From the Beginning

She stiffened even more. “What are you doing here?”

“I was just passing through…” He recited the old cliché in the hopes that she would call him on it—which she did.

“Yeah, right. You hate Africa.”

“No. I hate the suffering here, when I’m so ill-equipped to do anything about it. That’s a totally different thing.”

“Is it?” If possible, she looked even more disgusted, and he felt the familiar shame start to creep up his spine.

“Absolutely. Besides, I’m not here for a story.”

She didn’t move, didn’t betray her emotions by so much as an eyelash flicker, yet her entire being somehow, impossibly, grew even more wary. “So, once again, why are you here?”

“I think you already know the answer to that, Amanda, or you wouldn’t be looking so upset.” He watched her steadily. “I’m here to take you home.”

The look she gave him was a mixture of disbelief and dare—with enough repugnance thrown in to let him know she ranked him in the same category as pond scum. “Are you, now?”

“I am. Amanda, you can’t—”

“Oh, no.” Her voice sliced like a whip. “You don’t get to tell me what I can or cannot do. You’ve never wanted that right and you don’t suddenly get to change the rules just because you don’t like the final score. Besides, I would rather swim back to the States under my own power than go anywhere with you.”

He grinned. “It’s a big ocean, baby—and filled with sharks.”

“That’s rather telling, then, isn’t it? That I’d rather take on an entire shiver of sharks than spend one second longer than I have to in your company.”

“Well, then, I guess we’re both in for a bumpy ride—because this time you aren’t getting rid of me.”

“Since when have I ever had to get rid of you?” Her smile was as sharp as her cheekbones. “I’ll just wait five minutes until a better opportunity comes along. You’ll be in the air before I even get my suitcase packed.”

CHAPTER THREE

WITH THAT PARTING SHOT, Amanda turned away and headed toward the sleeping tents. And though every instinct he had demanded he follow her, Simon chose instead to stay where he was and simply watch her walk away. He’d known her long enough to recognize when she needed some time alone.

But the hollow feeling that had haunted him for the past eighteen months grew stronger with each step she took in the opposite direction.

Was this how she’d felt, he wondered, all those times when he’d been the one to walk away? When he’d chosen a story over her—and over their daughter? If so, he had even more to feel guilty about than he’d imagined.

He watched her until she disappeared inside one of the small tents set aside for the doctors, then watched some more—waiting, he supposed, to see if she was going to come back out and finish their discussion. It wasn’t likely, of course, but hope hung around—for a little while, anyway.

Right when he’d decided that he was going to have to go after her, he felt a large hand clap him on the shoulder. He turned to see the man who had started them down this path so many years before—and who was also responsible for this latest detour—standing in front of him with a definite scowl on his face.

“I had decided you weren’t going to come,” Jack said as he shook his head. “If I’d known you were due in today, I might have gone a little easier on Amanda earlier.”

Simon thought of Amanda’s red-rimmed eyes and felt every muscle in his body tighten. Jack was one of his closest friends, as well, but no one had the right to turn Amanda inside out like that. “What did you say to her?”

Jack eyed his clenched fists with interest, and Simon could feel himself flush. There was nothing quite like laying all your cards on the table for the world to see.

“I told her the same thing I told you. That she was exhausted and had to go home for a while.”

“She’s not going to want to go. That house—” His throat started to close up, so he stopped and took a few deep breaths. “That house is filled with memories of Gabby.”

“Hence the reason I didn’t sideline her sooner. She needs a reason to get up in the morning, and without her work, I don’t think she has one anymore. That’s why I emailed you.”

Simon wanted to think that Jack was exaggerating, but he couldn’t now that he’d seen Amanda himself. “I’m not that reason, never have been. Besides, it’s pretty obvious she can’t stand the sight of me.”

“Yeah, well, you’re going to have to find a way around that.”

Simon snorted. “I’m sorry. Have you met Dr. Amanda Jacobs? She’s not exactly the easiest person to get—”

“Listen to me, Simon. I know what I’m talking about. She can’t be on her own right now. If she goes back to the States by herself and rents some small apartment somewhere because she can’t deal with the memories, I don’t think she’s going to make it.”

Everything inside of him went cold at Jack’s assessment—so cold that he actually shivered, despite the harsh rays of the sun beating down on him. “You think—” Simon’s voice broke for the second time in as many minutes and he had to clear his throat a few times before he could force any words through. “You really think she’s suicidal?”

Jack paused, looked past him to the barren desert that surrounded them. “I’m not sure how to answer that.”

“It isn’t that difficult. Either you think she’ll try to kill herself or you don’t.”

“It’s not that simple. Do I think Amanda will actively try to kill herself? No. But—” he continued, before Simon could relax “—I don’t think she wants to live, either. I think she’s gotten to the point where she’s too apathetic to do anything about it, one way or the other.”

Simon tried to read between the lines. “So what are you saying? You don’t think she cares enough to kill herself? Is that even possible?”

“I’m not a psychiatrist, Simon. I’m not sure what’s possible or what isn’t in this case. I’m just telling you what I think, what I’ve observed over the past few months. Amanda gave up caring about what happens to herself a long time ago. That’s why I let her stay here this long, even though I’ve known almost since she got here that she was eventually going to break.

“I tried to get through to her, tried to keep her busy. Let her work almost exclusively with the children—the only thing that brings her around is when she’s working toward healing a child.” He shook his head. “But it’s not enough. Things are dire here and getting worse every day. She lost a patient today—the third this week—and she didn’t handle it well.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means she almost had a nervous breakdown in the middle of the O.R. And I believe, really believe, that if she could have crawled onto that gurney with Mabulu and died alongside him, she would have. I’ve never seen her like that before, not in all the years we’ve known each other, and it scared me—so much that I relieved her of her duties and told her I’d block any application she made to work with another clinic. At least for a while.”

Simon was having a hard time getting his mind around what Jack was saying. The picture the other man was painting was of a woman so far removed from the Amanda he knew that she was almost unrecognizable. Amanda was the one everyone turned to in a crisis—she was the one who never fell apart, who always knew what to do.

That had obviously changed, and he was suddenly at as much of a loss as Jack was. How the hell was he supposed to fix a woman who’d never been broken before, especially when she couldn’t stand the sight of him?

What was he supposed to do?

He hadn’t been aware that he said the last aloud, until Jack grimly responded, “My best advice? You get her out of here—tonight. You get her home, get her to a doctor and to a counselor. And then you wait.”

“For how long?” Waiting wasn’t exactly Simon’s strong suit.

“For as long as it takes. It took her at least a year and a half to get into this state. She isn’t going to come out of it overnight.”

Simon thought, briefly, of the stories he had lined up. Of the exclusive access he’d managed to finagle behind the Israeli wall after six years of pulling in favors.

Of the upcoming Middle East peace talks in Europe that he was supposed to cover.

Of the story he had started investigating in South America, and of the documentary he had already gotten footage for in Afghanistan. He’d been putting that story together, off and on, for months now, and it had Edward R. Murrow Award written all over it. He could almost taste the award and so could his director.

He closed his eyes and with a sigh let them all go. For more than a decade, Amanda had taken second and third and sometimes even two hundredth place to his work. This time, everything else was going to have to wait.