by Rula Sinara
Jack shook his head and adjusted his grip on his bags. Anna scratched her elbow, then her neck, and shrugged, as if his standing there was a daily routine and she had no secrets. Nothing to hide. She’d forgotten what an open book her face was to him. She never could put on an act. Not with him.
She gestured toward his load. “I guess it makes sense to put your stuff away first. I could give you a tour after that. Not afraid of snakes, are you?” she asked.
Her attempt at a lighthearted tone was pathetic. He shook his head.
“I’m not the person who looks like they stepped on one,” he said, then walked off.
Anna Bekker had it coming.
CHAPTER TWO
JACK SET HIS BELONGINGS on the cot adjacent to where Dr. Odaba said he slept, glad that the doctor had been called off as soon as they’d reached the framed tent. Jack regretted displacing whoever the cot belonged to, but had been told that the keepers usually ended up sleeping with the baby elephants. It improved survival rates. In any case, he needed a minute to digest what had just happened outside. What he’d seen. He sat on the edge of the cot and braced his forearms on his legs, trying to run some calculations. Jet lag and lack of sleep weren’t helping. He pinched the bridge of his nose.
That little girl had to be, what, four or five? She spoke better than his three-year-old nephew, was a bit taller, too. He rubbed at the tightness in his chest. No way. The Anna he knew would have said something. The Anna he knew, who’d worn a promise ring through high school and veterinary school, who’d always valued family, would have said something. Maybe he was jumping to conclusions.
He fished out his bottle and took a swig of warm water, then got up and paced, trying to remember the details of what had happened that day after her graduation, when everything she’d ever believed in had shattered.
And she’d turned to him.
Big mistake.
He’d tried to do the right thing, tried to be there for her. As much as he’d hoped to be, he knew he wasn’t good enough for her then, and she’d apparently agreed. Her choice had said it all. Nothing had changed.
Two abrupt taps at the screen door had him looking up. Anna. A mixture of fury and longing for what might have been smacked him in the gut. No. Never look back. “We need to talk, Jack,” Anna said through the screen. She waited with her hands tucked in her front pockets, eyes on the floor. Couldn’t face him, could she?
He got up and took two easy strides to the door. He opened it wide and turned his palm to the room. “Mi casa es su casa. How would they say that in Swahili? But wait, I’m guessing you don’t need an invitation, since you seem to run things as you see fit.”
“Jack, even with the canvas rolled down, voices carry. We need to talk in private. Please.”
He stepped closer to her, deliberately breaching her personal space. She looked up at him with doelike innocence. He folded his arms and lowered his voice.
“If you want to talk in private, guess I can assume she’s mine.”
Anna looked away, but not before he saw her eyes glisten with moisture that she swallowed hard against. He watched the tense movement of her neck and the grinding of her jaw. He remembered how she would grind her teeth while studying for an exam. He used to stay in the library with her, long after the research labs sequestered in the top floors of the vet school were locked up. He’d spend half the time working on his master’s thesis and half watching over her. Waiting to make sure she got back to her apartment safely. Didn’t seem as if she needed help anymore.
“Well, there’s my answer. You think you could spare me a few words to go along with that? You think maybe I deserve at least that?” he asked.
She took a deep breath and Jack didn’t miss her jitteriness when she exhaled. “That’s why I’m here. I have the Jeep waiting. We won’t go far. Just enough for privacy.”
He grabbed his hat off the cot and followed her out. Everyone paused midtask and shot them a curious look. She was right. No privacy. Jack got in the Jeep and didn’t say a word until they’d parked under the shade of a copse of trees overlooking a dried creek bed. Below Kilimanjaro’s taunting, crystalline snowcap, pockets of haze blurred the horizon like ripples of water. A mirage. A lie, like everything else. He pulled off his hat and scanned the distance. Nothingness. She’d been living in the middle of nowhere—with his child. The tension in his neck shot down his back.
“I don’t even know her name,” he said.
