What Tears Us Apart

Chapter 40



February 1, 2008, Topanga, CA—Leda

LEDA WATCHES THE mountain and the mountain watches her. The nearby tree continues to cheerlead. Everything in its place.

Including me.

Amadeus jumps up into Leda’s lap and curls into a furry ball to be petted.

“Hey, there,” Leda says and scratches his Mohawk.

She reaches beneath the little dog and pulls out the stack of photos on her lap. She flips through them one by one, her new ritual. She sees the photos differently now. In Estella’s glamour shots, she sees the vulnerability in her mother’s sultry gaze. She sees the sadness in the old man’s, her father’s, happy eyes—the acceptance of the short time they will have together. She lingers over the photo of her mother holding her as an infant, still unable to sort out the complicated mix of emotions it brings.

Next, Leda flips through to the newer, shinier photos, the ones she finally got printed. She finds the one she is looking for—a picture of Ita, his smile jumping out at her in its brilliance.

Amadeus lifts his head. He sniffs the picture.

“Nope,” Leda whispers. “Still no word.”

Nearby, on a small table, sits Leda’s laptop. She opens it and the website, already up in the browser, jumps into view. That smile. Leda’s heart still skips every time she sees it.

It’s comforting somehow that the website is still up, even though she knows it doesn’t mean anything necessarily. She reads the papers—she knows how terrible things still are in Kibera.

But the check was cashed.

She closes her eyes. Ita is alive.

She’s left phone messages. She’s emailed. She’s even sent a letter.

Leda watches the goose bumps fan out across her forearms at the thought. She wrote the letter at the hospital, in the early morning hours before Estella died. It was as if her mother’s passing gave her courage. The courage to tell the truth.

But she didn’t tell him about the baby—his baby—not yet.

He had to be allowed to hate her first, if he wanted.

Leda looks at his smile, on the computer and in the picture in her fingers. He is too good. If he knew about the baby he would sacrifice his feelings to do the right thing.

Leda wants to do the right thing for once. For him.

Ita has the money now, for the boys, for his dreams. If he wants to forget her, she will let him.

Because for the first time, staring at the mountain, Leda feels strong. She can do it alone.

The rare sound of the doorbell sends Amadeus yelping and jumping off her lap, the photos slapping the deck and shuffling themselves. Amadeus heads for the door, barking loud enough to put Paul Revere to shame.

Leda picks up the photos and shuts the laptop, placing the pictures gently on top. She pads barefoot after Amadeus, wondering who on earth could be ringing her bell—who even knows she’s here?

When she opens the door, the sound that leaves her lips is scratchy, like a sparrow taking off from a branch. The smile she finds on her doorstep brings tears to her eyes.

“Ita,” she breathes.

“Leda,” Ita says.

Sunlight streams in from behind his head, illuminating him like an angel, and Leda feels its warmth wrap around her, blanket her with happiness.

“You’re here,” Leda says.

He reaches out, his fingers touch the diamond necklace at Leda’s throat. He cocks his head.

“My mother’s,” she says.

Ita nods, his face saturated with emotion. He reaches gingerly into his pocket. In a move that’s been planned, rehearsed, dreamed out, Leda can tell, he takes out the sparrow necklace. He clasps it around her neck, the sparrow finding its place just below the diamond sparkling in the sun.

“I’m here,” he says.

Leda takes a deep breath. “You got my letter?”

Ita’s brow knots into a question. “No.” He scoops up his bag and takes a step forward. To come inside.

But Leda doesn’t budge. Her stomach heaves and her skin feels hot.

“What is it?” he says, his smile slipping into a frown.

“You don’t know.” Leda feels sick, her hand shoots out for the support of the doorjamb. Amadeus barks at her feet, sensing her stumble. “Chege didn’t tell you?”

“Leda, I know everything. Jomo saw it. He was under the bed in the shanty that night.”

“Oh my God.” Leda hides her face in her hands. Horrific, for a child to see such a thing. “I’m sorry, Ita. I’m so, so sorry.”

“I know.” Ita’s fingers encircle her wrists, positioning her two hands like a prayer between them. Leda opens her eyes. “I know everything, Leda. Everything.” Ita winds her arms around him, around his waist. “And I am here.”

