would build the bridge of friendships strong enough to see a dozen medical clinics and two community hospitals built in the next two years. Or it wouldn’t happen.
Harare was Zimbabwe’s largest city. It had a surprisingly European look, to his eye, and a population of over a million people. Every time he reached the outskirts of the city after days’ or weeks’ absence, tension melted away. He was American enough to feel most at home here. There were Western-style grocery stores. He could dine out on Italian food, Greek, Chinese. Hold conversations with American businessmen and women.
He felt rueful amusement when he thought of the last cocktail party he’d attended. He wasn’t any better at that kind of socializing. Lurking in a dark corner, he’d wished for his mysterious redhead.
In the first week Will had rented a small house less than half a mile from the office. Even though he seemed to be away more than he was here, he needed a base. And he’d somehow acquired a full-time housekeeper-cook.
At home in the U.S., the closest thing to a servant he’d ever had was a woman who came in to the Becker home weekly to clean. He’d seen her once in a blue moon; mostly they communicated by notes. Please clean the refrigerator this week, he’d write. I’ll be coming on Tuesday instead of Thursday next week, if that’s okay, her sticky note would inform him. But having someone wait on him…well, that was different. He’d intended to take care of himself. But he’d barely moved in when women began knocking on his back door asking for work. He was met with blank astonishment when he said he didn’t need anyone, thank you. And it wasn’t totally true, he discovered; buying food in the unfamiliar markets where English often wasn’t spoken was a hassle, and he’d come to Africa with the intention of immersing himself in the culture, not living in a bubble like a tourist admiring the scenery. Yeah, sometimes he appreciated seeing familiar brands on grocery-store shelves, but he didn’t want to shop only in the Western-style supermarkets. God knows, he wasn’t much of a cook. He had no microwave here. And unemployment was sky-high. He could afford to give someone a job.
So now, when he was in town, he came home to sadza ready when he sat at the table. Sadza was the word commonly used for any meal, but also for the staple of the diet: a sort of stew served on cooked grain. Jendaya, his housekeeper, most often used chicken in the stew, although she was scandalized that he preferred it to goat, which his relative wealth would have permitted. He liked the stew without meat at all, and she obliged with scandalized shakes of the head. Only the poor didn’t put meat in their sadza, she made sure he knew. When he was in Harare, he usually ate lunch out, so Will was content with the traditional evening meal even though it varied little.
Jendaya had expected him back today, so he assumed dinner at home would be ready at the usual seven o’clock. That gave him time to stop at the office and check email. He hadn’t even seen an internet café the past two weeks—to find one, he’d have had to drive into Mutare, the city closest to the Mozambique border, and it hadn’t seemed worth the bother. One of the pleasures of getting home was anticipating email: responses to questions he’d asked of the foundation headquarters, and especially to hearing from Clay, Sophie and Jack. Will missed them more than he’d expected.
The early evening was cool enough to remind him of home as he walked the half a block to the two-story stucco-fronted office building. He’d become accustomed to the rich scent of the air: diesel fuel, wood smoke, ripe fruit and the heady scent of flowers in bloom. September was spring here, south of the equator, still dry, the reverse of seasons in the Pacific Northwest. The hard rains, he was told, fell during the summer in Zimbabwe, therefore at the same time as they would be falling in Washington State.
The front door to the foundation headquarters was still unlocked, although he was greeted with silence inside. He’d started up the stairs when a light went out in an office at the top and Perry Marshall rushed out. Another American, he’d arrived only a few weeks before, and would be acquiring the equipment, furniture and supplies for the clinics as they were built.
“Will!” He paused on the stairs. “Good trip?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Can we talk in the morning? We’re having a dinner party, and Rachel’s going to kill me if I’m late. You’d be welcome to join us,” he added.
Will smiled. “Thanks, but I suspect Jendaya will have dinner ready. And I’ve got to tell you, I’m beat.”
The other American’s bushy gray eyebrows rose. “Then what are you doing here?”
“Just wanted to check email.”
“Internet’s slow today,” Perry warned him, and kept going.
It was, but Will got on eventually and relaxed in his chair, glad the building seemed otherwise empty, as he watched a dozen messages load. Good, a couple from each of his siblings. He liked hearing from them so often. There was one from an unfamiliar address and he clicked on it first, figuring it would be a quick delete. But it wasn’t the junk he expected. It was short, only a paragraph, and ended with Moira. His pulse quickened.
His mysterious redhead. What the hell? His thoughts had turned to her with disturbing frequency, but if she hadn’t tried to get in touch in four months, why now?
Will, I’ve hesitated over contacting you at all, but I think you deserve to know that I’m pregnant. I don’t know what happened; I suppose the condom tore or something. You need to know that I don’t hold you responsible. I invited you to stay, I knew you weren’t offering anything but the one night. Heck, I was the one who provided the condom. But…I am pregnant. I intend to have the baby, and am well able to afford to raise him or her. I have friends and family. I’m not asking for help from you, or any involvement. I’ll be honest. I’m not even sure I would welcome either. Since you don’t know me, you may not even believe the baby is yours. That’s okay, too. I thought I should tell you, and now I’ve done that.
Moira
Stunned, he stared at the computer monitor, rereading the email a second time, a third time.
She was pregnant.
The first wave of anger took him aback, because it was a stupid thing that pissed him off. Did she really think he wouldn’t believe her when she said the baby was his? He’d have had to be an idiot not to recognize her essential innocence. His redhead didn’t sleep around.
“I haven’t done this in an awfully long time,” she’d said. He’d wondered then how long that actually was. A year? Five years? She’d been incredibly sexy but also… awkward. Unpracticed. No, if she was pregnant, it was his baby she was carrying. Not if. After four months, she might even be showing.
He shook his head in…not disbelief, not shock, but something related. He was going to be a father.
A sound escaped his throat. A father was the last thing in the world he’d wanted to become, at least for the next few years. He’d already raised a family. The idea of starting over appalled him. And yet…that was his baby she was carrying.
He shoved his fingers into his hair. As things stood, his son or daughter would grow up without him, and it sounded as though that was what she’d prefer.
He should be grateful. Glad she wasn’t demanding he be an every-other-weekend father, or that he send child-support checks. She was right; they didn’t know each other.
Numbly, Will sat back in his chair. It would be worse if he hadn’t liked her, if it really had been a typical one-night stand. A chance-met stranger encountered in a bar, say.
