out here on your own,” he says after a long stretch of silence. “I’m less than an hour down the road, and so are your brother and sister. Do me a favor and don’t let either of them off the hook, okay? This concerns their father, too.”
I half nod, half shrug. When it comes to our father, Bo would rather bury himself in his work than admit the situation affects him, while Lexi prefers to pretend he’s already dead. How can I let my siblings off the hook when neither of them are willing to acknowledge there is one? It seems as if the only person not getting off the hook around here is me.
Cal pulls me in for a hug, dropping a kiss on the top of my head. “Call me anytime, okay? Day or night. I’ll pick up, no matter where I am or what I’m doing.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.” His tone is reassuring, but he’s already backing away, already moving toward the door. “I’ll see you Saturday morning.”
He gives my shoulder one last squeeze and disappears into the hallway, and I’m slammed with a wave of panic. Disasters and destruction of global magnitude I can handle. Facing my father alone, not so much.
I rush down the hall in his wake. “Uncle Cal?”
The desperate note in my voice stops him at the door, and he turns to face me.
“Explain to me again why you can’t stay. Why you won’t be here tomorrow when Dad gets here.”
He scrubs a hand through his hair, now salt-and-pepper but still thick and shiny as ever. “Because I’m busy stalling the retrial. God willing and the creek don’t rise, your father won’t spend another second of his life in either a courtroom or a prison cell.”
A casket sure seems like the ultimate prison to me.
A few seconds later he’s gone, leaving me to wonder how I ended up here. In a town I vowed never to return to. In a house filled with ghosts and memories I’ll never outrun. In a life I have spent the past sixteen years trying to escape.
But most of all, I wonder how I ended up here alone.
BACK IN THE house, I put on a kettle and rummage through the cabinets for tea. Cal’s assistant must be either misinformed or seriously delusional about the number of mourners we will be expecting because she bought us a 312-count, industrial-sized box of Lipton tea bags. If we get through even one row of them, it will be a miracle. I rip open the cellophane wrapping with my teeth, pull out a bag and drop it into a yellow ceramic mug.
The sharp, bitter scent reminds me of some of my British colleagues, who are convinced a spot of tea is the cure to all emotional ails. My boss, Elsie, a hard-nosed type, drinks enough of the stuff to poison her liver...thanks to the generous splash of bourbon she adds when things in the field get really hairy. If only life were that easy.
Unlike the satellite phone I carry in the field, Cal’s iPhone has only a handful of contacts, most of them people I’ve never met and, after burying my father, will probably never think of again. It doesn’t take me long to find Bo.
His cell goes straight to voice mail, so I leave what must be my fifth message in as many days, careful to keep my voice level. Five years older and light years more serious, my brother has always preferred that people reserve their zeal for backyard fireworks and the Nature Channel, and he doesn’t respond well to gushing.
I have better success with Lexi, who picks up on the second ring. I abandon my tea and squeal, “Lexi!”
Unlike Bo, my sister welcomes enthusiasm. Demands it, even.
“Is it true? Is it really true?” Lexi’s familiar voice, the same gravelly one that used to give boys all over Hawkins County wet dreams. “Did my do-gooder little sister finally come home from Lord knows where?”
“It’s true that I’m here, yes. But nowadays, home is in Kenya.”
“Well, laa-tee-daa.” She stretches out her words, loads them up with an extra serving of Tennessee twang. “Don’t that sound fancy.”
I snort at what I know to be a joke. Lexi is no dummy. She has a master’s in finance from Stanford, runs a local chain of banks and could kick even Alex Trebek’s ass at Jeopardy. Not only is she aware of my latest whereabouts, she knows Dadaab is pretty much the polar opposite of fancy. My chest seizes with a wave of sudden affection for my sister, who I haven’t hugged in...six years? Has it really been that long?
“Where are you?” I say, switching gears. “Because I’m coming there right after I lock up the house.”
“I’m going to need a little more time than that.” Her tone takes a serious turn, matching mine, and her voice and vowels soften into the more generic timbre she perfected in college. Less country hick, more Southern belle. Unlike me, Lexi can turn her accent on and off like a faucet. “I’m about to head into a staff meeting, but I could meet you after for a late dinner. Say, seven-thirty?”
I check my watch. Three and a half hours I can fill with a nap and a shower, in that order. “Perfect. So where’s the place to be on a Wednesday night these days?”
“It’s Thursday, actually, not that it matters. And there’s only one place to be every night, and that’s the Roadkill Bar and Grill in town.”
Roadkill? I make a face. “Do I have to bring my own rodent, or do they run it down for me?”
She laughs, a throaty, musical sound that makes me wish I’d called more often. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten your roots, young lady.”
“I haven’t forgotten. My palate has just evolved to more refined creatures, like stray animals. And last month in the Philippines I tried this thing called balut, a fertilized duck embryo that’s boiled alive and eaten shell and all.”
Lexi makes a retching sound. “I think I’d rather starve to death.”
Now it’s my turn to laugh. Though I’ve always been adventurous with food and my sister the pickiest eater in Appalachia, Lexi does have a point. Balut tastes just as bad the first time as it does the second, on its way back up.
“A girl’s got to eat. And besides, my rule wherever I travel is to eat or drink whatever is offered to me, even if it does end up turning my insides to gurgling water. Sharing a meal, no matter how vile, fosters trust between my team and the people we’re there to help.”
“Good Lord. Your job sucks worse than mine.”
“Mostly, my job is pretty awesome, especially for a wanderer like me. I’ve flown around the globe more times than anybody on my team, and been to more than a hundred and twenty-five countries. The consulate has had to add pages to my passport now, twice.”
“I thought your job was to make the world a better place.”
“Well, duh. That goes without saying.”
Lexi covers the receiver with a hand, muffling her voice when she tells a colleague she’s on the phone, but will be right there.
“You’ve got to go?” I ask.
