“What’s behind there?” she asked Amir.
Amir laughed, “Unless your husband’s playing a game of hide and seek, he won’t be over there.” But as he spoke, he saw that Monique was not smiling. “But, okay, I will look. Just need to move some of these lights first.”
Amir moved aside a couple of long black light fixtures that were in the way and then took a couple of steps and looked behind the signs. As Monique watched, she found herself holding her breath. Amir reached the signs and pulled them forward so Monique could see there was nothing behind them.
“Thank you, Amir. I’m—” She stopped as she didn’t know what to say next.
Amir looked at her and smiled politely, but as he walked back towards the open door, he had to stop and ask her, “Miss Monique, I do not want to pry, but is everything all right?”
“Yes, yes, Amir. Thank you. It’s just—” Once again she couldn’t fill her sentence with any more words.
“Miss Monique.” Amir’s friendly happy voice was replaced with a concerned tone. “Forgive me, but it’s just...we are looking for your husband behind a sign in a locked room?”
Monique reacted to the bare facts of what Amir had just said, as if someone had just thrown a bucket full of freezing water in her face. “I’m sorry, Amir, no, it’s not all right. It hasn’t been all right for a long time. I’m looking for my husband here because...because he doesn’t want to be here today. To be honest with you, I’ve been so worried about him because I don’t think he wants to be anywhere today!”
Amir put his hand on Monique’s arm and squeezed it gently. “How long has it been since his accident?”
Monique didn’t answer. She just reached out to Amir’s hand on her arm and clutched it.
“How long has it been since he lost his legs? Maybe he just needs—”
“You don’t know Robert, Amir...the man he is...All the things he has done in his life. This just isn’t him. He’s seen people die right in front of him and...He’s helped so many people in situations—hopeless situations! He’s just...the most positive, optimistic man I know!”
“Yes, yes, I’m sure he still is. Maybe he just needs a little more time to find his way...his way back to being that positive man.”
“No, Amir, my fear is that he has worked himself onto this ledge and now there is no turning back.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand. What ledge do you mean?”
“He used to warn me about climbers that climb themselves into places where there is no return. Oh, I’m sorry—it’s just I’ve never seen Robert give up on anything or anyone. But it’s like now—he’s just stopped. It’s like he’s stuck somewhere and can’t find the way back. He never talks anymore and I actually have to ask the people at the rehabilitation centre how he is doing. They told me he has these new legs but he shows no interest in trying them. And that they can do nothing more until he starts trying. But he doesn’t try anymore! That’s why I was praying that this talk might help...I thought maybe talking about this great love of his...”
“Well, maybe your husband is fearful of talking in front of strangers.”
“No, Amir, no. He has been doing that for years—working with strangers, helping them in their lives. Many people call him—the healer, the hope-giver. This just isn’t him!”
The look on Amir’s face grew sullen and serious. “And forgive me for asking but...are we looking for him back here behind a sign because you think your husband might want to—?” It was Amir’s turn to not know how to finish his sentence.
“I don’t know what I know anymore! It’s just that—Two months ago there were some break-ins around our neighbourhood and Robert told me he was worried about being able to protect us and so he bought a gun.”
“Oh dear!” Amir groaned.
“Remember when you were helping him up the stairs and that brown leather bag dropped on the floor? Remember how angry he got when you went to pick it up? He won’t let anyone touch it.” Monique waited a beat. She didn’t want to say it out loud. She did everything she could to erase these thoughts. These were the words she tried painfully to burn out of her mind. But it seemed they could no longer be hidden and so, finally, they were spoken...
“I think he has a gun in there.”
“Oh my! Oh my!” Amir put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the keys. “Come, let’s check the other room.”
Amir didn’t bother to close the first door before rushing to open the next one. His hands were a bit nervous as he fit the key in the lock. Once again, the room was dark and he quickly went behind the door and switched on the light. The room was stacked with chairs and tables all along one side of the room. Monique stepped into the room and it was obvious that Robert was not in there.
