“As you’ve noticed, Abel is experiencing some distress. Rest assured, he is safe and being well taken care of. We will find a way to help him.”
Chapter 46
We finish the session, but it feels weird to be missing a team member. Winnie is agitated, distracted. The rest of us try to participate, but I can tell we are all thinking about Abel. When we gather again after lunch, he does not join us. Dr. Danley announces that he will not be back.
“As you may already know, Abel is a survivor of the Rwandan genocide,” Dr. Danley explains, glancing around our circle. “He lost several family members in the violence. His own sister was murdered in front of him by a neighbor with a machete. The events of this past week have brought much of this unresolved trauma to the surface again, and Abel is finding himself struggling to cope. At my recommendation he has chosen to seek treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder at a residential center in the Ocala National Forest here in Florida. His treatment will be fully funded by the Humanitas Foundation. He has already left for the facility, as they had a spot for him immediately.”
At this unexpected news, I glance at my teammates in astonishment. Abel is gone? I wish I could have said goodbye. The team feels incomplete now. Winnie looks aghast; all the color has drained from her face.
“He wanted to say goodbye to all of you but felt it was better if he left immediately,” Dr. Danley explains. “He didn’t want to slow down your own process or distract the team in any way. That was his choice.”
At her words, Winnie jumps from her chair. It clatters backward onto the marble floor. “I’m leaving too,” she says abruptly. “I’m not staying here. I need to see Abel.”
Dr. Danley displays no surprise, just a quiet curiosity. “Why do you feel you need to leave?” she asks.
Winnie darts a look around the room. She seems trapped, desperate. “I’m shooting heroin again,” she says, her tone defiant. “See.” She shucks off her ever-present combat boots and socks, spreading her toes and pointing. In the webbing between her toes there are tiny red marks. “I’ve been using the entire trip,” she says.
Rosie leans over to me. “I wondered if something like that was going on,” she hisses in my ear. “I kept finding cotton balls in the trash can, and she was always so secretive.”
“I just thought she didn’t like us,” I whisper back. My eyes slide to Winnie’s long, pale bare feet. Her behavior on this trip makes so much more sense now—the moodiness and irritability, the secrecy. She’s been hiding this from all of us.
Dr. Danley surveys Winnie calmly. “Why are you showing us this now?” she asks.
“I need to go with Abel,” Winnie says. She sounds panicky. “He’s the only person who understands me. I want to stop using, but I can’t do it without him.” Winnie’s eyes glitter with unshed tears. I’ve never seen her so rattled. “To be alive is to suffer,” she says, her voice trembling, “but we survive by finding meaning in the suffering.”
She’s paraphrasing Nietzsche. I recognize the idea from my college philosophy class. I glance at Winnie in astonishment. I didn’t see it coming, this attachment between her and Abel. I saw them together that evening by the Danube, but I had no idea their bond had grown so deep.
“I’m trying to find meaning in the suffering,” Winnie says, looking for one moment vulnerable and broken. “But I can’t do it alone.”
“All right,” Dr. Danley says gently. “We will get you the help you are asking for, Winnie. I’m not sure we can get you a place at the same treatment center as Abel, but we will help you. I can promise you that.”
Winnie nods. Her shoulders slump in defeat or relief—I can’t tell which. She picks up her socks and boots. “Okay,” she says, taking a deep breath. “Okay. I want to go today. And I have to talk to Abel. I’ve got to tell him that I want to get clean.”
“Let’s break until after dinner, shall we?” Dr. Danley suggests, looking around the room at the rest of us. “This has been a big day. There’s a lot to process. We’ll meet up again at seven.” She stands and shepherds Winnie toward the door.
Winnie is crying but trying to hide it. She looks back at us, her eyes pink, her dark eyeliner smudged. “I’m sorry,” she says. And then she is gone.
We are silent for a moment. “Dude,” Milo says slowly, voicing the sentiment we all seem to be feeling. “I did not see that coming.”
“If I’d known what she was struggling with . . .” I trail away. I would have what? Liked her more? I doubt it. Had more understanding and empathy? Perhaps. I hope so.
“What a remarkably strong woman to function so normally while carrying such a secret,” Rosie says, shaking her head in astonishment.
I agree. As damaged as she obviously is and unpleasant as she can be, Winnie is both strong and resilient. I feel a grudging sense of respect for her, belatedly, and a touch more empathy.
I glance around our group. We are one-third fewer than when we started. A few more sessions and there may be no one left. Kai catches my eye and raises his eyebrows. I nod. This entire experience has an unreal quality to it, like I am caught in a Twilight Zone. Perhaps in another dimension I am in Chiang Mai wending my way through the street market, eating succulent pork satay and ripe yellow pineapple spears from a bag. Perhaps in another dimension I am still at the refugee camp, unwrapping foil from triangle cheese or helping Delphine weigh and measure a chubby Syrian infant. I can’t quite believe this is all happening.
