The Beautiful Daughters

by Nicole Baart

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  PRAISE FOR

  Sleeping in Eden

  “Baart expertly unravels the backstory of her intriguing characters, capturing the nuances of both life-tested relationships and the intense passion of first love. Ripe with complex emotion and vivid prose, this story sticks around long after the last page is turned.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Sleeping in Eden is bittersweet and moving, and it will haunt you from page one. Nicole Baart writes with such passion and heart.”

  —Sarah Jio, author of Goodnight June

  “Nicole Baart’s Sleeping in Eden is vivid storytelling with a temporal sweep. In Baart’s cleverly woven mystery, the characters’ intertwined fates prove that passions transcend time—and secrets will always be unearthed.”

  —Jenna Blum, author of The Stormchasers

  “Nicole Baart has written a novel that satisfies on every level. ­Sleeping in Eden is a compelling mystery, a tragic love story, a perceptive consideration of the callous whim of circumstance and, perhaps most important, a beautiful piece of prose. I guarantee this is a book that will haunt you long after you’ve turned the last page.”

  —William Kent Krueger, author of Ordinary Grace

  “Sleeping in Eden is intense and absorbing from the very first page. Written in lovely prose, two seemingly different storylines collide in a shocking conclusion.”

  —Heather Gudenkauf, author of Little Mercies

  “With lyrical prose and a narrative that kept me turning pages at a breakneck speed, Sleeping in Eden delivered everything I yearn for in a novel: evocative plot lines, well-drawn characters, and a heart-stopping conclusion.”

  —Tracey Garvis Graves, author of the bestselling novel On the Island

  PRAISE FOR

  Far From Here

  “Far From Here, Nicole Baart’s tale of the certainties of absolute fear and the uncertainty of love whirls the reader up and never lets go.”

  —Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of The Deep End of the Ocean and Second Nature: A Love Story

  “Far From Here was a rare journey to a place that left me healed and renewed by the end of this beautiful, moving novel. A tribute to love in all its forms—between a man and a wife, between sisters, and among mothers and daughters—my heart ached while I read Far From Here, but it ached more when I was done and there were no more pages to turn.”

  —Nicolle Wallace, author of Eighteen Acres and It’s Classified

  “Nicole Baart is a writer of immense strength. Her lush, beautiful prose, her finely drawn characters, and especially her quirky women, all made Far From Here a book I couldn’t put down.”

  —Sandra Dallas, author of True Sisters and The Quilt Walk

  “Nicole Baart is a huge talent who has both a big voice and something meaningful to say with it. Far From Here is a gorgeous book about resilient people living in a broken world, finding ways to restore hope and even beauty in the pieces.”

  —Joshilyn Jackson, author of Gods in Alabama and A ­Grown-Up Kind of Pretty

  For all the beautiful daughters.

  You know who you are.

  “Hope has two daugthers; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.”

  ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO

  Prologue

  He fell forever.

  Of course, it was all over in a second or two, a stutter of heartbeats that shivered through her chest. But as she watched, the world paused, and she could feel the earth shift, the wind, fine-edged as a blade. Her life was contained in those spare moments. The first time that David kissed her, and the last. His skin against hers. His hands. Mouth. Breath warm as summer.

  She missed him before he was gone.

  She wondered if his life passed before his eyes, or if the memories had somehow come undone and were being quietly unraveled in the space between them. Each impression a slender ribbon that scattered in the breeze before she had a chance to collect it and tuck it away, safe.

  So he came at her in wisps and sighs, scraps of life that she gathered with greedy fingers and fumbled, lost. His laugh. His arms. His lips.

  And then, he was the little boy in all those photographs that graced Piperhall. Slight and tall, handsome even before he could be considered a young man. She felt sometimes that she had loved him before she even knew him. At six and seven and eight, and all the years that came after. Heart and soul, up until the moment her loathing matched her love and she found herself trading places with a woman she didn’t recognize. She was two halves of a whole.

  But David Galloway was a mystery. Her lover, her best friend, a stranger. He was the beginning.

  And his death was what felt like the end.

  PART I

  ADRIENNE

  1

  It was less a car accident than a struck match.

  Adrienne had felt off all day, lopsided and a little dizzy, like the time she had taken the cable car to the top of Gibraltar and nearly fallen off the rock from vertigo. But she had ignored the strange sense of premonition, the feeling that her world was about to change, because Adri didn’t like change. And she didn’t like the madness exploding around her, each scene a snapshot so smudged and surreal she had to wonder if it was all a bad dream. A nightmare. But it wasn’t.

  Broken glass. The thick scent of gasoline whipped up by the wind. Two dark slashes on the concrete that marked the place where the truck driver had hit the brakes too late. The road was a menacing swath of sharp edges, and the crowd a riot of colors and fists and dialects Adri didn’t understand. She could taste the musky press of hot skin, the sour-sweet tang of the red dust that churned beneath her feet. It was familiar and foreign, home and away.

