September 6, 2010
He doesn't see her at first.
It's not surprising, the sun, this close to the equator, all but blinds him with her greedy rays that send heat waves shimmering across the sand. He shields his eyes as he hops down from the truck, his hiking boots displacing a bit of star-bright sand as he does. Everything sparkles, it hurts his eyes. And he's already so dehydrated he's unsure how Addie survives here.
He nods his thanks to the driver (he recently encountered the language barrier for the first time) and hands him a couple twenties, causing the man to regard him with awe. He's already walking away, though, shouldering his bag as he moves toward the small village, part small thatch huts, part messily erected tents placed haphazardly over the sand. It's bigger than Addie described, partially, he suspects, because of the sudden overflow of refugees and the accompanying increase in doctors.
As he approaches the village, he gives up on searching for strawberry amongst licorice and vanilla amongst mocha in the dazzling sun and instead watches the women's figures. Most have a child or two hanging from their painfully skinny hips, held there by bright strips of cloth. He searches for Addison's slender, childless form in vain and decides she must be elsewhere, perhaps caring for patients.
People start up yells when he is spotted, foreign tongues hurled at him in what he hopes are friendly tones, but just in case he holds up his hands and declares himself a doctor. Apparently at least a few of them speak English because they send up more glad cries and hurry him into the village.
Many faces turn, proud, carved, exotic features tracking his every step, but it is the boy's face, tanned bronze but pale in comparison to those standing around him, the rare splash of ocean blue irises in a field of russet, that catch his attention. He's pointing, head cocked to the side, clearly curious and he turns to address someone Derek can't see.
Then his eyes meet Addison's.
He gets about a millisecond of wide teal eyes, sun-burnished red hair, chapped pink lips opened wide in shock before he's jostled by eager villagers what is to be his tent (shared with someone else, apparently, he sees a need pile of unfamiliar bags in one corner and so dumps his in the other) and then exits once again as soon as is polite.
She's standing just where he left her and the pale flush looks odd on a face tanned by a year in the relentless sun. There's a man by her side, chatting with a smaller woman (also doctors, he suspects) but he keeps throwing Addison anxious glances, as if unsure whether she's going to collapse.
There's a child on her hip too, held in a bright-patterned sling anchored on her right shoulder. He has coal curls, the ends of which have been lightened by the sun, and he's small but not malnourished, a little uncoordinated at what he estimates to be three years of age. His eyes are the same at second glance and third and fourth, the same skysail blue he's seen in the mirror for more than forty years.
"Derek," she says with something almost like anguish in her whisper. Activity still reigns around them but they stand suspended in time and sorrow and memories lost, trying to find their footing in a relationship that has hovered near the edge of destruction for years. She's in dirty khakis and a forget-me-not blue tank top that shows off shoulders freckled by the constant radiance.
"Addison." It's not a question, not even a statement, merely the only thing he can say, because if that boy is his – if he's not dreaming up pseudo-likenesses – he doesn't know what he's going to say to her. She stares at him for another brief iota of time before turning (he notices her feet are bare, just like the villagers') and weaving through the cacophonous crowd, deeper into the village.
He follows, a lost man seeking answers.
He's seen this hut in her meticulous descriptions, but even with her words to guide him he could never know how the humidity felt, clogging his nostrils, or how it felt to live inside a mosquito net, something she must be accustomed to but he has to remember to put back in place. She sits on the cot, child in her arms.
"He's mine," Derek sighs. "Isn't he?"
"Yes."
Her answer is blunt, but it hurts more to be beaten to death by a blunt club than stabbed once by a sharp sword, and he raises his defenses in response. "Were you ever going to tell me? Let me meet him?"
"I don't know."
Addison's simple answers, a clear indication that she's shutting down, are infuriating him. All this time he's been apologizing, trying to convince her to trust him, while she's been hiding this pivotal, wonderful, poisonous secret.
The boy is staring at him, he sees a bit of Nancy in the shape of his face, the set of his cheekbones.
"He's my son. I had a right to know. I have a right to know. I come all the way out here to prove to you that I love you and I want to try again and I find out you've been lying to me for four years!"
"Technically, we've only been talking for one."
"God dammit, Addison! That's all you have to say?" He's on his feet, pacing, sweat pouring from his pores. Addison has distracted their baby with a toy, but his wide eyes follow Derek, tearing a bit with fear. He doesn't even know his son's name.
"You were getting married! Living your happily ever after with your intern. A child, by me especially, would have ruined that, and you know it. If Meredith had found out, she would have been gone before you could blink. And even if she didn't, the secret would have come out eventually, when we least expected it, like it is right now. Is that what you wanted? You would have hated me."
He deflates, because the things she's saying are stinging him with truth. Neither of them are in the right, here, neither one is blameless. His eyes land on his son. His son. "What's his name?"
