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* * *
JACK STEPPED AWAY from the pen as quietly as he could when he realized Anna was crying. For all the expanse of nature surrounding them, privacy, he realized, wasn’t something she got too much of at camp. And after their argument, he was certain his presence would only make her feel worse. Not that he should care, considering what she’d done to him, but seeing her like that... He couldn’t handle it.
He walked back to his tent and found Kamau cleaning his face and neck with a damp cloth.
“What happened?” Jack asked.
The vet hung the cloth on a nail and reached for a dry towel.
“Wouldn’t eat. Not uncommon with young orphans, but we’ve learned a lot from experiences at other orphanages on reserves, so we have a good success rate. Sometimes we find them injured, like the other calf, Bakhari. His ankle was caught in a snare. We were lucky with him. But sometimes they’re so despondent over separation or loss of their loved ones. Depression. That one kills. Elephants are more humanlike than most people know. They’re very emotional and family-oriented animals. They mourn, protect, play. Ito lost his mother.”
Jack simply nodded. There wasn’t anything to say. He’d just arrived, and yet the death had had an impact on him, too. Death, especially the sight of it, gouged him deep. Kamau was right. The image of a dead parent wasn’t easily forgotten by a child. Even in adulthood.
“I hate to say it, but around here, it’s something one has to get used to,” Kamau said. “Especially if you’re planning to go out in the field with me.”
“I can handle it,” Jack said.
He turned and went back outside, hoping to catch the kids still playing, but they were gone. He wanted to see Pippa close up. Needed to. Those eyes and curls. Her adorable nose was Anna’s, but everything else resembled the pictures his parents had taken of him shortly after his adoption, even if he’d been older than Pippa at the time. He needed her to know who he was. That he was here and he’d never leave her.
His parents would want to meet her. They’d be overjoyed to find out they had another grandchild. Knowing them, they’d be more forgiving of Anna than he could ever be.
What Kamau had said about the elephants gnawed at him, but this wasn’t the same as taking a baby from its mother. Pippa was old enough to understand that her mom could visit. That Mommy was working...that Daddy was, too. Okay. So he still had things to figure out. He couldn’t take her to his lab, but he made enough now to be able to afford help. His sister didn’t live too far from him, and she had kids. She’d be there for him. That wouldn’t be so different than what Anna was doing, except Pippa would have access to great schools, a yard with swing sets, lots of friends her age, cousins and grandparents. And there wouldn’t be elephants, lions, rhinos or black mambas roaming through her backyard.
He remembered Anna’s plea, but couldn’t get over the change in her. The Anna he’d known was crouched in that pen over that baby. The one who had kept his child from him wasn’t the same person.
He headed for the tent the kids and Anna’s friend had come out of earlier. Kamau had mentioned it was like a mess hall. Maybe they were there. He’d no sooner picked up his stride when something hit him on the head. Hard. He crouched with one hand on the point of pain and the other held up like a shield.
“What the—?”
He looked up in time to see a one-legged monkey swinging away. Screeches and cackles filled the air and sounded much the same as human laughter.
Of all the insane things. The heat really was getting to him.
“Hey, Jack. Come and I’ll show you around. Bring any supplies you need,” Kamau said, as he headed to the clinic entrance. Guess that meant the coast was clear.
“Be right there,” Jack said, more interested in finding Pippa but realizing he was at a disadvantage around here. He’d get further by being reasonable.
Jack went inside, grabbed his case and carried it over. He needed to figure out how he’d get samples on dry ice back to his colleague in Nairobi within a few days, if he was extending his stay. He entered the clinic and set his stuff down on the counter where Kamau indicated a free space.
“You didn’t mention it was Dr. Harper,” Kamau said, filling a syringe. “Dr. Miller just sent another email to see if you’d made it in one piece. It said to advise you to try and remain that way.” Kamau chuckled. “Is he talking about the dangerous wildlife or our Dr. Bekker?”
Jack smiled but didn’t take the bait. “By the way, it’s a PhD, just so you know not to throw any surgery or clinic cases my way,” Jack said, changing the subject.
“In what?” Kamau asked.
“Genetics. Specifically, genetic immunity to pathogens in wildlife species. I’m working with a lab collecting genetic samples for a sort of library of endangered species, but also for studies on resistance.”
