"South America."
She looks me over and smiles, "Armani in South America?"
I smile wider, "I went to a strange store called Cabela and bought all the beige and khaki I could find."
She snuggles into me, "What if we lose each other?"
"I will always find you."
She doesn’t let up on her grip, "I never imagined you would take my advice. I'm twenty. What do I know?"
I pull her back, "A lot. Now, stay close to your brothers and please, for the love of God, don’t go out without them. Stay in Boston or Chicago with family and friends. Keep training with Angelo and don’t let him kiss you, he'll suck your whole damned face in. I knew a girl who dated him." It's not true but I don’t want to have to beat him up again, I actually like him.
She starts to cry, ripping my insides out, "I'm going to miss you."
I brush them away, "I need this. I need to stop myself from obsessing where you are at every moment. I need to trust you."
She isn’t as convinced anymore, "You don’t have anything to prove. You don’t need to be a hero there. You are my hero already. You can learn to trust me here. I'm fine, I swear."
"I'm not. You were right. Behave yourself and I expect FaceTime dates frequently. They're going to call my flight and I haven’t even gotten through security."
"Don’t leave me," she begs and I almost waver.
I throw her answer back at her, "Never again. This isn’t me leaving you. This is me choosing you."
I kiss her and smell her hair once more before pushing off and walking away. I manage to be strong and not cry like the baby I really am, but she sends me a text and rips my heart out, 'I'm grateful for you.'
I take a deep breath and force myself into the security clearance.
Chapter Twenty-Five
June 2013
Two months of hot, sweaty work have stripped away a few things. Holding the small child in my arms and walking up the dusty road from the quarantine, strips away a lot more. She clings to me, sobbing and saying the same word over and over, "Momma."
I hold her thin body to me and rub her back, "It's okay, it's going to be okay." They told me I had to leave, but I need to find the aunt she has in the next village over. The dusty goat path of a road has caked my ankles and legs in filth as it's mixed with my sweat.
My back aches, my hands hurt, and my throat is parched so badly I'm a little scared I have the plague.
We pass by some people. I point, "Village?"
They nod and walk into the woods. The little girl cries on, holding me and continuing to chant the same word over repeatedly.
The goat path heads into a dense forest. I turn and follow it in. People and huts are scattered about. One of the doctors I recognize is there.
I wave, "Hi, Dean."
He smiles, "Is she from up the road?"
I nod and sit, still cradling her, "Yes. Her aunt lives here. That’s the only family she has left."
His eyes narrow, "How bad was it when you left?"
I shake my head.
He nods, "Okay. Well I can translate and find the girl's aunt if you want to head back into the town and get ready to leave."
I shake my head, "I need to find her family. I need to know she got to them."
He smiles, "You aren’t what I expected, Eli."
I laugh hoarsely, "This is exactly what I expected." He thinks I mean the desperate way they live in this part of Brazil. What I mean is this experience is exactly what I imagined it would be. The things I have seen, the loss and joy and desperation and passion have cured me. My pile of shit is so weak and small, and my loss, though it feels like it weighs as much as the moon, is nothing compared. This girl has lost a mother, father, three brothers and a sister who was only ten months old. Her loss is great and she has my heart, they all do. The strength and love of the people here, who have nothing but each other, is amazing. It is uplifting and I finally see what Sarah meant by her experience as an orphan shaping her to not feel sorry for herself.
Thinking about her makes me smile. Dean comes back over with a woman who kneels in front of the girl and speaks softly. She asks her questions. The girl shakes her head and whispers things. The woman smiles and talks to Dean. He nods, "Her aunt is down by the river catching fish with her children and doing her washing. I can show you to her."
I stand and carry the now-quiet girl to the trail. The path goes down a steep slope to where a river moves along quickly. We pass the rushing part to an inlet. When we reach the spot where some of the villagers are, a woman comes rushing at me. She is screaming and crying when she sees me. Dean speaks to her, explaining her loss. She drops to her knees, sobbing and shaking her head. She gets up, tearing the child from my arms. She holds her so tight I think she'll break her. She then wraps herself around me. I don't need to know what she says, I understand her body's language. Gratitude is its own language.
