Proper Care and Maintenance of Friendship (9781609417291) Page 28

  “You’re not angry with me?”

  “For having a loyal heart?” He shook his head, sharply. “I can’t fault you for that. It’s one of the reasons I love you.”

  She watched his throat move as he said those words. Fearlessly. She raised her hand and placed it flat on his chest, just over his heart. Beneath the warm cotton, she felt the strong, steady beat.

  “Kate tells me,” he said, in a strangled voice, “that you are done with him.”

  It took her a moment to remember who.

  “Yes. I am.”

  Sarah flexed her fingers, feeling the curve of his pectoral muscle, hard and tense beneath her touch. She wanted to caress him without the roughness of cloth between them. Wanted to feel him—Sam, who was real, flesh-and-blood, heart and soul, standing in all his warm, yearning glory before her.

  Sarah knew that Sam could have gone anywhere. He could have transferred within the organization to another area altogether. He could have left the business and returned to England to work in an office, or anything. He could have washed his hands of her, of Burundi, and spent his days watching cricket on the telly and eating bangers and mash. He’d been talking about it for weeks after they’d rescued the girl with the crooked braids, and she had listened with some of the same yearning in her heart.

  But he chose to come back. To all of it—the good and the bad and the beyond—because he was stronger than she was. He was a man of good heart and unwavering loyalty. And it made her think that maybe there was someone in the world perfect in his own imperfect humanity, and she’d been a fool all this time, looking in the wrong direction, for the wrong man, even as the right man walked calmly right beside her.

  She closed her eyes and pressed her nose into the hollow of his chest. His shirt smelled like soap warmed in the sun. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

  “Let the past lie,” he said. “It doesn’t matter anymore.” He thrust both hands, fingers splayed, through the tangled mess of her hair, gathering the great weight of it up at the back of her head and letting her shift position against him, his chest her fulcrum. “You’ve been gone so long. I was afraid you wouldn’t come back. I’ve missed you, Sarah-belle.”

  “Sam.”

  “Shhh.” He buried his face in her hair. “There is time enough.”

  “But I want you to know this.” She turned her face, so she could feel the bare skin of her cheek against the bare V of his chest.

  “Sam, I came back to Burundi—for you.”

  Sam shifted the jeep into fourth gear as Sarah raised her chin to the breeze. They’d made it off the rough mountain paths onto the firmer roads approaching Lake Tanganyika. She slid her fingers over his, where he gripped the gear shift, so he could drive and she could touch him at the same time. She tilted her head and managed a tentative smile, and he gifted her with a laugh that made her toes curl.

  They’d escaped their own celebration. After Dr. Mwami had announced the bride wealth acceptable—to the jubilation of the crowd—Sam had informed everyone that several boxes of sorghum beer cluttered the back of his jeep, and they should be promptly unloaded. The women ululated, the boys ran for their drums, and everyone began to dance. No sooner had the last box been removed than Sam gripped her hand and urged her into the passenger’s seat. Maggie shot out of the clinic, tossed a duffel bag through the window, gave Sarah a salty, weepy kiss, and said, “Git, now, both of you!”

  Now bouncing around in the jeep, Sarah sensed where they were going. Anticipation was doing strange and thrilling things to her. Her grip on his hand tightened. Sam nudged his fingers between hers, until she relaxed.

  They pulled up to a scattering of well-made huts centered on a low, long, whitewashed building, well tended with pots of flowers in exuberant bloom. A friend of Sam’s owned the establishment, which was luxurious for Burundi, but considered by international travelers a “rough and rustic” retreat for environmental tourists interested in viewing the lake hippos or doing a little sport fishing in the narrow native canoes. Behind the main building, she glimpsed the deep-blue waters of the lake, shimmering silver now, reflecting the threatening clouds.

  “I’ll register,” Sam said, grabbing his bag and hers from the backseat. “I’ll meet you by the lake.”

  Sarah ran her fingers through her windblown hair as she sauntered around the edge of the building. A few fat drops of rain pattered, leaving spots on the back patio and sinking into the thatched umbrellas that shaded the few small tables. Beyond, a grassy slope spread to the edge of the lake. On a little hillock, just by the water, an acacia tree spread its low, wide branches. She walked directly to it and leaned up against its rough bark. It protected her from the sporadic rain.