“Ah. With Dr. Alwanga, by any chance? I’ve read his journal articles.”
“The one and only.”
“Excellent. Let me know if you need anything. I have to head out on rounds—to make sure I’m not needed in the field and to pick up some of the recording devices we’ve set out for Anna south of camp. You can come along tomorrow, if you’d like, when you have your things together.”
Jack noticed a small room off the one where they stood. It looked as if it contained a lot of recording gadgets and a computer.
“Do you have an inventory of camp needs for me to go through while you’re gone?”
“It’s with Anna.”
Jack glanced out the tiny window toward the pen where Ito had been. Kamau seemed to catch that Jack was wondering if she’d be too upset to work.
“Anna is checking on some recording equipment on the north side of camp. She’ll be back soon.” He paused, as if calculating his next words. “Our Anna, she’s resilient. Stubborn, too, but strong and hardworking. She’ll have that list down to bare bones and top it off with more research data than Dr. Miller could dream of.”
“And she’ll need to work in peace, without anyone invading her space,” Anna said, standing in the doorway and looking pointedly at Jack and his supplies on the counter.
Invading her space. Invading her life.
“Anna. Perfect timing. I was just telling Dr. Harper that you’d be able to show him our inventory and requirements,” Kamau said, before excusing himself.
“Dr. Harper, is it?” Anna cocked her head. “Five years. I should have realized you’d have finished by now. You hadn’t completed your master’s yet.... How long have you had your doctorate?”
Jack folded his arms and leaned back against the counter. “About two years.”
“So what’s your connection to Dr. Miller?”
“Joint grant. Collaboration on a big study.”
“Oh.” Anna frowned and walked into the room. “But he sent you here to check on us? Your study, I’m sure, has nothing to do with mine.”
Jack scratched at his stubble, realizing for the first time that he wasn’t looking his best. The disheveled wild man who intended to take her daughter. His daughter. Dr. Miller had warned him not to make waves. How was he supposed to tell her that her research funding was in jeopardy?
“Not directly, maybe. Same department, though, and Miller is concerned about the trust money donated specifically to your elephant research running out.”
“Running out? Why? We’ve always had consistent donors.”
Jack sighed. He couldn’t lie when that was the very thing she’d done to him. Omission was the same as lying.
“Miller’s trying to raise more funds for this new research, and he’s reached out to the same people who’ve donated before. However, many have been splitting their donations between causes.”
“You’re taking my funding.”
Her tone made Jack glance back at the snake in the jar, just to make sure it hadn’t escaped. On purpose.
“It wasn’t a question, Jack.”
“I’m not taking your funds. Miller’s the department head, not me, and we don’t dictate where contributors apply their donations. But it’s the way things are panning out, and he simply wants to make sure all his projects are working efficiently.”
“Spoken like a politically correct administrator. Are you researching, Jack, or getting sucked into admin? You know as well as I do what that means. If the grant’s not enough and Miller wants to put more effort and energy into raising funds for your joint project, he will. He’s been planning this awhile now, hasn’t he? How could a respected mentor shut down his old student’s—and I thought friend’s—research project, especially if it would look bad to animal advocates and behaviorists? But if those funds slowly dwindled, or got redirected, the fault wouldn’t be directly his. Or better yet, he sends you to—what? Report back on money misuse so I can get scapegoated?”
“Anna, no one is trying to make you a scapegoat. Dr. Miller thinks highly of you, and I’ve heard him brag about your findings on pachyderm family structure and the impact natural disasters and poaching have had on interherd breeding. Those findings have been important to our understanding of genetic resistance and mutations. But you’re not just doing research.” Jack waved a hand toward the orphanage area.
Anna’s eyes widened. “You can’t mean putting a stop to raising orphans. Miller approved that and understood. There aren’t that many, and keeping them gives us an opportunity to listen to them up close, get samples and tag, hear them communicating with each other. And when they’re old enough to be moved to one of the transitional reservation areas, we let them go, knowing they’ll eventually find a new herd. But they need us first.”
Like an adoptive family. They were essentially in foster care. Jack wondered if Anna was aware of the analogy, but her attention seemed fully focused on her elephants.
