The Best of Friends

by Sara James

  Two hours later I pulled up at our house. Before I could cut the engine, Nad ran outside onto the lawn. He had Kimber in his arms.

  “Let’s go.”

  I climbed into the backseat and Nad laid Kimber’s head on my lap. “Here, use this.” He handed me a cool wet cloth and ran back inside for a suitcase he’d already packed.

  Kimber was hot, cold, shaking, sweating. His eyes rolled in the back of his head, he couldn’t focus on anything, and he had no idea I was there.

  “Kimber, it’s Mommy. I’m home, honey, and everything will be all right.” Words I’d used all too often over the years, with baboons, a baby rhino, our young elephant, and now my own little boy. Words meant to reassure him as much as me.

  Our nearest doctor was based in Outjo, a small town one hundred miles away. Late on a Saturday morning, Dr. Kesslau was waiting in his office when we got there.

  “Come in, come in.” He gestured. “Lay him down on the table.”

  I stood beside Kimber, stroking his arm, while Nad observed the doctor.

  Dr. Kesslau checked Kimber’s temperature, his eyes, and his skin. “I can do a blood test,” he told us, “but I see hundreds of these cases a year, and I can tell you without waiting for the results that your son has malaria.”

  It took a moment to sink in. One doctor in one small town sees hundreds of cases of malaria a year. Multiply that by all the doctors, nurses, and clinics in all the small towns in Africa, then add those suffering who never make it to a doctor, and you get chilling figures. Malaria, a parasitic blood disease transmitted by the bite of a tiny female mosquito, kills over a million people a year in Africa; that’s about three thousand people dying each day, and children under the age of five are among the most vulnerable. Kimber was four years old.

  Dr. Kesslau shook the thermometer. “His temperature is 105. When did he start with this fever?”

  “Yesterday afternoon.” Nad looked up from Kimber and added in a strangled voice, “It wasn’t too bad, but it got worse in the night.”

  “You caught it early. That’s good. The sooner we start him on chloroquine the better. So do we test him first or do you want to start the treatment?”

  “We treat him. Now,” Nad and I said in unison.

  For the next week, twice a day, we had to give Kimber one chloroquine tablet. At first he was so sick he didn’t resist, but by the third day he cried when we gave him the bitter pill and immediately vomited. For the next few days we tried grinding the tablet and disguising its sour taste in mashed banana, chocolate, or yogurt. Nothing worked. He spat it out. We tried dissolving it in water and shooting it through a syringe down his throat, then his throat constricted and it oozed down the sides of his mouth. If we were lucky, we got a total of one tablet in him a day, half the recommended dose. To complete the course and effectively kill the malaria parasite, Kimber still needed to take the drug for two more days. Two days when I’d be on my own with him.

  “Gin, I’m supposed to leave tomorrow for Angola,” Nad reminded me. “Are you sure you’ll be okay with Kimber? I’ll change my plans if you’re worried.”

  “No, there are lots of people counting on you flying that park survey, you go ahead. We’ll be fine.”

  The next morning I managed to get Kimber to take half a chloroquine tablet. That evening was a different story.

  Kimber sat on the edge of the kitchen counter, tears running down his face. “Mommy, please, I don’t want it. It’s awful.”

  “Kimber, do not spit this out! This is the third time I’ve tried to get you to take this and I am sick and tired of it!”

  I turned to the refrigerator to see if there was anything else I could use to possibly disguise the flavor, and when I turned around he was gone.

  “Kimber? Kimber, get back in here! Now!”

  Nothing, not a sound.

  I ran into the bedroom and flung open the closets. Nothing. I ran through the living room into his playroom and called again. Nothing.

  I ran outside into the dusk. “Kimber, darlin’, where are you?” My voice was urgent but gentler now. It was met with silence.

  I looked across the street and saw lights on in our neighbor’s house. I’d thought that they were away, and then thought maybe Kimber had gone there. I threw open their front door and was met by stares. “Hi, come in,” laughed Jan.

  “Jan, Kimber’s gone. I was trying to get him to take his medicine and he disappeared.”