  She wasn’t afraid until someone reached into the wreckage of the overturned truck and brandished a single bottle that hadn’t been shattered in the rollover. It was an empty Fanta bottle, utterly harmless. Until he smashed it against the upturned bumper and held it, jagged and glittering, like a blade.

  The man wasn’t even looking at her. His fist was raised high above his head where the bottle caught the sun and refracted light like fine crystal. But Adri knew that pretty things could be deadly, and whether or not she was a part of the drama that smoldered around her, she had to get off the street. She had to get Caleb off the street. Adri put her hand out for him, but she clutched at air. Spinning around, she scanned the crowd and caught sight of him in the ditch below the compound.

  “They’re shutting the gate!” Caleb called. He looked back at Adri, frozen amid the African Kristallnacht that roiled around her, and shouted something that she couldn’t hear over the sudden rush and roar of the growing mob.

  She ran. And thanked the Lord and her father and The North Face for the grace of sturdy boots as glass crunched beneath her feet. Adri had swapped her sandals for boots at the last minute because it was an immunization day, and the children had learned quickly what the needles meant. Sometimes she had to pin them down. She had to scuffle and wrestle and fight. And though it was easily a hundred degrees in the shade, she wore cargo pants, a long-sleeved white shirt, the boots.

  The heavy metal gate that guarded the entrance to the compound had been swung into place, b
ut Caleb was already halfway through the pedestrian door. He held it open for Adri, scanning the crowd behind her to see if anyone would try to follow, and when she was close enough to touch, he grabbed her by the elbow and yanked her through. Slammed the gate shut with an iron clang.

  Tamba, the security guard, laughed. “It’s an election day,” he said, offering his hands palm up as if he was gifting them with an easy answer to the madness. “We are a passionate people.” His easy smile dispelled the thin fog of her fear, and Adri’s cheeks warmed in embarrassment. West Africa had been her home, her place of chosen exile, for nearly five years and Adri liked to consider herself a local. But every once in a while an unexpected encounter reminded her that she was not. She had run like a child, like a foreigner. It was humiliating.

  Even worse, Adri suddenly realized that Caleb was still gripping her arm, his shoulders curled around her protectively as if he intended to shield her from the chaos unfolding behind them. She was tiny inside his arms, so small she felt like she could turn her face into his chest and disappear. It was a dangerous feeling, the sort of longing she couldn’t let herself give in to. Adri went rigid at the warmth of his breath on her neck, and willed herself to remember who he was. Who she was. Even though she tingled in the places where he touched her. “It’s okay,” she murmured, forcing herself to pull away. Caleb’s hand tightened for just a moment before he let go.

  Taking a deliberate step back, Adri tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear and tightened her ponytail with a tug. She gave the earnest young security guard a wry smile. “A passionate people. I should know that by now, right?”

  “You are a wise woman, Miss Vogt.” Tamba’s eyes sparked like lit coal in the sunlight. “People will get hurt, but it is not . . .” he trailed off, searching. “Intended?”

  “Malicious?” Adri offered. “It means they don’t mean to do any harm.”

  “Yes.” Tamba grinned. “It is not malicious.”

  “Looks malicious to me.” Caleb stood well away from the gate and surveyed the swarm with a critical eye.

  It was a sight to behold. The streets were full of people, and though most of the political parties had advocated for a peaceful election, the air had shimmered with a live charge for days. When the truck that collected empty bottles from the hundreds of roadside stands had crested a hill and found a small knot of people deep in conversation in the middle of his lane, he couldn’t stop in time. No one had been hit, and the driver had crawled out of his vehicle with nothing more than a scratch on his arm. Adri knew it wasn’t serious, she had examined him herself—though he had only allowed her ministrations after someone recognized her and vouched for her credentials.

  Adri wasn’t known by name, she was known by title: The Nurse. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t their nurse, that she worked for a series of orphanages that spread throughout the capital city and beyond instead of for the tiny local clinic. What mattered was the stethoscope she wore around her neck or tucked in an oversize pocket. The ability to diagnose crypto with a few questions and prescribe boiled water and rest. The Nurse was a miracle worker, whether she believed in her own abilities or not.

  The noise and confusion of the accident were still drawing a crowd, and as far as Adri could see in either direction, the highway was completely gridlocked. There were people standing on top of cars, the sharp report of provocative presidential slogans, the sickening knowledge that things could go sideways, whirl out of control in a heartbeat.

  Sometimes they did. A slow-burning election battle exploded into violence. A humanitarian crisis ignited global outrage. But, just as often, the flame of revolt burned fast and bright, leaving nothing behind but shards of broken glass on the pavement.

  “Stay safe,” Adri said, dragging her attention away from the scene. She gave Tamba an abbreviated form of the traditional handshake. It was the way locals said hello, goodbye. It was second nature to her.

