Chapter 3: L' Hopital
"Don't be a fool, Kem", her mother says gently from her hospital bed. Fabienne's skin was still a bit pale from her recent illness, but otherwise she looked quite young for someone who had recently celebrated her fifty-fourth birthday.
"He loves you. He came half a world away to be with you", she continues. "Such love however, will not last forever." She pauses and straightens out a wrinkle in her top bed sheet as she thinks of another way to get her daughter to open up to her.
"I know that it won't be forever", Kem says quietly as she bites pensively on her lower lip. "But, Maman, he doesn't need me to love him. There are other women there who love him…One woman who loves him", she said thinking about Abby Lockhart.
Although, John had never stated it directly, she knew that he and Abby had been a serious couple. Their body language, their familiarity, and especially the direct stares that she had received from Abby all pointed to one undeniable fact. She and John had once been in love.
This thought did not anger her as much as it brought home to her one salient fact. Abby Lockhart fit into John's world. She was comfortable in Chicago. In short, she belonged.
"Besides Maman, I don't belong in his world", she states as her voice breaks in a hopeless effort to control her tears. "I tried…," she says slowly between sobs, "…but I just don't…I can't understand the city and those people and his friends," she stops speaking, trying to regain some control over her emotions. "It is not my world. I belong in the Congo. I belong to my work", she says finally.
Her mother regards her silently for a second, and then arches an eyebrow and says, "Nonsense, Kem. Did you open your heart to his friends? To his city?" She pauses, carefully choosing her next words, "Kem, mon cher petite, as much as you may try the Congo is not your home."
She continues quickly before her daughter can object, "You were not raised in the Congo…in many ways it is as foreign to you as it is to me. I know that you love your father. I loved him too once. And I am impressed and proud that as a daughter you have decided to dedicate your life to his dreams. But he chose his path and he lived his life according to that choice. Your efforts so far have allowed you to fulfill part of his dream, but he would not want you to live his life as if it were your life," she says emphatically.
Kem is crying openly now, as her mother's words conflict and intermix with images of her father's smiling face…with images of his broken, lifeless body.
Her mother continues in a gentle yet firm tone, "You had dreams before he was murdered. You have a formidable education and mind that will enable you to make those ambitions into more than dreams, if you let them. Your father loved you. He would not have wanted you to make his life into yours. At some point, you must let go and you must live the life that you wanted before he died." Fabienne holds out her hand to her daughter. Kem hesitates for a moment, and then hurries to her mother's bedside where she knells and places her head on her mother's chest.
Fabienne gently strokes her daughter's smooth black hair as she says, "I do not know anything about this Chicago, but I do not believe that it is so different from London or Paris. If you want to fit there, you will fit."
She tilts Kem's face up to her own and lovingly caresses the line of her jaw before she asks, "Which life will you choose? Yours or your father's?"