten balloon. She gave him a wide smile as she took it, but he didn’t notice. His eyes were focused on the hat she was wearing.
“Where did she get this?” he asked.
“Not again, Jack.” Goma walked up to the porch. “I found it in your car.”
“Lily was wearing it. She left it in the car when we went into the mall.”
“It’s just a hat, Jack. There’s no part of Lily in it. She’s here—” Goma touched his heart “—where she’ll always be.”
“It’s the last thing I have of hers. Her sunflower hat. You have no right to give it away.”
“I made her that hat. I can give it to whoever I choose.”
“It’s not just a hat. Not to me!”
They went back and forth, hurling sentences at each other.
Scholastica’s eyes darted from Jack to Goma. It didn’t take much to figure out what they were arguing about. She took off the hat, sliding it slowly from her head. For a moment, she admired the big, floppy flower in the center that looked like a little burst of sunshine. Then she folded it in half and held it out to Jack, squinting up at him with her bizarre, milky blue eyes. He stopped mid-sentence, staring at her. She nudged the hat closer and when he continued standing there, stiff and frozen, she placed it in his palm and curled his fingers around it.
My throat clogged as the sun beat down on her exposed head. Somewhere down the line, she had become my ward, my responsibility. I had moved beyond her startling appearance and saw her for the little girl she was.
Jack saw something too, something that made him grab her hand as she turned to go. He held his daughter’s hat tight in his other hand and knelt before Scholastica.
“Her name was Lily. Jina yake ilikuwa Lily,” he said.
“Lily?” asked Scholastica.
Jack nodded. “Mtoto yangu, my daughter. She liked rainbows and chocolate. Melted chocolate. See?” He pointed to the stains and slid the hat onto Scholastica’s head. “She liked dancing. And singing. And taking photos.” He adjusted the hat so that the sunflower was centered in the front. “She died,” he said. “Alikufa.”
“Pole,” replied Scholastica. Sorry.
Then she put her arms around him and gave him a hug. They embraced under the gable of the house, Scholastica’s balloon bobbing over them, and Kilimanjaro watching silently from the clouds.
It was a moment of big and small—the man, the girl, the mountain, the manor. I couldn’t see Jack’s face, but I knew something was happening—something powerful, yet tender. When it was done, they spoke to each other without any words. Jack straightened and led Scholastica to the car, where Bahati and I were waiting.
“You said you’ll come back tomorrow,” he said to me.
“Pardon me?”
“Yesterday. You said, ‘Maybe this isn’t the best time. I’ll come back tomorrow.’”
I stared at him blankly.
“It’s tomorrow, Rodel Emerson. Come back inside. I’ll take you and Scholastica to Wanza.”
“You will?” A small thrill shot down my spine. “What about the other kids?” I had other names to cross off. I needed a commitment.
Jack opened the car door and waited for me to step out. Then he extended his hand out. When I put my hand in his large, rough grip, he held it for a moment, as if allowing me the opportunity to back out.
Then he squeezed.
It was a silent handshake, an unspoken agreement. And although I had only just met him, I knew I could trust Jack Warden to keep his promise. Come what may.
I FOLLOWED JACK into the library after lunch and watched him unroll a map across the polished walnut desk. He took the three Post-its I handed to him, and laid them out on the map:
July 17—Juma (Baraka)
Aug 29—Sumuni (Maymosi)
Sept 1—Furaha (Magesa)
“We’ll make one trip to Wanza,” he said, after studying Mo’s notes. “The last two stops are on the way there and the dates are close. Your sister and Gabriel probably planned it that way. Instead of driving back and forth, we’ll go to Baraka and get Juma first.” He tapped the location on the map. “We can leave tomorrow and bring him back to the farm. The next pickup isn’t for another week. We’ll set out with him and Scholastica then, stop at Maymosi and Magesa, and head on to Wanza from there.” He looked at me for confirmation.
He was silhouetted against the window, dust motes dancing around him as beams of light slanted in through the pane. The edges of his hair shone like pale gold where the sun touched it, making him look like a dark, charcoal drawing, infused with light. He was still walled up, still barricaded from the inside, but something had cracked open.
Jack had no desire to be pulled back into a world that had taken his daughter away. He had done his part, played the hero, been lauded for saving three lives—a woman, her unborn child, and her little boy—but he found no comfort in the fact that they were alive, or that he was alive. Lily was gone, and he was in pure agony. And yet, there he was, waiting for a reply, looking at me as if acknowledging for the first time that I existed, that what I thought mattered.
