Laugh with the Moon (18 page)

I
glance at the couple, two silhouettes ankle-deep in water. “Be right back,” I tell Memory and Saidi. When I get to the mopeds, I glance around to make sure no one’s looking. I slip my hand into the side pocket of the bag. I feel a couple of pens, and maybe a paper clip or two. Then I hit gold. And voilà! We’ve got a ride home.

I run back to Saidi and Memory with the keys to explain the plan. At first, Saidi isn’t sure he can go along with it, but after Innocent lets out a moan, he agrees: we don’t have another choice.

Without actually getting on the mopeds, I give Saidi and Memory a riding lesson. All those outings on mopeds with Mom during Dad’s medical conferences come in handy. “It’s a lot like riding your bike,” I tell Saidi. “Except that it’s electric.” I pantomime how to flick the switch, rev the motor with the handlebar, and work the brake.

I pace the sidewalk. Too risky to take them now. The tourists are still so close. The man wraps his arm around the woman, points out at the water. That’s when we all remember Agnes. There she is, a tiny dot on a green toy boat floating in the middle of the lake. “She shall at last receive her sunshine,” Saidi says.

“And her exercise,” I add.

Finally, the couple wades into the water and dives underneath. Now’s our chance.
“Tiye tonse!”
I say.

Memory and Saidi climb onto one moped with Innocent sandwiched between them. I take the other. I wish we had helmets, but what can we do?

“Changu!”
Memory says.

We turn the keys and pedal like mad. Saidi takes the lead. It’s a good thing he knows the way, but it’s a bad thing—a very bad thing—that he’s never driven a moped before, because it wobbles and tilts to the side. The only reason he doesn’t drop Innocent is that he keeps putting his feet on the ground.

But after about fifteen minutes, he catches on. We fly, then, across the miles into the last shades of day. The whole time, the red dust swirls up from the road and dances like an angry spirit under the dwindling sun. And I’m screaming inside. Screaming that my father isn’t here. Screaming that I need my mother. Screaming that Innocent had better be okay.

I try to hold the edge of my T-shirt between my lips to stop the dust from going down my throat, but the wind rips it out of my mouth and screeches in my ears. I squint to keep the dust from sticking in my eyes. I can barely see
Saidi as he veers onto a smaller road. I follow him into the misty, shadowy light of dusk until the clouds crack open, the leaves shiver, and lightning flashes, bright and terrifying. “Watch out!” I yell. The words blow back in my ears, a senseless hum.

It’s too late.

Saidi pounds the handlebars with his fist. I slow to a stop.

Memory wants to know what’s wrong, even though it’s completely obvious. The bike is stuck in a mud puddle. Well, it’s obvious to Saidi and me, but not to Memory. She can’t understand how something like a puddle can stop us from getting to the hospital, to my father, who can save her brother’s life. But what can Saidi do? The tires are caked in mud.

Memory gets off the moped and sloshes out of the puddle with Innocent in her arms. Meanwhile, I hand Saidi the wet towel from my backpack. “The tires!” I shout over claps of thunder. “Wipe them!” Then I trudge through the mud to the edge of the road and put my hand on Innocent’s leg. It’s freezing, and now my towel’s soaked. Why don’t I have something warm and dry to wrap him in? A blanket, a coat, anything!
Is this what happens when someone dies?
I wonder.
Do dying people turn cold?

The last time I ever saw my mother, she was in her hospital bed. I reached over and held her hand.
But was it warm or cold? Warm or cold?
I’m desperate to remember, but I can’t, so instead I shout to Memory, “He’ll be fine!”

A sheet of rain brushes across us like the bristles of a paintbrush. In the slate-gray light, Memory looks at me
hard. “You American,” she says. “Yet you do not know everything. You rich, yes,” she shouts over the rain. “Therefore, you do not know.”

The heavy rain washes me in a coat of gloss, sealing me in a separate world.

I search the sky.

But it isn’t there.

Not a glimmer, not a sliver, not a hint of moon.

I
t’s dark by the time Memory grabs Innocent off the moped seat and we all run inside.

Lanterns light up the hospital waiting room. Mothers and fathers huddle on the ground, children stare at the ceiling, grandmothers rock on their heels.

A man in blue hospital scrubs steps in.

“Emergency!” I yell.

His jaw drops. When I see the gap between his front teeth, I recognize him. He’s Mr. Malola, the clinical officer. I met him in Mkumba village my first time there. “Not to worry,” Mr. Malola says. “The electric shut off many time in the storm.” He holds a cell phone, using it like a flashlight.

“Where’s my dad?” I shout. “Dr. Silver?”

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Your daddy’s not here.” Mr. Malola glances at his clipboard. “Abdallan Sikochi.”

An old man stands with a baby in his arms.

