An Open Heart Read online

  That’s why her interest was piqued when Dean Welty walked out of his office escorting a young man. “Heather,” the dean said, “Mr. Rawlings needs a copy of the school brochure entitled Stewards of a Green Earth. You’ll find it in the information-packet materials.”

  “Sure,” she responded. Heather retrieved the pamphlet and handed it to the student, who offered a smile above an untidy goatee. He wore a pair of jeans, a ripped T-shirt, and a pair of blue flip-flops. His hair was a tangle of beautiful curls.

  “Time for penance,” he said, clutching the pamphlet.

  “Penance?”

  He rolled his eyes. Blue as the Indian Ocean on the Mozambique coast. “Ask him,” he said, nodding his head toward the dean.

  She watched the young man disappear, measuring his proud stance and muscular shoulders as he walked. When she looked at the dean, he was studying her. “Stay away from that one, Heather. He’s trouble.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Seems the MK thinks he’s still in Africa. A raccoon was making noise outside his dorm room, upset a garbage can. So he took his bow and arrow and shot him.” The dean shook his head and chuckled. “Right in the middle of campus, like it was hunting season or something.”

  Heather put her hand to her mouth to hide a smile before stepping to the window to look out over the campus from their third-floor office. Daffodils were in bloom. She watched until she saw Mr. Rawlings bound down the concrete steps and onto the lawn. MK? She uncovered her smile. He’s a missionary kid?

  She looked back at the dean. “He killed a raccoon?”

  “Skinned it in the dorm lounge. Said he wanted to cure the hide to hang on his wall.”

  What was the dean expecting her to say? Didn’t he understand that she was an MK too? She selected a word she imagined coming out of one of her suitemates. “Barbaric.”

  “Exactly. I’ve assigned him a five-page paper. A response to reading our policy.” He turned to go back into his office. “Could you be sure he hands it in by Friday?”

  “I can follow up,” she said. “What’s his name?”

  “Jace. Jace Rawlings.”

  She sat back at her desk, with the memory of Jace’s blue eyes still fresh. You killed a raccoon with an arrow?

  She smiled. I’ll bet I’m a better shot than you.

  Zombie-like from two nights on a plane and a third in a Kenyan jail, all Jace wanted was a bed. Well, maybe a shower and a bed. It took him thirty minutes to travel from the jail to Kijabe, the home of Kijabe Hospital and Jace’s alma matter, Rift Valley Academy. He’d made arrangements to rent a small house, and after picking up a set of keys from the station hostess, he parked the Land Rover in a carport and made quick business of unlocking first the barred external metal door and then the regular wooden front door of his new dwelling.

  He walked from room to room, taking it all in. Sparsely furnished. Small kitchen, sitting area, two bedrooms, and a bathroom. He’d turn one of the bedrooms into a study. He nodded. Far from his spacious home in Virginia, but adequate. Out of habit, he opened the refrigerator. The welcoming committee had stocked a few basics. Milk, butter, cheese, and some hamburger meat. A carton of eggs sat atop the kitchen counter, and a gift basket adorned a small kitchen table. Sugar, tea, coffee, and a small jar of a dark-red jam.

  He stopped in front of the bathroom mirror. Deep purple had settled below his left eye. He held a tube of Crest toothpaste at arm’s length and shut first one eye, then the other. Vision okay. He gently touched his nose, forcing himself to palpate deeply enough to ascertain the bones were straight beneath the swelling. There was a subtle offset pointing toward the left. His eyes watered with the pain. Leaning over the sink, he took a deep breath and steadied one hand over the other, gripping the bridge of his nose. He paused, testing his resolve. He’d once taken a karate class in college. There he had learned to shout the kiai, the scream to harmonize or focus your energy during a physical fight. He looked away from his own image and began an energy-focusing scream, starting guttural and low and rapidly rising in pitch and volume. He pulled down hard. Bone grated against bone. In an instant, an involuntary scream replaced the kiai. Tears rolled from his eyes and mixed with fresh blood dripping onto the white porcelain sink.