  She heard his footsteps in the grass, long before he came up behind her and pulled her into his embrace. She sank into him. How they fit—the back of her head in the crook between his jaw and shoulder, her back flat against his strong torso, his forearms tight beneath her breasts, his breath warming the hollow below her ear.

  “I’d convinced myself,” she whispered, remembering the last time they’d embraced under this tree, “that it was just another kiss for you. That it was nothing to you, a bit of flirtation.”

  “I frightened you.”

  “I didn’t expect it,” she admitted, “and then I couldn’t explain… how strongly I felt.”

  He turned her toward him and claimed her mouth. He took what he’d taken before—her lips, her balance, her senses—but he didn’t stop this time. He deepened the kiss and drew out the last of her lingering fear, the last of her doubts, coaxing from her the passion she’d been too afraid to give until right now.

  “The people in the camp,” he said, pausing to press his lips against her temple, where a vein pulsed wildly. “They consider us married now.”

  “I know,” she said, huskily. “So do I.”

  His grip tightened.

  “And though my father will appreciate the Burundi tradition,” she added, sensing what Sam was trying to say, “being a pastor, he’ll want a more formal Western ceremony eventually.”

  “So will mine.”

  She pulled away to look up at his face in silent query.

  “Didn’t I ever tell you? He met my mother on a mission.” His smile was soft, teasing. “He’s a clergyman in the Anglican Church.”

  Her smile warmed into a gentle laugh as the rain pattered around them, big messy drops falling from the leaves. She wondered at how much they still had to learn about each other, and how lovely it would be to do just that in the weeks and months and years ahead.

  A drop of rain fell upon his cheek. She touched it, and with her finger she traced the tiny scars along his cheekbone, then followed the curve of his ear and the strong length of his jaw, watching as he grew silent and still and very intent upon her face.

  I will be afraid no more.

  She whispered, “Do we have a room?”

  “A whole hut, Sarah-belle.”

  He claimed her lips again. Bending, he lifted her off the ground, leaving the shelter of the acacia tree as he walked in the direction of one of the stilted huts. He twirled her as he carried her, making the whole world blur beyond his head, blur beyond the fall of the rain, which was steady now. It soaked his head and her hair and his shirt as only a tropical rain could.

  He pushed the door open with his back. She fumbled with the buttons of his shirt, pushing the wet cotton off one broad shoulder, letting her palm linger on the perfect mahogany swell of muscle, as he finished the job. He skimmed his hand across her waist, then slid his fingers under the hem of her T-shirt. He traced a trail up her spine, dragging the shirt up with his wrist, exposing her stomach to his, so that she couldn’t resist pressing them together from navel to breast.

  Their clothes fell in sodden heaps on the floor. With eyes wide open, she took wonder in their nakedness, marveling in the long sinews of his frame, the strength and coiled power of his lean body, the stark contrasts of their skin. He held himse
lf back for her—she sensed it in the subtle trembling of his muscles as he drew her onto the bed and in the swiftness of his breath as he scraped his palm across the bone of her hip. With his lips and tongue and teeth he brought her to the tight edge of all sensation and held her there until, her whole body atremble, she wordlessly urged him close—even closer.

  Sam. Loving, wonderful Sam.

  And she felt lightness in her heart, like a soul washed clean by rain.

  chapter eighteen

  Jo sat on the bench and tilted her head back to soak in the September sun. The light dappling through the trees couldn’t be more golden, the sky more blue—or the rolling hills more green. It was the kind of day that would have made Rachel insist on a climb. Twenty years ago, Rachel and Jo and Kate and Sarah would have blown off their classes, piled into Jo’s Jetta, and set off for the Shawangunks. Today they gathered at Rachel’s grave, one year after her death.

  Jo’s gaze drifted about twenty yards away, to a plot now surrounded by mourners. She was glad that the grave was covered with grass, and that the traditional Jewish ceremony would be confined to the unveiling of Rachel’s headstone. Jo never did like funerals of any kind. They brought back too many painful impressions: the choking smell of Kentucky clay, the big gaping hole, and the lingering smell of cigarette smoke in the folds of Aunt Lauralee’s dress. Today’s ceremony would be the last in Rachel’s honor, and Jo couldn’t help feeling that it was time for closure.

