Angel of Mercy (9 page)

16

On Monday afternoon, Heather went straight from the hospital to Jodene’s, where she sat down under a tree in clear view of the house. She placed a ring of candy in plain sight and opened a book. Time passed. From the corner of her eye, she saw Kia looking at her through the window. Heather waited expectantly, but Kia never came outside. When Heather finally gave up, she left a piece of candy on the ground for the child.

On Tuesday, the same thing happened. On Wednesday, she heard a movement in the bushes and looked to see Kia peeking at her from the foliage. Heather made eye contact, smiled and beckoned to the child to come. “I have candy,” Heather said, holding open her hand. Kia lowered her gaze, then ran back inside the house.

Disappointed, Heather returned to her room, where Ingrid was grading papers.

“No luck?” Ingrid asked.

“She was off like a scared rabbit,” Heather said, flopping onto the sofa. “I’m not reaching this child.”

“Do not blame yourself. You have worked hard and tried your best.”

“But time’s running out. We’re leaving in two weeks.” She looked at the calendar Debbie had hung on the wall. The days were marked off in red, with the second Thursday in December circled and labeled
D-Day
. That was the day the minivans would come to pick them up for the drive to Entebbe airport. There they would board the British Airways plane that would take them to London, and from London they would each go their separate ways. At least Heather would be traveling on with the other Americans into Miami’s airport—her final destination. All in all, the trip took two long, hard days.

Heather fluffed a pillow and stretched out. “Maybe when Kia sees her sister she’ll begin to trust us. I keep telling myself how hard it must be for her. Ripped from her home and her family and plopped down with a bunch of strangers. And white strangers to boot.”

Ingrid smiled. “
Ja,
we are a scary bunch.”

Heather laughed. “I’ll miss you, Ingrid.”

“Same here.”

“Will you come again?”

“I am not sure. My parents want me to finish at the university. I need to get my teaching license; then I can come as a real teacher. How about you?”

“I want to come back, and I don’t want to wait until next summer.”

“Could it be because of Ian?”

Heather sighed. “He’s returning to school in Scotland.”

“But you will write each other,
ja?
”

“I’ll sure write to
him
. We’ve been together every day for almost six months. I can’t imagine getting up every day and not seeing him.”

“I will write to Boyce too. I have grown accustomed to him and the funny things he says. I will miss him, too.”

Heather sat up, hugging the pillow to herself. “I didn’t come over here to fall in love. It just sort of happened.”

Ingrid nodded and grinned. “
Ja.
Love is like that—it just happens. I wish you and Ian much luck and happiness.”

Heather knew she would need it. Miami was an ocean away from Scotland and a lifetime away from Africa.

On Thanksgiving Day, six Americans showed up at the Warrings’—all except for Dr. Henry, who had remained in Kampala to await Ian’s return. Paul said, “Before we eat, we’re going into Lwereo to watch a soccer game. I mean, what’s Thanksgiving without football?”

When they arrived, the stands were already packed with local fans, people who’d walked for miles through the surrounding countryside to get to the game. Heather and her friends squeezed into the pack and quickly chose their favorites.

“I’ve got to go with the guys in red and white,” Boyce said. “Alabama’s colors.”

“Good choice,” Paul said. “That’s the local team, and if you cheered for the other side, you could cause a riot.”

The playing field was rough and uneven, the goals’ nets had large holes in them, and the players spanned a wide age range, but the crowd treated the team as though it were composed of superstars playing in the World Cup. Heather tried to get interested, but her thoughts kept returning to Ian. She was seated beside Jodene, and during the half, she asked, “Has it been hard to raise your kids so far from home? I see how hard you work.”

Jodene pushed back her blond hair and smiled. “I came from a family of seven brothers and sisters, and my folks own a buffalo ranch. We always had a generator for electricity because the winters are pretty harsh and the ranch is miles from anywhere. My whole family’s used to hard work, so coming to Africa hasn’t been that big an adjustment for me. Except that it’s a whole lot warmer here,” she added with a laugh. “Paul was raised the same way. We met in high school, and I never really cared about any other guy.”

“Sounds romantic.”

“I love him and we both love doing the Lord’s work. Neither of us care that our kids are missing TV and car pools.”

“I watch them playing with their friends. They seem very happy.”

“They
are
happy. We’ll go home because we want them to be educated in the States, but once they’re grown, Paul and I will return to Africa. We love it here.”

“I love it here too. And I always thought I could ‘rough it’ and not mind. My sister, Amber, well, she’d have a hard time over here. No malls.”

Jodene laughed. “There are certainly things I miss. Like snow. And cooking on a real stove.”

“I—I guess I’m wondering if I really could give up the things I’m used to in order to live over here. Maybe I like my life of comfort more than I suspected.”