“I need my dad!” I yell. I don’t feel like myself. I don’t feel like anyone I ever knew. I rush to Mr. Malola. “Look!” I point at Memory and Innocent. When he sees them, I exhale. Now I know he’ll take me to my dad. My dad who says miracles happen in hospitals every day. I’m sure Innocent will be one more.

One more miracle.

Mr. Malola holds open a door. The old man and the baby disappear through it. “Your father knocked off several hours ago, Clare,” he says. “The cell phone is good for light but not for calls, so I cannot contact your daddy for you.”

What is this man talking about? My father said he was working today. I’ll have to run back into the operating room and find him myself. I don’t have time for this nonsense. Innocent doesn’t have time. But I can’t get through the doorway because Mr. Malola grabs my arm. “Your daddy has gone home,” he says.

I stare at the empty space between his two front teeth. “Home?”

Mr. Malola nods.

But now we’re at the hospital. That’s what’s important. We’re at the hospital. Someone will help us. Someone has to.

“Malaria!” I scream. My head burns. I’m furious. “See that boy? He has malaria. Or pneumonia. Something bad!”

“I’m afraid he must wait,” Mr. Malola says, and sighs. “We are overcrowded. I shall bring acetaminophen.”

I might not be a doctor, but I sure know what that big word means.

“What?” I say. “You’re going to bring pills for a regular old fever?”

Mr. Malola has already gone, so again, I move past the people. Past a baby with skin stretched like Saran Wrap over his ribs. Past a girl who looks like a skeleton. Past a man asleep on the floor. To Memory, who looks up at me, her eyes searching, wide.

“The clinical officer will bring a pill,” I say. I don’t tell her it’s a pill that won’t fight malaria. I don’t tell her that after everything, my father isn’t even here. But Saidi knows something is dreadfully wrong. He takes my wrist and pulls me outside, where I heave out a huge sob and share the news.

“Where is your daddy?” Saidi asks.

“Home,” I say. “Waiting for me.”

Saidi leads me across the lot to the mopeds. I’m too shaky to drive, so I get on the back of his bike and hold on to him tight.

We’re at my house in no time. I pound the front door. There’s no answer. I grab my key out of my back pocket, but my hands are trembling so badly that it takes three tries before I can fit the key in the lock and open it.

When I do, it’s too quiet. Too dark. “Dad!” I shout as we dash inside. My voice bounces off the walls. I check my watch: 8:15. I flip on the light switch, bolt to Dad’s bedroom, and yell for him over and over, even though it’s totally obvious: he’s not here.

E
ven though Saidi cuts the motor at the road, the people who live near the edge of Mkumba village hear the moped and run out of their huts, startled by the noise.

Saidi talks to a few teenagers, who point to a group of men sitting by a fire playing a game of bawo. We race over to them. Sparks spit at our knees while Saidi asks if they’ve seen the doctor.

One of the men looks up. “Kapoloma,” he says.

The smoke burns my nose.

“Next village,” Saidi tells me, and we sprint back to the bike.

We get to Kapoloma village in a few minutes. We ditch the moped on a patch of dirt and bolt toward the huts. Before we reach them, though, three women walk by. One carries a pot in her hand.

“Adokotala ali kuti?”
Saidi asks.

The women talk to each other like they’re washing dishes by the river, like we’ve got all day.

“Let’s go!” I whisper.

The lady with the pot taps a crooked finger against her forehead and points to the other side of the village. Across the field, a bunch of little boys are drumming under the stars. When we get closer, Saidi shouts out to ask if anyone has seen the doctor. The boys stop their music.
“Chauko,”
one says, and points to a nearby hut.

In seconds, we’re panting outside of it. Other than the pit latrines, it’s the first hut I’ve seen with an actual door. Saidi bangs on it.

But the village chief doesn’t open the door. My father does. He looks frantic. He grabs my shoulders, shakes me hard. “Where were you?” he yells. “I was worried sick.”

There’s a slow
clunk, clunk, clunk
as the chief lumbers over.

And I’m still trying to remember how Mom’s skin felt the last day I ever saw her. She was in the hospital bed. I reached over and held her hand.
But was it warm or cold? Warm or cold?
I’m desperate to remember, but I can’t.

We tell Dad about Innocent.

“Meet us at the hospital,” Dad says to Saidi.

Then Dad and I bolt to the Land Rover, which is parked in a ditch across the road. Dirt whirs under the car wheels and the night wraps me up. We turn off the main road onto the narrow path.

I see a dot of light.

A dot of life.

The hospital.

As soon as we burst into the hospital, I point to Innocent, who’s still curled up on Memory’s lap in the corner. Dad walks over, puts his hand on Memory’s back. She nods, and Dad lifts Innocent and carries him across the waiting room.

Memory and I follow them down the unlit hallway into the pediatric ward. Except for the IV drips, it hardly feels like a hospital. It reeks of chlorine. The beds—slabs of wood with thin mats—are full of tiny children, two or three on each one. A red number is spray-painted on the white wall above each bed.