A. Homes - May We Be Forgiven

“He’s not doing well,” Ricardo says. “Does anyone have a de-frigerator?”

The driver is still in the car, paralyzed by fear.

Ashley’s scream has now turned from a piercing shriek into a high-pitched wail — as though she’s summoned all the pain, the grief of Jane’s death. She’s on the side of the road, keening, truly hysterical, and I’m not sure what to attend to first. “You killed my babies,” she wails again and again.

The hijackers are thoroughly perplexed; they get back into their car and speed away. We wait until they are far gone, and then Nate and I pick up the babies and go to Ashley, who is having a hard time calming down. Nate shows her the dolls. “Look,” he says. “They’re all right. Here, hold them.” He puts the dolls in her arms. Ashley’s breathing is shallow; she’s wild-eyed, like she doesn’t quite know where she is. I get the paper bag that the dolls came in. “Breathe into this,” I say, crumpling the opening into a mouthpiece and putting it to her lips.

“That was amazing,” Ricardo says, “and really scary.”

We all nod. And when Ashley has caught her breath, we go back to the car.

Our driver is still at the wheel, silent tears streaming down his face.

“Do you have a spare tire?” I ask.

He nods. We quickly change the tire and drive off — shaken.

“It’s very common,” Nate says. “Hijacking. Sometimes they take the car, sometimes they just want money.”

“You were very lucky,” the driver says. “Sometimes they want rich white people too.”

“Are you okay?” I ask Ashley.

She nods but says nothing.

“What you did was pretty amazing. Where did that idea come from?”

“TV,” she says. “You know how the TV was always on in our house.”

“Yes,” I say.

“Well, I always used to see these crying ladies, mamas and aunts, and it made me feel so sad and scared. They’d be standing in their doorways sobbing while a reporter tried to push his way in, or they’d be at some candlelight vigil where they’d fall to the ground. I don’t know,” she says. “It just kind of came over me.”

“You did a very good job,” I say.

“Like Academy Award — winning,” Nate says.

“I can’t believe that happened,” Ricardo says. “And we all just leapt to action, like superheroes, like guys in the movies.” He smiles broadly. “Did you like when I asked for the de-frigerator?”

I keep replaying the event in my head; the more I think about it, the more traumatized I am. I look at the children — they seem fine, as though they don’t fully realize how wrong that could have gone. I think about what might have happened and know that in a blink I would have done anything to protect the children. For the first time I’m aware of how bonded to them I’ve become, how attached.

At the airport, my mood starts to sink. I am still upset about the attempted kidnapping and worried about going home. How do we maintain the sense of hope and possibility, the feeling of not holding back that infused our trip up until now? I’m suddenly filled with dread and wondering if it’s just me. We have done so well outside of our home — outside of ourselves, up against a world so much bigger than we are. We banded together, working as a team, and I worry what will happen when we get home, when all bets and expectations are off.

The flight from Durban to Johannesburg is fine, and as we prepare to board our plane home, the children, still riding high, rush to buy last-minute things: Simba chips, sparkling lemonade, as though they will never see South Africa again. Johannesburg is like a transfer station for all humanity; fortunately, once again Sofia arranged for a people minder to shuttle us from one plane to the other.

I think of the house, of George and Jane. I know I am overtired, but it’s like I am seeing it, feeling it all again, or maybe more like feeling it for the first time. Suddenly it is all alive for me, it is all right there, in gory detail, to be touched. It seems unreal — I can’t believe it happened, I can’t believe it was earlier this year and that we are now in a South African airport, waiting.

I think of what Londisizwe said about releasing what lives inside and realize that I did not drink my noontime tea. I will ask for hot water as soon as we’re on board the plane. I think of Londisizwe, of the foul smell that escaped — the children laughing as I writhed in pain. “Very good,” Londisizwe said the morning after the first dose, when I told him how ill I felt. “It is good that you feel sick — that is just the beginning of what is inside of you. … But you felt it,” he says, happily slapping my shoulder. “That means you are not dead.”

I am feeling it again at the airport; bile rises in my throat, tasting like a combo of fermented leaves and animal shit. I swallow it; it burns hot and sour going back down.

“Whose child is this?” A customs agent points to Ricardo.

“Ours,” Nate says.

“I am their brother,” Ricardo says.

I take out the letter from his aunt and give it to the agent, who calls another agent over. They ask me if I have a phone with international calling. I say yes and hand it to them so they can call the aunt, who says that Ricardo has not been kidnapped. Satisfied, the officer asks Ricardo if he had a good time in South Africa. “Did you ride on an elephant?”

“No.”

“Bungee off a cliff?”

“No.”

“What did you do?”

“I played soccer,” he says.

“Good on you,” the agent says, smiling, flashing loose tobacco bits in his teeth, as he hands back our passports and gives each of the children a small piece of hard candy, just the size you could choke on, which I immediately confiscate.

Our arrival in New York is delayed by thunderstorms; we circle the airport for what seems like hours and then land in Boston for gas and fly back to Kennedy. I text the pet minder from the tarmac at Logan to say we’re delayed. He writes back, oddly chipper, “We are ready and waiting, looking forward to welcoming you.” Something about his tone makes me nervous. “Everything okay?” I ask. “Just dandy,” he texts back. Oh no. …

Landing in New York, I feel a kind of flat-footed relief that we are back in the land of Mets and Yankees, of traffic and abrasive people.

The United States Customs agent asks me to open my suitcase.

“Where are your clothes?” he asks.

“I gave them away,” I say.

“Are you opening a business?” he quizzes, looking through all the merchandise acquired.

“No, I took three kids on a trip, and this is the stuff they got; there was no room for clothing.”

“Why didn’t you just buy another suitcase?”

“Didn’t want another suitcase.”

“You want to hold my babies?” Ashley asks the agent.

“Did you know that in South Africa they sell the clothing that we put in the recycle bins in church parking lots?” Nate says. “You think you’re donating your old clothes to needy people in this country, but your clothing is being sold to impoverished people for profit.”

“Guess it was like an educational trip,” the customs man says, closing my bag and pushing it towards me for a zip-up.

“Fact-finding mission,” Ashley says.

“I almost got circumcised,” Ricardo offers. “I still want to but he said no.” Ricardo gestures to me like I’m the bad guy.

“TMI,” the man says, stamping our passports and urging us on.

“What does TMI mean?” Ricardo asks.

“It means some things are private,” Nate says.

We walk outside, the heat smacks us down. The transition from the oxygenless chill of the airplane to an eggs-on-the-sidewalk broiler is too abrupt, we are instantly sticky and cranky.