The Marine's Return

She’d answered the ad and Hope had responded. The two women had instantly bonded. Hope’s son—also a marine—had been injured during a mission only a week before the attack on Tony’s field hospital. And it was Hope that made the connection between the two men. Her son, Chad, was the friend Tony had grown up with, the one who hadn’t been able to make it to the wedding.

She touched her belly. The thought of losing one’s child... She shuddered. This was why she hated sitting around and resting, even if she needed to. It gave her idle time to think and her thoughts, more often than not, only reminded her of what she’d lost.

Hope was lucky her son had survived. Injured, yes, though she hadn’t divulged all the details of Chad’s injuries. But at least he’d survived. At least he had loving parents—a father who could understand what he’d been through and a mother who, as a doctor, could help him heal or at least make sure he was getting the care he needed.

Since coming to the clinic, Lexi had met Hope’s daughter, a human rights lawyer who was well known for helping Kenya’s indigenous tribes, and Hope’s younger sons, currently in college, but she’d never met Chad. He’d only recently returned to Kenya and, according to Hope, he was far from healed.

Hope often lamented, with all the love and anguish of a mother, that Chad was the most stubborn, impossible patient she’d ever tried to work with. She’d been struggling to pull him out of a depression and to motivate him to resume therapy, physical and psychological, in Nairobi. But it was an uphill battle.

Lexi couldn’t blame him after the trauma he’d suffered, but she also knew motivation had to come from within. A person had to want to survive all that life threw at them. They had to want to find a way to chase their goals, even if it meant taking a different path. She’d heard of individuals who, after being told they’d never walk again, had learned to not only walk but to dance. Unlike Tony, Chad still had his life ahead of him. She wouldn’t feel sorry for him if he chose to waste it.

“I heard my name,” Taj said, stepping out from the exam tent. He paused to say goodbye to his last patient, a thin, lanky man whose cheekbones were framed by beaded loop earrings that reached his shoulders. The man gave a toothy smile and nodded his appreciation, then adjusted a red-and-orange shuka that was draped over his shoulder and headed down the dirt path for home.

“You need help cleaning up in there?” Lexi asked, nodding her head at the tent, which stood about twenty meters across the clearing from the bungalow. Her legs didn’t want to move so she kind of hoped he didn’t.

“No, I’ll get it. And this,” he said, grabbing the table Lexi had used to hold her vaccine trays. He folded the legs in and leaned the table against the peeling plaster of the clinic wall. “I’ll put that away in a second. Jacey can help me with the rest. Sitting there isn’t enough. You need to raise your legs. You should go lie down before your feet swell to the size of an elephant’s. I still think you should come back to Nairobi with me and let Dr. Hope find someone else to staff this place.”

“Not happening. I’m fine here. It’s good for me. Being sedentary while pregnant isn’t. But I’ll take you up on raising my feet. I’ll be inside. Oh, and if someone can get their hands on some chocolate-chip ice cream and potato chips in the next five minutes, my hormones will love you.”

“Good luck with that.” Jacey chuckled as she helped Taj pull the legs of the canopy out from the dry, red earth.

“I’ll have to bring you a cooler on my next trip over so we can stock some ice cream for you,” Taj said. They had a small freezer, but they needed it for ice packs and healthy foods. Not junk food. Besides, there was no room left in it.

“I would worship you if you did that,” Lexi teased.

He did have that ancient godlike look to him. Tall, dark and muscular with a sincere yet dazzling smile. Jacey had most definitely noticed. The poor thing was almost too careful not to steal glances, but the way her cheeks flushed whenever she and Taj talked casually over work, gave her away.

She also got annoyed with Taj quite a bit. The blushing and bickering were a dead giveaway that the two were engaged in some sort of primal courtship ritual.

Jacey didn’t like wearing her emotions on her sleeve any more than Taj did, but Lexi was convinced her two staffers liked each other. As a nurse, Lexi was well trained in how to read faces and body language. Sometimes people were too stoic for their own good...or too stubborn.

“You better share that ice cream,” Jacey said. Lexi chuckled and shook her head.

“I can’t make that promise. He’ll have to bring you your own tub. Although sharing would save me some calories. I’m probably lucky I can’t have ice cream and chips on a daily basis out here. I’d be huge.” Lexi pressed her palm to her lower back. “Thanks, you two, for finishing up here. I’m going inside.”

“Sure thing,” Jacey said over her shoulder.

Lexi wasn’t sure what was worse, the intense pregnancy cravings or the constant aches. She slipped into their mini kitchen, grabbed some cheese from their small, generator-run fridge and a banana off of the counter, then sat in a chair and propped her feet up on an empty supply box. She rubbed a hand across her belly, stopping when she felt a small kick. She lifted her T-shirt and smiled at the little bump on the left side of her belly.

“You too, huh?” she said, tracing her finger where the baby was nudging her. She had no idea if it was a boy or a girl. She still didn’t want to know. As undeniably real as her pregnancy was at the time of her ultrasound, somehow the more she learned about her baby—their baby—the more it hit home that Tony would never share the experience with her. That she was alone in this. That he’d died not even knowing she was pregnant. God, she hadn’t even realized herself. She’d assumed the light-headedness and nausea were due to being overwhelmed by all that had happened.

Her body jolted at the memory of the twenty-one-gun salute piercing the air at Tony’s funeral. The baby kicked back.

