It was Sunday afternoon at the Anderson house on Elderberry Lane in River Oaks. All the leaves were in the table to accommodate the additional family members and friends. It reminded Michele of a scene from a Hallmark holiday movie, minus the Christmas decorations. A little early for that in mid-September.
All the Andersons were present, except Uncle Henry and Aunt Myra and Michele’s husband, Allan, who technically wasn’t an Anderson. Michele missed him terribly. She was becoming less a fan of his short-term mission trips to Africa. For one thing, she hated being so disconnected. When he was home, they talked every day; he would even call her at lunch.
She looked toward the far end of the table, the place where Uncle Henry and Aunt Myra usually sat in big family gatherings. They were traveling out West on a two-month trip in their little RV. But Charlotte was there, sitting next to her mom, talking up a storm. Her New England accent in full bloom.
At the other end of the table next to her father sat Audrey Windsor, looking regal and refined, as always. Michele thought she looked like a character straight out of Downton Abbey. She had come earlier to talk with Michele’s dad about something, but Michele didn’t know what. Whatever it was, it put an interesting smile on her dad’s face. She also noticed he kept looking down the table at her big brother, Tom.
Michele was sitting in the midsection of the table, next to Doug and across from Jean, Tom’s wife. Tom sat next to her and was busy feeding the baby. Michele and Jean had become close friends over the past year. Even though Michele envied Jean’s ability to get pregnant so easily, she loved her dearly. Jean was totally on her side and very sympathetic toward Michele’s situation. She knew how much getting pregnant mattered to Michele and told her she prayed for her every day.
“So Tom,” Michele said, “how are you liking your new job? How’s it feel to be an IT guy again?” Over the last year, Tom had finished his schooling and finally got his coveted IT certification. He hadn’t found an IT job until a few weeks ago.
“It feels great,” he said. “It’s taken a little getting used to working eight to five again. Especially having to put a tie on every day.”
“But he’ll get used to it just fine,” Jean added.
Tom smiled. “Yes, I will. But I miss working at the Coffee Shoppe. It was a totally different atmosphere than any job I ever had. If only it paid more, I might have considered staying.”
“Was it a big difference?” Michele asked.
“A huge difference,” Jean said. “Almost double the pay.”
“Wow.”
“And,” Tom added, “at the ninety-day mark, we’ll get full benefits. So yeah, I can get used to this again.”
“How far do you have to drive every day?”
“Twenty minutes. Way better than when I worked at the bank. Now I miss the rush hour traffic completely.”
“Allan hates driving in bumper-to-bumper traffic,” Michele said. “Maybe more than anything else in the world.” She looked at her watch. It was 1:30. What was he doing now? It was already nighttime there in Ethiopia.
“Someplace you have to go?” Doug said.
“No,” Michele said. “Just counting down the hours till Allan and I can talk again.”
“When’s he going to call?” Jean asked.
“Not until midnight.”
“Midnight?”
“Well, it won’t be midnight for him. It’ll be nine in the morning, tomorrow morning. There’s a nine-hour time difference.”
“That’s so strange,” Doug said. “He’s living in the same moment as we are, but in a totally different world. So it’s, what, 10:30 at night for him now?”
Michele nodded. “And it’s not a pretty world where he is. Those poor people live in more poverty than you can imagine. I’ve seen pictures and videos. It breaks my heart. I can’t even look at them very long or I’ll start to cry.” That was one of the things that had attracted her to Allan—his willingness to give his time away so freely to others. But she wasn’t so keen on this now as she had been back then.
“But I still don’t get why he has to call you so late,” Tom said from across the table. “Cell phone service is so cheap now, even international long distance.”
“Not in Africa,” she said. “Allan said it’s crazy expensive there. We’re not even connecting by cell phone. We’re using Skype. For some reason, internet service works a lot better than cell phone service. But even that doesn’t work very well, if you ask me.”
Jean set her glass down. “I’m surprised they even have the internet over there.”
“I know, but they do. Allan says it’s not up all the time. It can go down for three to five days at a time.” She looked at her watch again. “I hope it works tonight.”
“Why so late?” Jean said. “Aren’t you teaching school in the morning?”
Michele nodded. “We don’t have a choice. Allan said the internet connection is the strongest in the morning. Well, their morning. The times that work best for me don’t work for him. He either can’t get through at all, or it takes forever to say things back and forth. We tried it once, and it was awful.” Michele wanted to stop talking about this.
“So what’s he doing over there this time?” Doug asked.
“Who wants coffee?” Michele’s mother stood at the end of the table, counting the hands.
Michele raised hers, hoping this coffee call was enough to change the subject.
It wasn’t.
Doug leaned toward her. “So what’s Allan up to in Africa these days?”
“You really want to know?”
“I asked.”
“He’s got a blog about it, if you want the link, with lots of pictures and videos.”
“Maybe I will look at it . . . later. But can’t you just give me the highlights?”
“Sure. I guess the main thing is reaching out to orphans. That’s the focus of their trip, all these street kids in Addis Ababa. There’s so many of them, thousands, I think.”
“Addis Ababa? Sounds like a town from Aladdin.”
“From the pictures I’ve seen, it’s nothing like the scenes from that movie.”
“How’d their parents die?” Doug said.
“Mostly from AIDS, some from other things. But no one takes care of them. It’s not like here at all.” Images from Allan’s pictures and videos started flashing through her mind. “They live in tiny little shacks and beg all day. Most don’t even go to school.”
“That’s horrible,” Jean said. She looked at her children, Carly, Tommy, and Abby, the baby. “I can’t even imagine that.”
“You should see those videos. Or maybe you shouldn’t. I couldn’t get the images out of my mind for days after I did.”
“That’s pretty heavy.” Doug looked at the spread of food laid out on the table. “They’ve probably never seen anything like this.”
“It must look like heaven to them,” Tom said.
For the next few moments, no one said a word. Michele felt that same guilt feeling she always felt when this subject came up. One of the hardest parts of her conversations with Allan was the unavoidable small talk. How are you doing? How are things going? What did you do today? Allan would answer, and the things he said were equal parts horrifying and heartbreaking.
She didn’t know how he did it. She understood how he got talked into going the first time. But why did he keep going back?
Her mom, who had been in the kitchen for the last several minutes, walked back into the dining room. “Coffee’s on. Who’s ready for dessert?”