“He is not here,” Amir said. Then they both jumped a little as Monique’s cell phone started to ring inside her purse. They looked at each other in relief as Monique pulled the phone out. She looked at the number that was calling and said, “Oh, thank God!”
“Is it your husband?”
“No, it’s my daughter. Excuse me.” Monique clicked on the phone, “Jen, Jen, I’ve been trying to call you.”
“Mom, where have you been? I’ve been leaving messages all morning.”
“I know. I had the phone off. I’m just glad you’re safe and—”
“Mom, where are you?”
“Honey, I told you last night, I’m at the hotel for the conference today.”
“Yeah, Mom, I know, but where are you and Daddy now? I’m here looking for you.”
“What?”
“Mom, I’m at the hotel.”
“What? You’re here? Why, honey...What on earth are you doing here?”
“Mom, please just tell me where you are. I’m in the Leaning Tower of Pisa room now and I’m standing in front of stage. Where are you and Daddy?”
“Just wait there, baby. I’ll see you in a moment—Just don’t move, I’m coming, okay?”
“Okay, Mom. Bye.”
36. 2 WEEKS AGO – SEEMA’S OFFICE
Seema was speechless. She tightly pulled at her scarf and watched Robert wheel himself away from the window and start going towards the office door. He stopped and turned his wheelchair around, but only halfway. Then, without looking at her, he said, “So you can stop trying now, Seema. You can finally stop trying to give me a reason.”
“No, wait, Robert!” Seema shot up from behind her desk and started to plead with him. “Please, let’s talk about this.”
Robert calmly turned his wheelchair to face her. “I thought we just did that? Didn’t we just talk?”
“No, that wasn’t a talk; you just told me things. And if it’s true you feel no reason or no purpose to...well, then I think we have to talk now, Robert.” Robert looked blankly at Seema. His eerie calmness disturbed her greatly. “Please, Robert, please. Can you stay for a little bit? Let’s discuss this.”
“Discuss what? That all the things I’ve done in my life to help others don’t seem to help me?”
“But that was just one boy, you can’t hope to—”
“It’s not about Jake. It’s just—It’s like I’ve spent all this energy, all this time, so much of my life reaching out, helping others and now when I need it—Now when I’m so desperately searching for it, well, now it...it just doesn’t seem to help me!”
“Then maybe it’s time for you...to let us help.”
“You? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for that to sound cruel. But, do you know every day I pass through these doors and I look at those words written on the door, ‘Rehabilitation Centre.’ And, no matter where I look, keep seeing that word ‘rehabilitate’ on every sign and pamphlet you have here. I see that word so...so many times every single day. And do you know what? It’s funny—because I realized I don’t even know what it means! That’s right! I’m coming here every day to be rehabilitated and I don’t even know what that means. Do you know what that word means?”
“Well, Robert, sometimes words—”
“No, please don’t do that. Do you know what that word means, Seema?”
“Well, um...Rehabilitation is a treatment designed to facilitate the process of recovery.”
“Yeah, yeah...Okay. Do you know what I did? I looked it up! Do you know what it says in the dictionary about that word? It says: to restore someone’s useful place in society.”
“Yes, Robert. Useful! That’s why I like the word. I like to look at the word as re-habit-ing. Helping someone change to discover what new habits they need in order to be useful.”
“Well, I can’t find it!”
“Find what? What is it you can’t—”
“I can’t find that useful place anymore!”
“You realize, Robert, many—”
Robert interrupted Seema, “I went through my journal.”
“Your journal? I thought you told me that—”
“Yeah, I lied. I know you asked me if I kept one and I said I didn’t. But I did...I kept one for many years.”
“And?”
“You said sometimes when we look back to some of the things we wrote in the past that maybe—Oh, damn it! You know what? I believed you! I did. I really, really thought it would be in there. I did!”