“You’re smart to examine your values before making a commitment to serve over here.” Jodene toyed with her wedding ring, a simple gold band that caught the sun. “I’m guessing all this introspection has something to do with your feelings for Ian.”

There was no use in denying it, Heather thought. “I
am
attracted to him,” she confessed.

“As he is to you.”

“You can tell?”

“Only every time he looks at you.”

Jodene’s comment made Heather feel good, as if an all-over glow had settled on her. “Well, we’ll be going our separate ways in a couple of weeks, so that’ll be the test.”

“People do it all the time. They get separated by going away to college, or by being in the military, or by jobs in separate cities. If you and Ian want to keep the flame alive, you can do it.” Jodene paused. “What you have to ask yourself, Heather, is whether you
want
to do it. You’re correct when you say this life is hard; it isn’t for everyone, but the rewards are worth the sacrifice. And I’m telling you, a man like Ian will need one hundred percent dedication from the woman he chooses to work by his side. Anything less will rob you both. And make you both miserable.”

Heather believed Jodene, and she wanted to talk more about it, but the teams trotted back onto the field, signaling the end of halftime, and Heather’s questions were drowned in a sea of cheers.

After the game and back at the house, they all squeezed around the table—Paul’s family and Heather and her friends. Plump roasted pigeons commanded the center of the table. “In place of turkey,” Paul explained. “They’re good.”

Jodene also served large bowls of mashed sweet potatoes and green beans, platters of tomatoes, cucumbers, and lettuce, all fresh from her garden. “I saved the best for last,” she said, setting down a bowl of cranberry sauce. “All the way from North Dakota, compliments of my mother.”

Everyone stared at it for a long reverent minute.

“Here’s my contribution,” Heather said. The plate she set on the table held the contents of a full jar of peanut butter, beautifully sculpted to resemble a turkey.

“Wow,” Boyce said. “Can I have a leg?”

He stretched out his hand, but Heather swatted it away. “Not so fast, buster. Where’s your contribution?”

He grinned, reached into a knapsack, and pulled out an unopened bag of Oreos.

Debbie draped her hand across her forehead dramatically and pretended to swoon. “Be still, my heart.”

The three Warring boys squealed in delight.

“They’ve had Oreos once before,” Jodene said. “They’ve never forgotten.”

With a flourish, Bob Hoover set a large box of Fruit Loops cereal on the table. “Barbara gave it to me when I left the ship. Part of our private stock.”

The whole table applauded his generosity.

One by one, the others laid their food gifts on the table. A bag of microwave popcorn made everyone burst out laughing. “What were you thinking?” Debbie asked.

Jason Walsh, who was on the construction team, was the donor. “Hey, my mom packed it in my gear,” he said. “Who knew I’d be coming to a place that didn’t have stoves, much less microwaves?”

Once the table was fully laden and the laughter had died down, Paul said, “Let’s thank the Lord for this wonderful bounty.”

They all clasped hands and bowed their heads, and as Paul asked the blessing, Heather’s heart swelled. She’d never known a better Thanksgiving. All the ski lodges in the West, all the fancy restaurants and banquets, had never been as wonderful as the simple pleasures of this table. For this table held not just food, but gifts gathered and offered from the heart of a family born not of flesh and blood but of service and commitment.

Once the table was cleared and board games were set up, Heather made up a plate for Kia, who was tucked securely under her cot. Heather tried to lure the child with Oreos and candy corn. Kia refused to take anything from Heather’s hand, but once Heather set the treats down and scooted away, Kia quickly dragged them into her hiding place.

“There’s too much going on,” Jodene said, in an effort to make Heather feel better. “She’s probably confused by all the noise.”

“Probably,” Heather said, but she was disappointed.

Outside, night had fallen. Still in a mood of celebration, Paul turned on the gas generator so that they could see to play by electric light. The guests cheered, then took up a collection among themselves for Paul to buy more gas.

Heather thought of her family, wondered if they had gone skiing this year or opted to stay in Miami. She wondered if Amber was still on the outs with their dad, wondered if any of her friends had come home for the holiday from college. She wished she could call home, but of course, she couldn’t.

“Checkmate,” Boyce called out from a corner where he was playing chess with Bob.

Heather halfheartedly joined three others in a game of Monopoly. Dr. Henry and Ian should be returning at any time, and she was a bundle of nerves. She couldn’t wait to throw her arms around Ian and tell him how much she’d missed him. Neither could she wait to see the baby and to show her to Kia. Perhaps seeing her rescued baby sister would be the breakthrough they needed with the child.

“You landed on my property,” Debbie said, intruding on Heather’s thoughts. “Let’s see, you owe me two thousand dollars.”

Heather was paying off her debt when she heard a knock on the door.

“Enter!” Paul shouted.

The door swung open and Dr. Henry came inside. Alone.