  She hazarded a glance at Gracie, seated on the bench beside her and swinging her legs. The little girl still gripped the seat’s edge with tight white hands. They’d come early to pay their respects, but now the crowd had grown too thick for the girl, too full of clucking and pitying gazes, so Jo had drawn Grace away. They’d ended up on this bench by a gravel path, which was close enough to watch, but far enough away so they could avoid direct contact.

  Jo stretched an arm across the back of the bench and tugged a lock of dark hair to get Gracie’s attention. “Your nana sure is looking forward to spending the holidays with you, kiddo. I could smell the honey on her clothes.” Jo hoped, by turning Grace’s thoughts to the upcoming visit to the Brauns, she could help Gracie get through the next difficult hour. “She promised me some of her honey cake for Rosh Hashanah, so you’d better not eat it all, you hear?”

  Grace continued to bob with each swing of her legs.

  “Maybe,” Jo added, fingering the open edge of her bulging purse to check one last time that she’d remembered to bring tissues, a granola bar, and a lollipop, “I’ll ask Jessie for that applesauce recipe, too. Then, when we go apple-picking in October, you can teach me how to use my stove again.”

  Gracie stopped swinging her legs. She twisted her right foot to scrape the sole of her Mary Jane against the concrete brace of the bench. “Jessie’s applesauce is okay. I like the challah better.”

  “I hear you, kiddo. I’m a carb girl myself.” Jo shifted her weight, subtly turning her body toward Grace. “Cornbread’s my preference, but challah will do. Did you remember to pack your Cinderella toothbrush?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And the new underwear, the princess ones still in the package?”

  “Aunt Jo!” Grace turned her face up. “No talking about underwear!”

  “Well, why not? A girl’s gotta have it.” Jo pinched the lapel of her black suit and pretended a playful peek. “Mine’s red.”

  Red and lacy and downright raunchy. Because Rachel would have hated to see them all gathered here like a bunch of crows. Only respect for the family—and Grace—had kept Jo from striding into the cemetery sporting a leather miniskirt and stilettos.

  Gracie’s roll of eyes didn’t quite hide the hint of a smile. “I packed enough for a whole two weeks, Aunt Jo, just like you told me.”

  “That’s my girl.”

  Fortunately, Grace had become very good at packing. The arrangements Jo had made with the Brauns meant a lot of shuttling back and forth between New York and New Jersey. Only a month ago, Grace had returned from a summer in Teaneck. Jo knew the summer had been difficult on Mrs. Braun, though the older woman refused to admit it. Mrs. Braun was still struggling to come to terms with the idea that Grace’s primary home was in Jo’s condo. Thank God, the older woman wasn’t fighting the custody arrangements anymore, and was by degrees becoming more amenable to compromise. In time, Jo hoped, Mrs. Braun would come to accept the new situation as the best one possible in an imperfect world.

  Now the Jewish holidays loomed, and Grace would be going back to Jersey again. That would give Jo an opportunity to put in some serious face-time at work—and prove to her boss that the flextime she’d negotiated was just that—flexibility in her hours, so she could be a real mother to Grace.

  Yep. It’d been a long, hard road, but she’d finally gotten this working-mother thing down.

  “Aunt Jo?”

  “Yeah, kiddo?”

  “Where will I go when you die?”

  Jo sucked in a breath so fast that spit hit the back of her throat. Her body spasmed and then she coughed, covering her mouth with her forearm. She motioned for Grace to wait as she turned away to root through her purse for tissues, continuing to cough long after she needed to, as she desperately searched for an appropriate response.

  You’re not going to get rid of me that easily, kiddo, so no worries.

  No worries. Jo knew she couldn’t tell Grace that. Gracie had been told that before, when her mother first went into the hospital, and look how that turned out, with them sitting on a bench in a cemetery.

