Your loving wife,
Hannah
I tried several times to write an answer to Dillon, Paul, and Willy, but could not do it. I couldn’t locate the right voice, a voice as natural and easy as theirs. In correspondence as much as conversation, one takes on the tone of one’s correspondent. That’s how it has always been for me, anyhow, and is probably why I am reluctant to open a conversation. He who writes or speaks first gets to set the tone. And my sons had written first. I kept putting off the moment when I would finally have to write back to them, until days became weeks and it was almost too late to answer without having a plausible excuse for the delay. And then came the letter from Woodrow.
My dear wife,
I received your most recent letter yesterday and last night conveyed to President Doe your assurances stated therein. To my amazement he expressed a sincere desire to have you return to Liberia. He also apologized for what he said must have been a misunderstanding on our part. He claims never to have wished for you to be separated from your husband and children. He is a man who often changes his mind and policy, but I believe he is sincere in this matter and does indeed want to welcome you back, as he said, “into the official family of Liberia.” No doubt the American ambassador, Mr. Wycliffe, was helpful in changing the president’s mind.
It may be too late by the time you receive this letter, but if possible, could you be home for Christmas? It would be very nice for all of us if you could. It would especially please the boys.
By the way, this morning I stopped by the American embassy and spoke with our friend there. I wanted to confirm that your return would in no way trouble the U.S. authorities. He assured me that you are free to travel anywhere in the world and that he very much looked forward to seeing you here again.
Your loving husband,
Woodrow Sundiata
It was the last letter that I would ever receive from him, although I did not suspect it at the time, of course. I read it and immediately packed my clothes into my backpack and began to compose what I would say to Bettina when she got home from soccer practice and noticed my pack by the door and asked where I was going, and what I would tell Carol that night when she got home from work. I would tell them both the same thing, the essential truth, that I was leaving them in order to join my family and to prepare for the liberation of my country from a cruel dictator. It would make no sense to either of them, but they both would accept it as natural and inevitable. I had come into their lives like a pale ghost, and now I was leaving like one.
Chapter IV
I FLEW FROM BOSTON to New York in an early January snowstorm that delayed the flight three hours, then sat on the runway at JFK for another three hours before taking off, and landed in Robertsfield the next morning in bright sunshine with a sparkling blue sky above and palm-lined, white sandy beaches below. As the wheels touched down, the passengers, most of them Liberians returning from the States, suddenly bloomed with applause, and I happily joined in. We were safely home again. We’d come to where we knew we belonged.
Woodrow and the boys and Jeannine and Satterthwaite were gathered together to greet me at the terminal — my African family, which from that moment and for the coming years I regarded as my only family. My true family. My best family. For all its tensions, disconnections, divisions, and conflicts of interest, this little tribe was my claque and cohort. I hadn’t realized it at the time, but on the day I helped break Charles out of prison, I had cast my lot, not just with him, but with them as well. And I could do this, of course, nowhere but at my home in Monrovia. So when Samuel Doe, for reasons then unknown to me, offered me the chance to return to Liberia, I had no choice but to accept it.
I’d made up my mind long before the plane landed at Robertsfield, however, that things would not be the same as they had been. A consequence of my having tied my fate to my little household’s fate was that I now felt empowered to make demands and take on responsibilities that I had never made or taken before. And I planned to set a few wrong things right very quickly.
After the hugs and kisses inside the sweltering, crowded terminal, we piled into the Mercedes, set the air conditioner to blowing, and headed for Monrovia, Satterthwaite driving and Jeannine beside him in front, Woodrow, the boys, and me crowded into the back. We rode in a pleasant, well-behaved silence that I found both amusing and peculiar, as if everyone were waiting for me to do exactly what I fully intended to do — take charge. As if, for reasons both known to me and unknown, they each individually felt guilty, and in the months of my exile, to the degree that they had been collectively weakened by guilt, I had been strengthened.
I was not imperious, merely firm and clear. “Satterthwaite,” I said to him. “I’ll no longer need you to drive me and the boys. I’ll be doing my own driving from now on,” I announced. “And if for some reason I need someone else to drive the car, I’ll arrange it through the ministry or hire someone from town myself.”
“Yes, m’am,” Satterthwaite said and did not turn or even glance at me in the rearview mirror.
Woodrow noisily cleared his throat. “Are you sure, Hannah darling? Satterthwaite’s quite—”
“I’m sure,” I said, cutting him off. “I’m an excellent driver. Requisition another car for your own use, if you want. I’ll keep this one strictly for household needs. I’ll need it all day every day, anyhow. For taking the boys to school and picking them up and for shopping. And for my work,” I added.
“Your work?”
“Yes. And, Jeannine, I won’t be needing you to help me with the boys. I’ll look after their meals myself. It’s quite enough if you’ll just do the housekeeping. Especially since you should be going to school now yourself. I’ll pay you an hourly wage and will pay all your school expenses. But I’ll have to ask you to find another place to live.”
“ ‘Nother place to live?” she asked, incredulous.
“I’ll need your room for my office. I’m sure Woodrow can find you a place to live in town.”
Woodrow quietly said, “Really, Hannah.”
“And, boys, from now on you won’t have Jeannine or me following you around, picking up your clothes and cleaning up your messes and treating you like little princes anymore. You are little princes, of course, but you’re going to learn how to be good men, too, and the first step is learning not to expect women to do all your housework for you. That includes cooking and washing dishes and making your own beds and, as soon as you’re able, doing your own laundry.”