Free The Promise of Rain by Rula Sinara Page A

longed for was to feel his arms wrapped around her in forgiveness. She paced, trying to focus on Pippa and not Jack. “We can be civilized. Just don’t you forget I’m her mother. You want what’s best for her? Staying with me is what’s best, Jack, and if you don’t think short visits are enough time with you, then you can...you can...move here.”

CHAPTER FIVE
    “M OVING HERE IS out of the question and you know it, Anna.”
    Her face flinched so briefly that Jack almost missed it. For that fleeting moment, he almost thought she’d come right out and ask him—beg him—to stay. That she’d tell him how much she’d missed him and wanted him in her life. That she had faith in him as a father, if nothing else. That she’d been wrong for saying no. But that card was off the table. He couldn’t trust her now. Not after the secret she’d kept. If he knew Anna, he knew she’d do anything to protect what family she had left, not to mention her cause. Even if it meant pretending to think he was good enough for her, even if he never had been. He needed for them to get along, but that didn’t mean he had to be stupid about it.
    Anna straightened her back, reminding him of how perfectly her petite shoulders fit into his palms and how much he wanted to embrace her. To reassure her. To convince her that he could do this. He’d be a good father. She turned her chin up toward him.
    “Of course it is,” she said. “I was just making a point.”
    “And you can make all the points you want, but the fact remains that I’m her father, and now that I know about her, you can’t expect me to walk away. Being a rotten parent isn’t genetic.”
    His words sounded as hollow as he felt. His neck muscles tightened around his throat, keeping him from repeating them in affirmation. Being a rotten parent isn’t genetic. What if it was genetic? What if, for all his good intentions, he ended up sucking at fatherhood? He remembered the self-destructive patterns his biological parents and their friends would fall into. The alcohol. The drugs. The fights. They developed comfortable routines and lost sight of right or wrong or how they hurt those around them. He’d had protective routines, too. Like when he’d lock his bedroom door and hide in his closet whenever his parents had their so-called parties. He’d stay in there for hours, reading a book or studying his spelling words by flashlight. If he left Pippa behind with a promise to visit, who was to say another pattern wouldn’t take over? That one delay wouldn’t lead to another? Work would get in the way, and before he knew it, she’d be all grown up...without him. If she even survived that long. After what he’d seen in the field with Kamau, there was no question this wasn’t the place for a little girl.
    The heat drained from Anna’s cheeks and she shook her head.
    “In all our years of friendship, Jack, when have I ever treated you like someone I didn’t respect? When have I ever implied that you were anything but good? In fact, if there’s one thing I never doubted about you, it’s that you always do what’s right.”
    “And the Anna I knew always did what was right, too, which is why I think you put my name on that certificate.”
    She didn’t respond.
    “Look, Anna. I need—I’m asking—you to come into Nairobi with me. Just one day, maybe two, off work.”
    “Why? I can’t—”
    “Hear me out. No matter how we...fix this situation, Pippa needs her papers drawn up. She needs her citizenship, a passport—”
    “Wait a minute.”
    “No, you wait, Anna. She needs them. This isn’t about you or me. This is about Pippa’s safety and security. What if something happened to you?”
    “That’s why I put your name on her birth certificate, Jack. I was thinking about the future and what-ifs.”
    “But you didn’t follow through.”
    Anna’s cheeks reddened with the slap of his words. She hadn’t followed through, just like she hadn’t returned to the