Anna turned off the engine. “Pippa. Not short for anything. She’s four. She’ll be five on Valentine’s Day.”
Jack scoffed. Oh, the irony. His daughter’s birthday fell on a day meant for love. Meant for couples. “Where was she born?”
“A hospital in Nairobi. Pippa Rose...Harper.”
Jack suddenly felt numb with cold, and then just as abruptly, he broke out in a sweat. He couldn’t think. He wiped the back of his neck with his hand and looked at Anna.
“You gave her my name but you didn’t bother telling me I’m a father?”
“I—I was going to.”
“When? Anna, she’s four years old! When were you planning to tell me? After something terrible happened to her out in this...this place? Or maybe you were planning to leave it up to her. Give her a name to go on and let her hunt me down in a decade or so. Nice, Anna. Really nice.”
“No! That’s not what I was planning.”
Jack waited for her alternate explanation, but none came. With palms still pressed against the steering wheel, she stretched her fingers before dropping her hands into her lap.
“She’s not in any more danger at camp than a kid living on a farm or some crime-ridden city back home. She’s watched, loved, privately preschooled and learning hands-on. Would you rather she be glued to a television or some handheld electronic device or dropped off at day care every day?”
“That’s not the point. At least she’d know who her father was. That she has one.” Jack saw Anna’s eyes dim. Unbelievable. “She doesn’t know. Does she?”
Anna shook her head, then dropped it against the steering wheel. Jack got out of the Jeep and paced. He was a father. Had been all those hours he’d spent behind a microscope or sterile hood, studying organisms so small no one cared about them unless they caused illness or death...and all along, there was a tiny life across the world, in the middle of nowhere, learning to speak, walk and... He scrubbed his face with his hands, unable to think of everything he’d missed. Unable to comprehend the magnitude of what had been dropped on him. Taken from him.
A trumpeting filled the air, followed by a throaty burr. From their vantage point he could see a herd of elephants ushering their calves along the edge of the creek bed. Family units.
“She hasn’t even asked? Wondered?”
Anna climbed out of the Jeep and walked up to him. A few seconds passed as they both watched the herd.
“I don’t think it’s occurred to her to ask yet,” she finally said.
“All children ask questions. I know.” He’d asked many as a child, but most had never been answered. Not in time, at least.
“She’s not around a lot of children. Most children’s books these days depict varied families. Her playmate, Haki, the little boy you saw, doesn’t have a father. His mother, Niara, is my best friend, like a sister to me. She’s a teacher and aunt to Pippa. We met in the doctor’s waiting room during my first pregnancy checkup. She was there for a follow-up with the cutest little newborn in tow, and I was so...” Anna looked away without finishing. She was rambling.
Was she refusing to admit she’d been scared? Jack recalled his sister’s nerves and moods, but she had had her family around. She hadn’t been alone, even when her husband was out of the country. Anna had been. But whose fault was that?
“You know, even with elephants, it’s usually the mothers who surround and care for t
he young. The bulls do their thing and they’re off,” she said.
“Don’t you dare project on me, Anna. That’s not a fair comparison. I wasn’t given the chance.”
“I wasn’t comparing. I was just trying to answer your question as to why she hasn’t asked about you. Making you understand it’s not personal.”
Wow. Not personal. Jack didn’t respond. He couldn’t get any words past the pressure building in his throat and ears. History repeats itself. Oh, he’d heard the expression, all right. But he’d been determined not to fall into the pattern. He’d vowed never be like his biological parents. They hadn’t wanted him in the picture, and he’d sworn to himself long ago that he’d never abandon a child of his.
“Look, Jack. I’m sorry. I am. But I need time to talk to her. I don’t want to confuse her, and your being here for a couple of days is not a lot of time. Maybe you could come back and—”
“Hold on a minute.” Jack stepped dangerously close to Anna. “Forget a few days. Do you seriously think I’d leave my daughter behind in a place like this?”