With those words and the buoying realization that they are true, Leda slumps into Ita’s embrace, falls into him. When she breathes him in, she imagines she can smell the soap he uses to wash the boys’ clothes and faces, hear the little songs he and Mary sing to them. Leda’s face burrows into Ita’s chest and she feels the warmth fan across and through her, stirring up her heartbeat.

“Chege is dead,” Ita says quietly. He says it in such a way that holds ten different meanings at once, for him, for Leda, for them both. But then she can no longer hear her heartbeat, because of the sobs that have overtaken her body.

The news of Chege’s death combines with Estella’s passing, two gaping holes allowing for so much possibility. Leda cries with her eyes squeezed shut, and the force of it shakes them both. When the sobs turn to gasps, she pulls an inch away. When she meets Ita’s eyes, she finds his quiet, accepting gaze unfaltered.

“You don’t know everything,” Leda says.

Ita looks at her with so much tenderness, she hopes she will never have to leave that gaze again. She hopes with all her heart her child will know that love.

“We’re going to have a baby.”

* * *

That night, Ita pulls the mattress onto the back porch. He and Leda lie under the stars, their fingers twining and untwining in the night air, stroking each other, knowing each other, loving each other.

“Or we could bring the boys here,” Ita whispers excitedly.

“Mary, too,” Leda says and he laughs. “Okay, maybe not, but I’m going to need help with all those boys while you’re in med school.”

Ita laughs again. The sound fits in the surroundings as naturally as the trees. He rolls over, reaches across her and scratches Amadeus’s ear. “Mary would want to stay behind, I think, with Grace. And to continue with—”

“The orphanage,” Leda says. “But we should build a bigger one, hire people to help her, and build a school—”

Ita’s lips steal her next words as he leans in to kiss her. He pulls away, his eyes hooded. “I love you, Leda. So much it scares me.”

Leda sucks in a breath, thinks of the night they lay in the tent, on safari—the shiny plans they whispered, oblivious of the tidal wave coming to wreck them. But the monsters are quiet for now. “I love you, too. More than fear.” She means it, body and soul, but with everything that happened, could they really afford to dream again? Could they believe in such a fluttery thing as hope? Love?

Leda squeezes Ita’s fingers, silhouetted under a sea of stars. Of course they could.

* * * * *





Acknowledgments



I AM DEEPLY grateful and indebted to my agent, Frances Black, who said “You’re gonna make it, darling”—and then helped make it happen in every way. My editor, Emily Ohanjanians, whose brilliance at what she does leaves me in awe. All the women (and men) at Harlequin MIRA who work tirelessly for their authors. You are the dream makers. Thank you Mariam, Christopher, Mary and all the people I met in Kenya who inspired and informed this book. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Bianca, for being my best friend for twenty-seven years. Thank you, Clovernookers, Kim, DKH, Lilia, David, Raquel, Gavin, Vivienne, Susan Pottography, JBird crew, Jeanine, Nicole, Tiffany and all the lovely Book Club ladies. Thank you, Megan and Aaron, for your support and encouragement always, and Big Bear! Thank you, Mom and Dad, for...everything. And thank you, Jonathan, for being always there—in the trenches, in my daydreams, in my heart.





We hope you enjoyed Deborah Cloyed’s WHAT TEARS US APART, and that the following questions for discussion help to enhance the experience of this story for you and your book club.





Questions for Discussion



*Contains spoilers*





1. The story is set against the backdrop of the 2007–2008 political uprisings in Nairobi’s Kibera slum. What role does setting play in this story, and how would it be different if the setting were elsewhere?



2. The story jumps back and forth in time, and is told from different points of view. Why do you think a story like this would be structured in such a way? How would it be different if it were told linearly?



3. Atonement is a running theme throughout this story. Which characters are atoning and what are their sins, real or perceived? How does each character’s atonement manifest itself and what does this say about that person?



4. One of the things Leda most admires in Ita is the way he treats the orphans. Why do you think Leda finds this trait in him so attractive? How do Ita and Estella contrast in their parenting styles?



5. Ita’s mother’s necklace is a very meaningful item in the story. Why do you think Ita would give it to Leda when he was so adamant that neither Chege nor Kioni could touch it? Why does Chege throw the necklace to the ground during Leda’s attack scene, rather than keep it or sell it? What does it symbolize? And how does its significance compare to the necklace from Leda’s adoptive father?



