Jack opened the car door and waited for me to step out. Then he extended his hand out. When I put my hand in his large, rough grip, he held it for a moment, as if allowing me the opportunity to back out.
Then he squeezed.
It was a silent handshake, an unspoken agreement. And although I had only just met him, I knew I could trust Jack Warden to keep his promise. Come what may.
I FOLLOWED JACK into the library after lunch and watched him unroll a map across the polished walnut desk. He took the three Post-its I handed to him, and laid them out on the map:
July 17—Juma (Baraka)
Aug 29—Sumuni (Maymosi)
Sept 1—Furaha (Magesa)
“We’ll make one trip to Wanza,” he said, after studying Mo’s notes. “The last two stops are on the way there and the dates are close. Your sister and Gabriel probably planned it that way. Instead of driving back and forth, we’ll go to Baraka and get Juma first.” He tapped the location on the map. “We can leave tomorrow and bring him back to the farm. The next pickup isn’t for another week. We’ll set out with him and Scholastica then, stop at Maymosi and Magesa, and head on to Wanza from there.” He looked at me for confirmation.
He was silhouetted against the window, dust motes dancing around him as beams of light slanted in through the pane. The edges of his hair shone like pale gold where the sun touched it, making him look like a dark, charcoal drawing, infused with light. He was still walled up, still barricaded from the inside, but something had cracked open.
Jack had no desire to be pulled back into a world that had taken his daughter away. He had done his part, played the hero, been lauded for saving three lives—a woman, her unborn child, and her little boy—but he found no comfort in the fact that they were alive, or that he was alive. Lily was gone, and he was in pure agony. And yet, there he was, waiting for a reply, looking at me as if acknowledging for the first time that I existed, that what I thought mattered.
“That sounds great.” If he could see me from within that vortex of pain, if he could see beyond himself, I sure as hell could look past his rough, harsh edges. Besides, there was something to be said for a man who kept a bunch of balloons in his all-dark library.
“They remind me of Lily,” he said, when he noticed my eyes lingering on them. “I pick up a new batch whenever I’m in town. It was the last thing she asked me for. Yellow balloons. She wanted them for Aristurtle, so we wouldn’t have to keep looking for him,” he explained, before returning the Post-it notes to me.
I thought about how Mo and Lily were still so present in the yellow paper I held, in the yellow balloons that Jack held on to, and the tortoise that was somewhere behind the desk—invisible, but with a burst of color trailing him.
“I hope we all go like that, leaving something bright behind,” I said.
We watched in silence as the balloons bobbed gently in the corner, as if touched by soft, invisible breaths—rising and falling.
“This was her. My sister.” I searched through my phone and showed Jack a picture of Mo. She was getting her hair braided. A comb was sticking out in the undone part of her hair. She looked so happy, sitting in the shade of a tree, on an upside-down plastic crate, wearing a turquoise dress and polka dot glasses. “We didn’t look much like each other.” Mo was the kind of person who sprang out at you in pictures and crowds. Your eyes just automatically picked her out.
“My daughter and I, we didn’t look much like each other either.”
I didn’t think he was going to share anything further, but then he seemed to changed his mind.
“This is her.” He pulled out his wallet and gave me a Polaroid of Lily.
She had honey-colored skin and was smiling into the camera with pure mischief in her eyes. Strands of flyaway hair were peeking out from under a sunflower hat—the one that Jack had given Scholastica. She looked different from Jack, but I could see him in the arch of her brows and the defiant turn of her chin. She would have broken rules and hearts, and loved every minute of it.
As we held the photos, side-by-side, I felt a sense of loss that goes with the disappearing of smiles, of vibrancy, of voices, and warmth, and choices. And yet there was a sweetness of having shared and known, of having loved, even though it seemed as fleeting as the flutter of a bird’s wings.
I handed Lily’s photo back, and stooped to retrieve something that had landed on the floor. It was another Polaroid, one of Jack, that had been stuck to the back of it. He looked like he’d been caught mid-speech, his skin over-exposed as if the flash had gone off right in his face. Perhaps that was why he seemed so different—his eyes so clear and startling, they captivated me. They had an iridescence that was not easily forgotten, like icy glaciers ringed by golden, summer light. They held no hint of the storm clouds that they did now. I’d pegged him for being around thirty, but he looked much younger in that photo.
“She took both of these,” said Jack, when I handed him back the second Polaroid. “We were driving to the mall that day.” He stroked the edge of Lily’s photo absently. “I told her to stop wasting film.” He slipped the prints back into his wallet and stared at the leather.
“I didn’t answer my sister’s call that day.” I hadn’t told anyone that, not even my parents. I had shared Mo’s final message, but not the fact that I’d ignored her call. I was too ashamed to, but somehow, I felt all right sharing it with Jack. “I was too busy signing papers for my new home.”