Anna had faced just about every dangerous wild animal in Kenya at one point or another, but she’d never been as terrified as now. Facing Jack and hearing those words. This was exactly what she’d been afraid of, what she had known would happen if he found out about her.
He couldn’t take Pippa. No. Way.
“Jack. Don’t talk like that. You don’t take a baby from its mother. You can’t,” she said. Her hands felt numb and she flexed her fingers.
“I’m not leaving her here. My name is on that birth certificate. I have rights.”
“The right to what? Uproot her? Scare her? Take her from the only family she’s ever known? You want to take her screaming and kicking, Jack? Is that what your father-daughter bonding experience is going to be about?”
Jack climbed back into the Jeep. “Let’s go,” he said.
“I’m not going anywhere until you agree not to do anything crazy,” Anna said, hands squeezing her hips. “You don’t even have copies of paperwork to prove she’s yours. No one will let you board a plane with her. Besides, I’d get everyone I know to stop you. The Masai have great aim,” she added, for good measure. Jack lowered his chin and raised a brow.
“Stop with the threats, Anna, and get in. I’m smart enough to do things right,” he said. She didn’t miss the dig. “We can discuss the best way to go about fixing this, but you can bet I’ll be in contact with the American embassy.”
Anna swatted an insect away from her cheek. “I, um, never filled out her born-abroad citizenship paperwork. Not yet,” she said.
“Why not?”
“It required...”
“My signature, as well.” Jack angled himself in the passenger seat so he was facing her. “You surprise me, Honest Anna.” Jack’s reminder of his nickname for her, a twist on Honest Abe, stung.
Anna’s radio static picked up, her name barely coming through, but nevertheless saving her from responding to Jack. She pressed a button on the unit hanging from her belt.
“Dr. Bekker here.”
“Dr. Bekker. You should come to the clinic. We lost one.”
We lost one. No.
“On my way.”
She pocketed the radio and bolted into the driver’s seat, ignoring Jack. She couldn’t handle him right now, and it wasn’t as if he could get himself out of Busara without her knowledge.
We lost one. They had several new orphans, Bakhari being one of them. The entire camp mourned when any baby was lost, in spite of their efforts. Jack, having overheard the radio message, had the sense to keep his mouth shut on the way back. She didn’t know whether it was out of sympathy or anger. Either way, she was grateful for it.
She pulled up near the clinic within minutes, a tiny part of her relieved to see Bakhari playing gently, given his stitches, with one of the keepers, Niara and the kids. A deeper part knew who she’d lost. The youngest calf, Ito, who hadn’t been drinking well. She left Jack behind and made her way to the enclosure where several of her crew had gathered. The keepers stood in silent respect for Ito, who lay motionless. Kamau rose from his crouched position over the little elephant.
“He’s gone, Anna. I’m sorry. Too young and refusing to eat.” Kamau put a hand on her shoulder as he walked out. She knew he’d tried. He was the best vet around, in her opinion, but sometimes a calf couldn’t handle the sadness of not knowing where its mother was, or worse, the trauma of witnessing what had happened to her. Ito had been a witness.
Anna took Kamau’s spot near the calf and ran her hand along his side, then down his trunk. She heard everyone leave. They’d learned over the years that she needed a few minutes alone whenever a little one was lost. This time, it seemed even harder. The entire day had been too much to handle. Her emotions were already raw. You don’t take a baby from its mother. She bent over and laid her cheek against Ito’s silent chest and let one, only one, sob escape. She had to harden herself. For facing Jack and for holding tight to Pippa. No way would Anna let her daughter grow up the way she had. No way would she make the mistake her mother had made.
* * *
JACK STEPPED AWAY from the pen as quietly as he could when he realized Anna was crying. For all the expanse of nature surrounding them, privacy, he realized, wasn’t something she got too much of at camp. And after their argument, he was certain his presence would only make her feel worse. Not that he should care, considering what she’d done to him, but seeing her like that... He couldn’t handle it.
