Fly Away Home (19 page)

Jacqueline wasn't saying, but Zak was about to go to Yolanda's new school to pick her up, and would find out firsthand.

“Monica, what if Yolanda doesn't want to come home with me?”

“That won't happen,” she said softly. She hoped that she was right.

 

That night Monica and Mandla ate dinner in front of the television. Her rule against doing so seemed suddenly futile.

“Those jeans you have on are dirty, and so is that T-shirt,” she told him.

Besides supervising Mandla's homework, laundry was one of the things she ought to be doing tonight instead of watching a mindless game show on television.

“You always tell me to change out of my school uniform when I get home,” whined Mandla.

“Yes, but you have clean clothes in your closet.”

“I like these,” he said. “My other clothes are lame.”

He had picked out the jeans and T-shirt at a mall in Los Angeles. She didn't have the energy to argue with him.

Later, when she went into his room to kiss him good-night, she found him singing and dancing in front of the full-length mirror on the inside door of his closet.

“Don't stop,” she said.

He slumped back on his bed. “What's the use? I'm going to be stuck in this dump forever.”

Six months ago a comment like this would have made her cry, but she was tired of crying.

She tried putting an arm around his shoulders, but he shrugged her off. “When you're older you'll realize that I made the right decision,” she told him.

He screwed up his mouth.

Monica wished she could help him get past his disappointment and frustration, but she didn't know how, not without going against what she believed to be right. She prayed for strength to be able to stand firmly behind her decision.

M
onica did not hear from Zak for another twenty-four hours, and when she considered calling him, she realized he had never given her a contact number. She had intended to throw herself into her work, but now all she did was stare at the telephone on her desk or out the window at the activity on Main Street.

Just before she was about to leave for the day, Zak called sounding completely different.

“Jacqueline, her husband and Yolanda are all coming back,” he said triumphantly. “I had a talk with Jacqueline's husband.”

“You did?” Monica could only guess how difficult it must have been for Zak to face, for the first time, the man who'd stolen his wife from him.

“I reminded him that he'd never have any time alone with Jacqueline because I would be unable to take Yolanda at weekends.”

Monica thought it implausible that the man had not thought of that before leaving South Africa with his step-daughter, but she kept her doubts to herself.

“Jacqueline told Yolanda that you and I had gone to the United States to look for new jobs. She felt hurt and abandoned.”

“I thought it would be something like that,” said Monica. “Jacqueline is…” The unfinished sentence hung in the air. She had never criticized Jacqueline to Zak, although she had often been sorely tempted, but a long-distance telephone call was not the place to start. “So when are you coming back?”

“Yolanda and I are flying back tomorrow. Jacqueline and her husband have to stay behind to tie up some loose ends, and will return in a month.”

It was a credible excuse, but Monica had a nagging feeling that Zak, and, even worse, that Yolanda were being deceived. There was no point in suggesting this to Zak. What could he do?

After saying goodbye to him and locking the office, Monica bought some curried fish from Mama Dlamini's Eating Establishment and went home to pick up Mandla for a picnic on the beach.

He was watching a movie on television when she arrived. Francina motioned for Monica to accompany her to the kitchen.

“That boy doesn't want to do his homework,” she said. “All he does is sit on the couch and watch TV. It's not healthy.”

“I know,” replied Monica. “I'm taking him to the beach now for dinner and a long walk. He needs fresh air.”

“I'm sorry to tell you, but I don't like the way he's been talking to Zukisa. He used to pester her to play with him. Now he bites her head off whenever she speaks to him.”

“He's angry with me for ruining his movie career.”

“Well, you'd better tell him to leave Zukisa out of it. If she refuses to come here, then I won't come, either.”

“I'm sorry. I'll have a word with him.” Monica had never considered the possibility that Francina might one day refuse to watch Mandla after school. “Zak arrives the day after tomorrow and then we'll try and get this family back to normal.”

“Is Yolanda coming with him?”

Monica nodded. “Her mother will follow in a month.”

The look on Francina's face only reinforced Monica's own doubts. Poor Yolanda
would
be crushed if she and Francina were right.

