Jack got up, opened the refrigerator, and stuck his head behind the door.
Bahati cloaked his laughter in a coughing fit.
I bit down on my lip and stared at my knuckles.
“That’s right.” Goma patted Scholastica’s hand solemnly. “Always tell it like it is.”
I RELAXED INTO the crook of Jack’s arm and rested my head on his shoulder. He found my hand under the blanket and laced our fingers together. We sat on the porch under a purple sky, on the kiwi green swing that had become our favorite spot. Moon-splashed fields stretched out before us. Behind us, Kilimanjaro watched silently, brooches of opalescent snow shimmering from its lofty peaks. Night bugs hummed, leaves rustled, a dragonfly whirred and fluttered away.
I had always thought of home as a place, where you put down your roots, unpack your collection of mugs with snarky quotes, put up all the bookshelves you want, and watch the rain splash down your windows on wet, gray afternoons. But I was realizing that home was a feeling—of being, of belonging—a feeling that swirled through my veins every time I was with Jack.
“Why so quiet?” he asked.
I shook my head and picked out a coffee plant to focus on. If I spoke, my voice would crack. If I looked at him, my eyes would betray me.
Ask me to stay, Jack.
As stupid and impractical as it sounded, I was ready to give it all up for him. My job. My cottage. My life in England. Because that’s what love did. It turned you stupid and made you do things you never thought you’d do.
“Three more days.” I kept my eyes on the coffee plant, willing him to make a statement. Give me something, Jack. Anything to grab on to.
“We could make it work.” He had this uncanny ability to read me, to tune into the frequency of my thoughts. “People have long distance relationships all the time.”
“Yes, but not forever.” My heart sank. It wasn’t what I’d been hoping for. I had always known this is how it would be. He’d told me right off the bat that he’d never ask me to stay, but it still twisted and burned inside me.
“Rodel.” He put his hand under my chin, his blue eyes capturing mine. “I’m not ready to let you go.”
“I don’t want you to, but I’d rather say goodbye now than next year, or the year after, when we’re both worn out by the distance. When phone calls and video chats and seeing each other once in a while just doesn’t cut it anymore. We’d be okay in the beginning. It would take the edge off, but I’m done with okay, Jack. Okay is existing. Okay is ordinary. And you . . .” I cupped his cheek in a wistful gesture. There was so much I wanted to say to him. “You and me . . . we’re too grand, too magnificent to fit into ordinary. I love you, Jack. It’s big love. Huge. I can’t stuff it in a letter or an email. I’m not okay with that. I’m not an okay girl. I’m an all or nothing girl.”
A slew of emotions flashed across his rugged face. Pride. Joy. Sorrow. Heart-rending tenderness. He twirled a strand of my hair around his finger and gave me a poignant smile. “I always knew you’d be trouble.”
“Me?” I wanted to sob, but I couldn’t allow myself to break down. “Your grandmother blew a man’s balls off today.”
His laugh was rich and undiluted. It was the most marvelous, catching sound to me.
“My grandmother was fingerprinted, photographed, and let off,” he said. “They found K.K.’s body in a ditch. She deserves an award for putting that monster to rest.”
“I’m glad he’s gone. I think we can all get a good night’s sleep.”
“They’re all down for the night—Goma, Scholastica, Bahati. You should pretend you’re sleeping too.”
“Why would I do that?”
“To get me to carry you up the stairs, like the last time.”
“I knew it! I knew you knew.” I covered my face with my hands. “Was I that obvious?” I peeked at him through my fingers.
“Completely.” He scooped me up and paused at the door so I could turn off the porch light. “You practically threw yourself at me. Drove me crazy the night the hyenas came, standing before the light in that muumuu so I could see your every curve. You made googly eyes at me over the clothesline. Cornered me in the barn.” With each stair, he added to his list. “Kissed me senseless. Fell at my feet—”
“I slipped! I nose-dived into the mud.”
“Like I said. You fell at my feet, tossed off your top in the tent, flashed your boobs—”
I smothered him with a kiss. Oh, I knew exactly how to shut him up. And then I proceeded to make him completely lose his train of thought.
TIME. THE LESS you have of it, the more precious it becomes. I was stringing every moment I had with Jack like a pearl on a necklace. Goma caught me, propped up against the door, the steam from my coffee drifting into the morning air, as I watched Jack work in the fields. She knew we held hands under the table, that our eyes spoke words no one else could hear, that we disappeared for hours and came back with our faces flushed and bits of hay sticking out of our hair. She stripped my bed, washed the sheets, and put them away in the linen closet. There was no need to sneak back into my room in the mornings.
Scholastica’s new glasses arrived, but she clung to Mo’s, until Goma caved and called Dr. Nasmo for another appointment—this time to get new lenses fitted into Mo’s frames.
“I’m keeping her,” said Goma, after she got off the phone.