by Naomi Niles
“K, got it,” Kelli said in a low voice.
“Anyway, that’s my family. Out of all the brothers, I’m the only one who got out into the world and made something of myself. Curtis could’ve gotten out if he’d wanted to, but he enjoys the life of a farmer, and I think he’s mostly happy with where he is right now. I can easily see him and Allie settling down and having a few kids.”
When we touched down in Dallas a couple hours later, we found the family huddled together at baggage claim waiting for us. Dad and Mom were there, and so was Darren, who came running forward and gave me a high-five.
“And who’s this woman?” asked Dad, coming forward and shaking Kelli’s hand eagerly. Kelli stood silent, grinning with her mouth half-open.
“Are you lost?” said Darren. “Do you need us to help you find your real boyfriend?”
“Kelli, this punk is my brother, Darren,” I told Kelli. “He’s the one we don’t talk about, and this is my mom and dad.”
“Pleasure to meet you,” said Mama, her eyes gleaming. I knew she was too polite to say anything, but I could tell she was studying Kelli’s thin features disapprovingly and wondering why I didn’t take better care of her. “Every time Zack calls home, he talks about you.”
“Good things, I hope,” said Kelli, sounding breathless.
“You ought to hear some of the things he says about you,” said Mama.
“Do you do that?” Kelli asked in a sarcastic tone, shaking my arms roughly. “Do you say nice things about me?”
I shrugged. “I think you’re alright sometimes.” Everyone laughed, including Kelli.
Dad and Mama drove home together while Kelli and I threw our bags into the back of Darren’s truck and piled in beside him.
“Kelli, I know we’re in Dallas now,” Darren said as we pulled out of the parking lot, “but in a few minutes, we’ll be leaving behind pretty much all vestige of civilization. I hope you’re prepared.”
“Ooo,” said Kelli uncertainly. “Sounds very spooky.”
“He just means we’re going into the country,” I assured her, kissing her once where her bangs met the tops of her eyes. As if to emphasize the point, Darren turned up the radio: an old Hank Williams, Jr. song was playing.
“WOO!” shouted Darren, rolling down the window and sticking his hands out. “Girl, I hope you love barroom dancing!”
“I’m sure she’ll love it with me ,” I replied, with emphasis on the last word.
“Is he always this excited?” Kelli said quietly.
“Pretty much always, yeah. You should see him at Waffle House at three in the morning after he’s had three cups of coffee. I have a feeling they got rid of the jukebox because he kept stuffing it with quarters and letting it play all night.”
“Wow,” said Kelli, in the tone of a teacher praising a child’s scribbles. “Where did you even find all those quarters?”
Darren beamed proudly; he wasn’t used to having this much attention, especially not from a pretty girl. “Tell you what, it’s been a long time since I was this excited to have one of my brothers home for the week. We are gonna party till the sun comes up.”
“Darren, I’m an old man,” I said in a world-weary tone. “You asking me to stay up past eleven is asking too much.”
Darren raised his hands in mock surrender. “Y’all can do what you want. I’m just gonna be over here celebrating having the best damned brother in the world back home in the best country on earth!” He let out another “WOO!” and pounded his fists on the steering wheel while Kelli glanced up at me in delight and alarm.
Chapter Thirty Kelli
We soon left Dallas behind us and followed a long stretch of highway surrounded by fields on either side. Cows quietly grazed in the long grass; one of them, a long-horned steer, paused and gave us a long stare before returning to his meal. Out back behind a metal toolshed, a large sheepdog was barking at a herd of goats with malice and excitement in his voice. A farmer in overalls who stood ploughing the dirt with a red, rusted plough waved at us as we drove past.
Darren had been right: this was about as far from New York as it was possible to get. It was hard to believe we were even still in the same country.
“To be honest, I’m surprised Mama came with us,” said Zack as we passed a fisherman’s supply store. “Not because she don’t like you, sweetie, but because I figured she’d be gettin’ dinner ready.” I stifled a grin as he spoke; Zack had slipped easily back into his native accent and had never sounded more Texan.