6. As with most people, Chege’s character is complex. He is both loyal and betraying toward Ita, and both brutal and kind toward Leda. What do you think motivates him?



7. Ita seems to make Leda very happy, and he thinks the world of her. Why do you think she lets Chege kiss her on voting day?



8. Money, opportunity and privilege are running themes in the story. How do the different characters make use of what is available to them? How would their lives be different if they were in others’ shoes—Ita in Leda’s, for instance, or Leda in Ita’s?



9. For much of the story, Leda seems to be motivated by her “little monsters”—the demons within that make her feel as though she doesn’t deserve the love of a good man such as Ita. Do you think this is a common insecurity in people in general? Why? And if so, how do you feel it drives people’s behaviors?



10. The scene in which Leda is attacked by Chege’s gang, and then Chege himself, subverts expectations in the end. Would you have perceived the story and the characters’ decisions differently if this scene had played out differently? How?





A Conversation with Deborah Cloyed



Where did the idea for What Tears Us Apart come from?

On the surface, the idea came directly from my time spent in East Africa, an experience that affected me emotionally more than any of the other places I’ve lived abroad. While many of my experiences of the landscape and kind, humor-loving people were positive, on the whole my stay felt like riding a roller coaster of identity, my sense of self shifting with every new encounter. Everything I thought I believed about race, class, poverty, religion, violence, charity, government and history was challenged time and time again. I took lots of notes and photographs—I knew I would eventually want to write about it, attempt to make sense of my conflicted reaction. But when I returned to the U.S., I set about writing my first book, The Summer We Came to Life, which was set in Honduras, instead. At that time in my life I was itching to get down Samantha’s story, plus I realize now I wasn’t ready yet to process the cascade of emotion surrounding my time in East Africa.

The novel is set during the 2007 Kenyan elections, and the resultant uprisings countrywide—particularly the Kibera slum. What about this time and place inspired you to use it as the setting for your story?

I spent the summer of 2007 volunteering in rural Muslim areas of Tanzania and Kenya, assisting women with budding micro-finance initiatives. Many experiences there, positive and negative, inspired and informed the book. In transit before and after, I spent time in cosmopolitan Nairobi. It was difficult to convince friends to take me into Kibera, to visit an orphanage, but that experience was one of the most powerful of all. Meeting children living in the most difficult of circumstances, I found myself asking big questions. What is privilege? Destiny? Justice? Nationality? Even the very nature of personality—would we still be ourselves born and raised under completely different circumstances? Regarding the political end of things, my entire time in Kenya I’d been poking about, asking naive questions about tribal affiliation, reading newspapers and magazines, in eager anticipation of the election. Months later, around Christmastime, I watched in horror from my cozy bedroom in snowy Northern Virginia while unimaginable atrocities swept across many places I’d just been—cities and countryside. It affected me profoundly—the sickening mystery of how human beings turn on each other. I chose to set the story specifically in Kibera, however, because it embodied what the book was about for me—inner demons borne of strife and frustration, dashed hopes and complicated alliances.

We experience this story largely from two distinct points of view—Leda’s and Ita’s. What were the challenges in writing the voice of a young Kenyan man?

An earlier draft of the novel had Leda written in first person and Ita in a more distant third person, with fewer chapters from his point of view. This was due to nothing more than my trepidation about writing from the perspective of a male from a different culture and world. Even though I’d done months of research, scoured accounts and blogs and interviewed male Kenyan friends, I was still pinned by apprehension and an awareness of how I might be judged for such an attempt. But as the book progressed and took on its own life, it felt more and more unjust not to give Ita his own equal point of view. I knew him intimately by then, certainly as well as I knew Leda. And truthfully, neither one of them could be any more different than me and my life experience. So one day I said—aloud—Okay, Ita, now is the time. Speak up. And he did. And what he had to say reminded me of something I already knew—the human condition is a singular experience in a variety of flavors, but composed of the same emotional ingredients. We all feel abandonment, hope, despair, humiliation, indignation and the bittersweet ache of love. Therein lies the bridge by which we connect to one another.

All of the characters are both endearing and deeply flawed. Do you have a favorite character among them? If so, who and why?

