Danielle Steel - Bittersweet

“How soon do you leave?”

“I'll tell you as soon as I know. I suspect pretty soon.”

“Sooner than that,” Raoul told her. She had to get all her shots immediately. She was leaving in a week. She whistled when he told her. It didn't give her much time to get organized, but she knew what she had to do.

She called Doug right back, and told him. He saw no problem with it, and she thanked him again. They were like strangers to each other now. It was hard to believe they had been married for seventeen years. Their marriage had ended so abruptly and so completely. It made her wonder now how much he had ever cared, and how important she had really been to him. And she could only assume that Tanya was a lot better than she was at following his rules. She had never worked, India knew. Her husband was a doctor. And he had given her an enormous settlement when he divorced her to marry his nurse, so Tanya was financially independent, and wouldn't be a burden on him.

India told the children about her trip that night, and that their father would be staying with them. They were pleased about that, but they all groaned when they heard that Tanya and her children were coming with him.

“Do they have to?” Aimee moaned, while Jason looked horrified.

“I'm not staying here,” Jessica announced grandly. She was fifteen now. But she had nowhere else to go.

“Can I stay with Gail?” Sam moaned.

“No,” India said firmly. “You can all stay here, and be nice about it. Daddy is doing me a favor by staying here, so I can do the story. And if that's how it has to be, you have to live with it. It's only for three weeks.”

“Three weeks!” Everybody screamed in unison. “Why?”

“Because it's a long way to go. And that's how long it will take.”

They all took appropriate revenge on her by either not speaking to her, or arguing with her about everything they could think of, from what they wore to where they went to who they went with. And for the next week she was sick. The shots made her violently sick to her stomach, and gave her a fever. But she was willing to do anything she had to, to make the trip and do the story.

The night before she left, she took them all out to dinner, and they grudgingly agreed to be nice to Tanya, if they really had to. But they swore that none of them would talk to her kids.

“You have to be nice. For Daddy's sake,” she reminded them.

And that night, halfway through the night, Sam crawled into her bed. He had just turned ten. And Jason thirteen. Aimee was now twelve. But the only one who still slept with her from time to time was Sam. He was going to miss her. But she knew that, with Doug there, they'd be fine. Tanya had even called to tell her she'd take over her car pools, and it made India realize for the first time that she was probably going to stick around. It was strange to realize that Doug's life had moved on so completely. The waters had closed over her, but she didn't object to Tanya as much as her children did. They said that she was “creepy,” and talked to them like babies, and wore too much makeup and perfume. But from India's perspective, it could have been a lot worse. He could have wound up with some twenty-two-year-old bimbo who hated the kids, and at least Tanya didn't. She seemed to be a good sport about them.

They were moving in the day she left, and she had everything ready for them. Lists, and instructions, a week's worth of food in the refrigerator and the freezer. She would have frozen some microwave dinners too, but Doug had told her that Tanya loved to cook, and wouldn't mind cooking for the children.

And when the children left for school, India kissed all of them after making breakfast, and reminded them to be good. She had left emergency numbers, in case they needed them, but she had warned everyone that she would be hard to reach. The field hospital had a radio of some kind, and messages to her would have to be relayed through there. More than anything, she knew it would be hard on the kids not to talk to her. And on her as well. But at least she knew they were in good hands, and thanks to Doug and Tanya, they could stay home, and not have their lives disrupted.

She called Gail before she left, and asked her to keep an eye on things, and Gail wished her luck. As much as she hated to see her go, she knew it would do her good. It was only since she'd gotten the assignment in Africa that she had begun to look like herself again. It had been two months since Paul had left her. And ever since then, India had looked dead. And for all intents and purposes, she was, and felt it. Gail hoped that somehow the trip would bring her back. She would be so busy, and so far away, and so much at the opposite end of the world, that she wouldn't have anything to remind her of him.

India started the first leg of the trip with a noon flight to London. She was spending the night at an airport hotel there, and then flying on to Kampala, in Uganda, the next day. From there she had to take a small plane to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, and after that, she had to drive to Cyangugu, at the southern end of Lake Kivu, in a jeep through the bush. She left in blue jeans and hiking boots, with a down jacket, her old camera bag slung over her shoulder, and everything she was taking in one small tote bag. And as she left the house, she stopped for a minute, looked around, patted the dog, and prayed silently that everything would be all right till she got back.

“Take care of them for me,” she said to Crockett, as he looked at her and wagged his tail. And then, with a small smile of anticipation she walked out to the shuttle waiting to take her to the airport.

As it turned out, the trip was endless. And the last two legs of the trip were even worse than Raoul had said. The small plane from Kigali to Cyangugu was a tiny egg-crate that only carried two passengers, and there was hardly room for her one small bag. It bumped along terrifyingly, barely scraping over the top of the trees, and they landed in a clearing between some scrawny bushes. But the scenery was incredible, and she had already started shooting before they touched ground. The jeep they had promised her turned out to be an old Russian truck, and God only knew where they had found it, but it was obvious to her after half an hour, that wherever they had found it, it had been abandoned by its previous owners because it no longer worked. And the half-hour drive turned out to be two and a half. They had to stop every half hour to fix the truck, or push other stalled vehicles out of die mud. She was becoming an expert with spark plugs and a jerry can by the time they were halfway there.

They had assigned her a South African driver, and he had come with a New Zealander, who had been in the area for three years. He said he loved it and explained a lot to her about the tribes in the area, mainly Hutu and Tutsi, and where the children had come from who were in the field hospital where they worked.

“It'll make a hell of a story,” he assured her. He was a good-looking young guy, and it depressed her to realize he was probably half her age. In this part of the world, you had to be young to be willing to put up with the hardships. At forty-four, she was practically an old lady compared to the other people on the team. But she was only staying for three weeks.

“Where do you get your supplies from?” she asked, as they bumped along. It was long after dark by then, but both he and the driver had assured her it was safe. The only thing they had to worry about, they said, was the occasional elephant or tiger. But they were both carrying guns, and had promised they were good shots.

“We get our supplies from anywhere we can,” he said, answering her question, as they rattled along in the darkness.

“Hopefully not the same place you got the truck.”