"Okay, so I knead" -Jackie mimed the action— "like this?"
The woman, Afia, nodded her head enthusiastically as she kneaded her own dough on the large stove slash counter top, a pride of hers and the only one in the village made out of a solid grey stone that her husband, Dakarai had built for her. He had been injured in a mining accident miles away two years before and had broken his leg. It had not been set properly, and by the time he had returned home to the village a few weeks later, even Ebele, the village medicine woman, with her skilled hands could not undo the damage that had been done, and he had been left with a pronounced and painful limp.
Afia bent over and took out a handful of flour from the large sack stored neatly under the stone counter, sprinkling it on the counter top, then spread out the dough and pounded on it before using a rolling pin to flatten it.
Jackie copied her every action meticulously.
"Good! Good!" Afia praised her.
Jackie beamed. Cooking — or baking — had never been her forte and she usually detested spending time in the kitchen. But she had noticed that Eric did not care for ugali, a stiff cornmeal porridge, that was a staple starch component of the villagers' diet, though he adored chapatti and could devour a ton of the stuff. It was quite simply, flatbread, though they didn't so much bake it as cook it over a pan, and Jackie thought she'd try her hand at it, and prepare a decent meal for Eric for once.
She had grown quite close to Afia, for they were close in age, although Afia was happily married and already had three children aged three months to seven years old, and Jackie well, Jackie still couldn't quite figure her life out yet. Jackie was drawn to her sunny nature and sincerity, and had even picked up a smattering of Swahili from the time she spent together with her.
"Now, you put it on pan," Afia said, and showed her how to shift the dough to the hot pan.
Jackie did the same to hers and the wonderful smell of bread soon filled the air. She flipped it over to brown the other side then transferred it to a plate on the table. She stared at it, and nearly choked with emotion.
It was perfect.
She bounced on her feet gleefully and danced around the tiny cooking area as her very first attempt at making chapatti was a resounding success.
As it turned out, her accompanying stew though, was far from what she had envisioned it to be, though it was a decent attempt at a meal for the two of them.
The carrots were overcooked, so they were a little limp. The meat on the other hand was undercooked, so it wasn't as tender as she had hoped it would be.
It was still a fine attempt at a first meal, and she was giddy with excitement when Eric walked in after his morning at the school.
He looked tired; she saw that immediately. And those smudges under his eyes were getting worse by day. Her brow wrinkled briefly in concern.
A boyish grin split his face when he saw the meal she had so painstakingly laid out on the small table for the two of them. Jackie had found an empty Coke bottle that she used as a vase, and in that makeshift vase, she had stuck a single flower.
She skipped over to him. "Come, come. Sit!" she ordered, and tugged him over to the chair and forced him to sit. He sat.
He shook his head in wonder. "You cooked for me?"
"Yep," she said, spooning a ladle full of stew into a dish for him.
"You made chapatti for me?"
She giggled girlishly and wiggled her hands at him. "From scratch."
"You know I like chapatti?"
"Eric," she huffed, "I do notice what other people like or don't like at times you know." She lifted her shoulders in a slight shrug. "I'm not that self-centered," she said and shot him a tiny smile.
Grabbing a fork, she piled about half a dozen chapattis onto his plate and pushed it toward him. "Now eat up! You work too hard."
She kept up a non-stop stream of chatter as Eric shoveled food into his mouth. He had gone another night on two hours of fitful sleep before giving up; lacing up his track shoes instead and tried to run himself to the grave. But sitting there with her, eating her food, he relaxed as she told him about her day, complained about her overcooked carrots, smiled as she recounted what Afia's youngest did that morning, and fussed over him. He couldn't help the warm fuzzy feeling inside as he thought about how she had cooked for him, and that she had noted what he liked and did not like to eat.
They did the dishes together, outside in the slight shade that their hut provided, with a bucketful of water that Eric had hauled up from the village well and carried back for her. She hated getting her hands wet and soapy, so Eric washed and rinsed everything while she dried and put them away.
"It's a good thing I've soap," he said, and lowered his voice conspiratorially. "The other villagers use sand. If they know Mom sends me soap, I'll be the most sought-after man in the village. Girls of marriageable age will be lining at my door."
"For soap. Really," she said in the driest tones she could manage.
He raised an eyebrow at her. "Jackie, you've lots of hair. You'll marry a monkey if it could say 'I Do', if it was holding on to the last bottle of shampoo in the world."
"Huh. So you liken yourself to a monkey."
"No, I'm enlightening you to the mightiness of good, first world soap." He flicked some sudsy water at her. "Consider yourself enlightened."
