by Kari Jones
“Do you work here?” I ask.
“I’m a nurse. Your brother’s very sick, but he’s going to be okay.” She puts her hand on my arm and says again, “He’s going to be okay,” and even though I’ve never seen this woman before in my life, I believe her, and I breathe more easily.
“Where’s my dad?” I ask.
“He’s filling out some papers.”
“Will the doctor see my brother soon?”
She frowns. “The doctor’s on his way, but…”
“The crowds,” I say, and she nods.
“What’s going on out there?”
“People are celebrating.”
“Celebrating?” I shake my head in confusion. How could you celebrate soldiers breaking someone out of jail and taking over the government?
“Rawlings will be our savior,” the woman says.
“We saw some people fighting,” I say.
“They are wrong,” she says.
I should have some response to that, but I don’t. Even though I know I should worry about what’s going on in Ghana, I can’t. Worrying about Gordo and about Mom is enough. Thinking about Mom makes me think about Piper, and then I’m even more worried, because who’s taking care of her now that Mom’s gone completely nuts? Saying that, even in my head, makes me shiver. Mom’s gone nuts. It’s true. Why else would I be here? If she were in her right mind, she would be here with Dad and I’d be safe at home, taking care of Piper. Instead, I’m sitting in a clinic halfway across town with my sick brother’s head in my lap, and Mom’s losing her mind at home. Life’s not fair, but there’s nothing I can do about it right now, so I shift Gordo’s head to the softer part of my stomach and close my eyes again.
When Dad comes back, I go to the bathroom and wet the cloth for Gordo’s head again. Then we sit for hours—maybe it isn’t hours, but it feels like it—before a doctor comes outside and waves us into the building.
It’s cool inside, but Gordo complains loudly when he’s under the air conditioner, so the doctor leads him to a window, where he looks into Gordo’s eyes and mouth and takes his temperature. When he’s done, he perches on a stool and says, “Your son most likely has malaria.” He smiles when he speaks, like it’s a good thing, but Dad’s face gets all blotchy and he stammers, “Malaria?”
We’re silent while we take this in. Then Dad says, “Is there anything…”
“The key is to get the fever down, and to keep him hydrated,” says the doctor. “I advise you to take him home. Sometimes we take malaria patients in and give them a saline drip, but to be honest, in your case I think he’ll be better off at home.”
He doesn’t have to explain what he means. Everyone knows people get sicker when they go to the hospital. When Thema’s mother went into hospital for surgery last year, her family had to bring in all her meals and boil her drinking water.
“Can you give me anything for him?”
“He’s taking Chloroquine?”
Dad nods, but my stomach flips over on itself. Chloroquine is the nasty-tasting malaria medicine we have to take every week, but Gordo only sometimes takes his Chloroquine. Often, he leaves it in his mouth until Mom’s not looking, then sticks it in his pocket to flush away later. I’ve seen him do it.
“Then he’ll be fine. Keep his fever down and give him plenty to drink.”
“Dad,” I say. My voice is barely a whisper, so I say it again, louder. “Dad? Gordo doesn’t always take his Chloroquine.”
Both Dad and the doctor stare at me like I’ve grown another head, and the light changes in their eyes as they both understand what I’ve said.
“How often?” Dad asks, but I don’t know.
“Mostly he takes it. I think.” My stomach’s not just flipping, it’s dancing inside me now, because Dad’s face goes from blotchy to bright red, and the doctor moves back over to Gordo. I take hold of Dad’s hand, and we squeeze each other’s fingers while the doctor looks into Gordo’s eyes again.
“My advice is still the same,” says the doctor when he’s done.
“Because…”
“Because your son’s still a healthy, well-fed boy.”
After a second, Dad nods his head, gathers Gordo into his arms and says, “Come on, Astrid,” and we walk out of the building.
There are fewer people on the street now, and it’s easier to walk.