 

Zak and Yolanda arrived home, and after a day of rest, Yolanda was ready to begin at Green Block School, which she had attended before her parents' divorce. She'd gone there as well for a brief period when she had come to live full-time in Lady Helen because she wasn't getting along with her mother's new husband. As soon as Jacqueline returned from Australia the old custody arrangement would go back into operation, with Yolanda spending weekdays in Cape Town and weekends in Lady Helen with her father.

Monica thought Mandla would be pleased to have company while his brother was away, but he didn't show it. On the surface, Monica and Zak's relationship appeared amiably reestablished, but the argument in Los Angeles remained undiscussed. Zak had said that they'd talk as soon as he returned from Australia, but Monica didn't have the courage to reopen the conversation after the horrible accusations she'd made. Zak didn't seem keen to rehash those heated words, either. Some evenings, as the two of them sat in front of the television after the children had gone to bed, Monica would look at him and wonder how they could have drifted so far apart. The atmosphere wasn't unpleasant; no harsh words were spoken. But something had gone from their marriage. Monica felt it and wondered if Zak did, too.

 

Two weeks after Zak and Yolanda returned from Australia, Zak arrived unexpectedly at Monica's office during lunch.

“Jacqueline is the most selfish person I know,” he said, sitting down on her desk.

“What has she done?” Monica thought she knew what the answer would be but prayed she was wrong.

“She says she can't come back now because she has to stay close to her doctor.”

“Her doctor?”

Zak sighed. “I didn't want to tell you, Monica, but she's pregnant.”

Jacqueline pregnant? It was impossible. Yolanda hadn't said a word about it.

He read her thoughts. “Yolanda doesn't know.”

Monica felt herself grow cold. “Was it planned?”

Zak shook his head.

Monica was stunned. Jacqueline, at age forty and already a mother of a seventeen-year-old, was pregnant without even trying, while Monica, who was younger, was trying desperately to conceive. In the past, when Monica learned about a friend's pregnancy, she had grieved, alone in her car or in the bathroom, but now she was so angry she felt like hurling a paperweight through the window. It was not fair. No one deserved a baby more than she did. Jacqueline, who had deceived first her husband and then her daughter, was being rewarded with a precious baby, when Monica, after years of raising her late friend Ella's children as her own, could not conceive, no matter what she tried. Where was the justice in that?

“She says she's having some bleeding and her doctor doesn't want her to travel.”

“But as soon as the spotting stops, she'll come?”

Zak nodded.

“I don't believe it. That woman is going to make every excuse under the sun not to return here.”

“I know you're upset. But we have room for Yolanda. She won't be any trouble.”

Monica pushed her chair out so forcefully it slammed against the filing cabinet. “Is that why you think I'm upset? Because Yolanda will be living with us now? Don't you know me at all?”

“I just thought—”

“Well, you thought wrong. I'm upset because Jacqueline didn't even want another baby. And don't try and tell me I'm wrong.”

“It was a surprise,” Zak conceded.

“I'm sick of hearing about people's little surprises.”

He got up and walked around to her side of the desk. “Your situation is not related to Jacqueline's. Try to put this into perspective.”

Monica jumped out of her chair. “That's a telling comment. ‘Your situation,' huh? Why not say
our
situation, Zak? It all boils down to the same thing. You have your child and don't need another one.”

His face went white. “Don't start this again, Monica.”

“We didn't end it, so I can't be starting it again, can I?”

“Monica, I wish you would realize that I am not the enemy here. There is no enemy.” There was disappointment in his eyes as he looked at her. “I have to get back to work and think about how I am going to break it to Yolanda that her mother is not coming back to South Africa to be with her.”

“You're just going to leave me then?”

“I'm ready to talk when you can be calm and rational, Monica.”

He shut the door behind him as he left.

“Run away, you always do,” she shouted, and then hurled her paperweight at the door. The wood did not splinter, but the missile left a definite dent.

Monica was grateful that Dudu, who must have heard the noise, had the good sense to stay away until her temper cooled.

It was not fair. God was not fair. Monica had been as obedient to Him as she could be and He refused to reward her with the gift He had given millions of women all over the world.