“She’s been cookin’ something in the crockpot for the last five or six hours,” said Darren. “The reason we’re doin’ sixty instead of thirty-five is because I’m anxious to get home and eat. I’ve had nothing for breakfast but the leftover Dairy Queen from last night.”
“Well, don’t go too fast,” said Zack, “or you’ll get home before Mama does.”
“Neither of you is worried about getting pulled over for speeding?” I asked.
Zack shook his head, as if it hadn’t occurred to him. “Nobody’s going to pull us over on this road.”
Soon, we turned onto a dirt road bordered by hand-hewn wooden fences and barbed wire. Within another ten minutes, Darren had pulled into a long driveway leading up to a long narrow house with a wooden porch and a large back pasture above which hung a few scattered clouds. Behind a large iron gate, I could see horses and goats grazing, and one very excited black and white Border collie who nearly leapt over the fence in his haste to greet us. Even further back, there stood a tiny house with a pair of small wooden steps leading up to the front door.
“Well, this is it,” said Darren, pounding one last time on the steering wheel for effect and putting the car into park. “We’re home.”
“This is where I grew up,” said Zack. “Spent the first seventeen years of my life trying as hard as I could to get out of this place. But damned if it don’t feel good to be back.”
We got out of the car. It was a blindingly hot day, and the back of my neck was already covered in sweat by the time we reached the steps of the front porch.
“Y’all ready?” asked Mrs. Savery, bustling forward with keys in hand.
“I sure as hell hope supper’s ready,” said Darren, patting his belly longingly. “As much as I love Mama’s cooking on normal days, it’s always a hundred times better when Zack comes home.”
“Is that what you’re all excited about?” asked Zack.
Mrs. Savery pushed open the door. We followed her into a small, comfortably furnished living room containing a couple of rocking chairs, a sectional sofa that appeared to have been in the family since the 1970s, a hand-crocheted green and yellow rug, and a medium-sized flat-screen TV. Most of one wall was covered in framed sepia portraits of Zack and his brothers as children; Zack stood in the center of one, his hair neatly buzzed, flashing a gap-toothed smile.
Mrs. Savery threw on an apron, powdered her nose, and removed the lid from the crockpot. A cloud of steam instantly wafted out, accompanied by the mouth-watering smell of simmering pork roast. I had a feeling I was going to enjoy this dinner quite a bit more than any recent meal I had shared with Renee.
Zack and Darren set the table, and soon the meal was ready. In addition to the roast, we ate creamed corn, buttered rolls, and green bean casserole that had been baked just slightly longer than usual so the flakes were crisp. For dessert, we had our choice of cherry pie or pecan pie topped with whipped cream and several different flavors of ice cream. It was easily better than the meal Zac and I had eaten at Café Luxembourg, and I began to wonder why I subjected myself to mediocre food amid all the plenty of Manhattan.
Mr. Savery stayed mostly quiet during dinner, but Mrs. Savery wanted to know all about me: Where did I grow up? How had I met Zack? Where did I see my career in journalism leading? I deflected most of her questions about life in Somalia with stories of our time together in the Congo and was careful not to mention the offer Evan had made me the day before.
“Zack mentioned
that he had met a girl down there in Zaire,” said Mrs. Savery, “and we were so surprised because you can imagine what we were picturing. When he said you were an American reporter, we were so relieved.”
“Would you have been upset if I’d come home with some Congolese woman?” Zack asked with a mischievous look in his eyes.
Mrs. Savery was spared from having to answer by the sudden arrival of two other Savery boys, who flung open the front door and came charging into the kitchen.
“Gimme some of dat,” said an auburn-haired man of about twenty-five, wearing a pair of newly polished dress shoes and a neatly pressed linen suit, as he opened the lid of the crackpot. I gathered from his immaculate appearance and general air of superiority that this was Marshall.
The second brother, slightly older, with thinning hair and a reddish-brown beard, came over and hugged Mrs. Savery. “Curtis,” she said, motioning to me, “this is Zack’s friend, Kelli.”
