An Open Heart (6 page)

“So be it. Did you invite me here to warn me?”

“We should be friends, Dr. Rawlings. I need to know what your intentions are. Without my office’s blessing, your program is dead.” The minister stood, his massive bulk towering over Jace. Whether he meant to intimidate or not, he used his size effectively.

“Can I count on your help?” Jace asked.

“Can I count on your discretion?” Okombo countered.

“I’ve never been one to speak about my life or my business publicly. Perhaps if I had, I could have countered some unfortunate media assumptions.”

“Is that meant to encourage me? If you won’t protect your own reputation, how do I know you will protect mine?”

“I’m only saying that I know how to keep my mouth shut.”

“Fair enough, Daktari.” Okombo sat again, and his voice was softer, almost pleading. “The young woman that you have seen in Kibera. I want you to help her.”

Jace was about to offer his assurances that he would try when the minister spoke again, this time in a whisper.

“She is my daughter.”

6

Jace stared out the window at the passing Kenyan countryside, his eyes recording but not digesting the images. Rolling hills, colorful dukas, people glistening with perspiration, feet dusted with Africa. As he headed back to Kijabe, he rehashed his encounter with the parliament minister and felt a familiar unpleasantness: the sense that he waded through a bog of emotion. The Honorable John Okombo had his own designs for Jace, and that added another click of tension in Jace’s quest. It was as if every new encounter ratcheted the spring a little tighter.

He loosened his tie and laid his coat beside him on the seat, glad that his driver had left him alone to his thoughts. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and wondered if his efforts would be rewarded. Ever since his arrival, it seemed everyone had questioned his motives, calling attention to past scandal, past relationships, and past pain. In a way, he understood. The white man almost always had a selfish agenda for Africa. The land and the people had been raped of resources and ruled for expansion of personal power.

Why should they think that the American doctor would be different?

Because I am,
he thought.

He wished to start anew without the attention that came with treating the rich and famous. Like the governor of Virginia.

He wanted to treat anyone. Anyone except the daughter of a Kenyan politician. But at least this time, it seemed the politician wanted to stay far away from the limelight. This wasn’t a ploy to gain media attention.

What was it he was expecting to find? From Chaplain Otieno to the mysterious Dr. Okayo to the Honorable Minister Okombo, everyone seemed to be warning Jace to stay in line. And he hadn’t yet met with the medical director or medical staff of Kijabe Hospital. They had responded positively to his suggestion that he come and evaluate possibilities. But how long would their support last after they saw the real cost of running a heart program?

Jace wished Heather had come. She’d been a fixture in his life since college, two missionary kids finding their way as strangers in their own country. Everyone said they were a perfect fit. Now, after years of familiarity, he missed her presence. Not so much the passion of emotional intimacy but the longing for some anchor as he faced a new world of challenge. Maybe that’s why she’d asked him to leave. He’d loved the fact of her presence more than he’d loved
her.

Had there
ever
been more? He had stumbled along an easy path, avoiding pain by keeping short reins on the strings of his heart.

Nonetheless, his loneliness was as present and as certain as a physical pulse. At least, that’s the way it struck him—as a rhythmic ache.

What he longed for at the core was a human connection. He supposed that was every person’s want, but for so long, he’d accepted a counterfeit. He’d slid into success, but he’d let admiration take the place of intimacy fostered by transparency.

And transparent was just what he couldn’t be, so admiration would have to do.

He smiled at the memory of the boy and his goat, the picture of the boy’s hand pressed against the glass.
Do I fancy myself a magic man? What am I outside my ability to heal?

The Land Cruiser turned down the road leading from the highway to Kijabe.
What am I doing here? Fooling myself that I can make a difference?

An answer came, but not one he would admit to anyone just yet.

My sister asked me to come.

Heather Rawlings coaxed the two-hundred-pound mastiff up on the table. “Come on, Bo. Time for the brush.”

She pushed a rebellious strand of blonde hair behind her ear and laid a towel on her shoulder. The towel, a kitchen towel in a former life, was now formally dubbed a drool towel. She used it to wipe away drool slingers from the walls after a session with Bo.

As she worked, she talked softly to the gentle giant. “There, doesn’t that feel good?”

While other women in the upscale Richmond suburb might have craft rooms for hobbies such as painting, Heather had converted their large laundry room into a grooming-feeding station to support her dog-walking business. She had started three years ago, needing to do something other than provide arm dressing for her cardiothoracic-surgeon husband at social functions. The dog walking came to her naturally. She loved animals, and after taking care of a friend’s beagle while they were on vacation, she thought,
Why not?
It was the most practical of solutions. She got her exercise and got paid to do it.

Even Jace seemed pleased, except when she talked about it at parties.

Bo was her Monday, Wednesday, Friday, ten o’clock. Because of his size, she always walked him solo. In the afternoon, she tripled up with a pair of Maltese and a miniature schnauzer. She took Tuesdays off completely and had only one appointment for a German shepherd on Thursday mornings.

Heather’s cell phone sang out the theme to the Pink Panther. She looked at the screen.
Mom.

“Heather,” her mom began with a sigh. “Have you heard from Jace?”

“Mom,” she said. “I’m not exactly expecting him to call.”

