Jack remained silent. Maybe he was running over the same things I was: the what-if scenarios that you go through over and over again.
“Is that why you’re doing this?” he asked. “Taking on her unfinished business? Because you feel guilty?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “We don’t always understand the things we do. We just do them and hope we’ll feel better.”
“I don’t know about feeling better.” Jack took a deep breath and straightened from the desk. “All I know is that when Scholastica handed me back Lily’s hat, I couldn’t shut her out. It was the way she looked at me—with no expectation, no judgment. I have no qualms saying no to you, or to Goma, or to anyone who asks anything of me, because I don’t owe anybody a damn thing, including explanations. But when that little girl looked at me, without asking, without speaking, something in me answered.”
Scholastica’s voice mingled with Goma’s in the kitchen as we stood in the library. It was probably what Kaburi Estate had sounded like when Lily was alive—a mix of young and old, with the hum of a distant tractor, and the muted conversations of the staff drifting in through the windows. The breeze picked up the scent of Jack’s skin—green coffee beans and soft earth. It was both light and dark, elusive yet rooted, just like the man. I could have gone on breathing the moment, but I had an odd sensation, like I was standing at the edge of something deep and vast, and needed to pull back.
“Is this Lily’s mother?” I walked over to one of the shelves and picked up a frame. It held a photo of Jack with a beautiful black woman. She had a swan’s neck, elegant and smooth, and the kind of face that needed no makeup to accentuate it. Her features radiated an intelligent confidence. Jack had his arm around her shoulder as she held a younger Lily up for the camera.
“Sarah.” Jack took the frame from my hands and gazed at it. “She wanted to take Lily to Disneyland, but I insisted she come here, like she does every year.”
He left the rest unspoken, but it was clear that Sarah blamed him for what had happened to their daughter. From the expression on his face, he didn’t begrudge her that, because he did too.
“Lily was our last link, the one thing that kept us connected. I haven’t spoken to Sarah since the funeral.” Jack carefully placed the frame back on the shelf.
He did that a lot. Every movement was concise and deliberate, like he was focusing on the things he could control, to keep from getting sucked into a dark, spinning void.
The shrill ring of a referee’s whistle came from the living room, where Bahati was watching a football match. It jarred the strange spell that seemed to have woven around Jack and me.
“I should get going,” said Jack. “I’m needed outside.” He slipped on his sunglasses and paused at the door. “We’ll leave for Baraka in the morning.”
I sat down after he left and watched Aristurtle take little bites of lettuce from his feeding dish. Shafts of sunlight fell on the dark shelves around me. It was only then that I realized I was surrounded by books. Yet not one of them had clamored for my attention while Jack had been in the room.
I RUBBED MO’S note between my fingers as we left the farm. Dewdrops were still glistening on the leaves, like morning diamonds scattered in the field.
July 17—Juma (Baraka), it said.
It was the first of Mo’s Post-its that had not been crossed out, and though it was now August, we were headed for the place she was supposed to have picked up a kid named Juma. It took us half the day to get there, on dirt roads that meandered through tall, yellow grass.
Baraka was a collection of thatched-roof huts surrounded by thorn bushes and footpaths that led to small fields of corn and potatoes. The villagers pointed us in the direction of Juma’s family’s hut and then huddled outside, listening in.
I tried to follow the conversation between Jack and the woman who was squatting by the fire, but they were speaking in quick, short bursts of Swahili.
She had a baby tied to her back, and was cooking something that looked like thick porridge. Chickens pecked around her feet, while another toddler slept in the corner.
The conversation was getting heated. Jack sat next to me on a wooden stool, his earlier cordiality gone. He was hunched over, trying to fold his frame into the small, smoky space. The woman, Juma’s mother, seemed to be deflecting his questions and ignoring us. Gabriel’s name was thrown around. The woman shrugged, shook her head, and kept her back to us.
“Has Gabriel already been here?” I asked.
“Apparently, he never showed,” replied Jack.
“And Juma? Where is he?”
Jack gave the woman a black, layered look. “She says she doesn’t know.”
Just then, a man walked in and started talking to us, his voice raised, arms waving wildly.
“What’s going on?” I looked from him to Jack.
“It’s Juma’s father. He wants us to leave.” But Jack showed no sign of getting up. “Not until they tell us where Juma is.”
The villagers outside peeked in, as the conversation got louder. Jack’s hard-nosed tenacity fueled the other man’s rage. Juma’s mother started wailing, startling the sleeping toddler. His cries mingled with hers, as the men continued arguing. The dark hut turned into a madhouse of clucking chickens, and weeping, and yelling.
“Stop!” I couldn’t take it anymore. “Everyone, just stop!”
The outcry was met with stunned silence. I guess they had all forgotten I was still in the room.