I had no idea how to cope or even order my resultant feelings.
Perhaps I shouldn’t waste energy on feeling anything at all. Not yet. Not until we’re alone. Not until we’re safe. .
“Fe?”
“We’re almost to Cameroon?”
“Yes . . . at least we should be.”
“What does that mean? We should be.”
“It means Cameroon is south of Nigeria and we’ve been driving long enough that we should be there soon.”
“Wait a minute . . .” I glared at him then searched the Jeep once more, my hands coming to my waist, searching for my tool belt. “Where is my belt?”
“I took off all your gear. It’s on the floor behind you.”
“Are you using GPS?” I twisted in my seat, searching the floor for my belt.
“No.”
“What about the phone? I had a satellite phone on my belt.”
“The phone is dead.”
“Did you grab my gear bag? I left it on the trail. It has a solar charger for the phone.”
“How could I have grabbed your bag? I didn’t know you had a bag.” He said this through clenched teeth.
“Well, you would have known if you hadn’t drugged me.”
“I wouldn’t have drugged you if you had just listened to me.”
Now I was clenching my teeth too. I closed my eyes and breathed through my nose. I needed to think.
“A map?” I opened my eyes and searched the glove box, feeling for a map.
“No. No map.”
I stared at my husband, dawning comprehension like a slap to the face, my self-imposed control and prohibition on feeling starting to fracture. “You have directions?”
His hands opened and closed on the peeling vinyl of the steering wheel. I could tell he was biting back a sarcastic retort. “No, Fe. Not in the way you mean.”
The interior of the car grew eerily silent. I don’t think I was even breathing.
I swallowed, knowing the answer before I asked, “A compass? Do you have a compass?” My voice cracked on the second compass.
He didn’t respond, instead pressing his lips together. His lack of response was his answer. The situation was officially ridiculous and I was losing my mind.
At length, unable to suppress panicked hysteria any longer, I blurted into the silence, “BEANS!”
He started. I’d obviously surprised him, and he gave me the side-eye. “Beans?”
“Magic beans. Please tell me you traded a cow, map, and compass for magic beans. We’ll climb the bean stalk and triangulate our location from the clouds.” I was laughing by the time I finished, holding my empty stomach.
“Oh, this is funny to you?”
“Yes. This is funny.” I continued to laugh, and if I were more hydrated I would have been wiping tears from my eyes. “This is fucking hilarious.”
“I know exactly where we are.”
“Right,” I nodded, the single word dripping with sarcasm. I reopened the canteen and took another sip. “Right, right, right. Just like when we took the kids to Disney World and ended up in that swamp.”
“I wasn’t lost. I was just free of societal notions of the names of the places where I was. It was a shortcut.”
“Why couldn’t you have asked for directions? Would it kill you to get directions?”
“I didn’t need directions.”
“Not then, Greg. Now. Ask for directions now.”
The dam broke on his temper. “Who the hell would I ask? The giant jungle snails? Do you want me to water-board it out of them?”
“No, no, no. No CIA torture jokes allowed. Not when my training is the only reason you are sitting here, with me, and not back in that cell.”
“I don’t need directions. Like I said, I know exactly where we are.”
“That’s right. I forgot. You and the aboriginal speakers of Guugu Yimithirr were both born with an infallible innate sense of direction.”
“The gugu-what?”
“One of Janie’s factoids.” I waved my hand in the air. “It’s a language with no word for left and right, up and down, behind—that kind of thing. So kids grow up with north, south, and southeast in terms of directional cues. They have to be aware of their position as it relates to the earth at all times from a very young age, so they grow up with an extremely strong sense of direction.”
“Oh . . .” He nodded, obviously considering my words. “We should do that with Grace and Jack.”
“What?” My single word question arrived sharp, impatient, and incredulous.
“We should make them describe things in terms of north, east, and etcetera. Think of how valuable of a skill that is, to have an infallible innate sense of direction.”
He was serious.
He wasn’t joking. He was serious and he thought this was a good idea.
The fire ants in my brain were back. How could he possibly think this was good idea? It’s not like raising the kids on my own wasn’t already difficult enough. Now he wanted me to remove prepositions from their vocabulary?
I huffed. Loudly. Not just loudly, obnoxiously.
“What was that? What is that sound you’re making? Are you deflating? Have you sprung a leak?”