* * *
That evening as we start our last session of the day, Dr. Danley gives us an update. “Winnie has been admitted to a center especially for heroin addiction,” she tells us. “It is a cutting-edge program in North Carolina, and she is on her way there now. Our thoughts and prayers are with her as she begins the brave and difficult journey of recovery.”
The rest of the evening session inches by. Dr. Danley’s material is good, but I am distracted, thinking about Abel, thinking about Winnie, wondering what in the world I am going to do now that my alternate life is in tatters. It is deeply disconcerting, this realization that I do not want the life I desired for so long.
After the session, Milo, Rosie, Kai, and I head back to the guest cabins. No one feels much like socializing; the loss of our teammates and the six hours of jet lag are wearing on us.
“Dude, all I want is a shower and then to sleep forever,” Milo says with a yawn.
I agree. It’s been a very long, fraught day.
“I’ll be there shortly,” Rosie tells me, hanging back as we reach the beach in front of the mansion. “I think I’ll sit by the pool and look at the moon for a few minutes, just to clear my head a little.”
“Okay, see you soon.” I join Kai and Milo for the short walk back to the guest bungalows but halfway there remember my satchel. I can picture it in the front room, tucked under a white lacquered chair with a cushion hand-embroidered with birds of paradise.
“Forgot my bag. I’ll be right back.”
Milo offers to go with me, but I wave him off to bed. It will just take a minute. I reverse directions and jog back to the main house. Intent on my errand, I almost run into them. Rosie and Lars are sitting together on a chaise lounge in the shadow of a coconut palm by the pool. Rosie’s head rests on Lars’ shoulder, and he is holding her hand, his other arm circling her waist protectively.
“Oh.” I stop abruptly, taken aback.
Rosie lifts her head, and her voice floats to me in the darkness, languid and sure. “Everything okay, sugar?”
“Um, just forgot my bag,” I stammer, flustered at interrupting this intimate moment. I skirt the pool and take the wide steps to the veranda two at a time.
Chapter 47
When I return with my satchel, Lars is gone and Rosie is sitting on the chaise lounge, dangling her toes in the pool. A huge full moon hangs low in the sky over the ocean, bright and luminous as a pearl.
“Lars had to take a call from Singapore,” she says dreamily, “but the evening is so nice I don’t want t
o go to bed yet. It’s been such a strange day.” She tilts her head and looks at me. “Oh Mia, Lars is such a gentleman. I think I’m falling in love.”
I’m alarmed by the strength of her feelings. Falling in love? Does she even know him? Does she know about his problem? If she doesn’t, she needs to learn the truth before she becomes too attached. I have to tell her.
“Rosie,” I say hesitantly, perching on the edge of a chaise lounge next to her. “You know Lars has a . . . limitation, right?”
She stills, her foot poised half in the water. “Limitation? What do you mean?”
I take a deep breath. “During orientation week Rangi told me Lars doesn’t leave the island, not ever. He can’t, apparently. Some kind of trauma in his past.”
She tilts her head and looks at me thoughtfully. Her profile is beautiful, rimmed in silver moonlight. “Do you know what happened?” she asks.
“Allow me to enlighten you on that point.” Lars materializes from the shadows of the veranda, descending the last few stone steps soundlessly, a highball in his hand. He startles both of us. Rosie lets out a little yelp, and I jump instinctively. I wonder how much he heard. I hope he isn’t offended.
“I’m sorry,” I say, hastening to explain. “I wasn’t trying to meddle. I just . . .”
He waves away my words. “Please, don’t apologize. You are simply watching out for your friend. I understand. I would expect nothing less.” He sighs and sits on an empty chaise lounge across from Rosie, putting his elbows on his knees and swirling the ice in his glass. “Mia is right. I don’t leave the island. I haven’t set foot off this place in more than three years.” He looks up at us frankly, the planes and hollows of his face illuminated in the light of a full moon. “Please understand, this is not something I am proud of. I want to be able to continue my former life—jetting to Paris for the weekend, attending a soccer match in Rio on a whim. It was an exciting life, a full life, and then it all was shattered in a moment.”
“What happened?” Rosie asks, leaning forward curiously.
“My life as I knew it ended on April 20, 2012, in the Sulu Sea off the coast of the Philippines.” Lars’s voice is melodic, soothing as he weaves his tale. “I was on a week’s yachting excursion with friends, celebrating my thirty-second birthday. We had just cut fresh pineapples in lieu of cake, and they were singing to me. I remember that because we didn’t hear the boat approaching.” He gazes across the pool, out toward the ocean, as though seeing the moment playing out before him once more.