“I’ll make sure he takes it from now on,” I say. But Dad doesn’t answer—he just keeps walking until he’s settled Gordo into the car. Then he leans on the hood and wipes the sweat from his eyes before he opens the front door and says, “Get in, Astrid. Let’s get Gordo home.”
Mom rushes out of the house when we drive up. She has this look on her face like we’re going to have solved everything, but that look disappears as soon as Dad opens the door and steps out of the car.
“Oh, Richard,” she says.
Dad reaches into the back seat and helps Gordo out, and then, without saying a word, he picks him up and carries him into the house.
“Gordo’s going to be okay, Mom,” I say. But I don’t think she hears me, because she’s running after Dad.
SIXTEEN
No one wakes me for school, and since the power has come on and the room is cool, I sleep late. When I get up, I walk down the hall to Gordo’s room. The curtains are drawn and the room is gloomy and quiet, like a room in an old people’s home. The smell of sickness as I enter makes me catch my breath.
Gordo’s eyes are closed, and I have to look hard at his chest to be sure he’s breathing. When his chest moves, I take a deep breath of my own.
Mom is sitting on the edge of Gordo’s bed. She doesn’t move as I enter, but when I say, “Hi, Mom,” she smiles at me.
“Is he better?” I ask.
“His fever broke last night,” she says.
“So that means he’s better?”
“It means…Dad thinks he’s going to be okay.” Mom runs her finger along Gordo’s hairline, which he would never let her do if he was feeling well. Her words sound good, but they don’t travel far.
Piper calls out from her room.
“Go get her, will you?” Mom says. “Get her fed and dressed too.” She adds “Please” as I leave the room, though she doesn’t turn around. She probably hasn’t noticed that I’m not dressed for school. She probably doesn’t care. I don’t bother complaining that she’s asking me to take care of Piper yet again. There’s no point.
When Piper and I go downstairs, Dad’s alone at the table. He’s dressed for work but looks like he hasn’t slept. His hair is a mess and the wrinkles around his eyes look deeper.
“Hi, Dad,” I say.
“Hi, girls.” He takes Piper from me. She snuggles into his lap and plays with her toes.
“Are you going to work?”
“Not this morning, Astrid.” His voice sounds completely unlike him—thin and uncertain—and it makes my breath constrict to hear it.
“Is it Gordo?”
“Gordo’s going to be fine,” says Dad, but in that same thin voice.
“Dad,” I say, “he doesn’t look fine. Mom doesn’t think he’s fine.”
“I know, but he is.” Dad smiles. “He’ll be fine, Astrid. Your mother…” He doesn’t finish his sentence. After a minute, he says, “You don’t mind taking care of Piper today, do you, honey?”
“What about school?” I really want to see Thema.
“School’s closed.”
“Can I have Thema over?”
“I don’t think so. We should keep off the streets for a day or two. I think Thema’s family will feel the same way.”
“But Dad…” It was only yesterday that Dad and I ran through the streets taking Gordo to the clinic. Can he have forgotten that?
“I know, I know. Yesterday we had to, but today we don’t, so you and Gordo and Piper will stay home today.”
“Great,” I say. It’s like I’m grounded. Again. As if helping to get Gordo to the clinic yesterday wasn’t enough.
&
nbsp; I need a break.
I need to see Thema.
Even Thomas hasn’t been around to talk to.
How come no one’s thinking about what I need?
I get up to go outside, but Dad says, “I’m counting on you to be good about this, Astrid. Mom needs our support right now. You can do your bit by taking care of Piper.” He picks Piper up from his lap and hands her to me.
I can never be mad at Piper, but I cross my arms, which leaves Dad holding her up to me.
“Astrid,” he says. His voice is tired—but then, so am I.
“’Strid,” says Piper, and my arms instinctively reach out and take her. She throws her arms around me, and I hug her close. What kind of a creep would I be to use Piper as a way to get back at Dad?
Dad stands up and pulls his car keys out of his pocket.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
Dad takes a deep breath. “There’s some extra Chloroquine at the office,” he says. “I won’t be long.”
“Can I come with you? We can bring Piper, so Mom can rest for a bit.”
