Vain (17 page)

He placed his hand on my shoulder and held fast. “She needs affection.”

“I’m not doing it right,” I told him, beyond panicked then.

“Yes, you are,” he reassured me.

Dingane sat beside me against the aluminum partition and an instant calming sensation washed over me. I knew I could do it. I knew if Dingane was there to help me that I could help Mandisa. So we stayed silent for what seemed like hours and all I could wonder was if I had it in me to calm a toddler who’d just lost her mother, who refused to eat and was a complete stranger. I wondered if her life would always be teeming with the strife she so obviously struggled with. I wondered if she would continue to starve herself with grief, or if we’d be able to feed her through a tube. I wondered if she would ever be a normal child again. I wondered if she would even make it to adulthood, or if she would forever be lost to the cruel world she had already been subjected to at such a young age. I wondered about the practical and impractical and while I pondered her young life, she calmed down. She stopped crying and held on to me tightly.

I turned toward
Dingane and felt his relief as well. We were a silly lot, the three of us, burrowed underneath that aluminum serving line, but despite what it appeared to the outside world, we had just conquered a mountain.

Dingane
shimmied out of our cozy spot, but I was hindered by toddler so he dragged me out by my hips and practically lifted the two of us off the ground in one fell swoop, sending shivers down my spine.

“That was impressive,” I deadpanned.

“Thank you,” was all he replied, making me smile.

I followed
Dingane into the kitchen and he removed my food, dumping it into a pot to reheat it for me. I tried to hop onto the counter with Mandisa in my arms but failed miserably.

Dingane
rolled his eyes and easily lifted Mandisa and me easily onto the counter. My cheeks flamed when he touched my waist, but he didn’t seem to notice, too engrossed in stirring it seemed. I watched him in that moment and was overcome with attraction. It felt so wrong to focus on the boy before me when I held a very needy girl in my arms, but I couldn’t help it. I turned my face away from him and brought Mandisa closer to me, laying my cheek on her head the way I’d seen Sav’s mom do it a thousand times before.

CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
 

“Mercy’s back today,” Dingane told Karina at lunch.
“I was wondering when she’d be back,” I stated.

It’d been over a week since we’d seen Mercy
, and Dingane and I’d taken over the laundry duties while she’d been gone. I wasn’t wondering, really, I was dying for her to come home. Teaching all day and doing laundry all night was becoming unbearable, even Dingane was complaining and he never complained, ever.

“Where’d she go?” I asked
.
“South Sudan. She’s family there. She was checking on them.”
“Isn’t that rather dangerous?”
“Yes,” Dingane answered shortly.
“Okay,” I sang.
“He tried to convince her not to leave, but she wouldn’t listen. Her aunt’s been sick for months,” Karina explained.
“Oh, I see.”

Mercy chose that moment to walk through the eating hall and waved at me. I waved enthusiastically, unsure if I was happy to see her because I wouldn’t have
any more laundry to do, or if it was because she was back safe and sound. I frowned into my plate. When she approached I found myself jumping up and hugging her.
Huh, guess I sincerely missed her.

Over the last few weeks,
Dingane and I had intermittently examined those parts where we suspected the soldiers had stalked us from. We hadn’t seen any sign of boot prints since that first day, but Dingane refused to relax.

“Can you not calm down for a few moments?” I’d asked him at the time.

“Do you not remember the village?” he asked me in answer.

That was the end of that.
Dingane and I had come to an understanding of sorts. I kept as quiet as possible, did my work and he would tolerate me. But after those first few weeks, I’d grown tired of submission so I showed him what I was capable of. I showed him I had enough initiative, enough industry, to strike out. I was also, simultaneously, recognizing something in myself I didn’t know could exist.
I was worth more than the sex I’d defined myself with.
Yet Dingane still treated me with latent disdain.
The child survivors of the village were adjusting swimmingly apart from a few minor hiccups here and there, but nothing we couldn’t handle. Charles, Karina, the rest of the staff and I were becoming great friends. I was truly falling in love with them and my purpose for being there, which I discovered was more than just serving a sentence.

I was
learning Bantu, not enough to hold a conversation but enough to ask the younger ones if they needed to use the restroom, if they were hungry, etc.
Mandisa had started eating again thanks to Dingane and me. After our powerful breakthrough in the kitchen, she’d warmed up to me though I hadn’t any idea why at the time, but Karina helped me see that Mandisa chose who she thought could help her the best and she felt that was me. Who was I to argue? If I could help, I was going to. She’d gained almost seven pounds in two weeks. Mandisa had even taken to occasionally sneaking into my hut late at night and sleeping with me. I wouldn’t have admitted this to anyone but she was my favorite.
 

A week after Mercy came
back, Dingane and I had to make another patrol near the watering hole. After classes, we got into his truck and headed that way.

“Oliver’s drivi
ng me nuts,” I told the window.

“He drives us all nuts.”

I laughed. “He’s too smart for our lessons.”

“I know this.”

“So why don’t we alter his curriculum accordingly?” I asked.

“That’s a fine idea,” he conceded too easil
y.

