C4 antho - Chamber Four

Helping Hands ~219~
with the backs of his fingers. He was nearly done cooking her
dinner, he’d said. He was sorry for waking her, he’d said.
He hadn’t said anything about her early return, hadn’t
asked her any questions. He knows I’ll tell him when I’m
ready, Betsy thought, sliding out of bed.
She was setting the table for dinner. It was covered in an
elegant, white cloth. The lights had been dimmed. The windows
were open. The humid summer air smelled like trees.
Grasshoppers chirped in the yard.
The sight of wood floors, polished and clean, of floralprint
wallpaper, track lighting―these things comforted Betsy
in a way she would have never thought possible. Never before.
Paul was in the kitchen, the next room over, washing the
dishes. They’d been engaged for nearly a year. Betsy’s trip to
Africa was something they had both agreed she needed to do,
something she needed to get out of the way before they settled
down, started their family.
As Betsy told her story, he occasionally responded, his
voice muffled beneath the sound of running water. He
sounded uncomfortable, like he didn’t know quite what to say.
“They’d been hacked off at the shoulder,” she said, shutting
the cabinet door, holding a plate beneath each arm, a
glass in each hand―her hard-earned waitressing skills at
work. “With a machete. It was still there, next to the pile of
arms. Its blade was nicked, covered in dried blood.”
Three days had passed since Malmoud led her to the IRC
tent. She’d taken the first available flight home―a full month
earlier than she’d planned. She lost the will to help, had
never been able to go birding in Botswana like she’d wanted.
All the way home and all she’d been able think about were
the birds in Botswana. They were supposed to be the most
beautiful in the world.