“No.” His voice has that final tone, but I still say, “How come? How come I can’t?”
“Astrid…” He stops and I think he’s going to walk out the door without saying anything else, but then he turns to me and says, “Honey, yesterday people were celebrating, and yesterday we had to get Gordo to the clinic, but today there are more soldiers on the streets. And today you don’t have to go out. Some of the soldiers have been breaking into houses and taking things, sometimes alcohol, so now there are drunken boys with guns on the street, and I don’t want you out there.”
“Breaking into houses?”
“Don’t worry about that. It’s not going to happen to us. We’re fine here in this neighborhood.” Dad smiles at me, but I’m not smiling back. Drunken soldiers on the street, and Dad’s going into town? All the anger I was feeling toward him a minute ago evaporates like it never existed. The room feels small all of a sudden.
“Don’t go, Dad,” I say, but he shrugs and says, “I have to. Your mother will never forgive me if something happens to Gordo.”
It’s hot as anything outside. I push Piper in her hammock and stare at the clouds. Thomas’s radio is locked in the shed, and I don’t have a key. It’s hot, hot, hot and I’m bored, bored, bored, but I don’t want to go inside in case I run into Mom. In the end, I gather Piper onto my lap and squish into the hammock with her.
When Dad’s car turns into the driveway, Piper and I leave the hammock and run toward him. He pulls up to the house but stays in the car, his head slumped over the steering wheel, and he only raises his head when Piper calls out, “Daddy.” His face is white, and he looks way worse than he did when he left this morning.
“Dad, what happened?” I ask.
“How’s Gordo?” he says.
“Not great. Mom’s been with him all morning.”
Dad shakes his head. He rubs his hand along his neck and over his face.
“What happened?” I ask.
“I’ll go check on Gordo,” he says, opening the door and getting out.
“Dad!” I say.
He looks at me properly for the first time. “I’m sorry, Astrid. I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
“Dad. I’m not a little kid.”
“I sometimes forget that, Astrid.”
“Mom’s worried sick about Gordo. She’s losing her mind. She doesn’t have any time for me at all, and now you won’t even talk to me.” I don’t plan to say all those things. They just come out.
Dad puts his car keys in his pocket and reaches for me and Piper. “It’s been hard for you, hasn’t it, Astrid?”
“Yes,” I say.
Our hug is the longest, strongest one we’ve had for a long time. We say all kinds of things to each other through that hug, like how sorry we are and how we each need the other to be strong. At last Dad lets me go and says, “You’re the best, Astrid. Truly.”
Those words wipe away days and days of frustration, and I smile at him.
“But Mom…” I say.
Dad takes my head in his hands and bends down so we’re eye to eye. “She’ll be fine, Astrid. Once Gordo is better and she gets some rest, she’ll be fine. We all react to stress differently, and she’s taken all of this very hard. She feels responsible for both of you, and she’s angry at herself for bringing you here. This coup and Gordo getting sick have made a bad situation for her even worse.”
I nod. I wish he’d told me that before. It helps me understand some of the things she’s flipped out about over the past couple of months.
“She’s acting kind of crazy,” I say, but I laugh a little when I say it.
“I’ll go and check on her,” Dad says.
“But Dad, what happened?”
I don’t think he knows his hands are shaking.
“I was stopped at a roadblock. A soldier…” He pauses and closes his eyes. When he opens them, he says, “I’m fine, Astrid. I’m shaken, that’s all. He didn’t hurt me. I shouldn’t have told you.”
“Dad, I’m glad you’re okay,” I say.
“It’ll be over soon. Rawlings and his men will settle into being the new government. They’ll sort things out,” says Dad. “Until then, we’ll be fine.” He takes a deep breath and slowly exhales. “I’ll go see your mom and Gordo. And Astrid—thank you.”
SEVENTEEN
A few days later, Dad drives me and Piper over to Thema’s house.
“Are you sure we should?” I ask.
“If we stick to the backroads, we’ll be okay.”