The second she saw him, Heather’s heart began to thud with dread. Dr. Henry’s face was the color of chalk. Everyone in the room froze. Something was terribly wrong.

“What’s happened?” Paul crossed the room with giant steps.

Dr. Henry looked at the group mutely, his gaze darting from face to face, his eyes tearing up. “There was an accident,” he said finally. “Ian’s plane has gone down. There are no survivors.”

17

Grief.
Heather discovered that it had a taste: bitter. It had a feeling: cold. It had a color: gray. Grief was an abyss devoid of dimensions, and she was its prisoner, trapped within its life-crushing walls with no way out. Days later, she could not recall the sequence of events from Thanksgiving night. She remembered only images, snatches of questions and answers, sounds of crying. She remembered only pain.

Dr. Henry’s story lay broken and fragmented in her mind. A Mission Air pilot, too sick to fly his regular route. Cancellation of the Tuesday flight. Ian, desperate to make it into Sudan and rescue the baby. A deal struck with a pilot of a two-seater plane.

Dr. Henry saying, “Perhaps it’s best to wait until the DC-3 can go.”

Ian answering, “Ed’s expecting me. I need to get
the baby out.”

“I hear there’s fighting. It may not be safe.”

“It won’t get any safer.”

Ian’s plane lifting off with an engine that sputtered. Dr. Henry watching until it disappeared into a cloud bank. Hours later, a mayday call from the pilot. Radio static. Radio silence.

Reconnaissance flights. A burned-out hole in a grassy field. Smoking rubble. No survivors. They’d never even made it out of Uganda.

For Heather, it was the end of a world of color and light. It was the beginning of her immersion in grief. Cold, bitter, gray, bottomless grief.

“Stay the night here,” Jodene had urged. “You don’t have to be alone.”

“I’m not alone. I have my friends.” Heather’s teeth chattered, she was so cold.

Ingrid, Debbie, and Cynthia surrounded her all that night, and all the next day, too. They wept with her. And Boyce, Miguel, and Patrick came and took turns holding her, rocking her, weeping with her.

“He was my friend,” Boyce said, his eyes red-rimmed. “I can’t believe I’ll never see him again.”

“Not in this life,” Patrick said. “In the next life.”

Heather wanted to scream. She wanted Ian in
this
life. She wanted him now. She wanted to touch him, feel his skin on hers, hear him call her lass. It wasn’t fair.
It
wasn’t fair.

She knew that time passed because her friends told her when it was time to eat, covered her with a blanket, and told her when it was time to sleep. She did not go to the hospital to work. She could not be around death one more minute.

Dr. Gallagher came and talked to her, offered her some pills that made her sleep. He could give her nothing for the pain inside her soul. “ ‘The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away,’ ” he quoted from the Book of Job. “ ‘May the name of the Lord be praised.’ ”

Heather tuned him out. God was cruel. He had no mercy. He had no pity. He had allowed Ian to vanish on a grassy African plain in a ball of fire. God could have prevented it but had not. Why?

One afternoon, she became aware that her roommates were packing. “We must go home on Thursday,” Ingrid told Heather tenderly, as one might address a child. “We are packing up your things for you. We’ll take care of everything. Do not concern yourself.”

Inertia ruled her. Leaving seemed impossible, requiring more energy than she possessed. How could she possibly make it across two continents and an ocean? Listlessly she walked to Jodene’s. But once she arrived, she couldn’t force herself to step inside the house where grief had first assaulted her. The house would be filled with the sounds of the Warring children. Their laughter. Sweet, adorable, innocent children. With hardly a clue of the cruel sorrows life held.

She eased her back down the trunk of a tree, raised her knees, folded her arms, buried her face in her arms. Sobs racked her, heaving, gagging sobs that left her weak, as if she were being turned inside out.

She heard a noise, a rustling. Choking back her tears, she looked up. Beside her, in the dry dirt, Kia sat, staring at her through large brown eyes. Too startled to move, Heather let out a long, shuddering breath, half gasp, half moan. She braced her back on the tree trunk and stretched out her cramped legs. Kia did not scamper away. Instead, she lifted her hand and, with a feathery touch, ran her fingers down Heather’s damp cheek.

“He’s gone, Kia,” Heather whispered in a cracked, thick voice. “My Ian’s gone.” She knew the girl couldn’t understand her words, but it didn’t matter. She had to say them, taste the finality of them.

Kia crept forward. Wordlessly she curled into a tight ball, lay down on the earth, rested her head in Heather’s lap. Heather stroked the child’s head, the smooth, soft skin of her face, the tightly curled hair. “You know, don’t you, little Kia? You know how bad it hurts.”

