From the Beginning Read Free

years, at least.” He reached up and tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her left ear. “This isn’t forever, kid. Only until you get yourself rested and back in fighting form. I can’t hold the fort indefinitely, you know.”
But that was exactly what she was afraid of—that he would have to hold the fort alone, forever. It was why she’d worked her way past exhaustion, beyond burnout. Because she feared if she ever left this place, she would never come back. Not just here, to Somalia, but Haiti or Cambodia. Bosnia or Sierra Leone. Chechnya, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Palestine. So many places. So much pain.
“Well, that’s it, then.” Anger and fear came through in her voice, despite her struggle to regain her professionalism. Amanda didn’t mind if Jack saw her anger, but she would be humiliated if he knew how afraid she was to return to the easy, civilized life most people took for granted.
“For now. Go back to your room and lie down. Get some rest and I’ll check on you later.” He paused, shot her a guilty look. “Three days ago, I emailed—”
She didn’t wait for him to finish. Didn’t want to hear him admit that he’d ratted her out to the administrators of the program. Instead, she turned and left, walking briskly through the clinic, despite the calls of nurses and patients. They weren’t her responsibility anymore.
The thought cut like a knife.
So, what happened now? she wondered, dazed. What on earth was she supposed to do?
It was crazy, really, how completely unprepared she was for life away from here. How could an intelligent woman of thirty-five be so frightened of living a normal life? And how was she supposed to get past the gut-clenching, palm-dampening fear?
She headed outside, toward the tents pitched to the left of the clinic. She’d lived in them for almost a year, never leaving this stretch of desert since she’d arrived, fresh from Mozambique, ten months before.
She’d run here, one more stop in the headlong flight that kept her from thinking about—
Amanda shut the thought down before it could form. She wasn’t ready to go there yet. She wasn’t strong enough to examine her feelings about Gabby. She’d buried them for one year, six months and twenty-three days. She could bury them for a few more days or weeks or months—whatever it took for her to feel strong enough to deal with them.
But even as she mentally repeated the too-familiar sentiment, she knew it was a lie. She would never be strong enough to accept Gabby’s death. She’d failed her daughter, and that was not something she could get over.
Shaking again, Amanda paused for a moment and looked around the camp and surrounding desert that were as familiar to her as her own face. It was hot, the sun high in the sky as it roasted this part of East Africa. Drought and famine, AIDS and Ebola, tuberculosis and cholera, more diseases than she could count had taken their toll, year after year, until some weeks bodies actually piled up in the villages, waiting to be buried or burned.
But despite everything that had happened here in the past three decades, Africa was beautiful. The landscape was empty, barren, but there was an elegance in its stark simplicity. Endless miles of dirt and sand and desert brush as far as the eye could see, the sun reflecting brightly off the hard, arid ground. It appealed to something primitive inside of her, this country with its harsh truths and frightening realities.
There was beauty in its complete and utter devastation.
At a loss for what else to do—knowing only that she couldn’t go back to her tent and stare at the four canvas walls without losing what was left of her control—she began to walk. Without her patients, without her job, it wasn’t as if there was anything else to do out here but wander for a while, saying goodbye to this continent that had such a huge impact on her life. If things went as she was afraid they would, then it didn’t matter what Jack said. She was done