  “Sion, Tristian,” she called her sons, “get on your bikes and see if you can find Kimber.”

  The sun had set. It was dark; I heard jackals calling. I felt a chill run down my spine, and across my mind flashed images I had filmed of jackals ripping apart a springbok lamb. God, where was Kimber? I dashed back across the street, and when I stepped into our quiet living room, relief flooded over me. My tiny boy was huddled under a table in the corner, knees drawn to his chest and his arms wrapped protectively around his legs, whimpering. He looked up at me with his big hazel eyes and pleaded, “Mommy, please, I don’t want it.”

  I crawled under the table with him and held him tight. “Don’t worry, darlin’. You don’t have to have it. I’ll put you on a drip before I go through this again.”

  BORN WILD. IT was an apt title for our next filming project that would feature Kimber. In a series of phone calls between Kathy Pasternak, a supervising producer who’d become a friend after we’d worked on our elephant and anthrax films together, and me, we learned that National Geographic planned to make a film that would explore the survival strategies animals employ for raising babies in the wild. They wanted us to be their “human example.”

  As anyone who has ever worked freelance would understand, when a project comes to you unsolicited, it’s a milestone. For once a film is made without the agony of mailing proposals that are thrown into the trash, of placing endless phone calls which are never returned, and, worse, when you finally do get someone on the line, of hearing “Sorry, but no.” On this rare occasion a contract would be signed and paychecks would arrive without drama. Amazing.

  Being asked to be involved in this project was a sign of recognition and acceptance for Nad and me. But Born Wild was that and more. In the past Nad and I had largely operated alone and were seen as individuals, even when we were working together. He was the veterinarian, the scientist, or the pilot. I was the filmmaker. Now, with Kimber, we were a complete team, a family who together had a history and that history, though brief, could help to tell a story.

  Saying yes to the project gave us a chance to work with our old friend Paul van Schalkwyk, a filmmaker with an unerring eye for a beautiful shot. We’d worked together on the Bushmen film, sat together in warm silence as the embers of many campfires turned to ash, and shared that tragic day in front of the television when the world changed on September 11. Now we’d get a chance to share this much happier experience.

  Filming at our favorite haunts gave us an opportunity to relive many special moments we’d had in the bush. I compared my labor pains with those of a springbok (twenty hours versus twenty minutes), the length of my pregnancy with an elephant’s (nine months versus twenty-two months), and reminisced about the kidnappings in our baboon troop, tragic behavior that had taken on a painfully different dimension for me since I’d had a child.

  When we saw the first cut of the film, there was one special, unexpected gift that Pam Caragol, the producer, and Geoff Luck, the editor, had tucked into the film for us. Across the screen rolled images of Kimber—at four months old in his stroller holding a roll of film, toddling up to the camera in another shot, his long blond locks glowing in backlight; climbing onto my lap, running to meet his father at camp, sharing a swing with Rocky and a battle of bashing sticks with his father. Our son, growing up in front of the camera. Four, almost five years in the bush captured in twenty brief, delicious seconds. I played this scene over and over, and each time it gave me great joy but also a strange sensation of finality, that a chapter was coming to a close.
/>   Back when I became pregnant with Kimber, we knew our time in Etosha was finite. Our son would experience the wonder of having elephants in the backyard, of flying with his father across the plains, of being oblivious to the fact that his best friend was a different color, a different race from him. Etosha had everything for Kimber except a school. When Kimber turned six, if we stayed in the park, our only option was to send him to boarding school. For us, that wasn’t an option. I couldn’t imagine sending Kimber away from home at such a young age. I wouldn’t do it, even though it meant that after fifteen years of living in wild, wonderful places, to stay together we’d have to leave the bush.

  But I wasn’t ready for that, not yet. First Kimber and I were going home, back to Virginia.