“I’m sorry,” she said, placing her palm against what looked like a tiny foot, until the little one calmed down. She pulled the end of her T-shirt down and dabbed her eyes, then took a deep breath. Was she being stupid? Was Taj right about getting a replacement? She had another OB-GYN appointment in Nairobi in just under two weeks. So far so good. Everyone was coaxing her to quit this job for the baby’s sake but she didn’t see it that way. This was home now. She needed to be here.

Man, it was hot today. She leaned her head back against the wall and pushed her side-swept, pixie-cut bangs off her forehead. She’d donated all twenty inches of her silky black locks before moving to Kenya.

She still wasn’t sure what had spurred her to cut it all off. On one hand, she’d wanted to help someone else since she had been feeling so helpless herself after Tony’s loss. But there had been practical reasons, too, given the rugged lifestyle she’d signed up for. And maybe subconsciously she’d been symbolically cutting ties to the past so that she could move forward to the future she and Tony had planned.

It was just her future, now. Hers and the baby’s.

What had she been thinking, falling for a marine? She’d reassured herself that he was a field hospital doctor, not a special missions guy. He’d been in Afghanistan to help the wounded, not to get wounded himself. Hospitals were supposed to have some level of protection. They weren’t supposed to be targets. But that hadn’t stopped him from being killed.

That attack had come from out of nowhere. Her throat tightened.

The baby did something akin to a summersault then lodged itself under her rib cage and stretched. Lexi let out a yelp and contorted sideways in her chair to try to accommodate the sudden move.

“You okay?” Jacey came running in but stopped and scrunched her face when she spotted Lexi. “Ew. That looks painful.”

“Looks painful?” Lexi gasped and held another breath. “I don’t think I’m carrying a human child. I’m convinced he or she is part alien or antelope...make that giraffe.” She tried nudging the little one away from her ribs. It didn’t work.

“You look like an alien is about to pop out of you,” Jacey said, kneeling next to her and patting Lexi’s protrusion. “Like in that old horror movie.”

“Thanks. That’s so comforting. Especially since I avoid horror movies like the plague. Does feel like the baby is going to pop out, though. I seriously hope he or she knows that up isn’t the way out.”

Jacey plopped onto her bottom, laughing, and crossed her legs. The baby shifted to a more normal position and Lexi let out a breath of relief.

“See?” Jacey said. “She settles down when I laugh. It happened last time, too. I’m already a good Auntie Jacey.”

Jacey was right. Laughter seemed to calm the baby, while Lexi getting anxious and thinking about the past seemed to make the baby irritable.

“Why do you keep saying ‘she’?”

“Just a gut feeling. Plus, it’s easier than saying ‘he or she’ every time, and nicer than calling her ‘it.’ ‘It’ kind of emphasizes the creepy alien-with-human-host factor.”

“Got it, Auntie. Promise me your bedtime stories will conjure up less freaky images in her mind.”

“You still sure you don’t want to spend the rest of your pregnancy in Nairobi before the rainy season hits? Or even head back to the US?”

“No. We’ve been through this. Plenty of people have raised kids out here and I’m not talking just the Masai and other tribes. You heard the story Hope told us about the vet who founded Busara. She raised her little girl out there when the camp was far, far more rustic than what we have here. And Mac and his wife have an adopted child and they live in a remote eco-camp. The point being, if others have done it, so can I.”

Mac Walker was a bush pilot originally from South Africa but who had lived in Kenya’s Serengeti region most of his adult life. He’d eventually become part owner of an eco-tourist camp—Camp Jamba-Walker—but still devoted flight hours to helping wildlife rescues and the Kenyan Wildlife Service with surveillance and reports of suspicious poaching activity in the area.

He was also a family friend of Dr. Hope and of Dr. Anna Bekker, the vet who’d founded the famous Busara Elephant Research and Rescue camp dedicated to rescuing baby elephants orphaned by poachers.

Mac had been instrumental in helping transport supplies to the clinic and he often flew Hope out. He’d also helped Lexi transition to the area during her initial weeks here. Even Taj hitched a ride with Mac whenever he could, to cut on commute time. Mac had a way of being everywhere and helping everyone.

“What if you end up with a complication in childbirth?” Jacey continued.

“You have a knack for putting things in such a reassuring way.” Lexi laughed. She knew Jacey meant well, though.

Lexi shifted back into a normal seated position and tugged her shirt over her belly. She was going to need something bigger very soon. Or perhaps she could get one of those giant shuka shawls the Masai wore and just drape it around herself. Come to think of it, maybe she should market the idea for maternity wear. “What if you stopped worrying so much? I go into Nairobi regularly for prenatal appointments and I take my vitamins. Heaven knows my diet out here with all the fruit, vegetables and whole grains is better than what I’d probably be eating if I had a grocery store around the corner. And between Hope coming out and you and Taj here, I’ll be fine. If a complication develops, I’ll head to the hospital. Promise.”

Truth was, she felt more comfortable out here giving birth naturally than in an overcrowded, underfunded hospital. And as illogical as she knew it to be, hospitals reminded her of death...of the last way she’d seen Tony. She needed to be as far away from that as possible.

“Fine. If you say so,” Jacey said, reknotting her hair at the base of her neck.

The grinding whir of a chopper broke up the chattering symphony of wildlife outside.