  Electricity jolted through his face. Beyond the scream, silence. For a moment, the room darkened. Jace dropped to his knees, aware only of pain, throbbing and rhythmic, threatening to take over all other sensory input. His next conscious thought burst from somewhere behind his eyes. Breathe!

  He’d been holding his breath. Open your mouth. Take a breath!

  Involuntarily, he obeyed.

  Gently, with trembling fingers, he explored the length of his too-soft nose. Better.

  He found ibuprofen, took four, and then added two extra-strength Tylenol from his toiletry bag.

  In spite of the pain, he found himself chuckling. Just like the old rugby days at RVA. Welcome back to Kijabe.

  Kijabe carried a weight of memories for him, both wonderful and horrifying. He would face them in time. For now, his head felt slow, his thoughts fighting their way forward through a fog of sleep deprivation. After a shower, he surrendered to the coma of sleep, not caring that it was morning in Kenya. Readjusting his clock and remembering Africa would have to wait.

  But deep, renewing sleep remained elusive. A strange bed, threadbare draperies that let in too much light, and troubling images kept Jace tossing. He remembered feeling so bone-tired after a full day of rugby at the Blackrock tournament that his body refused to relax and sleep. When he did drift off, pain in his face prompted him to imagine he’d just been tackled and forced into a faceplant on the dry ground in midfield.

  He rolled over and covered his face with a sheet to block out the light. But he could not stop thinking. Images of the Kenyan boy’s palm against the window and echoes of his voice quickened Jace’s pulse and moistened his sheets with perspiration. You are a magic man.

  Could I have misinterpreted the goat’s condition? Maybe he wasn’t dead, only suffering a brief concussion. Maybe the goat I saw this morning wasn’t the same one I ran over.

  His mind inevitably churned out images of his father, mother, and sister in Kijabe. A mind beginning to process a boatload of pain, buried by years away from Africa. His father wearing bloody scrubs home and smelling of antiseptic. His mother chasing the baboons from her watermelon patch. His sister laughing.

  His sister’s sickening cry.

  Sleep came in fits and starts, much like their family’s old Toyota pickup. Full speed for five minutes. Then flooded and stalled.

  He spent the remainder of the morning squeaking on the old bed until an incessant pounding in his head became recognizable as someone at the door.

  He pulled on a shirt and a pair of jeans, glancing at himself in the bathroom mirror before trudging toward the front door. Bed head. Three-days worth of chin stubble. Face shiny with sweat. Welcome to Kijabe, Dr. Rawlings.

  He fumbled with the locks on the doors. Outside were three Kikuyu mamas bearing large baskets of vegetables. He smiled in spite of the interruption. The vegetable ladies. Women selling vegetables door-to-door had been part of the local culture since missionaries had first come to Kijabe in the early 1900s.

  A woman in an orange-and-red-striped sweater broke into a grin that would make any dentist cringe. “Remember me? I sold mangos to your father.”

  He hadn’t been in Kijabe for a day, and already he was seeing the shadow of his father. Jace shook his head.

  “And how is Dr. Rawlings?”

  “I’m—” He halted, realizing they were speaking of his father. “He’s retired now. Lives with Mom in Florida.”

  The women began unloading their baskets, displaying fruits and vegetables on the concrete stoop.

  Jace shook his head. “I don’t have any local money now. Someone stole my shillings.”<
br />
  “Take what you need. We will come next week for payment.”

  He selected three mangos, a pineapple, two tomatoes, lettuce, a half-dozen potatoes, an onion, zucchini squash, and a few fat stalks of broccoli. When he was done with his selections, his counter was covered with food.

  The vegetable ladies loaded their baskets and trudged slowly down the path leading from Jace’s stone-block house. With bulging baskets on their backs and long straps adjusted to lie across their foreheads, the women leaned into their loads. Jace could only imagine the strain they were putting on their cervical spines.

  He had just shut the door on the vegetable peddlers when another knock sounded.

  This time, an older gentleman with a generous waist and a larger smile held out his hand. “Karibu, Daktari,” he said. Welcome, Doctor.

  Jace shook the man’s hand. It was meaty and calloused. “Jace Rawlings.”

