Paige was terrified. “They’re going to kill us!”
Her father had taken her in his arms. “They won’t harm us, darling. We’re here to help them. They know we’re their friends.”
And he had been right.
The chief of one of the tribes had burst into the hut with some of his warriors. “Do not worry. We guard you.” And they had.
The fighting and shooting finally stopped, but in the morning Curt Taylor made a decision.
He sent a message to his brother. Sending Paige out on next plane. Will wire details. Please meet her at airport.
Paige was furious when she heard the news. She was taken, sobbing wildly, to the dusty little airport where a Piper Cub was waiting to fly her to a town where she could catch a plane to Johannesburg.
“You’re sending me away because you want to get rid of me!” she cried.
Her father held her close in his arms. “I love you more than anything in the world, baby. I’ll miss you every minute. But I’ll be going back to the States soon, and we’ll be together again.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Alfred was there to see Paige off.
“Don’t worry,” Alfred told Paige. “I’ll come and get you as soon as I can. Will you wait for me?”
It was a pretty silly question, after all those years.
“Of course I will.”
Three days later, when Paige’s plane arrived at O’Hare Airport in Chicago, Paige’s Uncle Richard was there to greet her. Paige had never met him. All she knew about him was that he was a very wealthy businessman whose wife had died several years earlier. “He’s the successful one in the family,” Paige’s father always said.
Paige’s uncle’s first words stunned her. “I’m sorry to tell you this, Paige, but I just received word that your father was killed in a native uprising.”
Her whole world had been shattered in an instant. The ache was so strong that she did not think she could bear it. I won’t let my uncle see me cry, Paige vowed. I won’t. I never should have left. I’m going back there.
Driving from the airport, Paige stared out the window, looking at the heavy traffic.
“I hate Chicago.”
“Why, Paige?”
“It’s a jungle.”
Richard would not permit Paige to return to Africa for her father’s funeral, and that infuriated her.
He tried to reason with her. “Paige, they’ve already buried your father. There’s no point in your going back.”
But there was a point: Alfred was there.
A few days after Paige arrived, her uncle sat down with her to discuss her future.
“There’s nothing to discuss,” Paige informed him. “I’m going to be a doctor.”
At twenty-one, when Paige finished college, she applied to ten medical schools and was accepted by all of them. She chose a school in Boston.
It took two days to reach Alfred by telephone in Zaire, where he was working part-time with a WHO unit.
When Paige told him the news, he said, “That’s wonderful, darling. I’m nearly finished with my medical courses. I’ll stay with WHO for a while, but in a few years we’ll be practicing together.”
Together. The magical word.
“Paige, I’m desperate to see you. If I can get out for a few days, could you meet me in Hawaii?”
There wasn’t the slightest hesitation. “Yes.”
And they had both managed it. Later, Paige could only imagine how difficult it must have been for Alfred to make the long journey, but he never mentioned it.
They spent three incredible days at a small hotel in Hawaii, called Sunny Cove, and it was as though they had never been apart. Paige wanted so much to ask Alfred to go back to Boston with her, but she knew how selfish that would have been. The work that he was doing was far more important.
On their last day together, as they were getting dressed, Paige asked, “Where will they be sending you, Alfred?”
“Gambia, or maybe Bangladesh.”
To save lives, to help those who so desperately need him. She held him tightly and closed her eyes. She never wanted to let him go.
As though reading her thoughts, he said, “I’ll never let you get away.”