That evening Simi left the enclosure. She walked until she couldn’t see the acacia tree fencing, and she couldn’t hear the sounds of people. It was near dusk, and this was dangerous. Simi didn’t want to be seen, though. She needed time alone, and she didn’t want to talk. She stood at a place where the land dipped down toward a stream, now dry, but where shrubs and grasses were thicker. She saw a family of zebra, munching calmly, and she felt safer—they didn’t sense a predator nearby. Near where she stood, she saw a young green shrub, the one they used to treat stomachaches. They always needed this plant, so she began plucking leaves, tying them up in the end of her kanga as she did. It was later, when she returned home to heat up tea, that she had her idea. Leona hadn’t learned to tell one plant from another, so Simi tossed a handful in a crumpled plastic bag and made her way to Leona’s house. These leaves would do nothing, Simi knew. And as she handed them to Leona, she imagined the baby clinging tightly to the dark insides of Leona’s body. Simi’s own muscles clenched at the idea of that fullness. If only. If only.
It was early one morning—before dawn, even the cattle and goats were still asleep—when Leona’s cry broke the dark sky into two. Simi heard it. It woke her from her dream and sent a rushing shiver down her spine. It was time. She wrapped her kanga around her shoulders to stave off the cool air and crossed the enclosure to Leona’s house. The midwife was already there, and some other women, too. Everyone loved to participate in a birth. There was Loiyan with her own new infant—another boy—snuggled fast asleep in a wrap tied tightly against his mother’s back.
Leona was lucky. The birth was an easy one, and the midwife had no trouble releasing the baby from Leona’s body and into the world. The cord was cut and the new baby—a tiny, pale girl—was placed in Leona’s arms.
* * *
There were women who didn’t take to their babies. Simi had seen it happen before, but never with someone who didn’t also have the wild-eyed look of the cursed. Leona’s reaction frightened Simi. After the baby was placed in Leona’s arms, Leona made a wailing like an animal. Her mouth opened, and her eyes closed, and the cry was from a deep place Simi never suspected Leona had inside of her.
Leona tried to nurse the infant, but within days she pushed the baby away and wrapped a kanga tightly around her breasts to stop the milk from coming. It wasn’t uncommon for mothers to be unable to nurse—it happened on occasion, and another nursing mother could always step in and help. But Leona could nurse. The few times she tried, her milk came strong and plentiful. Simi could see that the baby was able to drink her fill and that Leona’s breasts were swollen and ripe. Simi never heard of a woman who could nurse but wouldn’t. There was a sharp feeling in Simi’s belly when she saw the way Leona treated the baby.
Simi told herself she was helping Leona when she began caring for the baby herself, and when she arranged for a wet nurse. The wet nurse had five other children, one only a few days older than Nalangu, so she didn’t mind when Simi handed her the pink baby for feedings. A few weeks later, when Leona’s interest in her baby hadn’t increased, Simi asked her husband for a ram to make the adoption official. His wife’s adopting Leona’s baby was a good thing, and although he found Nalangu’s color unappealing, he was happy to provide the animal. All his wives should have children, and this would bring luck to Simi and the community. Even if the child was the color of a bald baby aardvark. Simi divided the ram’s fat into two portions. Leona was still gray and quiet, and Simi told Leona the fat would make her body strong again after the depletion of pregnancy. After all, that was the truth. Leona never asked why Simi bundled off the other portion of fat. Simi told herself that Leona must know the procedure for adopting. She’d been here for so long now, taking notes on everything. Surely they’d talked about this.
Simi loved being a mother. Her place in the village was cemented. Loiyan didn’t tease her anymore, and her husband no longer looked worried when he came to her at night. Simi was part of things now—safely protected from the wilderness of a life without a child.
Simi didn’t choose Nalangu’s name, but it sounded like the hand of fate reaching out to give Simi what she’d wanted for so long. Until now, she’d felt like a member of a different tribe herself. Now she and this new person were together, they had each other and that would allow them both to be included. Simi knew Leona watched Simi and the baby together with a sense of relief. Leona’s skin grew pink again, and the hollowness in her eyes filled out. She seemed happy. By the time Nalangu turned one, and it was time to give her a proper name, Simi didn’t ask Leona what she thought. The mother could decide this one, and Simi chose Adia, “gift,” because that was what this child was.
* * *
Later, Simi wondered why the clouds came that particular day, and what it was she’d done to deserve renewed punishment. She was a good person, a good mother to Adia. She took all the necessary steps to ensure that N’gai—God—was satisfied with her. Leona had been going to other manyattas often lately. She also traveled to Nairobi. Simi could sense that her friend’s attachment to the village was waning. Simi was ashamed that the notion of Leona leaving brought her relief. There were times she wondered if her baby would feel more like hers if Leona were gone. The link they had—Leona and Adia—simply through the color of their skin, was too obvious. People outside the village, people who didn’t know, assumed the wrong connection. When Leona was gone, it would be easier.
It was a day like any other, hot and clear and dusty. They needed rain, but they always needed rain. It was a special day, too. The emurata was a glad day for the village, and the moran were gathering. There was no way Simi could have known that Leona’s mothering urge, so long dead, would choose this day to rear its head and strike.
It was past noon, and the sun was flat and hot and stared down at the village with its burning face when suddenly Simi heard Adia’s scream. She recognized her girl’s voice like her own and, with her heart pounding in her chest, she leaped up from where she’d been sitting with some other women and raced across the village. She expected to see a snake or a leopard or some terrible creature hurting her daughter. Instead, she saw Leona dragging her baby—her baby—from the emurata hut. Leona’s face, usually blank, was a riot of clouds like the darkest of rainy seasons. Her eyes were glassy—those of a cursed woman—and they lit upon Adia like flames. Leona’s English was fast and rough and too angry for Simi to grasp completely, but her intention was clear. She was taking Adia away.
Instinctively, like any mother would, Simi reached out to pull her daughter back from the abyss. Adia shouted her name, “Yeyo! Mother!” She clutched at Simi’s hand.
Adia screamed, “Tung’wayeni!” at Leona, “Don’t touch me!”
And the girl tried to wrest her arm from Leona’s grip. Simi saw the terror in her daughter’s eyes and tried to make Leona look at her—she tried to get the American to calm down, to speak in a way Simi could understand.
But when she did, her words echoed Simi’s darkest fear. “Adia, you are my daughter!” Leona said in a cold and measured voice—finally speaking so that Simi could take it in.
“You are mine. You are mine.”
Adia stumbled, and Simi’s muscles fell slack with shock, and her grip released from Adia’s arm. Then the girl was gone. Simi fell to the ground. The other women gathered around her, but she couldn’t answer their questions.
Simi watched her daughter’s anguished face through a screen of dust and then through the smudged window of Leona’s car as it pulled away. As the car grew smaller and smaller, Simi gathered her energy and drew herself up from the ground. She chased after the car, kicking up dust and cutting her feet on the sharp stones. She followed Leona’s car until she couldn’t anymore, and then she fell to earth like a rock. She looked up once to see the tiny car far in the distance, and then, like all the white people she’d seen before, they disappeared.