“Afternoon,” said Curtis, reaching over and shaking my hand. “It’s about time we finally met you.”
“How long has Zack been talking about me?” I asked with a feeling of unease.
“Well, when you’re the most interesting thing in the Congo,” said Zack, leaning back in his chair with a satisfied air, “you get talked about a lot.”
Mrs. Savery turned to Curtis and said quietly, “Where’s Allie?”
“Allie was feelin’ a bit under the weather,” he said sadly. “I think she strained one of her tendons at the bar when we was dancing the other night. She keeps telling me it’s because she’s old and her body’s fallin’ apart. And I told her, I said, ‘You’re twenty-six. If that makes you old, then just go ahead and bury me.’”
“Well, when you’re right, you’re right,” said Zack. Curtis shot him the middle finger where he was sure his mom couldn’t see it.
When supper had ended, Mrs. Savery lit a couple of scented candles while Darren and Marshall helped clear the table. Zack turned to me and asked if I wanted to see the back pasture.
“Yes, of course!” I motioned with my little finger through the kitchen window. “I’m assuming it’s… out back?”
Zack nodded. “See, that’s just the sort of keen analytical thinking I started dating you for. Come on!”
He took me by the hand and led me through the back door into a large yard surrounded by wooden fences. Right away we were swarmed by hogs—wild, thick-skinned brutes with dark hides and canny, intelligent eyes. I held tight to Zack’s arm as he took off one of his boots and waved it around in a menacing fashion, letting out a yell that sent them flying in all directions.
“We’ve had problems with them things for the longest time,” said Zack apologetically. “You know how hard it is to tame a wild hog?”
“Pretty hard, I’d expect,” I replied.
Still holding onto my hand, he led me across the pasture to the barn where the horses were grazing. Here, the air was dank and cool, and I felt relieved to get out from under the gaze of the scorching sun. “I can’t imagine anyone choosing to live here,” I said, wiping the sweat off my brow with my wrist. “This is worse than the Congo.”
“Almost,” said Zack. “But you were never in Libya, which I’m pretty sure is where Satan spends half the year. At least here we don’t have to worry about being blown apart by IEDs.”
The mention of his time in the service brought back to mind the injunction Evan had laid on me the day before, to find out about the book he was writing and to ask if he would let me write a piece on it. Maybe tomorrow , I decided as I watched him sweating in the intense heat. I didn’t want to ruin this moment, not when it was so perfect.
“It’s a bit late in the day,” said Zack as he stroked Bessie, his favorite horse, “but tomorrow, you and I’ll go out riding. Have you ever ridden a horse before?”
“No, never,” I said, my eyes shining.
“You’ll love it,” he said. “It’s easy. In the meantime, let me show you where you’ll be staying for the night.”
Chapter Thirty-One Zack
Curtis had agreed to let me stay at his house for the week. But before I went over that night, I showed Kelli the room where she would be sleeping at the back of the house. It was my old room and, to my shame, hadn’t been redecorated since I was a senior in high school. The walls were still hung with posters from bands like Skillet and Linkin Park. A basketball jersey was draped over one chair, and my letter jacket was hanging up in the closet, smelling of mothballs.
“This is amazing,” said Kelli, gazing around the room in awe. “I had no idea you were such a dork.”
“Just be glad we didn’t know each other in high school,” I assured her. “You’d have found me insufferable.”
Kelli threw herself down on my bed, and for a moment it was all I could do not to join her there, but I knew how pissed Mom would be if she thought we were sleeping together. “That’s the one downside of spending the week here,” I said sadly. “That we have to resist our baser impulses for a bit.”
“Shame,” said Kelli, taking one of my old blankets and wrapping it around her face like a sari. “I bet your high school self would have killed for this.”
“To have a world-class, hot reporter in my bed? Yeah, that was the dream.”