"Christian," she replies softly. "I thought about Christopher, but that would have been a little … obvious, I guess, if your mother and sisters ever found out. Of course, he looks just like you, so it wouldn't have mattered. Some of his friends here call him Christos."
"Momma?" Christian prompts, upon hearing his name. He points one tiny finger at Derek. "Who dat?"
"This is Derek. He's … well, he's your Dad, buddy. Can you say hello?"
He can tell the boy doesn't understand, because his face doesn't glow with sudden joy or relief or revelation, instead he toddles curiously to Derek's side to regard him once Addison's given him permission. "Hi Dadek."
"Derek," he and Addison correct at the same time, but Christian takes no notice. Instead he hands Derek a slim plastic tube, covered in dust.
"Um, thanks, little man," Derek says uncertainly, while across the space Addison bites her lip to keep from laughing. He holds the tube awkwardly until Christian takes it back with a grin, unscrews the top and squirts a large white blob of moisture onto his leg. "Whoa!"
"Christian has a thing about sunscreen. The last person he tried to put it on was an elephant," she says apologetically as she hands him a paper towel.
"Are you calling me an elephant?" he jokes, and for a second they're back there, two med students dating, newlyweds still in love who tease and laugh and kiss at every available opportunity.
"Maybe," she says coyly before plucking the sunscreen from Christian's hands. "He doesn't like to talk much, you know, but he's really smart. And he's good with animals – they all love him, I call him my little zoologist," she ruffles his curls affectionately. "He was born premature, when I was only twenty-eight weeks along, and his first word was 'Na', for Auntie Nae. He doesn't have an imaginary friend, but he talks to Dora the Explorer like she's not in a cartoon world with a creepy fox. The heat makes him tired, but he still goes out to check on all his pets."
"He's amazing. I missed a lot," he breathes. "His first step, his first smile -"
"Derek …"
"I would have wanted to know, Addison."
"I'm sorry."
"That doesn't – that can't make up for everything I've missed! We wrote letters to each other for a year! I've been broken up with Meredith for months now, and you couldn't find a spare moment in all that rambling about some guy you kissed and all the babies you saved to tell me I have a son!"
"Sun is out dere, Dadek," Christian contributes.
"Look, Derek, I …" she's scrambling now, desperate, it reminds him of the time he caught her in her first act of betrayal. "This wasn't how I wanted things to work out …"
"How did you expect them to go? What should I have said – 'Oh, I have a son, really, Addison? Well, that's just dandy, thanks for finally telling me!'"
"Don't be like this, Derek, please -"
"Don't Derek me!"
"Then stop! I made a judgment call about our child because you weren't there."
"You took him to Sudan. Sudan! Sudan, Addie! There've been wars and genocides and diseases – he could have died!"
"He didn't though, Derek. He's fine. I've -"
"You told me there were grenades! That the village was fired on! What the hell compelled you to stay here with him?"
"They have a place for the children to go," she replies defensively. "Adults can't fit, but someone always takes the kids there the minute we hear something. It's underground and completely safe. So don't imply I can't take care of my son. Terrible things happen to kids everywhere. I'm not a bad mother, Derek."
"Really? Well that's news to me!" he snaps, striding angrily out of the tent and becoming entangled in the mosquito netting. Figures dart out of his sight at the corners of his vision, and he knows they had an audience.
She follows him, pleading, and he flashes back to another night, a time with rain instead of sun, clouds instead of blue skies, nosy neighbors instead of desperate villagers. It still feels the same, the burning shame of betrayal. "Derek, please!"
He skips ahead a little in the story. "I can't look at you," he says, and watches her crumple.
"Where we going, Mommy?" Christian asks, pulling his knees to his chest as he watches her throw their belongings into a suitcase that has collected so much dust nobody would ever guess it had once been sleek and black. Her son has been through emotional turmoil today, and he has retreated into himself, a habit that's developed, she's convinced, because he grew up without a father. She wants to comfort him, but he needs her to get his father back.
"We're going home, baby," she tells him as she tosses the last of their shirts, a striped polo (that also used to be white) and a stretchy yellow t-shirt, into the suitcase, and hears an ancient truck rumble outside, flooding the hut with fragments of light that spill through the cracks.
"Yay! Dora the 'Splora!"
Yeah, I said there would be no more ANs, but I lied, because I thought everyone would be a little confused/surprised about Christian. But he's been in the story the whole time – he's the reason for her too many suitcases in chapter 1, why she has two cots in her hut in chapter 3, he's the curly haired boy in chapter 5 with the elephant, why she glances across the hut after her 'dream' in chapter 9, he's the boy standing by her in chapter 10, he's why Addison's worried about doing it (parenting) alone when the other practice members leave in chapter 11, who she's looking for in chapter 12 when they are hit by grenades, and, of course, the child who said 'Momma' last chapter. So he's been here :)