“And how much staff does raising these orphans require?”
“Staff? We’re at a minimum, and the keepers don’t even have private tents. They sleep on cots next to their assigned calf and rotate daily, so that no baby becomes too attached to one human. It prevents separation anxiety when they leave us, or if one of us isn’t around. We’re looking at necessity.”
“He’s looking at numbers, Anna. Expenses are the bottom line, and the number of calves has grown. He just wants to verify the reasons and the cost involved.”
“Verify?”
Bad word choice. Jack kept a straight face.
“Am I being accused of lying?” Anna asked. The corners of her full mouth sank a mere fraction of a second after she asked the question. Jack knew she’d realized the absurdity of her question. After all, she’d been lying to him. Defend that. He didn’t respond.
“Pippa has nothing to do with this. Miller knew I’d have a child with me at camp. And no, he doesn’t know you’re the father. At least, I’ve never told him,” she added before Jack could ask. “I pay all non-research-related expenses out of pocket. Her care, and Niara and Haki’s. Barely, but I do. I can prove it, too. So don’t even try to turn this on me, Jack. You’re here for one reason only. To make your career better, at the expense of mine. To take away everything that matters to me.”
CHAPTER THREE
ANNA MARCHED OUT of the clinic and winced at the stab of bright sunlight. She couldn’t look at him anymore. Couldn’t digest what he’d just revealed. He had the upper hand. If he wanted revenge for her not telling him about Pippa, all he had to do was pass a negative report on to Miller and whoever else was on the board overseeing funds. Jack could end everything she’d worked so hard to protect and preserve. Everything she’d sacrificed for.
“Wait a minute, Anna,” he said, following her out of the clinic tent. She kept walking.
“I’ll be back to show you what you came for. I need to go see the kids first.”
“I’m coming with you,” Jack said. This time Anna did turn around.
“No. You’re not.” She held up a hand to stop him from arguing. “Jack, I’m not as evil as you think I am. You’ll see her. We’ll both talk to her. Later. After she’s had her nap.”
“I think this trumps naptime.”
“Have you ever been around a four-year-old who’s missed naptime?” she asked.
“No, but—”
“Think rabid monkey,” she said, leaving Jack to contemplate how little he knew about parenting, and what he was getting himself into.
* * *
BY THE TIME Anna reached the quarters where she, Niara and the kids stayed, Niara had read the last sentence of their favorite book about a dancing hippo and his friends. Pippa and Haki were sound asleep on their cots. Niara set the book down and Anna helped her draw mosquito netting around them. Given the risk of malaria, everyone at camp took preventative meds and sprayed, but screens and netting helped, too. Especially with the kids. It was nothing more than routine for all of them, but it struck her as something that would stand out to Jack. Anna knew travel protocol and was pretty sure Jack had been given a prescription to take, just in case. But he hadn’t added it to his list of reasons why Pippa shouldn’t be here.
Not yet.
Give him a few hours, and Jack would have a trusty list brimming with more obvious camp dangers. Anna figured she could save some legal agony by making him a counterlist of dangers in the average American suburb, or even in their countryside. Getting kidnapped, bullied, or hit by a car, contracting bird flu, and plenty of others she could throw at him. She wouldn’t mention drugs, though. She wouldn’t stoop that low, but she’d prove how ignorant he was being. Prove Pippa didn’t need saving. Prove they’d only end up disrupting his career path, and he wouldn’t realize it until it was too late.
She bent down, moved the netting aside, kissed Pippa’s marshmallow-soft cheek and put the netting back.
“It’s him, isn’t it?” Niara asked, keeping her voice to a whisper.
Anna pulled a wooden stool next to hers. “It’s him.” She sighed.
A moment passed in silence as they watched the children sleep.
“Oh, honey. All these years and you told me Pippa’s father didn’t care. That doesn’t look like a man who doesn’t care. What gives? Why have you been hiding?” Niara asked.
“Who says I’ve been hiding?”
Niara threw her head back in disbelief before squaring her shoulders. “Not hiding? Come on, Anna. You’ve never once gone back to the States. You haven’t even visited your parents, and calling your mother isn’t the same. You’re not the first person whose parents divorced. To close yourself off for this long? It’s crazy. I just don’t understand.”
