CILA closed for the holidays on December 23 and didn’t reopen until January 2. Zoe spent Christmas weekend with the Prentices. Initially, she was thankful for the diversion, but by Monday she felt suffocated and restless. Desperate for a change of scenery, she bought a plane ticket to Namibia, rented a car at the Windhoek airport, and drove west across the Namib Desert to the sea. Her destination was a beach hotel in Henties Bay.
In all her travels, she had never made it to the Skeleton Coast. Wild, wind-whipped, and littered with shipwrecks, the stretch of ocean along the northern coast of Namibia was named “The Land God Made in Anger” by the Bushmen of the interior. At the height of the summer, its drama was unparalleled. For four days, Zoe submerged her pain in the thunder of driving surf, combing the beach for rocks and shells as she had on the Vineyard when she was a girl, savoring glasses of wine on the patio as the setting sun turned the sky into a rose garden, and leaving behind all reminders of time. She didn’t just want to be off the grid; she wanted to disappear.
When she boarded a plane again on New Year’s Eve, she felt refreshed but no less perplexed than when she left Lusaka. Love bound her to Joseph like a cord. It might stretch but it would not break, unless, of course, she severed it. And that was a step she could not take without denying everything she believed about the world.
The flight from Windhoek landed in Lusaka at noon. Zoe checked her phone, thinking Joseph might have sent her a message, but her inbox was empty. She had asked for patience, and he seemed willing to grant it. She threw her bags into her Land Rover and drove to Sunningdale.
The guard let her onto the Prentice grounds, and Carol greeted her in the foyer. “Was Namibia as dreamy as I remember it?” she asked, giving Zoe a hug.
“Like no place else,” Zoe replied. “Has Joseph called?”
Carol looked at her closely. “He hasn’t. Did something happen between you?”
Zoe shrugged. “It’s a long story.”
“Well, I’m all ears if you want to talk about it. We’re having a little soiree tonight with some friends from the Embassy in case you’re looking for a distraction.”
Zoe forced herself to smile. “It wouldn’t be New Year’s Eve without a party.”
“Oh, I almost forgot. A parcel arrived from the States. It came from a law firm.”
Zoe’s smile turned genuine. “It’s from my brother. My birthday is the second.”
“You didn’t tell me! What year is this?”
“Twenty-nine.”
“You’re so young! What I wouldn’t give to be twenty-nine again.” Carol laughed. “The box is on your bed. Oh, and don’t worry. I’ll make sure you have a proper cake.”
Zoe dropped her bags in her room and took the parcel onto the terrace. The box was squat and heavy, about ten inches by twelve. She opened it carefully and found the contents encased in bubble wrap. Atop the padding was a card with a photo of a pig cavorting in the mud. She giggled at the caption: “Some people find pleasure in the strangest places.”
Inside, Trevor had written:
Happy 29th, sis. I love you lots. I keep telling myself I’m going to get on a plane and come visit you, but the damn job never relents. I suppose I have Dad to blame for that. One of these days I’m going to go MIA and show up on your doorstep. Enjoy the goodies!
Beneath the bubble wrap were four bags of gourmet candies, a pint of Vermont maple syrup, a set of iPhone earbuds, a bound photo book of Trevor and his girlfriend, Jenna, on the Vineyard, and a pewter sea turtle with an engraving on its belly: “The race is not to the swift or the strong but to the persistent.” It was one of Catherine’s aphorisms, adapted from a verse in Ecclesiastes.
Zoe placed the turtle carefully in the box and paged through the photo book. Across the bottom of the last picture—an image of Jenna on the beach at sunset, tossing a smile over her shoulder—her brother had written: “Think she’s the one? I’m starting to believe it.”
Tears came to Zoe’s eyes. She had traveled to the edge of the world, but she could no more escape her history than she could alter her genetics. And there was the rub. She had never intended to leave it all behind. Not forever, at least. She wanted what her mother had—one foot in Africa and one foot in the West. How does Joseph fit into that picture? she wondered. How am I supposed to make sense of this?
On her birthday, Zoe woke at sunrise, took a hot shower, and opened her MacBook. She started Skype and checked her watch. Trevor had promised to call her at 6:15 a.m.—just after midnight D.C. time. It was a tradition in their relationship. No matter where they were, no birthday could pass without a conversation.
Right on time, Zoe heard the electronic trill of an incoming call. “Hey, Trev,” she said, watching the video screen and smiling when his face appeared.
“Happy birthday, sis,” Trevor replied, his voice slightly distorted by interference. “Sorry to wake you with the birds.”
She laughed. “Sorry to keep you up so late.”
“Ha! I just got off work. Midnight is the new six o’clock.”
“How many cups of coffee have you had today?”