He walked back to his tent and found Kamau cleaning his face and neck with a damp cloth.
“What happened?” Jack asked.
The vet hung the cloth on a nail and reached for a dry towel.
“Wouldn’t eat. Not uncommon with young orphans, but we’ve learned a lot from experiences at other orphanages on reserves, so we have a good success rate. Sometimes we find them injured, like the other calf, Bakhari. His ankle was caught in a snare. We were lucky with him. But sometimes they’re so despondent over separation or loss of their loved ones. Depression. That one kills. Elephants are more humanlike than most people know. They’re very emotional and family-oriented animals. They mourn, protect, play. Ito lost his mother.”
Jack simply nodded. There wasn’t anything to say. He’d just arrived, and yet the death had had an impact on him, too. Death, especially the sight of it, gouged him deep. Kamau was right. The image of a dead parent wasn’t easily forgotten by a child. Even in adulthood.
“I hate to say it, but around here, it’s something one has to get used to,” Kamau said. “Especially if you’re planning to go out in the field with me.”
“I can handle it,” Jack said.
He turned and went back outside, hoping to catch the kids still playing, but they were gone. He wanted to see Pippa close up. Needed to. Those eyes and curls. Her adorable nose was Anna’s, but everything else resembled the pictures his parents had taken of him shortly after his adoption, even if he’d been older than Pippa at the time. He needed her to know who he was. That he was here and he’d never leave her.
His parents would want to meet her. They’d be overjoyed to find out they had another grandchild. Knowing them, they’d be more forgiving of Anna than he could ever be.
What Kamau had said about the elephants gnawed at him, but this wasn’t the same as taking a baby from its mother. Pippa was old enough to understand that her mom could visit. That Mommy was working...that Daddy was, too. Okay. So he still had things to figure out. He couldn’t take her to his lab, but he made enough now to be able to afford help. His sister didn’t live too far from him, and she had kids. She’d be there for him. That wouldn’t be so different than what Anna was doing, except Pippa would have access to great schools, a yard with swing sets, lots of friends her age, cousins and grandparents. And there wouldn’t be elephant
s, lions, rhinos or black mambas roaming through her backyard.
He remembered Anna’s plea, but couldn’t get over the change in her. The Anna he’d known was crouched in that pen over that baby. The one who had kept his child from him wasn’t the same person.
He headed for the tent the kids and Anna’s friend had come out of earlier. Kamau had mentioned it was like a mess hall. Maybe they were there. He’d no sooner picked up his stride when something hit him on the head. Hard. He crouched with one hand on the point of pain and the other held up like a shield.
“What the—?”
He looked up in time to see a one-legged monkey swinging away. Screeches and cackles filled the air and sounded much the same as human laughter.
Of all the insane things. The heat really was getting to him.
“Hey, Jack. Come and I’ll show you around. Bring any supplies you need,” Kamau said, as he headed to the clinic entrance. Guess that meant the coast was clear.
“Be right there,” Jack said, more interested in finding Pippa but realizing he was at a disadvantage around here. He’d get further by being reasonable.
Jack went inside, grabbed his case and carried it over. He needed to figure out how he’d get samples on dry ice back to his colleague in Nairobi within a few days, if he was extending his stay. He entered the clinic and set his stuff down on the counter where Kamau indicated a free space.
“You didn’t mention it was Dr. Harper,” Kamau said, filling a syringe. “Dr. Miller just sent another email to see if you’d made it in one piece. It said to advise you to try and remain that way.” Kamau chuckled. “Is he talking about the dangerous wildlife or our Dr. Bekker?”
Jack smiled but didn’t take the bait. “By the way, it’s a PhD, just so you know not to throw any surgery or clinic cases my way,” Jack said, changing the subject.
“In what?” Kamau asked.
“Genetics. Specifically, genetic immunity to pathogens in wildlife species. I’m working with a lab collecting genetic samples for a sort of library of endangered species, but also for studies on resistance.”
