Page 4 of 5+Us Makes Seven

Natasha

The hardwood floors were hard underneath my butt. The Chinese takeout I had sitting in my lap was decent, but I could’ve made better. I was sitting in my new apartment in the middle of San Francisco waiting for my furniture to arrive. Had I known it was going to take an entire week to have everything delivered, I would’ve planned my return a little better than I had. I was looking at seven boxes that contained the whole of my life from the past year. Two boxes for the kitchen, two for my bedroom, two for my bathroom, and one full of decorations the children of the village had given me to decorate my new place with.

My eyes watered as I thought back to that African village.

I had spent the past year working overseas with underprivileged children. I was assigned to a small village called Bria, in the Central African Republic. Fighting and African warlords had displaced multiple women and children and forced them into the area, leaving them vulnerable and without access to medical treatment and food. I was attached to a Doctors Without Borders team and was paired off with the pediatric assistance. I was responsible for detecting developmental delays, setting out monthly plans to try and help combat some of the delays, and even help educate mothers so they could help their children after we left. I learned the language, settled into the community, and became close with the children I was treating.

They had become a second family to me until the fighting broke out.

I watched dozens of them bleed out in the middle of the dirt streets. Children I’d dedicated myself to helping but couldn’t save. I saw children with semi-automatic rifles gun down their very parents in an attempt to stay alive themselves. I listened as mothers cried out to their gods, holding their bullet-ridden children in their arms.

I closed my eyes as a tear escaped down my cheek.

The job paid decently for the year I was there, which helped to keep my things in storage. I used only what I needed in the village, then the rest was put into an investment account. I knew I couldn’t do that past the year I had signed on for. I couldn't continue to help children the way I had been only to watch them get killed in the streets because they refused to pick a side.

Or simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

A knock at my door ripped me from my thoughts. I put my Chinese takeout down on the floor as I wiped the tears from my eyes. I hated moving. I hated the constant leaving and having to reacclimate and having to update my address everywhere. I hated moving boxes and packing things up and having to rearrange furniture fou

r separate times before I got everything right.

But the alternative was staying with that tribe, and I couldn’t do it.

I wasn’t strong enough.

And somehow, that made me feel weak.

“Nat? You in there?”

“Emma?”

I opened the door and saw my best friend standing there. She was holding up a bottle of wine in one hand and a pint of ice cream in the other. Holy hell, she was a sight for sore eyes. I threw my arms around her neck and held her close, reveling in the smell of her lavender and honey shampoo.

“It doesn’t shock me at all that nothing’s done around here,” she said.

“It’s only seven boxes,” I said.

“And your furniture still isn’t here? What have you been sleeping on?”

“Some blankets.”

“Are you insane?”

“I slept on dried mud and a cot in Bria. It’ll be weird sleeping on a mattress again,” I said.

“Well, I’ve got wine and ice cream. The least we can do is get these seven boxes unpacked.”

“Do you want some of my Chinese? It came about a half an hour ago,” I said.

“Oh, you don’t have to ask. I was already going to have some.”

The two of us sat down on the floor as Emma screwed open the cheap cap on our bottle of wine. She tipped a bit up and chugged, then handed it to me to take a drink. We passed it back and forth, stuffing our faces with Chinese food while eyeing the pint of ice cream we would share. It was good to be back in a place that was familiar. I had grown up on the outskirts of the city and met Emma in high school when she moved her. Before that she lived with her cousin Joanna in Chicago. She was the only friend I had that knew me from my reckless teenage days, and she always held me accountable whenever I got too high and mighty with my morals.

It was both liberating and frustrating at times.

“So, when’s your furniture supposed to be here?” Emma asked.

“They said today, then they called today and said tomorrow,” I said.