“What would?”
“An answer.”
“Answer to what?”
“Something. Anything! That’s my life in there! I wrote about it. I wrote about everything I’ve done, that I said or thought...I really was thinking it would help me now.”
“So reading your journal—”
“It didn’t do a thing! I still feel this way. Do you know how hard it is to feel that? After all the things I did to help those kids. And some of them—their lives, I mean some...they were so lost, so hurt, so...broken...and so close to being...being...lost forever. And...I just thought I could find it in there.”
“What did you find?”
“That it means nothing to me now.”
“What, Robert? What means nothing to you?”
“My life! My whole goddamn life!”
“Robert, you may feel that now, but—”
“No! Don’t you get it? I’m that kite.”
“What kite?”
“That kite! That kid’s kite we saw flying around that day—the one that’s crashed, all mangled. Remember? Remember when we talked about what you would do after it got all wrecked up? And...that I said, sometimes it’s better to just leave it? Remember? Don’t try to fix it—just leave it there. It can’t be fixed...so just walk away!”
“But those kids, Robert, those ones you said were almost lost forever. They were broken but you didn’t walk away from them, did you?”
“No. I didn’t! But I looked in my journal and I saw...look, I know I was there with them along the way. But did I really help them? No. Somehow they all...they all were able to find this...this something. Like somehow they all had this moment and this moment just changed everything for them. And me, what did I do for them? Well, I wasn’t their moment. Don’t get me wrong, Seema, I know, really I do...I know I helped them...even like you are trying to help me. But they all found this moment—How? This moment it just came to them, like it was some kind of place they suddenly knew they had to get to. Like...like some kind of line that they all crossed over—and they got there—all because of that moment.”
“And what do you think that moment was, Robert.”
“I don’t know...Obviously I haven’t found it.”
“Or maybe it hasn’t found you.”
37. PRESENT DAY – AT THE HOTEL
Monique clicked off the phone. Jenny was here! Thank God. She hadn’t realized how much she needed her daughter at that moment. She was mid-way through bolting to the door to see Jenny when she stopped herself.
“That door, Amir, at the end of the hall, what is that?”
“That’s the back entrance to the Taj Mahal room.” Amir walked to the door and checked the doorknob. It wouldn’t budge. “It’s locked and I don’t have a key for it, only the front desk does. They have it. But it was locked this morning, so Mr. Robert could not have gone in there.”
Monique looked up. “Oh, please! Where is he?”
Amir put his hand on Monique’s shoulder. “Come, let’s go to the front desk. Someone is sure to have seen him. How far could a man in a wheelchair have gone?”
That question echoed in Monique’s head as they walked back down the hall and into the Leaning Tower of Pisa room. How far? How far? How far could he go?
Monique saw Jenny the moment she opened the door. Jenny’s back was to her but she could see she was with a young man, a woman and a little child.
“There he is! There he is, Mommy. I see him, Mommy. There’s Daddy!” Claire said, jumping up and down in excitement.
“Okay, honey, come on. Let’s go and surprise Daddy.” Claire ran between the tables towards her father, who was sitting at a table in the middle of the room and talking to Greg.
“I better go too before she knocks something over. Thanks for sharing the cab with us. And really it was wonderful that we were both coming here today!” Claire’s mom turned back to Jenny and Kyle. “Oh, and thank you for keeping my Claire so occupied on the plane. She hasn’t seen her father for two weeks and she was so excited that I thought she might try to jump out of the plane! Anyway, thanks for reading to her. I didn’t hear too much but from what I did hear, your father sounds like quite a man and we are really looking forward to hearing him speak today. Okay...well, bye.”
“Bye,” Kyle and Jenny said, just as Monique reached them
“Jenny? Jenny, what are you doing here?” Monique opened her arms and pulled her daughter tightly to her. “Oh, baby, it’s so great to see you!” Just as Monique’s head rested beside Jenny’s, she whispered, “But what are you doing here?”