“There’s nothing to understand. This is my work. Everything and everyone that matters to me is here.”
Anna hung her head. Niara had been so good to her and they’d shared so much. Niara knew that as a teenager Anna had lost a baby brother, but she didn’t know what it had done to her mother...to her family. Some things were too personal to share with anyone.
Niara laid a hand on Anna’s back and rubbed gently, like Anna did to Pippa when she needed soothing after a bad dream or a scraped knee. Niara was right, though, and at this point, Anna needed an ally. Someone who loved Pippa and would do anything to protect her.
“My parents didn’t just divorce, Niara. They never married out of love to begin with. The whole time they had been lying. Pretending.”
“I don’t understand. Where’s the lie? Nobody’s life is perfect, but no matter what, it’s a parent’s job—their hope—to guide their children to a better one. All parents use experience to teach their children what they think is best.”
“Is it best to not be wanted?”
Niara frowned.
“Niara, my father never gave me the time of day. Always busy with the politics of work. His career came first—at every recital, birthday, parent night at school...even my graduations. Turns out it wasn’t just because he was busy. It was because he never wanted me to begin with. I was a burden. In his eyes, the only thing I came first in was being conceived before marriage. All those talks about waiting? My parents didn’t wait. My mom got pregnant and my dad married her out of pure obligation. A noble sense of duty that resulted in a bitter marriage, and left me with a bitter dad. Do you have any idea how old it gets, making up answers for ‘Where’s your dad?’ at school functions? Oh, the worst was when I got asked if he was overseas, serving our country, and I had to say no. He didn’t even have an honorable reason to be gone. He just didn’t want me.”
“I’m so sorry, Anna. People do make mistakes. That doesn’t mean they didn’t love you and truly want your life to be different than theirs.”
“My mother loves me. I don’t doubt that. But seeing what she went through is why I couldn’t tell Jack.” And loving my mom is why I couldn’t tell her, either.
“You made a choice staying in Kenya, but you also chose to keep your child from her father. She has one. You don’t know how many nights I wish it was that way with Haki.”
Anna reached over and gripped Niara’s hand. How could she be so thoughtless? Of course Niara would see her as taking things for granted.
“You don’t understand. Jack’s just like my dad,” Anna said. “So focused on his career, yet at the same time shortsighted about life. They do what they think is right in the moment, their duty, but don’t look at what it’ll mean later on. They don’t see anyone ending up the victim of their regrets.”
“Anna, I chose not to live my life as a victim, even if I was one. You don’t have to think of yourself that way.”
“I don’t!” she said, glancing at the kids to make sure her voice hadn’t woken them. “Okay. I’ll admit that I did before I came here. The day my mom told me about the divorce was the same day I graduated from veterinary school. I was due to fly to Kenya shortly after. She’d come down for the ceremony, but my dad didn’t make it. Big surprise. That whole day was like being tossed between Mount Kilimanjaro’s peak and the Serengeti’s heat. Everything I’d ever known had been turned upside down.”
Everything. Such as believing, as a young child, that Daddy really did need to work all the time, then noticing, as a teen, that he didn’t dote on her mom the way she’d seen her friends’ parents act. After her brother’s death sucked her mom into deep depression, he’d abandoned them emotionally, and Anna had thought he couldn’t cope, either. But what she hadn’t known, until graduation day, was that he’d been stuck with her. She’d ruined his life, down to the day her brother died.
“I was devastated. I felt more than sorry for myself, but not anymore. In any case, Jack and I had been best friends since middle school. I knew I could turn to him.”
Niara caught the implication. “So you’re saying he’s the father for sure?”
“Anyone else would be a physical impossibility. We were both...inexperienced. One time, Niara. My only time. My biggest, most rebellious mistake.”
Niara looked at the children but didn’t speak.
“Oh,” Anna said. “She’s not a mistake. And Haki isn’t, either. You know how much I love them both. They’re the only good, pure thing that has come out of what we’ve both been through.”
“I know that, Anna, but I think your biggest mistake was not telling her father.”
