Forgotten: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

figure it out tomorrow.”
    “Right. Well, good night.”
    He gives me a half smile. “Pretty fucked-up day, huh?”
    “That sounds about right.”
    He leaves, and I change into his clothes. They’re too big, but they’re clean, cozy, and smell like fabric softener. I make up the bed with the sheets and blankets I find in the box Dominic mentioned, then search my suitcase until my hand comes against a hard surface. I pull out the jar Karen gave me and place it on the nightstand; at least there’s something that’s mine here now.
    Beyond exhausted, I climb in between the sheets feeling small and alone and lost.
    Even in my own bed, I am lost.

Chapter 3: Missing, Presumed Dead
    W hen I arrived in Tswanaland—a small country tucked between Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Botswana—worn out and groggy from the sleeping pills and the long, long flight, I felt immediately like the whole trip was one big mistake. Maybe it was the alien landscape, or the way the airport was thick with people. But as I collected my luggage and searched for the tour-company sign among a sea of unfamiliar faces, it occurred to me that I hadn’t really thought the whole thing through. I’d never traveled alone before, for one thing, and hadn’t taken more than a week off in years. And though I loved my mother very, very much, Africa was never on the list of places I wanted to visit; it was always the place she wanted to go but never did.
    But what I really wasn’t counting on was how actually being there brought her death home to me in a way the previous few weeks hadn’t. I’d gone there to finish mourning her, and instead, the wound her death caused suddenly felt fresh and like someone was digging a knife into it.
    After what seemed like too long, when I was about to give up and catch the first flight home, I found a group of people circled around a tall, thin man dressed in jeans and a Counting Crows T-shirt. He had a white sticky label on his chest, like the ones you get at conferences. MY NAME IS BANGA , it read, but he said to just call him Bob. He’d be guiding us for the next month, he told the excited-looking group around me. He couldn’t wait to show us his country.
    My fellow travelers were buzzing with the adventure of it all. But me?
    I hated the place on the spot.
    I n the morning, the sunlight seeps through the cream muslin curtains I always meant to replace with darker ones and pries me from sleep too soon. It feels like it’s early, though there’s no longer any clock on the bedside table to confirm it. A small crash, a muttered oath, and the faint whiff of coffee tell me Dominic must be up too.
    I want to pull the covers over my head and sleep until I can sleep no more, but I have places to go and people to kill, specifically Pedro, so I rise and help myself to a pair of Dominic’s jeans and a wool fisherman’s sweater from a box marked OLD CLOTHES. The jeans and the sleeves of the sweater are much too long for me, but I roll them up and French-braid my hair. Then I pick up the cordless phone from the bedside table and dial Stephanie’s and Craig’s numbers again, with the same result as yesterday. I rack my brain, but for the life of me I can’t remember their cell numbers. Because they were in my BlackBerry, of course, that constant buzzing companion, which I left behind in a fit of pique at the powers that be at work.
    After I wash my face and use the bathroom, I follow the smell of coffee to the kitchen. Dominic’s sitting at the table reading the newspaper, sipping from a mug. His hair is mussed, and he’s wearing a pair of striped pajama bottoms and a white T-shirt.
    “Morning.”
    He lifts his head. His eyes are red-rimmed. “Morning.”
    I pour myself some coffee and sit across from him. His eyes flit from my face to my sweater.
    “You know the stuff in the boxes is mine, right?”
    “I’m sorry. I didn’t think you’d mind.”
    “I guess I don’t, but maybe you could ask me next time?”
    “I’m