She squealed and splashed him back with the soapy water.
It took twenty minutes to get the chore done, and they were both a whole lot wetter and soapier than they were when they started, but it was twenty minutes of mindless fun for the both of them.
When he laughed, she had startled for a second at the sound. Then a swell of warmth had hit her from head to toe as she realized that it was the first time she had heard him do so since she came. She rejoiced in it, in the moment, happy that it was she that was sharing it with him. Thus, she had concluded in her usual way that she must be good for him, but deep down inside was just deliriously happy that she was wanted here.
She hadn't been able to look away from him then, and had smiled up into his green eyes, which had been open and clear, and twinkling in merriment; and she committed their exact shade to memory.
Jackie was humming a soft tune as she helped Eric clean up after school on Friday.
He looked up from the papers he was gathering on his desk as she swept up and danced around with the broom in her hand. The past weeks had been good to her, and the spark that had been missing for the past year ever since her life fell to pieces around her had returned to her eyes.
She looked happy, and he felt something tug at his heart as she twirled around, the pale blue of her skirt flaring out gracefully at her knees. She had similarly colored ribbons in her hair today, which was up in a side ponytail that fell over her shoulder, and the lightness of the color contrasted beautifully with the rich black of her curls.
She stopped when she felt his stare and paused to lean on her broom. She tilted her head to the side and remarked, "Never thought the day would come when I'll actually be happy sweeping."
That prompted a laugh from him and she smiled, glad that she had that effect on him. She had begun to notice more and more differences between the Eric of before and the man that he was now. He smiled less and to hear him laugh was a rarity, though he definitely did more often now than the first few days when she was here.
Sometimes, when he wasn't aware that she was watching him, a haunted look would come into his eyes and he would stare into the distance, but never for long. She would always know the instant when he would pull himself forcefully back and his guard went back up, and he got himself firmly under rein once more.
She knew now that he managed on very little sleep at night, but she never called him out on it, though she worried about him from a distance. As the shadows under his eyes grew more pronounced, she couldn't help wondering if it was because of her presence that he wasn't sleeping well, but the one time that she tentatively sought to ask him if he was sleeping alright he gave her a strained smile and told her not to worry about it.
Eric was plagued by vivid dreams that were always in some way related to Ethiopia. They were now a nightly occurrence, and he was grimly afraid that one day Jackie would wake and see him in the middle of a raging nightmare. He worked himself harder than ever during the day, hoping against hope that through sheer physical exhaustion he would have just one night of dreamless sleep. But so far, his fears have proven unfounded, and Jackie slept like a baby night after night.
There was that one time when he hadn't gotten any sleep at all during the night — the nightmare had hit him hard as soon as he closed his eyes, and she had taken one look at him in the morning and hesitantly asked if she was the cause of his sleepless nights. She was, to a certain extent; he couldn't lie not six feet away from her and not imagine the curves of her body next to his the way he wanted it to be; she just wasn't the real reason for the dark hollows under his eyes. But it had saddened him nevertheless, that she had automatically assumed that she was the cause of his troubles, and he wondered if she would ever be free of the fetters that her destructive relationships with both Hyde and Kelso had laid on her.
He wanted her to be free, to be happy, to always be assured that she was loved no matter what and would never again be alone. To never have to tamp down on her natural inclinations or change who she was just to be secure of a man's love. And he wanted to be that man for her. He wanted to be the one to give it all to her.
"What's wrong, Eric?"
Her voice broke into his musings and the intensity of his gaze startled her. She took a step toward him, with an outstretched hand. "What's wrong, Eric?" she repeated.
Eric lowered his eyes. He hadn't realized that he had been staring at her. He gave a small shake of his head and went back to clearing his desk.
She reached the table and gently placed a hand on top of his, stilling his movements. "Eric."
He looked up then, and his eyes, when they found hers, were dark and brewing. She searched them earnestly, looking for answers and wishing she could read his thoughts.
But he said nothing, and revealed nothing. He blinked once, then twice, and she saw the shutters come back down, locking away his demons once again.
She swallowed her disappointment, and continued to hold his gaze.
"You know that I'm here for you don't you, Eric?"
He smiled at her choice of words, and ran the backs of his fingers down the satin of her cheek. His heart swelled with tenderness for her but it was difficult for him to accept what she was offering. He nodded once to appease her and she stepped back, somewhat satisfied, knowing that that was all she would get out of him at that moment.
It was difficult for him to accept what she was offering, because to Eric, it was much more than what he felt he deserved.