“You’re wrong, Niara. I’ve been protecting both of them. Jack from himself and Pippa from growing up the way I did. There’s no way I’ll let her go through what I went through. And why should I have to endure the life my mom did? Dad never loved her.” Not in sickness or in health. Anna covered her face with her hands, then pushed her hair back. Niara had always been there for her, and here she was snapping at her. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“No. I am, but you have to understand. Men like my dad and Jack don’t know how to love. Career men with a conscience. Guilt and duty...but not love. Jack thinks he wants Pippa, but I know it’s only because he’s doing what he thinks he has to do.” He tried that on me before.
“You think he feels obligated?” Niara said.
“Yes. I know he does.” And not for the first time.
Anna’s nose tingled and she rubbed it with the back of her hand, unwilling to break down. The granule of hope that she’d latched on to for five years had dissolved, leaving her feeling deflated, just as when Pippa had been drawn from her belly. Only this time, Jack threatened to take the only person she was left with to cherish and fill the void. Pippa’s love was the only love that was real for Anna, and the only love she could trust.
“I don’t have time for self-pity anymore. Not as a mother. He wants to meet Pippa later.”
“Of course,” Niara said.
“He wants to take her, Niara. I can’t let that happen.”
Niara rubbed her fingertips against her mouth before responding. “No fears, okay? It’ll all work out.”
“I need to get back,” Anna said, standing up and scooting the stool out of the way. She gave Niara a hug. “You’re the best, you know that?”
“Always nice to hear.” Her friend chuckled. “But you’re even better, and stronger than you think. You’ll be fine, Anna.”
* * *
JACK SEALED THE tissue sample and began labeling it as per Dr. Alwanga’s protocol. Although it wasn’t how he spent most of his research time, Jack had received samples before. Straight to the lab for analysis. Collected by someone else. He hoped that the keeper who’d taken him to the calf had dismissed the sweat on his face as a by-product of heat. Maybe it was in part because he’d witnessed Anna mourning the baby elephant. It wasn’t just a calf or a sample to her.
He sensed her the second she walked in, turning just in time to catch her looking wide-eyed at the label before she masked her expression.
“Not wasting time, are you?” she said, walking past him.
“I’m sorry, Anna. I had to. Besides, the sample will let us make sure infection wasn’t a factor, and it’ll help confirm a genetic connection to poaching victims.”
“I know you have a job to do, Jack. No need for apologies. I’m a doctor, remember? I can do autopsies in my sleep. I investigate every death here thoroughly. I don’t rely on assumptions.”
“I don’t doubt that. I just thought that since—”
“Well, don’t think,” she said. She drew a file from a lower cabinet and plopped it next to him. He flipped open the cover. Their inventory and expenses. “I keep a printed list, just in case. And before you go off on the cost of paper, it’s only because power and internet can be unreliable here and the computer is rather old. I do send data and records to Miller, but I don’t want to risk losing any of it, so I keep a hard copy, as well.”
“How’s the generator working?” Dr. Miller had given him the rundown on the camp’s setup.
Anna smiled and the memories of when she used to beam at him hit Jack hard. This one came with a shake of her head.
“Wow. You really are investigating. Guess that’s what you’re good at. The generator works fine. Most of the time. Again, nothing comes with a one hundred percent guarantee, does it?”
He tore off his sterile gloves and scrubbed at his jaw. “Guess not, Anna.”
There certainly hadn’t been any guarantee that she’d come back from her postgraduate internship. Only he hadn’t realized that at the time. Not until the brief email she’d sent telling him that she’d made plans to stay in Kenya for at least another year or two. A short email. No call. No sound of her voice so he could decipher the true reasons behind her words. To figure out whether he’d permanently destroyed their friendship. A part of him had wondered if she’d met someone else.
She’d always been a romantic. She’d gone on and on in anticipation of her trip to Africa, and how she felt like Elsa Martinelli in Hatari!. He’d wondered who, if anyone, had become her John Wayne. Somehow, their roles seemed reversed. Besides, Jack had given up thinking that he’d ever be enough for her.
He knew when to let go. When to stop caring. Until now. Now she had a little girl with her. His little girl. He could forgive Anna for not wanting him; that was her right. But not for this. Not for keeping Pippa from him.
He slapped the folder shut on the papers he was pretending to read.