Finding Joy
Adriana Herrera
Contents
Also by Adriana Herrera
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Praise for Adriana Herrera
“Sweet and thoughtful, and delightfully filthy, too.”
—The New York Times
"Compulsively Readable."
—Publisher’s Weekly
“Adriana Herrera positions herself as a fresh and vital new voice in romance.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“Adriana Herrera writes romance with teeth—you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll be refreshed and inspired to fight even harder to create the vibrant, welcoming America in which her books are set.”
—Suzanne Brockmann, New York Times bestselling author
“Adriana Herrera writes family—all kinds of family—better than anyone else writing today”
—Cat Sebastian, bestselling author of A Gentleman Never Keeps Score
“Adriana Herrera is writing some of my favorite Afro-Latinx characters and giving us beautiful love stories along the way.”
—Elizabeth Acevedo, National Book Award Winner for The Poet X
Adriana Herrera won a 2019 Ripped Bodice Award for Excellence in Romantic Fiction for American Love Story
Also by Adriana Herrera
American Dreamer
American Fairytale
American Love Story
American Sweethearts
Mangos and Mistletoe
He’s Come Undone
Here To Stay (August 2020)
American Christmas (November 2020)
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Finding Joy
Written and published by Adriana Herrera
Cover Art by Leni Kauffman
Cover Design by Cate Ashewood
Edited by Mackenzie Walton
Copyright © by Adriana Herrera
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author or publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.
To Addis Ababa, the New Flower, and Abyssinia—the homeland of my heart.
Betam amaseganallo.
“Wasn't that the definition of home?
Not where you are from, but where you are wanted.”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone
Chapter 1
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
January
As soon as I stepped out of the airport, I felt it. The something in the air my mom always mentioned when she talked about Addis.
I looked around the crowd waiting for the recent arrivals as I hefted my huge backpack, searching for a big white head of hair. “À la Don King” my mother had said when she described Tefare, my parents’ old driver from when they first lived here almost thirty years ago—who was picking me up tonight. I finally spotted a man with a mass of fluffy gray hair in the back, and walked over. I kept my eye on Tefare, who was scanning the crowd as he held up a sign that read MR. WALKER.
I stepped up to him, extending my hand “Tefare. It’s me, Desta.”
Immediately he threw his arms out and pulled me in for an elaborate hug. We bumped shoulders on either side and clapped each other’s backs for what felt like minutes.
“Desta, you look just like your mama. How is my friend Fatima? Does she still make that delicious meat soup?”
I smiled at the mention of sancocho; my mother told me that Tefare had been a devoted fan of the Dominican stew whenever she made it in the old days.
I shook my head at his question as we walked together to the parking lot. “She doesn’t make it that much anymore. She’s vegan now. Only eats fasting food.”
He gasped like I’d told him she’d given up eating altogether. “Only fasting food. No meat?”
I grinned at the shock in his voice. “No meat,” I repeated as Tefare shook his head in silence, like the whole situation was too far gone to comment on.
When we got to the car, he made a big show of taking the backpack from me and putting it in the trunk. “Let me help you with this, Desta. It’s too heavy for you.”
I laughed because Tefare was not much taller than my five-foot-nine and had to be pushing seventy, but I let him win and handed him my massive backpack. Once we had my two bags securely in the back of the car, he pulled a hat out of his suit jacket pocket and perched it on his head. It was a 2004 Boston Red Sox World Series Championship hat, which looked exactly like the one my dad had been wearing the last time I saw him leaving for the airport on his way here.
I pointed at his head, smiling. “I recognize that.”
Tefare clicked his tongue at my words, the happy, open expression from before replaced with genuine sorrow. “Your papa gave it to me on that last trip. I was waiting for him just like I waited for you tonight, and the first thing he did was take the hat off his head and put it on my mine. He said, ‘Tefare, our guys finally won.’” Tefare’s smile was a wistful thing, and I realized that my time in Ethiopia would probably be filled with moments like this.
“When your papa and mama first came here, there were only a couple of places where they could see the baseball games, and I would drive them there,” my father’s old friend explained, his eyes faraway, like he was recalling those times. “After a while he’d invite me to watch with them and taught me the rules. Paul made me a Red Sox fan for life.”
Tefare and I stood there for a moment in the cold Addis night, lost in our memories of my father. Eventually he pushed off the side of the car where he’d been leaning and grunted, squeezing my shoulder. “I miss my friend.”
I nodded, working on speaking through the knot in my throat. “We miss him too.” It was hard to know what else to say. The moment felt too big for