  “I’m John Otieno.” His dark complexion and wide nose revealed his Luo tribal affiliation. “I’m a hospital chaplain. We’d heard rumors that you would be here today.”

  “Pardon my appearance. It was a long journey.”

  “Of course.” Jace had heard of Otieno’s reputation. His love of the patients, including the often-harder-to-love Somali tribe, was unparalleled. He was known to spend hours holding hands with family members in the small surgery waiting area or serving tea to the mother of a sick child. On the pediatric ward, Chaplain John was known to carry a puppet to coax a child into conversation. He prayed with the dying and wept with the survivors, raised shillings to pay a poor patient’s bill, and had a laugh as deep as the color of his skin. He had no agenda to convert the lost. His only mission was to love. And because of that, conversions followed as naturally as smoke follows fire.

  The chaplain seemed to hesitate.

  Jace sighed. “Would you like to come in? I think I saw some tea in a welcome basket around here somewhere.”

  “That would be kind.”

  Jace poured water in a saucepan and flipped on the gas burner. He added an equal volume of milk and sprinkled in a few tea leaves.

  “It’s been a long time since I made Kenyan chai.”

  The chaplain laughed. “It will be fine.”

  They made pleasant conversation as the tea began to steep. Chaplain Otieno asked about Jace’s family, a cultural prerequisite to any real conversation.

  Jace filled two mugs with the steaming tea and added three heaping teaspoons of sugar to each. Jace had learned early in life to drink tea like a true Kenyan. Light with milk, sweeter than sweet with granular sugar. Like drinking the milk left in the bowl after Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal.

  “I remember you as a child,” the chaplain began. “I wondered if you would ever return after…” His voice caught. He looked away and cleared his throat.

  Jace nodded. “Yeah, well, I’m back.”

  “You want to do heart surgery in Kijabe, is that it?”

  The question came out as a tentative exploration. A doubt of Jace’s intentions, perhaps?

  “That’s the plan.” Jace sighed. “If I can ever get my equipment through customs. My heart-lung machine is being held at the airport.” He shook his head. “The customs guy had no idea what it was worth, didn’t even know what it was. All he saw was a chance to make a few shillings.”

  “With the money it will cost to start up your program, I could feed an entire orphanage for a year, pay the staff, and dig a new well.”

  Jace nodded and forced a weak smile. He had expected resistance, but not from the head chaplain. And not in the first conversation. He should have known. Rationing of care in a poor environment was a way of life. He proceeded forward, keeping his voice gentle but steady. “But it wouldn’t save the life of a child with a heart valve destroyed by a strep infection.”

  “No. It would save fifty children.”

  Jace pushed back from the table. “You came to welcome me?”

  “Yes.” He paused. “And to know you, young Rawlings.” His eyes rested on Jace’s.

  Jace felt exposed. Vulnerable. As if the old man saw into his soul. He shifted in his seat and sipped his chai. Memories of chai time at RVA came to him. Every day at ten. Chai and mandazi, the donut-like fried bread they dunked in the tea.

  The chaplain also sipped. “Will your wife be joining you?”

  “She’s not much for air travel.” Jace didn’t want to explain. “Perhaps in time.”

  “Why have you come back here?” Otieno paused, waving toward their meager surroundings. “I’ve heard that you were quite wealthy. Why would you give it all up to come here?”

  Jace regurgitated the automatic response. “To explore starting a heart program for—” He looked up at the chaplain. His face reflected compassion. Perfect peace. And disbelief in Jace’s story. Perhaps he knew better.

  “You are running.”

  Jace set down his mug. Too hard, spilling precious tea onto the table. “You’ve been talking to my father.”

  “He is my friend.”

  Jace held up his hands. “Look, I’m not my father. Sure, I’m a surgeon. I want to help the Kenyan people, but I’m no missionary.”

  “Your father seems to think—”

  “I’m sure he has his opinion of why I returned to Africa.”

  The old chaplain nodded slowly, wrinkling his forehead and blowing out a noisy breath through large lips. He stayed quiet for a moment longer. “Perhaps you wanted to set things right with your sister.”

