Chapter 24: Two in the Morning

The man at the door was a fisherman, and he was soaking wet.

He stood on the step with a hurricane lamp and his cap in his fist.

He talked fast, in Dholuo and then in English.

His wife was in labour across the water, on the island, and the baby was coming feet first.

The midwife there had sent him with the boat.

"How long has she been pushing?" I said.

"Since the night began, Mama Rosemary."

I was already on my feet.

I found my scrubs on the chair and my boots under the bed.

The emergency bag hung where it always did, by the door.

I did it without thinking, in the dark, the way I had done it a hundred times.

Then I stopped with one boot in my hand.

I had done this alone, every time, for three years.

I had always gone out into the dark by myself.

Nobody had ever asked where I was going or when I would be back.

I had liked it that way.

I had told myself that I liked it.

"Rosemary," Alec said, from the bed.

I turned around.

He was sitting up with the sheet around his waist and his hair on end.

He was looking at me, wide awake.

I realized he had not been asleep for some time.

"I'll drive you to the jetty," he said.

"You don't need to."

"It's two in the morning. The road floods at the second culvert. The boat is a skiff. You're not doing that part alone."

"Alec, you were up until midnight."

"I know," he said. "I'm getting up anyway."

He was already finding his trousers.

He found his shirt on the second try and his keys on the third.

His hand rested flat on the small of my back as he went past me out of the door.

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