She had to get out of her office. In a few minutes, Dudu would come in offering solace, but also wanting an explanation.

Normally, on such a hot day, Monica would have worn a hat, but today she did not care if her skin turned red and peeled. She needed to be on the beach, where nobody would be able to distinguish the weeping of a person from the cry of a seagull.

A line of palm trees formed a natural break between the grassy park and the start of the beach, and it was there she left her shoes. The beach was deserted by people at this time of the day, when the sun was directly overhead. Even the gulls had gone in search of shade and the leftovers behind Mama Dlamini's Eating Establishment.

The sand was hot beneath Monica's feet. She ran quickly to the water's edge. And then she kept running, up the beach toward the golfing resort north of town. On and on she ran, the seawater soaking the hem of her pants, her lungs straining for oxygen, sweat dripping down her face. When her muscles ached and she felt she could not take another breath, she stopped and walked slowly into the water. Knee-deep, she flung herself forward and landed with a belly flop in the cold Atlantic Ocean. Then she turned onto her back and floated, letting the petite waves of low tide break over her. There was not a cloud in the sky. She felt the sun burning her face and arms, but it was not unpleasant with the rest of her body chilled by the water. Anyone walking by now might think she had gone crazy, and perhaps, for this moment, she had. Her life was in disarray. One son was halfway across the world, the other resented her because he was not; she and her husband were fighting bitterly; the newspaper had suffered under her neglect; she was losing her best friend, Kitty, because she could not bear to look at the baby in her arms; and lastly, she had stopped believing that God truly loved her. She could no longer go on like this. The time had come to deal with the crises in her life.

Floating in the water, Monica didn't have a solution come to her like a bolt of lightning, but it was a comfort to have taken stock of her life and to know that action was the next step. When her fingers grew numb from the cold and she could no longer feel the back of her scalp, she stood up and waded out of the ocean. For five minutes, she sat on a boulder, wringing water from her clothes and hair, and then she began the long walk back to where she'd left her shoes in the park.

She was grateful not to meet anyone on the way to her office.

“What on earth happened to you?” asked Dudu.

Facing Dudu, Monica had decided, was the first step toward fixing her life.

“Jacqueline is pregnant and I'm not,” she said, and burst into tears.

“Oh, Monica, I'm sorry,” said Dudu, taking her by the hand. “Let's get you dry before you catch cold. I have a spare set of clothing here in case I have to do any dirty work.”

“Do I give you dirty work?” Monica laughed in spite of her tears.

“That's better,” said Dudu. “Here's a towel. Now go into the bathroom, dry yourself off and I'll bring you the clothes. We're almost the same size.”

Monica allowed herself to be pushed in the direction of the bathroom. As she removed her wet clothing, she had to laugh again; Dudu was at least three sizes bigger than she was.

When she came out, dressed in Dudu's old cotton skirt—held up with the help of a safety pin—and a matching blouse that gaped at the armholes, Monica accepted the cup of hot rooibos tea that Dudu offered, and sat down to talk about the moment when Zak had broken the news of Jacqueline's pregnancy.

“I should be more worried for Yolanda,” she added.

Dudu put a hand on her arm. “You do not need to feel guilty for reacting the way you did. This longing to have a baby is as natural as breathing, walking and talking.”

“But what if it can't
be?
”

“I have a friend who went through the same thing. She and her husband almost split up over it.”

“Did she ever have a baby?”

Dudu shook her head. “But she saved her marriage.”

“What did she do?”

Dudu told Monica that her friend had attended a support group in Cape Town for women struggling with infertility. Dudu offered to find out the details if Monica was interested. Monica looked at her wet clothing, hanging up to dry in front of an open window.

“Okay, give your friend a call,” she said.

 

When she went home that afternoon, an hour earlier than usual, Mandla wanted to know why she was dressed like a fisherwoman.

“My clothes got wet,” she said, and he nodded because this was something that happened to him all the time—or had before he'd started wearing American blue jeans and taking obsessive care of them.

Francina raised her eyebrows. “Is everything all right?”