“But certainly he’d—”

“I asked him to leave, Mom. He’s not likely feeling much obligation to me right now. Besides, he just arrived yesterday. He probably hasn’t had a chance to get a phone or Internet connection.”

“I’m rethinking this. Maybe you should have gone with him.”

“Don’t start. I needed time to figure things out.”

“What’s to figure out? It’s been all over the news.”

Now Heather sighed. The last two months had been a whirl of attention, most of it the kind she despised. So much had been said about Jace, accusations that he was unwilling or unable to talk about. It seemed all their conversations in the last month had ended with raised voices and frustration. She’d finally come to the conclusion that if she was to discover the truth, she needed to do it with space away from her husband.

What she hadn’t anticipated was his sudden departure for Africa.

“Let’s not go there, Mom. I know what the media says. I’m just not sure.”

“The only thing I’m not sure about is whether we ever knew who Jace Rawlings really was.”

“Well,” she said, pulling a wire brush through the coat of the mastiff, “that’s what I intend to find out.”

“Maybe you should come to Florida for a while. Your father would love to spend some time with you.”

“I can’t. I’ve got the dogs.”

“The dogs, the dogs.” She spoke with a rising and falling sing-song. “You wouldn’t have to do that. You don’t have to work at all. Jace made enough to keep you from—”

“Mom, I
want
to do this. I’m doing something. I like it. It’s good for me.”

More silence and a heavy sigh.

Heather began to scratch Bo behind the ears. “Look, I’ll call you if I hear from Jace.”

“Okay,” she said. “You do that.”

The call ended. Heather’s mom wasn’t much for prolonged good-byes.

She snapped a leash to Bo’s collar and walked him back to his owner’s home, conveniently only two doors down. Mr. Robbins loved Bo, but his arthritis kept him from giving the dog enough exercise. Heather put Bo in the backyard, latching the tall redwood fence behind her.

She collected the mail, intrigued by a manila envelope without a return address postmarked from Richmond.

Inside, at the kitchen table, she opened the envelope and slipped out a three-page document. It seemed to be a photocopy originating from a medical examiner’s office.

She read the title with a growing discomfort.
Autopsy Report: Anita Franks.

Why would someone send me this?

Anita Franks. The name alone was enough to bring bad feelings. The now-deceased woman had been the governor’s wife. A woman with a passion for helping Virginia’s farmers.

And apparently a passion for Heather’s husband.

Heather scanned the document. Most of it was anatomic, listing injuries. She wrinkled her nose at the description. The state’s first lady had been struck by a car while she knelt at the side of a Richmond street tending to Jace.

Heather peered into the envelope. Nothing. The only item inside had been the autopsy report, with no explanation as to who’d sent it.

Looking at the pages again, she saw two lines highlighted in yellow. The first was a toxicology report. Her blood-toxin screen was positive for ketamine.

Heather shrugged. She’d heard of ketamine somewhere, but it didn’t register as important. The second item made her shudder.

“Vaginal vault contains evidence of recent sexual intercourse. Motility of sperm place the timing within two hours of death.”

Jace? Just what went on that night?

That night, Heather lay awake as her mind seesawed between the Jace she knew and loved and the mystery that seemed to surround him since his accident. She clung to the former and drifted to sleep remembering their first “date.” It was a week after their first encounter in the dean’s office.

Jace had handed her his assignment. “Could you see that Dean Welty
gets this?”

“Sure.” She studied his eyes and hesitated. “The dean told me what you did.”

“So I suppose you think I’m cruel for stalking cute little innocent furry animals?”

“I think you should have left him by the trash cans. No one would have known.”

“I wanted the skin.”

“I have a leopard skin.”

“You?”

“I grew up in Mozambique. I had it hanging on my wall at home. I brought it with me to school, but when I met my suitemates, I decided it best to leave it in the bottom of my trunk.”

“Don’t tell me. They’re vegans or something.”

She giggled. “Or something.”

He looked at the paper in her hand. “I’m sure the dean will get a kick out of this.”

“He told me to stay away from you. That you were trouble.”

“Because I killed a raccoon?”

“Maybe he knows more about you than I do.”

He twisted a lock of curly blond hair beside his ear. “Let’s just say I carry an American passport, but I don’t seem to fit in my own country.”

She nodded.
I know exactly how you feel.
“We’re having a suite charade night tonight. We’re supposed to invite a guest. Would you come?”

“Will you show me the leopard?”

“Promise not to tell the vegans?”

He laughed. “Deal.”

She held out her hand. “I’m Heather.”

“Jace,” he said, shaking her hand.

“I know.” She smiled. “I think I’ll introduce you as the great white hunter.” She laughed with him. “All the raccoons on campus have heard of you.”

7

The following day Jace awoke at six a.m., a clear sign he was making progress on resetting his clock to African time. He brewed strong coffee and wondered if adjusting his Western mind-set to the pace of Kenya would be as easy.
That’s a joke. I’m not sure I could ever be patient enough not to resent the pace of change here.

At ten, Jace knocked on the office door of Kijabe Hospital’s medical director. Blake Anderson, MD, was a wiry blond Aussie with sideburns that sloped down his ruddy cheeks and met the corners of a mustache so long that Jace couldn’t tell if he had an upper lip at all. He spoke a Kiswahili greeting with a strong down-under accent. “Karibu, mate!”