  30

  SARA (2003–2004)

  SOPHIE WAS SNUGGLED into her bed. We’d read Bilby Moon, Go, Dog. Go! and The Gruffalo. We’d sung “Twinkle, Twinkle.” Had hugs, kisses, pats. Even at two and a half, Sophie still fought sleep, and getting her settled down was a forty-five-minute proposition. Now there was just one more thing to do. With stuffed animals Cutie the Cat tucked under one arm and Sophie the Dog under another, Sophie closed her eyes and thanked God for Nana, Pa, Granne, and Opa before adding an impromptu postscript of her own. “And dear God, please give me a baby sister. Amen.”

  I sat very quietly, hoping she couldn’t see my face in the dark. Was this simply her own wonderful wish? Or had she guessed? Perhaps I’d been unable to hide first my elation, then the crashing wave of desolation as the old pattern of miscarriage following miscarriage had repeated itself. I was struggling to make peace with the notion that perhaps Andrew and I were only meant to be the parents of one child. Thank God we had Sophie. How dare we be greedy? And yet, stubbornly, silently, I couldn’t help but echo my daughter’s prayer. Please, God, let us have one more.

  THE NEXT MORNING there was no need for an alarm clock.

  “Cock-a-doodle-doo!”

  Since being introduced to the chickens at a neighbor’s house near our home in the country, Sophie had a new way of greeting the morning. I smiled even before I opened my eyes, then wandered around the corner to get her.

  “Boo!”

  “Hi, Mommy. You don’t have your work clothes on yet.”

  “Not yet. Today I’m staying home with you.”

  Sophie nodded as a princess might. So I should.

  As I picked her up and carried her into the kitchen, enjoying the fact that I could still carry my big girl, I drew the drapes to get a glimpse of the city below. I glanced at the television set but didn’t switch it on. I knew someone else was filling in on the Today show news desk, and sometimes it felt easier not to watch. Besides, today was my day off with my girl.

  At forty-two years old, I’d gotten exactly what I’d asked for—a part-time deal. I reported a set number of stories annually for Dateline, which meant I traveled far less than I once had. I could write from home. And no one looked askance when I didn’t volunteer for dangerous assignments like Kabul or Baghdad. While I understood and respected my colleagues, male and female, who’d made a different choice, I’d been to my share of war zones, tempted fate more than once. As a mom, I considered my most important assignment to be loving our daughter for as many years as possible, hopefully until she’d grown up. There were no guarantees, of course. In recent years, colon cancer had claimed Katie’s husband, Jay Monahan, father of their two little girls, and a sailboating accident had killed my Dateline colleague producer Bruce Hagan, who also had a young daughter. And then had come 9/11. But I didn’t want to increase my odds by taking unnecessary chances. I loved the fact that I could still call Mom and Dad for advice, and I knew how much Mom still missed her mother, even though Grannykins had lived to be ninety-six.

  While I was clear that I wanted to work part-time and appreciative that former Dateline executive producer and current NBC News president Neal Shapiro had agreed, change and adaptation rarely come without discomfort. I’d signed a new contract for less than half my old salary. I wasn’t called on to anchor as frequently. And I missed the adrenaline rush of covering a breaking news story which might last for days on end. But I knew I couldn’t have it both ways, and the prospect of being on the road virtually every week, having to croon “Twinkle, Twinkle” through a cell phone and missing my cheerful rooster, was unbearable. I had waited a long time to be a mother.

  “You’re lucky, Sara,” said former Today show executive producer Jeff Zucker. He and his wife, Caryn Nathanson Zucker, had three children. Jeff had battled back from colon cancer to continue his meteoric rise at work, and was now president of NBC entertainment as well as being in charge of the network’s news and cable operations.

  I was lucky, too. I knew it. The chance to work part-time was rare for anyone at the network. And I could afford the financial sacrifice because Andrew was doing well. But I also realized I was in the same spot as every mom I knew, whether she worked in an office or exclusively at home. Like Ginger, I’d realized it simply wasn’t possible to do everything. While men with children advanced in careers as they always had, women with children made choices as best they could. And I’d made mine. Slowly, the stabs of longing for my former life became less frequent, less intense. And I realized that in choosing to change my life, perhaps I’d also saved it.

  “TAX IIIIII!™ SOPHIE, ALL two feet nine inches of her, could hail a cab with the best of them.

  “Don’t step off the curb, sweetie. Those cars are fast.”