I sat up a bit and stared at him
in shock. “What? No argument?”

He only rolled his eyes.

“No, seriously. No argument? No telling me ‘you’ve got this’ or dismissing me? I must confess, I suspect I’m living in an alternate universe.” I pretended to check out the window. “Nope, pigs aren’t flying.”

“
Har, har.” He sighed, parking the truck.
He leaned over and removed his pistol from the glove compartment. I got out, not wanting to be anywhere near it. I had a healthy respect for guns. Very healthy.

“You’re scared of
it,” he proclaimed to the wind.

“I’m not,” I said, moving to the other side of
him, the side without the gun.

“After we check things
out, you’re going to shoot it.”

My mouth dropped open
to my chest. “Absolutely not!”

He stopped short and grinned at me. “You absolutely are. I can’t have you frightened of it. What
if there’s occasion to use it?”

“I’ll never have
need to hold it, much less use it.”

“Don’t be naive, Sophie.”

“I won’t need to know.”

“This is a ‘just in case’ kind of situation. Once I teach you how to aim and shoot it, I won’t
ever ask you to use it again.”

“Fine,” I grit
ted, continuing on without him.

I could hear him snicker below his breath behin
d me. “It’s not funny,” I sang.

“I beg to differ. This is going to be delightful for me.
”
I deliberately walked faster.

“Stop,” he said, catching up. “I’ll s
top teasing. Just stay near me.”

I obeyed but didn’t acknowledge him. We searched the entire watering hole and found no evidence that anyone was there. We rounded the entire bit of land and were nearing the truck. I made a mad dash toward it, hoping he’d have somehow miraculously forgotten our less
on, but there was no such luck.

“Wrong way, Sophie,” I heard him say. I stopped, disrupting the dirt beneath my feet and turned around, slightl
y winded.

“You can’t be serious.”

“I’m deadly serious. Now, follow me.”
He led me toward a covered area and found a thick rotting stump, picking it up as if it weighed nothing and setting it against a still-standing tree.

“This is your target,” he said, checking the barrel and un
loading the gun of all bullets.

“Why are you removing the bullets
if this is a shooting lesson?”

“Because there are a few rules you need to recognize first
, and I think you’d be more comfortable holding an unloaded gun.”
He was right.

“Okay,” he continued, “first rule’s you always handle a gun as if it’s loaded, even if you know it’s not.”
He handed me the gun and I reached for it with a shaking fist. I took it and held it in my palm.

“It’s heavy.”

“In more ways than one.”

“What next?” I asked, staring at the cold piece o
f metal laying flat in my hand.

He
fixed my grip and pointed the gun down. His hands were warm and my breath caught a little. “Next rule,” he said, “always keep a firearm pointed in a safe direction,” he explained softly. “If you accidentally fired it, we’d want the bullet to avoid others.”

“Okay,” I wheezed.
He removed his hand from mine and I found I could breathe more easily.

“Next. Always keep your finger off the trigger and outside the trigger guard,” he said, pointing to the section of metal that protected the trigger. “Until you’ve made a conscious decision to shoot, kee
p that finger off the trigger.”

I nodded and gulped. His finger barely touched mine
, but the world seemed to have disappeared around us. His breaths matched mine, but I was positive he was only nervous about teaching me how to shoot.

“Anything else?”
I asked, breaking the trance.

Dingane
shook his head and stuck his hands in his pocket. “Yeah, uh, where was I?”

“Trigger.”

“Yeah, uh, next rule is to always be aware of your target, backstop and beyond. Make sure with one hundred percent certainty that your line of fire is clear of people and property. Don’t take anyone’s word for it. You’re the only one responsible if something should happen, so make sure it doesn’t.”

“Sounds good.”

“Okay.”

“Okay, what?”

“Check, Sophie.”

“Oh!” I exclaimed, realizing what he meant.

I handed him the gun and circled my target, recognizing that nothing laid beyond my line of fire for miles besides grass and the occasional tree. I returned to Dingane’s side. He handed me the weapon once more and I pointed it toward the ground carefully and made sure my fingers were nowhere near the trigger.

“It’s clear,” I told him.

Dingane physically twisted my body toward my target stump then stood beside me.

“Since this is your first time shooting, I’d recommend you hold the gun with both hands.”

I positioned my hands the way I thought I’d seen guys on TV held it. “Like this?”

He laughed. “No, uh, like this,” he said, grabbing both my hands and positioning them properly. “You should always grip high on the
backstrap. This’ll allow you leverage when the gun fires and it’ll prevent it from recoiling into your body.” My hands started to shake a little and he steadied them with his. “Your other hand should rest on top of this hand, right under the trigger guard and cup the back of your trigger hand.

“You’ll need to stand with your feet and hips at shoulder width,” he explained, moving close behind me, flush with the back of my body, sending electric shock
s careening through to my toes.

I spread my feet apart and stood still, staring at my target.
Dingane didn’t say a word but slowly used his feet to spread my own a little farther apart. My breath hitched in my throat.

“Comfortable?” he whispered i
n my ear.