Life seems to be getting back to normal. Thomas and Abena are back at work. The egg lady came by yesterday. Two of Gordo’s street friends poked their heads around the gate, looking for him.
Gordo’s much better. He sits up in bed and eats a bit of food when Abena makes his favorite things, like grilled cheese sandwiches. Mom still spends all her time with him, and I’m not sure if Dad arranged for me and Piper to go to Thema’s house for Mom’s sake or for mine, but either way, I’m happy to be away from Mom’s dreary face and the stale air in Gordo’s room.
Thema and I swim in the pool until we’re waterlogged, then we have a snack, and then Thema’s mom tells her she has to finish folding the laundry, so Piper and I head out back to where Piper’s hammock is still slung between two trees. When we get there, Ebo’s already lying in it.
“You’re still here, I see,” he says.
“We’re staying until lunchtime,” I say.
“I mean, you’re still in Ghana. You didn’t leave.”
I’m confused, but then I remember the conversation we had after Rawlings first attempted a coup, and how I said that if it got dangerous we could all leave.
“No…” Once again, I don’t know what to say. I’d like to say something, but before I can figure out what, Ebo says, “Piper, come sit with me,” and he pulls her up onto the hammock with him.
I push the hammock so they swing gently back and forth.
“Did you want to leave?” Ebo asks.
“No,” I say before I can think about it, but it’s true. I haven’t wanted to leave, not even once. “I’d like to go back to school, though,” I add.
Ebo laughs. “Back to Sister Mary?”
“Was she your teacher too?”
“Two years ago. She had tarantulas that year.”
I shudder. Snakes I can handle, but tarantulas would be a different thing.
“Does she still make you memorize poems?”
“Yes.”
“And dissect rats?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s cool,” says Ebo, and I have to admit, she is.
Thema comes out and we spend the rest of the morning playing badminton and lying in the hammock.
At home, I go upstairs to say hi to Gordo while Mom puts Piper down for her nap, but he’s asleep, so I tiptoe out of his room.
“It’s going to take him a long time to recover completely,” says Mom when we
meet in the hallway.
I think it’s going to take her a long time too. Her eyes still have dark shadows under them, but there’s a bit of a smile in them, which I haven’t seen for a while.
When lunch is ready, Mom and I sit at the table together. We don’t say much, and it seems strange it being just the two of us. To fill the silence, I tell her about swimming at Thema’s house and about a new song Thema’s learning. She listens with a smile, so I keep talking.
When the banging on the door starts, I drop my sandwich in my lap.
“Don’t answer it,” Mom says.
The banging comes again.
“Shhh,” whispers Mom. Neither of us moves, and I can tell from the wideness of Mom’s eyes that she’s thinking the same thing I am.
What if it’s a soldier at the door?
I clench my jaw so hard it hurts. Neither of us speaks or even breathes. Then there’s a noise at the back of the house.
Through the window, I see a soldier pointing a gun at Thomas, who has frozen, bent over with his shovel in his hand.
Mom rises out of her chair. “Oh…” she says.
Thomas and the soldier turn. When the soldier sees us, he shouts something I don’t understand. Thomas drops his shovel and shakes his head. The soldier shouts again, and Mom goes to the window.
The soldier jabs his gun at Thomas.
No one breathes.
Then Mom raises her hand. “I’ll open the door,” she shouts. The soldier marches Thomas around the house.
Mom and I rush to the front door.
“Go into the kitchen and lock the door,” she says to me, but I don’t move. “Go,” she says.
I can’t.
I can’t leave her here with the soldier on the other side of the door.
I take her hand. “Ready,” I say.
Mom opens her mouth to say something, but I hold her hand tighter.
She draws in a deep breath and opens the door.
The soldier stares at us. He lets his eyes wander from our feet to our faces. He says something we don’t understand.
Mom starts shaking. A tingling sensation runs up my fingers, into my arms and through my whole body, but the two of us stand together. Neither of us moves. The soldier speaks again, and this time Thomas says, “He asks where you are from.”