“That sounds great.” If he could see me from within that vortex of pain, if he could see beyond himself, I sure as hell could look past his rough, harsh edges. Besides, there was something to be said for a man who kept a bunch of balloons in his all-dark library.
“They remind me of Lily,” he said, when he noticed my eyes lingering on them. “I pick up a new batch whenever I’m in town. It was the last thing she asked me for. Yellow balloons. She wanted them for Aristurtle, so we wouldn’t have to keep looking for him,” he explained, before returning the Post-it notes to me.
I tho
ught about how Mo and Lily were still so present in the yellow paper I held, in the yellow balloons that Jack held on to, and the tortoise that was somewhere behind the desk—invisible, but with a burst of color trailing him.
“I hope we all go like that, leaving something bright behind,” I said.
We watched in silence as the balloons bobbed gently in the corner, as if touched by soft, invisible breaths—rising and falling.
“This was her. My sister.” I searched through my phone and showed Jack a picture of Mo. She was getting her hair braided. A comb was sticking out in the undone part of her hair. She looked so happy, sitting in the shade of a tree, on an upside-down plastic crate, wearing a turquoise dress and polka dot glasses. “We didn’t look much like each other.” Mo was the kind of person who sprang out at you in pictures and crowds. Your eyes just automatically picked her out.
“My daughter and I, we didn’t look much like each other either.”
I didn’t think he was going to share anything further, but then he seemed to changed his mind.
“This is her.” He pulled out his wallet and gave me a Polaroid of Lily.
She had honey-colored skin and was smiling into the camera with pure mischief in her eyes. Strands of flyaway hair were peeking out from under a sunflower hat—the one that Jack had given Scholastica. She looked different from Jack, but I could see him in the arch of her brows and the defiant turn of her chin. She would have broken rules and hearts, and loved every minute of it.
As we held the photos, side-by-side, I felt a sense of loss that goes with the disappearing of smiles, of vibrancy, of voices, and warmth, and choices. And yet there was a sweetness of having shared and known, of having loved, even though it seemed as fleeting as the flutter of a bird’s wings.
I handed Lily’s photo back, and stooped to retrieve something that had landed on the floor. It was another Polaroid, one of Jack, that had been stuck to the back of it. He looked like he’d been caught mid-speech, his skin over-exposed as if the flash had gone off right in his face. Perhaps that was why he seemed so different—his eyes so clear and startling, they captivated me. They had an iridescence that was not easily forgotten, like icy glaciers ringed by golden, summer light. They held no hint of the storm clouds that they did now. I’d pegged him for being around thirty, but he looked much younger in that photo.
“She took both of these,” said Jack, when I handed him back the second Polaroid. “We were driving to the mall that day.” He stroked the edge of Lily’s photo absently. “I told her to stop wasting film.” He slipped the prints back into his wallet and stared at the leather.
“I didn’t answer my sister’s call that day.” I hadn’t told anyone that, not even my parents. I had shared Mo’s final message, but not the fact that I’d ignored her call. I was too ashamed to, but somehow, I felt all right sharing it with Jack. “I was too busy signing papers for my new home.”
Jack remained silent. Maybe he was running over the same things I was: the what-if scenarios that you go through over and over again.
“Is that why you’re doing this?” he asked. “Taking on her unfinished business? Because you feel guilty?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “We don’t always understand the things we do. We just do them and hope we’ll feel better.”
“I don’t know about feeling better.” Jack took a deep breath and straightened from the desk. “All I know is that when Scholastica handed me back Lily’s hat, I couldn’t shut her out. It was the way she looked at me—with no expectation, no judgment. I have no qualms saying no to you, or to Goma, or to anyone who asks anything of me, because I don’t owe anybody a damn thing, including explanations. But when that little girl looked at me, without asking, without speaking, something in me answered.”
Scholastica’s voice mingled with Goma’s in the kitchen as we stood in the library. It was probably what Kaburi Estate had sounded like when Lily was alive—a mix of young and old, with the hum of a distant tractor, and the muted conversations of the staff drifting in through the windows. The breeze picked up the scent of Jack’s skin—green coffee beans and soft earth. It was both light and dark, elusive yet rooted, just like the man. I could have gone on breathing the moment, but I had an odd sensation, like I was standing at the edge of something deep and vast, and needed to pull back.
“Is this Lily’s mother?” I walked over to one of the shelves and picked up a frame. It held a photo of Jack with a beautiful black woman. She had a swan’s neck, elegant and smooth, and the kind of face that needed no makeup to accentuate it. Her features radiated an intelligent confidence. Jack had his arm around her shoulder as she held a younger Lily up for the camera.