The hot sun beat down from the blue sky, on ground tufted with patches of green, on two people from different universes. “We’re connected now, aren’t we, Kia?” Heather whispered. In a cruel and hateful twist of fate, with a bridge of tears, grief had bound them together. Here, in the heat of the day, they had been joined, not by overtures of friendship, not by bribes of candy, but by loss. The loss of Kia’s mother, of home. The loss of Ian McCollum, of love.

Heather’s sobs quieted as she continued to stroke the child’s head. The air settled around them heavily, like a drugged sleep. And Kia’s arms drifted around Heather’s waist, holding on. Holding on.

“You can’t be serious, Heather. I won’t allow it.” Dr. Henry’s expression looked both alarmed and haggard.

Heather was standing in his room, where his gear lay stacked, ready for the pull out in the morning. “But I
am
serious,” she said calmly. “I’m going to get Kia’s sister.”

“But there’s no time left. We’re leaving.”

“The baby still needs rescuing. I’m not leaving until I finish the job Ian set out to do.”

Dr. Henry raked his hand through his white hair. “No. No, you can’t do this. It’s noble of you, but—”

“I mean no disrespect, sir, but I’m eighteen. I’m an adult. I can do what I want.”

“I’m responsible for you.” He shook his head stubbornly. “Your family is expecting you to get off that plane in Miami. What am I supposed to say to them?”

“This won’t take me but a few days. I can catch a plane in Entebbe next week, after I bring the baby back. Tell my parents I’ll call them from London. My sister, too; Amber is my sister. They’ll understand.” She didn’t know if that was true, and she didn’t care. After days of despair, she’d discovered purpose. She wasn’t going to let it evaporate. Ian had always told her to help one by one. This was now her mission.

“But you don’t understand what it’s like going into a camp.” Dr. Henry’s voice turned pleading. “The camps can be chaotic, perhaps even unsafe. I can’t come with you. I’m responsible for the others.”

“I’m not asking you to come with me. I’m going by myself.” She’d never dream of taking him away from his duty to the rest of the team. Bob Hoover was already gone, on his way to re-board the Mercy Ship on the way to North Africa, to be with his family.

“Who will be there to protect you?”

“Dr. Wilson will be there. Paul talked to him on the radio last night. He said Kia’s sister’s still alive.” Her heart was hammering now, her body running on pure adrenaline. She hadn’t slept all night, not since she’d devised the plan.

“Someone else will go—”

“No.” She interrupted him. “There’s no one else. I’m going. Paul will drive me into Kampala on Tuesday. I’ll catch the Mission Air flight. I’ll go to the camp, pick up the baby, catch a flight back. Two days is all it will take.”

“Heather, please, be reasonable. It isn’t safe.”

She shook her head, spilling her hair from its clip. Tension filled the room. “I can do this, Dr. Henry. I
must
do it. For Kia. For Ian, too. Try and understand. . . . I’m not afraid.”

“You should be afraid,” he countered. “These are dangerous times.”

Suddenly, the image of a long-dead Persian queen, the Jewish Queen Esther, who had spoken up for her people, rose like a specter in Heather’s memory, and she recalled Ian’s voice.

At the door, she turned and said, “Well, Dr. Henry, if I perish, I perish.”

Dawn was breaking when Heather, Jodene, and Paul helped the group load up two minivans for the drive to Entebbe airport.

“I wish you were coming with us,” Cynthia said, chewing on her lip.

“I won’t be far behind you.” Heather gave her friend a hug.

For the most part, the group had understood and supported her decision to stay behind and go after Kia’s sister. But now, saying goodbye, Heather realized how much she was going to miss everybody.

“It won’t be the same without you with us,” Boyce told her.

“Just don’t pig out on peanut butter when you reach civilization.”

“Never happen.”

Ingrid kissed both of Heather’s cheeks. “Take care of yourself.”

“I will.”

Boyce reached into his backpack and hauled out a gray sweatshirt with the words
University
of Alabama
written in crimson block letters. “Wear this.” He draped it over her shoulders and tied the sleeves together. “So they’ll know what tribe you’re from.”

Heather smiled, squeezed his arm. “You’d better write to me when we’re both home.”

She stepped back and watched as her friends climbed into the vans. Dr. Henry was the last one to board. “I—I’ll pray for you,” he said.

She stood on tiptoe and hugged him. “I’m going to be fine. You’ll see.”

The vans slowly backed up, made a wide turn in the open yard, and started toward the road. The sound of the engines broke the stillness, while beams from the headlights bounced up and down, shooting streams of light into the darkness. Heather watched until the tail-lights were swallowed up in the distance. She felt Jodene slip her arm around her shoulders.

“Come on,” Jodene said. “Let’s go get breakfast. We’ve got a lot to accomplish if you’re to leave for the camp on Tuesday.”

Heather nodded. She felt momentarily lost, a stranger in a strange land. But the feeling passed quickly, and she hurried into the house just as the sun flared over the tops of the trees.