“I’m going home with my son and my husband.” “Carolyn—”

“Jenna, I appreciate your kindness and your good intentions. But this is between Cameron and me. It’s really none of your business.”

She unlocked the door, fought with the chain, and went out into the hallway.

“Oh, babe, I’m so sorry,” said Cameron in a wheedling voice. “Are you Okay? Are you Okay? My love, I’m so sorry.”

Josh turned back and looked helplessly at Jenna and Karim, then followed his parents.

It was the end of Jenna’s first real friendship in her new life. Jenna stood silently and watched Carolyn go. There was a wall between them, put in place by Carolyn and never to be breached, like the glass between prisoner and visitor in a jail.

It was a turning point for Jenna, although it took months for her to see it. It gave direction to her work. She might have failed her best friend, but if she worked hard enough, studied hard enough, learned enough, perhaps she could help other women facing the same agony.

One morning, she woke with the theme and the title of the next book she would write: Prisons of the Heart: Women in Denial.

She even had a dedication, although she could never use it: To Ali A. and Cameron C., who made it all possible.

Meanwhile, unknown to her and in a corner of the world she preferred to forget, a man to whom she was truly thankful was about to touch her life again, for the last time but with fateful effect.

33. Mustafa

Mustafa

Brother Peter was dying. He had gone to Zaire to explore the possibility of establishing a mission there, but an epidemic of some kind had broken out, and he had not been permitted to visit the town where the brothers hoped to work. Back in Van, he had suddenly developed a blinding headache, followed by nausea, fever, and fierce thirst.

A local doctor, unable even to diagnose the illness, loaded Peter with anti- biotics and advised wrapping him in wet sheets during the worst of the fever, but it was clear that he had no hope for his patient.

Brother Peter knew nothing of this: he was lost in delusions by the time the doctor was summoned.

The mission was nearly deserted. Another earthquake had struck to the north, and most of the little detachment of brothers had gone there on their work of faith and mercy. The deathwatch over Brother Peter fell mainly to Mustafa, a native of Van who served as a handyman and local factotum for the mission. He wore a surgeon’s mask and gown given to him by the doctor along with emphatic instructions on sanitary measures. No telling what kind of African plague this might be.