I nod and let her kiss both my cheeks. I hug the little girl once more and wave, "Bye, bye."
She sniffles and nods, snuggling into her aunt. Dean says some things to them but I turn and watch. The riverbank is alive with people. The heat is beaten here in the water and the smiling faces. Children play and laugh and parents try to stay cool as they do their wash or catch fish.
The simplicity of their life has me envious.Dean walks over, "You ready to go home?"
I shake my head, "I feel like I should stay and try to save as many as I can from getting sick."
He smiles, "It can become an unhealthy obsession."
I laugh, I know all about those.
"Only medical staff are staying; you have to go back so we don’t have to worry about keeping you safe from it." We hike to his jeep and he drives me back to town. When I get to my hotel, I turn on my phone and FaceTime Stuart.
"Hi!"
He looks worried, "She there yet?"
I scowl, "What?" My stomach starts to sink.
"She came to you. She should have landed already."
"Fuck." I feel sick instantly, "There is a plague. I'm being evacuated."
My heart is beating out of control. I haven’t thought about her safety in months. I haven’t had to. She was safe in Boston and Stuart was with her. Now she is here and I can't stop myself from imagining the worst. "Where did she fly into?"
He shakes his head, "I don’t know. She was coming there to see you."
"Fuck, Stu. People are dying here, like whole communities. Why didn't you stop her?"
He opens his mouth but I shake my head, "Book her and me out of here now. Book flights home now. I'll go find her."
I hang up the phone and run to the inn. It's the only place to stay. I don’t get the white noise, even though I am panicking. I don’t get that anymore.
I burst through the doors, "Is there a girl, a pretty gringo staying here? A girl with blonde hair?" I pull her picture from my back pocket where I always keep it. I pull it out for the lady to look at. She frowns at me and nods.
I close my eyes, "Is she here?"
She shakes her head, "Drive with jeep with doctor." Her English is some of the best in the area. It’s remote and the doctors all speak the local dialects. I tried speaking Spanish to them and they laughed at me.
"Where is her room?"
She gives me a key. I turn and run up the stairs and burst through the door. I pack her bags and leave them on the bed. I am about to freak out and maybe scream a little, when I see blonde hair blowing in the air of a jeep driving up to the town. I turn and run from the room, slamming the door. When I get down to the dusty road, my heart is pounding and I am feeling savage and irrational. I want to rip her from the god-damned jeep and smack her upside the head.
When she sees me, I growl, "What the hell are you doing here?" I'm not sure if she heard me or not. I walk up to the jeep and nearly tear the door off. I offer her my vibrating hand. She takes it and I drag her to her room. I can't speak without screaming, so I just don’t. I open her door and she mutters, "Corrupt third-world countries."
I drag her into the room, close the door, and press my back against it. I need to calm down. She probably just arrived and hasn’t seen any sick people. I take a breath and look at her, "What did I say when I left?"
She doesn’t answer me.
My words turn back into a growl, "I said don’t go anywhere without your brothers and Stuart, and not to leave Chicago or Boston. Did you misunderstand my words?"
She steps to me, kisses me and smiles, "You are not the boss of me. If you can gallivant in South America, then so can I."
I wrap myself around her and whisper, "You scared me."
She nods, "Ditto."
"We are leaving in an hour. I have flights booked."
She frowns, "You're leaving the missionaries?"
I don’t understand. She doesn’t want me to leave? I shake my head, "Not exactly. We never made it to our last destination. There is a sickness. All tourists are being sent home unless they have medical experience. I do not. Pack your bags. We leave as soon as possible."
She kisses me again and finishes packing the few things I forgot to shove in the bags. She doesn’t look at me when she says something I don’t know how to respond to, "I went to your parents’ house. I confessed it was me."
I point out the obvious, "They knew that already. Why?"
"I need absolution from God for my sin."
I roll my eyes, "You don’t get to pick and chose how religious you are. You never go to church. Why need absolution over that? It wasn’t your fault."
She walks to me, "I just needed to."
Finally, I ask the thing I have feared all along, "Were they cruel to you?"
"God no. They were perfectly polite. Hugged me once even. They told me about the center."
I swallow hard, "Did they?"