Adelaide
Ford told me to forget about him.
As though it could ever be that easy.
Ever since we were sixteen years old, he’s always been at the back of my mind. Now, to have him so close—closer than we had ever dreamed of being as teenagers—then for him to just leave?
Ford said he was leaving to protect me.
But can’t he see that he’s hurt me now more than any boogey-man kidnapper ever could?
This isn’t the kind of hurt I can just patch up and fix either. Heartbreak isn’t like a broken bone—I can’t put a bandage on my chest and stop it from getting infected. There’s no salve to apply or medication to take.
I just have to deal with the pain and cross my fingers and hope that it ends soon.
It hurts so much, though. It’s as if my heart’s been smashed into a million tiny pieces.
But I should be used to it by now—after all, what does Ford ever do but break my heart and then leave me to pick up the pieces? I’ve survived through it once, and I can do it again. I need to be able to do it again because the people of the village need me.
I can’t—and I don’t—let my heartache show.
I make sure never to cry or to be angry in front of the villagers. They don’t need to know just how much I’m suffering.
Some of the women of the village can see it. But they’re the women who’ve lost husbands and sons, so they know better than to comment. They know that I’ll have to get through this on my own.
I wish there was a way I could make them all feel better, lift their spirits, too. I know in their own way, they’re grieving for Ford’s absence. He’s left a void in the village that nothing can fill.
He was strong and kind.
He had an open mind and a good heart. He helped when he had to.
I wish my new guard was half as kind or half as willing as Ford was. Oliver—and don’t call him Ollie—thinks that his duty begins and ends with the hospital doors. He has no time for the rest of the village and is downright rude when they come up to him.
The village boys approach the hospital, a half-inflated football in their hands and hope in their eyes.
“Do you want to come play with us, Ollie?”
“It’s Oliver,” he snaps instantly, and they recoil like a crocodile has bitten them. “No. I don’t want to play. My job is to protect Miss Johansen.”
He says the word ‘job’ as though it makes him better than these boys who’ve never had the opportunities, which, unfortunately, he himself takes for granted.
“Oh, go on,” I chime in, looking up from my desk. “If I need you, I can send someone. Or you’ll hear it if something happens.”
“With respect, Miss Johansen, I should never leave your side.”
“You’ll only be on the street, Oliver,” I remind him.
Silently, I’m begging for him to leave me alone for a minute. His presence in my surgery is oppressing to say the least.
“I’m not playing football,” Oliver says firmly, looking me dead in the eye as though I’m supposed to be intimidated by him. Then he turns to the boys, and without any softness in his voce tells them, “If you’re not here to see Doctor Johansen, you need to get out.”
I bite my lip as the as the kids leave, the light dropping from their eyes. I want to run out and apologize to them all for his behavior, but I’m rooted to my seat. I’ll find them all later or mothers and apologize then.
I hear a game start up in the street a few minutes later, and I can even see it from my window. But Oliver seems not to care.
“You could’ve been kinder, Oliver,” I say, looking at him angrily now that everyone is out of earshot.
“I’m not being paid to be kind, Dr. Johansen, and I’m not being paid to play football.”
“Kindness and manners cost nothing, and those boys don’t deserve to be treated like that.”
“Respectfully, you are my mission, Doctor,” Oliver says, as though that apologizes for his attitude and behavior and therefore, ends the conversation.
I don’t have the energy to fight him, so I suppose that it does.
But Ford would have played with them. Ford would even have let them win.
Instead, all Oliver does is stand there, watching me like a hawk as I treat patients. He’s unmoving and unmovable. If I need an extra pair of hands to hold something, he’ll shout for someone rather than step in himself.
If I’m brought to tears by the magnificence of human resilience, heart and spirit, Oliver is there in the corner, dry-eyed. He’s probably silently judging me for being such a ‘weak’ woman who cries so easily.
But I often feel that crying is better than feeling nothing.
The afternoon brings rain. A lot of rain, a deluge.
I should have been glad or relieved. The reservoirs will fill, and we can all have showers, and there’ll be some water for the cattle to drink, and the crops will thrive.
And of course, I’m glad, but I can’t find it in me to take to the streets with the people like before. I stand in the doorway of my hut, basking in the sight of happy villagers. It’s still warm, and the rain falls over the front of my hut and bounces off the dry earth.
It splashes the front of my legs and soaks my shins. It’s refreshing.
But when there’s rain, there’ll be insects, and I’m not sure if the village is ready for the wave of mosquitos and tsetse flies that will come in once the downpour stops. I know some people had been reporting holes in their nets, and the tsetse fly traps from the last downpour have all been used.
I should round up some of the boys now—after all, the weather is no good for football—and ask them to set out and get the cattle urine that we’ll need. But first, I turn to Oliver who’s been standing at the door of his tent, surveying the scene and then once again, watching me. Waiting to see what I’ll do next.
“Oliver, do you think you could help round up the local boys and get buckets of cattle urine for the tsetse fly traps?”
“Respectfully, Doctor, I don’t think I could,” he says almost instantly.
I sigh under my breath and shake my head. “Do you want to get bitten by tsetse flies and mosquitos, Oliver?”
“I’ve got my fly repellent and my mosquito net. I believe I’ll be fine, and you shall be, too.”
“And what about the rest of the village?” I ask.
I can’t believe he’s like this. Where was he when compassion was handed out?
“I’m not being paid to protect the rest of the village.”
I could almost be impressed with how stubborn Oliver is, if it weren’t for the fact he was completely in the wrong. If I ever need someone to back me up in an argument, I’ll call Oliver, but until then I wish he’d be a little bit more open to change.
Resilience really is an impressive trait, but I can’t help myself from thinking about Ford. Ford was stubborn, and he knew his own mind, but at least he wasn’t shallow and only concerned about money.
Ford knew that if he wanted to protect me, he had to protect this village, too. That women like Shani and her new son were just as important to me as my own my brother or parents—if not more so, since they don’t always have the power to help themselves.
“Please, Oliver, or I’ll go out there and do it myself, and then you might as well come with me,” I say, and Oliver shakes his head.
He even smirks because we both know that I’m bluffing. I could hardly lift a full bucket with two hands, let alone carry it from the fields to the village again.
Ford would have helped carry buckets in a heartbeat. He’d have been able to carry one in each hand and then probably could have lifted two more over his shoulders.
I stride out into the rain, ignoring Oliver’s shouts for me to come back lest I get wet, and I try to find the boys so that I can rally them.
And if the rain washes away my thoughts of Ford while I’m out here, I won’t complain.