  “I will.” He nodded, but it was obvious that he didn’t think there was much to stay safe from. They were, as he said, a passionate people. Loving and loyal and strong. Forgiving. Of themselves and each other. Adri had been the recipient of such small mercies more times than she could ever hope to count. And she knew better than to fear what she didn’t understand. Although sometimes, amid shouts and confusion and sharp edges, it was hard to quiet the voice deep inside her that screamed: run.

  “He can’t defend the gate alone,” Caleb said at Adri’s shoulder as they started down the hill, toward the houses and the sea.

  “Who, Tamba?” Adri was only half listening. Her heart was slowing to a normal rhythm, but in the aftermath of panic her backpack felt unbearably heavy. She was hot and exhausted and covered in a fine film of sticky dust. She longed for a swim.

  “They’ll storm the compound.”

  Not breaking stride, Adri glanced toward the gate and took measure of the throng of people beyond the thick bars. She shrugged, choosing to take her cue from Tamba’s cool assessment. It was her job to stay calm, collected. She did it well. “It’s more like a party than an uprising,” she said. “I’ve seen worse. It’ll fizzle out soon enough.”

  “Come on, Adri. Don’t act all tough. You were scared back there.”

  Adri regretted her earlier lapse of self-control. Weighing her words carefully, she said, “It looks worse than it is. We don’t understand the history and emotions that contribute to a day like this. Elections are a big deal.”

  Caleb just stared at her, his steps quick and sure on the uneven road even as he questioned her judgment.

  Adri couldn’t quite read him. He wasn’t scared, but there was something simmering just beneath the surface. “We probably should have stayed in the compound,” Adri admitted. It was almost an apology. “But, no harm done.”

  “No harm done,” Caleb repeated quietly, his expression blank.

  “What? It’s like, five o’clock, and this is the first indication of disorder we’ve seen.” She tipped her chin as if daring him to disagree. “It was a perfectly normal day until ten minutes ago.”

  “Normal? Disorder?” He thrust an arm backward and pointed to the melee they had left behind. “You call that disorder?”

  Adri stopped abruptly and faced him. Passing the back of her hand across her forehead, she reminded herself that Caleb was new—and an almost-riot in a country fresh from civil war was enough to make her heart skip a beat, too. Caleb had been in West Africa for less than twelve weeks, and the bright-eyed ideology he had carried with him like an oversize suitcase was still being dismantled bit by frustrating bit. She tried to remember her first few months. The spiders and the fire ants, the bites that swelled to the size of small tumors. Malaria medication made her sick and gave her night terrors that transformed her into an insomniac. The food turned her stomach to water. Adri didn’t mean to, but she thought about the exact moment that baby had died in her arms, the fraction of a second when the feather-light brush of his tiny limbs became deadweight, and he was so simply, so irrevocably gone.

  She swallowed hard. “I’m sorry,” she said. “We shouldn’t have left the compound today. My mistake. I wanted to administer the second round of the hep B vaccines on schedule.”

  Caleb softened a little, and Adri was startled by the dark intensity of his gaze as he studied her. He had flirted with her before, suggesting with the slightest graze of his fingertip that they could be more than coworkers, with a look that could be interpreted a hundred different ways. He was tempting. More than that—there was something about him that was undeniably different, compelling. But Adri worked hard to be aloof with him. With everyone. It was just one of the many ways that she hid in plain sight.

  “Apology accepted,” Caleb said. “But, just so I know? What are we going to do if . . . ?” He let the question dangle and a dozen terrifying possibilities spilled from the hint of his suggestion.

  “There are contingency plans.�
� Adri started walking again. “Our night security guard is coming early.”

  Caleb narrowed his eyes. “He’s not a security guard. He’s a kid.”

  “Samaritan’s Purse has a helicopter.”

  “And the UN has Blackhawks,” Caleb said abruptly. He seemed to be comforted by the thought. “They know where we are.”

  Adri laughed. “They have bigger fish to fry.”

  Caleb didn’t respond.

  At the bottom of a long hill they entered the compound proper. The dirt road branched off in three different directions, and squat, block houses cropped up among the cotton trees and oil palms. Scarlet rhododendrons flanked small porches clustered with sagging lawn chairs, and here and there residents tried to urbanize the jungle with random attempts at domesticity in the form of potted plants. It struck Adri as downright ridiculous. Wasn’t the native flora enough? After five years of living at the very edge of the known world, she still couldn’t get over the fact that she could step out of her front door and pluck sweet, ripe plantains off the tree in her yard.

  The compound was a haven in the heart of the capital city, a sprawling village where various NGOs and missionary families had congregated after the civil war ended and it was officially declared safe to return. Adri had never known war. She stepped foot on African soil after the last of the rebels were driven from the bush. To her, the collection of homes, guesthouses, and small office buildings that populated the compound were simply neighborhood and community, and the mélange of humanitarian workers and expats were family. More or less. Adri had found that although many of the volunteers and aid workers in her little corner of Africa were sincere and altruistic in their motives, just as many were running away from something. Or someone. She could relate. They didn’t pry and neither did she.