This is a question I got asked a lot about my first book, with its motley crew of characters. The truth is, I have to be equally passionate about all the characters to create them in the first place. But characters have a way of taking on their own lives, and by then I love them in the same way I love my family—with all their idiosyncrasies, and knowing they are destined to be a part of my life forever.

I spend a lot of time contemplating people. I eavesdrop shamelessly. I have a penchant for staring and an odd tendency to ask strangers uncomfortable questions. Habitually, I create life stories for people on the sidewalk and the subway. A crowded restaurant is a meal of quirks and mannerisms, traveling a crossword puzzle of faces. What I mean is, I’m equally as taken with trying to figure out how someone could be or become Estella as how Leda survives being her daughter or how someone like Ita would feel so many conflicting feelings toward a person like Chege.

Chege is one of the most complex characters of all. Why did you choose not to show any scenes from his point of view?

In the end, this book is a love story. In life or in books, a love story belongs to two people—the story of how they come together, how they grow into one, the times they nearly fall apart, and how they stitch or snip the thread. Of course, in life as in books, it isn’t that simple. There will always be peripheral characters in our love stories—in-laws and exes and interlopers—woven into the tapestry. But the weavers—the tellers—are the lovers. This story belongs to Ita and Leda.

The orphans really come to life, right from the beginning. Did you know what their personalities would be from the very beginning or did they unfold as such throughout the course of your writing?

Michael and Ntimi I knew and loved long before I had the story in place. They were modeled loosely on a handful of children I’d gotten to know in Kenya. I lived with a family of six and spent time at three different orphanages. In addition, I grew up with a huge extended family, I teach photography inelementary schools, and am a proud aunt to my young niece and nephew. In short, I adore children and relate to them well. I’m especially fascinated by how personality shapes our lives from such an early age. If I closed my eyes, instantly I could picture Michael’s wide, serious eyes and Ntimi’s quick smile. I loved the contrast of those two and couldn’t wait to get to know them better. But Jomo was a surprise. Crafting his sad history, I came to understand how he mirrored Leda in so many ways, why they were drawn to each other, and how Ita’s gentle way with Jomo mirrored his relationship with Leda. Sometimes in life, we miraculously (though I like to think of it as destiny), manage to find the one person who can uniquely help make us into the best version of ourselves. If we let them, of course. Jomo and Leda share the same struggle—to accept Ita’s love. Jomo naturally took on much more prominence in the story, eventually coming to play a lead role in the book’s climax.

One of the various takeaways from this story is that morality is profoundly nuanced. Why was this theme important for you to explore?

I’m deeply troubled by things like infidelity and betrayal, even when it’s not happening to me. This book is really about inner demons—how one’s best intentions get derailed. As I contemplated the violence in Kenya and other world tragedies, I began to consider large-scale events in terms of individual morality. From afar, a thing like genocide seems like a collective monster. But isn’t it a collective of individual decisions? I found myself exploring the possibility that life experience coalesces into an individual making immoral choices, an idea I find as unnerving as it is explanatory.

In my thirties, as I contemplate daunting things like marriage, starting a family, seeing my parents age and relationships crumble around me, I find the idea of a gray, sliding scale of morality terrifying. I yearn to deny it, convince myself there is very simply a right and a wrong choice, a way to prevent precious things from being soiled or lost. But it was inescapable, writing about the thing that scares me the most: maybe there are no good or bad people, only people making good or bad decisions. I am interested to see what readers think about this.

Your first book, The Summer We Came to Life, is very different from this one. How did you progress to writing a love story from that story about friendship?

A fascinating thing about writing fiction has been seeing it align with the different stages in my life. My teen years were all about angst, my early twenties all about rebellion—separating from my parents and societal expectation and blazing an identity out of sheer, pigheaded obstreperousness (thankfully my writing from these two periods will never see the light of day!). I wrote The Summer We Came to Life when I was traveling the world and couldn’t wait to get back to my best friends. After I turned thirty, when I started What Tears Us Apart, I was back in Los Angeles, settled domestically, and wrapped in happy love. I was ready to tackle things outside of myself. The Summer We Came to Life was the right time in my life to write about friendships, finding yourself and standing on your own. What Tears Us Apart was the right time to write about love and war, and the war of love.

Share your thoughts and questions with Deborah Cloyed. Visit her on Facebook, at www.facebook.com/Writer.DeborahCloyed.