“Sarah.” Jack took the frame from my hands and gazed at it. “She wanted to take Lily to Disneyland, but I insisted she come here, like she does every year.”
He left the rest unspoken, but it was clear that Sarah blamed him for what had happened to their daughter. From the expression on his face, he didn’t begrudge her that, because he did too.
“Lily was our last link, the one thing that kept us connected. I haven’t spoken to Sarah since the funeral.” Jack carefully placed the frame back on the shelf.
He did that a lot. Every movement was concise and deliberate, like he was focusing on the things he could control, to keep from getting sucked into a dark, spinning void.
The shrill ring of a referee’s whistle came from the living room, where Bahati was watching a football match. It jarred the strange spell that seemed to have woven around Jack and me.
“I should get going,” said Jack. “I’m needed outside.” He slipped on his sunglasses and paused at the door. “We’ll leave for Baraka in the morning.”
I sat down after he left and watched Aristurtle take little bites of lettuce from his feeding dish. Shafts of sunlight fell on the dark shelves around me. It was only then that I realized I was surrounded by books. Yet not one of them had clamored for my attention while Jack had been in the room.
I RUBBED MO’S note between my fingers as we left the farm. Dewdrops were still glistening on the leaves, like morning diamonds scattered in the field.
July 17—Juma (Baraka), it said.
It was the first of Mo’s Post-its that had not been crossed out, and though it was now August, we were headed for the place she was supposed to have picked up a kid named Juma. It took us half the day to get there, on dirt roads that meandered through tall, yellow grass.
Baraka was a collection of thatched-roof huts surrounded by thorn bushes and footpaths that led to small fields of corn and potatoes. The villagers pointed us in the direction of Juma’s family’s hut and then huddled outside, listening in.
I tried to follow the conversation between Jack and the woman who was squatting by the fire, but they were speaking in quick, short bursts of Swahili.
She had a baby tied to her back, and was cooking something that looked like thick porridge. Chickens pecked around her feet, while another toddler slept in the corner.
The conversation was getting heated. Jack sat next to me on a wooden stool, his earlier cordiality gone. He was hunched over, trying to fold his frame into the small, smoky space. The woman, Juma’s mother, seemed to be deflecting his questions and ignoring us. Gabriel’s name was thrown around. The woman shrugged, shook her head, and kept her back to us.
“Has Gabriel already been here?” I asked.
“Apparently, he never showed,” replied Jack.
“And Juma? Where is he?”
Jack gave the woman a black, layered look. “She says she doesn’t know.”
Just then, a man walked in and started talking to us, his voice raised, arms waving wildly.
“What’s going on?” I looked from him to Jack.
“It’s Juma’s father. He wants us to leave.” But Jack showed no sign of getting up. “Not until they tell us where Juma is.”
The villagers outside peeked in, as the conversation got louder. Jack’s hard-nosed tenacity fueled the
other man’s rage. Juma’s mother started wailing, startling the sleeping toddler. His cries mingled with hers, as the men continued arguing. The dark hut turned into a madhouse of clucking chickens, and weeping, and yelling.
“Stop!” I couldn’t take it anymore. “Everyone, just stop!”
The outcry was met with stunned silence. I guess they had all forgotten I was still in the room.
“Please.” I got up and clasped the woman’s hands. “We’re just here for Juma. That’s what you wanted, right? That’s why Gabriel and Mo arranged to stop by. To take him to Wanza. If you’ve changed your mind, just tell us and we’ll leave.”
She didn’t know what I was saying, but as she stared at our hands, joined together, big, fat tears started splashing down on them.
“Juma,” she said, her throat convulsing around his name. Then she was talking as if she’d bottled up the words for so long, she couldn’t stop them from tumbling out. She held my hands tightly when she was done and sobbed. And sobbed.
“Jack?”
His eyes held a tortured dullness as they met mine.
“Let’s go.” He pulled me away from her, clamping his fingers around my wrist. “There’s nothing for us here.” He led me through the door, past the crowd gathered outside, and toward the car.
“What did she say?” I asked.
“Get in.” He was already starting the car.
“Not until you explain what just happened in that hut.”
“Get in the car, Rodel,” he growled. His jaw was ticking, and he stared straight ahead, not looking at me. This was the Jack I had met on the porch that first time—harsh, detached, unyielding.
“I’m not going anywhere until you answer me.”
“You really want to know? Fine.” He slammed the steering wheel with both hands. “They sold him, Rodel. They sold Juma. They were going to hand him over to Gabriel in exchange for some necessities, but when Gabriel and Mo didn’t show, they sold him to someone else. Juma is gone.”