It was short, Mo. But it was full and bursting with flavor.
Are you talking about my life or those chili pepper candy balls?
I laughed as the flamingos danced around me, honking like geese. They were so close that I could see the yellow of their eyes and the curve of their beaks. The sky was a stark blue now, except for a few salt clouds whipped up from the lake. It was much warmer and my skin felt sated from the sun.
“Ha!” I thumped the roof with my fist, loving the wind in my hair. “It’s a beautiful day!” I called to the birds.
We left them behind and passed swamps and marshes where hippos wallowed in thick, wet mud pools. A pack of narrow hipped hyenas circled the remains of a kill. They nipped at the black-backed jackals that were encroaching on them. Vultures and Marabou Storks hovered above, looking to get in on the action. Two gray-crowned cranes watched a group of aggressive buffaloes chase a lion around the water hole.
Jack veered off the dirt track and stopped the car. A few minutes later, he popped up beside me and handed me a set of binoculars.
“See that group of birds over there?” He waited for me to spot them. They had creamy white throats, and were picking at the ground with their bills. “They’re Kori Bustards. The males are amongst the world’s heaviest flying birds. Now look up into that tree. The tall one with the branch extending off to the right.”
He stood behind me, his chest to my back, pointing it out. His other hand rested on my shoulder, warm and heavy.
It took me few minutes to find what he wanted me to see.
“A cheetah,” I said.
It was stretched out on the branch, eyes closed, tail flicking away the flies hovering around it.
“Not a cheetah. A leopard.” We were so close that Jack’s breath stirred my hair as he spoke. “They’re easy to confuse because they both have spots. Cheetahs have solid black spots and black tear lines that run from the corner of their eyes. Leopard spots are clustered, like rosettes. Leopards are also bigger and more muscular. They’re not built for speed like cheetahs, but what they lack in speed, they make up for in stealth and power. They’ll often carry their prey high up in the trees to prevent other predators from eating them.”
I watched the leopard’s belly rise and fall with each breath. I thought of it slipping through the tall Savanna grass with scarcely a ripple, lunging on its unsuspecting quarry, and exerting a lethal hold with its powerful jaw.
“Number three of the Big Five,” I said, with a bit of shudder.
“You still cold?”
“I’m fine,” I said, tilting my face to him.
The sun was directly behind him, framing his thick, untamed hair like a golden mane.
I wonder if he goes at it like Mufasa, Mo.
“What’s so funny?” Jack caught my grin.
“Nothing.” I glanced away. “Sometimes I have these weird conversations with my sister.”
“It had something to do with me, didn’t it?” he asked, as if talking to my dead sister was a completely normal thing to do. Then again, maybe it was something he could relate to.
“Do you do that?” I asked. “Do you ever speak to Lily?”
“I can’t.” The fences came back up around him, like I’d wandered in too far and touched something he didn’t want anyone to see, something personal and raw and painful. “I can’t . . . face her.”
My heart constricted. Jack was too guilt-ridden to have a conversation with his daughter. Even an imaginary one. Because he hadn’t been able to get to her in time. Because she had died alone. I wanted to say something, but I kept my mouth shut. Telling someone to get over something like that was bullshit.
“If you can’t speak, just listen,” I said. “Maybe one day you’ll hear what she’s saying.”
I squeezed past him through the open roof and took my seat. We drove in silence until we got to a patch of tall, yellow-barked trees. Vervet monkeys swung from the dense canopy, and birds flitted through the branches.
“The Lerai Forest,” said Jack.
“Oh, Jack. Look!” I squeezed his arm and pointed into the shady thicket.
A massive elephant was rubbing itself against a tree, its large tusks dragging in the dirt.
“It’s an old bull. Most of the crater elephants are male,” said Jack. “The large breeding herds only descend here occasionally.”
“Why is he doing that? Rubbing up against that tree?”
“Probably scratching himself. Or getting rid of parasites on his skin.” He leaned forward and squinted through the binoculars. “Maybe he’s just horny.”
He said it so matter-of-factly, I burst out laughing. “Are you checking out his schlong?”
Jack glanced at me sideways. “Did you just snort, Rodel Emerson?”
“It was a chortle.”
He sat back and folded his arms. “You snorted. And you call a dick a schlong.”
“Mo said I should come down here so she could show me an elephant’s schlong.”
“In that case, mission accomplished.” He made an imaginary check mark in the air and passed me the binoculars. “Go on. Don’t be shy.”
“No, thank you. I don’t need to see his . . . his schlong.” I was pretty sure my cheeks had turned beetroot red, or maybe a bright shade of scary cherry.
“Oh, my God. You’re shy. You’re coloring up like the Serengeti sunset.” Jack was grinning. A full-fledged ear-to-ear smile that was completely dazzling.