  After Jo got her coughing under control and wiped her watering eyes, she looked back at Grace. There were Rachel’s eyes, big in the face of Rachel’s daughter, as deep and brown as her mother’s but without the laughter, without the wisdom, and with more innocence and twice the sorrow.

  Jo should have seen it coming.

  In that instant, Jo followed her instincts and went with what she would have wanted to hear when she was sitting on a bench near her own mother’s grave, all those years ago.

  The truth.

  “That’s a good question, Gracie girl.” She wadded the tissue and shoved it in her purse. “I’m not planning to go anywhere soon, but,” she added, as she gestured to the mourners with her chin, “there’s no harm in looking at your options.”

  By the graveside, the rabbi began the ceremony by reading psalms. The lilting Hebrew wafted to them on the breeze. Jo eyed Leah and her husband, Abe, standing close to the gravestone. Abe leaned on his walker. Leah, her head bowed, gripped the head of her cane.

  “Well, you already have your nana and your grandpa.” Jo quietly slipped the tip of her finger across the part in Grace’s hair, fussing with that one stubborn strand, and gently combed it to the other side. “You have a room in their house, here in New Jersey. If something were to happen to me, you’d still have a place to stay.”

  At that moment, Leah’s cane wobbled, and the elderly woman leaned in to Jessie. Gracie caught sight of her grandmother’s physical weakness, and then looked pointedly at Jo.

  “Well,” Jo said, as the lock of hair that Jo had been fussing with twisted right back into place, “there’s always Aunt Jessie.”

  “She’s got a boyfriend now.” Grace turned away and took an interest in peeling a sliver of green paint off the seat of the bench. “He’s over at the house all the time. And they’re always staring at each other.”

  Jo smiled as she noted Jessie’s companion, a tall, rather gawky young man with Clark Kent glasses, whose body language screamed, She’s mine. It’d be a while—and maybe a wedding—before those two matured out of the cow-eyed phase.

  Then Jo’s gaze fell upon another relative, Rachel’s buff, bachelor older brother. “There’s always Uncle Artie—”

  “His house smells like gym.” Gracie shook her head hard. “And he keeps rats as pets.”

  “Gracie girl, you gotta help me here. I’m plumb out of ideas.”

  Gracie shrugged. She toyed
with a sliver of rubbery green paint, but Jo noticed that the little girl’s gaze drifted beyond it, to a point just to the left of her mother’s granite gravestone.

  To Kate.

  Kate, a slim silhouette in a black Liz Claiborne suit, stood close by Paul. On one side stood her older daughter, Tess, clutching her elbows tightly. Michael, a smaller version of his father, stood frowning at the rabbi in concentration, as if he were trying to figure out the Hebrew. Anna swayed in front of her parents, blithely playing with the ruffles of her velvet dress.

  A perfect nuclear family. What more could any orphan want?

  “Ah, Gracie.”

  Jo slipped her arm around her and pulled the warm bundle of girl against her side. She held Grace tight, so the little girl wouldn’t see the brightness of Jo’s eyes or the trembling of her jaw. Death was an ever-present thing. Yet, to live a full life, you had to face your fear.

  Like Rachel did.

  “I’ll tell you what, my girl: I’ll have a talk with Mrs. Jansen later today.” Jo scraped her fingers over Gracie’s head, messing that crooked part and all those dark locks. “Your ma took good care of you; now I’ll do the same. If something happens to me, don’t you fret. I’ll be sitting on a cloud, sipping an appletini with your ma. And you’ll be here, in the very best of hands.”

  Staring at the gravestone, Kate rolled the pebbles in her palm. The rocks slipped smoothly over one another, like oiled massage stones. A long time ago, she’d taken a pile of them from a brook in the Shawangunk Mountains, from a stream she, Rachel, Jo, and Sarah had all bathed in during a brutally hot summer jaunt. She liked the way they felt in her hand. Over the years, they’d become her worry stones, clicking between her fingers as she studied or worked or fretted.

  Time to give a few of them up. She leaned down and slid the first pebble on the granite base of Rachel’s gravestone.

  One.

  This is for opening Sarah’s eyes to what was right in front of her. And for teaching Jo what is really important in life.

  Two.

  For restoring my sanity, and my marriage.