When I went over to Curtis’s an hour or so later, he told me he was impressed by how well she seemed to be fitting in with the rest of the family. He had been a little worried when he first heard I was dating a journalist for a major website because he didn’t know how well she would adapt to our country lifestyle, but she took to it as easily as if she had lived here all her life. “She didn’t always live in New York,” I reminded him. “She spent her teen years in rural Ohio.”
“Where’d she live before that?”
“Somalia. But it’s weird. Every time I’ve tried to bring that up, she finds a way of changing the subject.”
“You ought to try asking her about it,” said Curtis.
“Yeah. Maybe I will.”
When I awoke the next morning, and went over to Mama’s house, I found Kelli and Mama standing over the skillet. Mama was teaching her how to make chicken crepes that didn’t fall apart in the pan. “Every time I try to make them on my own, they end up shredded,” said Kelli.
“That’s because you’re not taking your time,” said Mama, pouring olive oil into the pan. “You have to let it sit for at least five to seven minutes before you turn it over.”
“But that takes so much time ,” Kelli whined. “And a lot of times I’m already late for work or yoga class.”
But under Mom’s guidance, the crepes turned out crisp and perfect. In addition to those, we ate buttered biscuits, hash browns, and leftover green bean casserole. Kelli finished her first plate with remarkable zeal and immediately went back for seconds. Meanwhile Darren and I fought over who was going to drink the last of the orange juice in the pitcher. “You ought to let Kelli have it,” said Mama, when Darren tried to grab the pitcher out of my hands and nearly sent the juice flying.
“Is there pulp in it?” Kelli asked, grimacing. “I don’t usually drink orange juice with pulp in it.”
“There’s some pulp, yeah,” said Darren. “But it’s still the best damned orange juice you’ve ever had.” He poured the last of it into her glass. Kelli stared down at it for a second with a distasteful look, then took a cautious sip. After letting it linger in her mouth for a moment, she downed the rest of the glass in one gulp.
“It’s miraculous,” she said, sounding puzzled. “And you made that yourself?”
“Squeezed the oranges and everything,” said Mama proudly.
“I’m gonna need to find a way to bring some of that home with me,” said Kelli. “Do you think they allow O. J. on planes?”
After breakfast, the two of us went out riding. Swirling gray and purple storm clouds hung low over the trail, and a cool wind whistled ominously as we rode toward the ledge overlooking Sulphur Springs. Although Kelli professed never to have ridden a hors
e in her life, she trotted along beside me with the confidence and ease of a woman who had been riding since she was old enough to walk.
“We’re getting close to the point where my brother’s first wife fell off her horse and died a few years back,” I told her after we had been riding together in silence for about ten minutes.
“Which one?” she asked, glancing up in surprise. “Curtis?”
“Yeah, they had just gotten married a year or two before. She was an accomplished rider, too, so it just goes to show. He wasn’t himself for a long time after that, and we started to worry that he was never gonna get over it.”
“I’d never have guessed that from looking at him last night,” said Kelli. “He seems so alive and vibrant.”
“I think there are things in everyone’s past we’d prefer not to talk about. Things that continue to affect us long after the rest of the world has moved on and forgotten about them.”
“Yes,” said Kelli, and a cloud fell over her face for a moment. “I think I know just what you mean.”
I could sense she was thinking of her own past, and I knew if I let it go now, there might not be another chance to bring it up. “What exactly happened to you when you were growing up?” I asked. “In Somalia?”
Kelli made a pained expression and drew in her breath sharply. She laughed in that way people laugh when they’re nervous and scared. “I guess I haven’t been very good at hiding the fact that something happened, have I?”
I shook my head. “No, and I can tell it continues to affect you. There’s not an hour goes by that it doesn’t.”
“Well, if you must know,” said Kelli. “I’ve never talked about this before, and I trust you to keep it a secret, especially from the other guys. I don’t want them to know.”
“Not a word,” I replied.
“When I was eleven we were still living in Mogadishu, and I was just discovering boys for the first time. There was a boy living on the naval base with us, whose name was Jeremy. He had the most beautiful wrists, and his hair…”
