Although—Michael had lied. He hadn’t explained to Jillian, or later, to their daughter, what he had left behind to come to America. Who he had left behind. Her name was Toom, or really, Koketso, and she lived in a village of dirt and heat and acacia trees along the roadside to Kasane. She was from the village named Kagiso, meaning “Peace.” He had approached her parents, as was the custom, and asked permission to enter into a trial period. His family had paid her father three cows. A trial period lasts for several years, to see how compatible the couple is. They can have children during the trial period, but there is no marriage until all agree it will be successful. And so, while Michael worked at the tourist camp, an hour’s flight away in the bush, Toom lived in her village and they had two children together. He saw them only once or twice a year when he had time off and there was an extra seat on one of the bush planes returning to Kasane. “I must go visit my sister,” he told Jillian, whenever he went to visit Toom. “There is room today on the plane.” “It was so brave of Michael,” she loved telling her friends in Seattle, “to leave his country and his family behind, and all he knew, for me, and for Emily. What a magnificent man.” His nightmares were always of Toom. He had left a hard life behind for an easier life, without a goodbye to her or his children. Most of her village had died of AIDS over the years, he knew, so she would have to be the exception to be alive, and his children were, almost certainly, orphans of the land. . . Even a pack of African wild dogs will give up on a waterbuck, because the buck secretes a foul-smelling musk onto its own muscles under stress, and most predators cannot get beyond the scent to finish the kill. There are many reasons a couple might fail to have a second child. It usually isn’t discussed even with close friends. So often it has to do with the woman, but sometimes it has to do with the man. . . “For you, Miss Jillian.” They sat up late in the main tent with one lantern on after the tourists were in bed and they talked about work and sipped wine while the hippos chewed on the lawn outside. They could hear the animals tearing at the long green grass in the dark and snorting as they ate. It became a pleasant backdrop, like everything in Botswana, startling at first and then familiar and reassuring. “These are dangerous animals,” Michael said, “if you get between them and the safety of their watering hole. They only want the green grass—a delicacy in the dry season.” “I’ve never felt so happy,” she told him. “Do you have anything like this in Seattle?” he asked. theMeadow 21
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