Jenny pulled out of the hug and put her hands on her mom’s shoulders. “I left you messages all morning, Mom. Dad sent me his journal.” She then pulled it out of her purse to show her mother.
“I can’t believe he did that!” Monique looked at the worn book in Jenny’s hand. Monique knew full well about Robert’s promise to his daughter. Jenny had begged countless times to read it, but Robert’s comment was always the same. The book was her inheritance. ‘You’ll get to read it when I’m gone,’ he would say. “Oh my God, honey, that must have scared you.”
“Why wouldn’t you answer your phone, Mom? I got so worried. I had to come. I called everywhere, Mom. Why did he give this to me today? Now, Mom? So when I couldn’t reach you, I just...well, I just had to come. Where is he? Where’s Daddy?”
Amir, sensing a scene was about to erupt, tapped Monique on the shoulder and quietly said, “Come, let’s go out into the hallway, okay, Miss Monique?”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea. Come on, Jenny.” Monique put her arm around her daughter and they started out the door. Kyle walked closely behind.
Jenny looked terribly worried as they walked out. Why is no one answering where my father is?
The hotel hallway was quite empty. Monique looked up and down the hall for any sign of Robert. Then she immediately turned towards the wall to speak privately to Jenny.
“Jenny, this is Amir and—” Monique then noticed Kyle standing with them. “I’m sorry, can I help you?”
Before Kyle could open his mouth to speak, Jenny quickly grabbed him by the arm and pulled him into their little circle along the wall. “Mom, this is Kyle. Kyle, this is my mom. Kyle’s with me, Mom.”
Kyle opened his hand to greet Monique but was interrupted by Jenny’s question to her mom. “What’s happening, Mom? Where is Daddy?”
Amir interjected, “I am sorry, Miss Monique, please excuse me. It’s better you speak to your daughter first. I will go to the front desk and ask for the key to look in that room.” Amir nodded politely and hurried down the hallway towards the front desk.
“Jenny, I went to the washroom about half an hour ago and when I got back, your father was missing.”
&n
bsp; “Missing?” Jenny almost yelled out. “Missing, Mom?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean missing. I meant, he left and we just don’t know where he went. Apparently, when I was in the washroom, Amir told me that he wanted to get off the stage and he went into the back hallway behind the stage to be alone.”
“Well, come on, let’s go and look for him.”
“We did, Jenny. He’s not there.”
“Does he have his cell?”
“No, Jen, you know he hasn’t used that for months.”
“Maybe he went home, Mom.”
“How? He can’t drive.”
“This isn’t like him, Mom. He wouldn’t just take off. Something’s wrong with Daddy.”
Monique put her hand on her daughter’s head and stroked it. “I know, baby, I know.”
Kyle spoke for the first time, “Maybe he took a cab, Mrs. Sanchez.”
“Well, that’s true, he could have—No, his wheelchair isn’t collapsible. Did you see an empty wheelchair when you came into the hotel?”
“Well, we weren’t really looking for that when we got here, but let me go and check in the front of the hotel, okay?” Kyle shot down the hallway.
Mother and daughter stood there alone.
“Oh, Mom, where is he?” Jenny hugged her mom tight. “I’m scared, Mom. Why would Daddy send me his journal?”
“I don’t know, baby, I really don’t know...”
Amir came back running and was a bit out of breath. “No one at the front desk has seen Mr. Robert pass by but I have the key for that other room. Come, let’s go back in.”
The three of them walked back into the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
“One second, I must change the music.” Almost without making a full stop, Amir ran up the steps, went behind his desk, quickly pushed a couple of buttons and then leaped off the front of the stage and walked to the door leading to the rooms off the stage. Monique and Jenny followed him.
As Amir entered the hallway, he walked directly to the door at the end of the hallway that led to the room called the Taj Mahal. Monique and Jenny followed closely behind.
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