  “Don’t worry, Mommy, I’m very fast. Fast like a dog.”

  “Well, dogs stay out of traffic, too,” Andrew added. “Hold on to your suitcase, sweetie.”

  One of the advantages of being part-time was taking a vacation of more than two weeks during the holidays. After years of working virtually every Thanksgiving, Easter, and New Year’s Day, I relished our family’s upcoming trip to spend Christmas, 2003, with Andrew’s family in Muckleford.

  WHEN MOST PEOPLE think of Australia, they picture the outback with its mysterious, gigantic red rock, Uluru, so sacred to the Aborigines. Or maybe they think of the Great Barrier Reef with its brilliant fish and ominous great whites. But the southern state of Victoria is entirely different. It’s as if someone grafted a Tudor rose onto a eucalypt—a hardy English bloom thriving in the Antipodes. On the drive to Andrew’s parents’ farm from Melbourne, I caught glimpses of sedate men and women playing lawn bowls dressed in their pristine whites. From Daylesford to Maldon, Bendigo to Castlemaine, Victoria is famous for its quaint Victorian and Edwardian homes, as well as for charming shops which sell spotless linens, right next to local pubs serving up VB—Victoria Bitter.

  “Andrew! Sara! Look how Sophie’s grown!” marveled Andrew’s mum as she and his beaming dad embraced us. For Andrew, getting home meant not just seeing his family, but a dash to the local cricket ground with his brother Trevor. I found the game incomprehensible, and was always amused by the break for tea—watching sweaty men quaff a steaming beverage from a white china cup under a blistering sun. And I still found it odd to celebrate Christmas during the summer. But I loved Australia, and felt at home in rural Victoria. I couldn’t wait to see what Sophie thought of the kangaroos that munched complacently near Andrew’s parents’ farm. Of the magpies, galahs, and kookaburras. Of the cows and all those sheep. I wondered what she’d notice first.

  “Mommy!” she exclaimed. “Nana and Pa have a dog. And a cat.”

  I looked at Andrew. He shook his head and I did, too. Sophie had been lobbying for a pet since she’d been able to talk, which had been shortly after she’d been born.

  And then we heard children’s voices. The thrill of this trip for me was that Sophie would get a chance to know her wonderful Australian relatives, including a new crop of cousins. There was Lloyd, Trevor and Helen’s son, with his bright smile. Just a few months younger than Sophie, he looked like her brother. And in the pram was the newest member of the family, Annaliese, born just a few weeks earlier to Katie and h
er husband, Andrew. Annaliese’s arrival was especially welcome and poignant. Katie and Andrew had lost their first daughter, June, to a catastrophically premature birth when Katie had been diagnosed with a rare blood disorder and other complications during her pregnancy. Katie’s life had also been in grave danger. To see this cooing infant in her healthy mother’s arms was an unbelievable delight. And Andrew’s older sister Chrissie was there, too, with squeezes for everyone, especially Soph.

  Wearing her Blundstone boots with a T-shirt and shorts, Sophie helped Lloyd decorate the Christmas tree. Our little girl. Half American, half Australian. At home in both countries, loved by both families.

  WEEKS LATER BACK in the U.S., I was still finding it difficult to recover from our trip. The jet lag obviously hit harder as you got a bit older. Worse yet, my cycle had gotten completely thrown by the travel. To rule out the obvious, I took a pregnancy test but was in no mood to celebrate when it turned positive. “Sure,” I scoffed at the little pink lines, then heaved the stick in the trash. Sure enough, the feelings waned and two subsequent pregnancy tests were negative. This baby, too, had stopped before it really started. Doctors called it a “chemical” pregnancy, an antiseptic medical term for a condition in which hope raises its tender head, only to have it lopped off a few days later.

  But clearly something was wrong with me, so I called the doctor’s office and was told to come in for a few blood tests. The timing was cruel. It was my forty-third birthday. I left the doctor’s office and immediately headed to Richmond, where I’d be delivering a speech the next day. Thankfully, I’d be staying with Mom and Dad, as I felt worse than ever.