  “Some things can’t be made right.”

  “Your father believed in God’s forgiveness, Jace.”

  “My father isn’t standing in my shoes.” Jace walked to the sink, gazing out through the barred windows toward the Great Rift Valley. This was incredible. In one short visit this chaplain had managed to pick the scab of Jace’s deepest pain. This was a test. They’d sent Otieno to sound out his resolve. And Jace had failed the test. He’d come out looking like anything but the altruistic surgeon he wanted them to see.

  Before the chaplain could answer, Jace turned. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m tired from a long trip. Perhaps another time.”

  The chaplain nodded. He dropped a heavy hand on Jace’s shoulder as he stood to leave.

  For a long time after the chaplain left, Jace felt the weight of his hand. It was a familiar feeling. One he’d run from before.

  Guilt.

  3

  With a second shower, Jace began feeling almost normal. At two in the afternoon, he ventured out for a walk around Kijabe, hoping to see a colobus monkey or two. Colobuses were shy, traveled in families, and were characterized by contrasting white and black color. They had shorter black hair on their backs, long white beards, and tufts of long white hair on the tips of their tails.

  Kijabe. For him, the place had been a boyhood paradise. Camping out in the forest, sleeping under the dusting of the Milky Way, chasing zebras on his motorcycle, watching his father operate, playing rugby, hiking to the hot springs, climbing the loquat trees, and sucking sweet fruit. But mostly, it brought her back to him. Everywhere he looked his sister peered back, teasing him with memories of fun, sibling mischief, and her crazy laugh. Part of him liked thinking of her. Maybe the chaplain was right. Maybe it was time to make peace.

  But some things could never be made right. So he walked around the dusty paths crisscrossing the little town, thinking of Janice, but avoiding the dark edges of that memory.

  By four o’clock, he had exchanged money at the hospital business office and become acutely aware that he was ravenous. It had been days since he’d had a decent meal. When had he last eaten? Breakfast on his British Airways flight from Heathrow had been something approximating a ham-and-cheese quiche, a small muffin in cellophane, and a fruit cup.

  He left the hospital on foot and headed to the nearby stretch of small shops, or dukas, butch
er shops, and local hotels. These weren’t hotels in the American sense. What they were, and what Jace needed, was a place to sit and enjoy Kenyan cuisine.

  He found what he wanted at Mama Chiku’s. He entered the small restaurant through a tangle of beaded strings hanging over the doorway. There were six tables, four of them full. The decor was clean but far from uniform. Plastic tables and chairs, colorful nonmatching tablecloths, vases of gaudy artificial flowers and framed pictures from nature magazines provided the ambiance. This was authentic Kenyan. Local produce served hot with a smile. Just be sure the water comes from a sealed bottle. Or safer yet, drink the unique-tasting Coke from a Nairobi bottling company.

  The stew Jace ordered was filled with cabbage, potatoes, and fresh carrots. Jace had sukuma on the side, a spinach-like vegetable prepared with onion and finely chopped tomato. Jace dragged ugali, the white starch similar to thick hominy grits, through the stew with a folded chapati. After two plates, he polished off three samosas, the triangular fried dough filled with spicy meat, before pushing away from the little table. For Jace, this was comfort food at its finest, the food of his childhood. Every taste evoked memories of family meals, with his father sharing story after gruesome story of surgical triumphs over illnesses long ignored. To Jace, these stories were normal. Only when they had dinner guests and his mother shushed his father did Jace realize his family was unique.

  When Jace had finished his meal and paid the equivalent of two dollars (which included a nice tip), he noticed a finely dressed Kenyan elder sitting at a corner table sipping chai. When he caught Jace’s eye, the man stood and made his way slowly to Jace’s table.

  “Hello, Dr. Rawlings. Welcome to Kenya.”

  Jace studied the man for a moment. Tall, wiry, closely cropped white afro, dark blue business suit, and a face so wrinkled it looked like it had experienced two lifetimes of trouble. But for two large loopy earlobes stretched with traditional piercing, he could have been a distinguished African-American businessman.