“We were boarded before we could even sound an alarm. Pirates, members of the Islamic militant group Abu Sayyaf, looking for anything of value on the yacht. They took our wallets, watches, even the women’s high-heeled shoes. And me.”
“Oh Lars,” Rosie exclaims, sounding distressed. “How awful!”
Lars takes a sip of his drink and grimaces. “When they realized I was someone of means, they took me as a hostage. What followed were the most terrifying few weeks of my life.”
He swirls the ice in his glass. “I was taken to an island somewhere farther south, in Abu Sayyaf–held territory, and kept in a dirt-floor shack, tied up and blindfolded. It was fetid—sweltering and overrun with rats and insects. My wrists were chafed raw from the ropes. Each day they would pull me out and interrogate me. Who was I? How much was I worth? They wanted all the details so they could demand a high price as ransom. By the end of the second week, I was desperately sick with diarrhea and vomiting, and almost delirious with dehydration. I thought I was going to die.”
“Oh Lars,” Rosie breathes, her hand fluttering to her throat. “You poor thing.”
I nod in agreement, transfixed by the tale.
He closes his eyes as though the memory still pains him. “It was excruciating, yet it had a silver lining. At my very sickest, when I thought surely I would die, I lay on the dirt floor in a puddle of my own vomit and made a bargain with the Almighty. I was raised Lutheran but had not darkened the doors of a church for many years. But there in that shack I swore that if God let me live, I would turn my focus from myself and spend my time and money making the world a better place.” Lars’ voice cracks with the memory and he stops, clearing his throat.
Rosie reaches over and puts her hand on his knee in tacit sympathy.
“So what happened?” I ask. “Were you rescued?”
“In a manner of speaking.” Lars takes a sip from his glass. “I became so ill my captors worried I might die. A dead hostage would be useless to them. So when my business manager finally offered them one-tenth of their asking price for my freedom, they took the money and dumped me in front of a burger café in Davao City, blindfolded and hog-tied. I guess they thought a burger joint was as close to America as they could get.” He laughs softly, bleakly.
“I never knew you’d been kidnapped,” Rosie exclaims incredulously. “Why wasn’t it in the news?”
Lars shakes his head. “It was all hushed up, taken care of quietly. The US government didn’t want news of a ransom being paid for my release to encourage other kidnappings of US citizens. So we kept it out of the media. Only a handful of trusted people knew.”
He clinks the ice in his glass and continues. “It was quite traumatic, as you can imagine. I was treated at a private hospital until I was well enough to travel, and then the US embassy arranged transport back home. I set foot on this island a little more than three years ago . . . and I haven’t left since. I have had all the best therapy, the most cutting-edge treatments for trauma, but I am still a prisoner of my own mind. Somehow I feel that only here am I truly safe.” He makes a futile gesture with his glass. “Pathetic, is it not?”
Rosie squeezes his knee. “Understandable,” she says gently.
I nod. Understandable, but so very sad. He is a good man, a man with the best of intentions, but a man crippled by his own fear. I look around at the tall windows of the house spilling warm yellow light onto the wide stone veranda, at the vast black expanse of the ocean. A gilded cage, he called it. Now I understand why.
“So that’s why you formed the Humanitas Foundation?” I ask. “So you could keep your promise even if you can’t leave?” And why he wanted everything filmed, so he could feel as though he were a part of it, too, I’m guessing.
Lars nods. “Precisely. I intended to keep my end of the bargain, but of course I had to come up with a different way to do it. Imagine that, a global philanthropist who cannot leave his own backyard.” He sighs in resignation. “I had such high hopes for the foundation, but as you know, things have gone quite awry. However, I am not deterred. We shall simply assess and adjust until we find a format that actually achieves our aims. I still intend to fulfill my promise, despite these initial setbacks.”
“You should talk to Shreya, our handler in Mumbai,” I tell him. “She’ll have some good ideas for you about how to make changes that can really help people. And there’s a doctor at the refugee camp, Delphine, with Medecines Sans Frontieres. She also would have some great input about helping refugees adjust to their new lives.”
“And maybe stop sending suitcases of designer clothes to your volunteers,” Rosie says lightly, with a note of fondness in her tone.
Lars chuckles. “I did that only for you, my dear. You told me you appreciated them.”
“Very much,” Rosie replies. “And somewhere in Europe two teenage girls from Syria are starting their new life off very stylishly with most of the contents of that suitcase. I did keep a few things,” she admits. “Those Gucci flats were just too yummy.”
I realize I have become a third wheel and rise to go. I clear my throat, but neither of them hears me. Rosie has moved to sit beside Lars, her head bent close to his. I wander back to the guest cottage, leaving them in peace.
Chapter 48
The next morning when I wake I see two missed calls and several text messages from Henry.
Call me ASAP. It’s an emergency, the last one reads.
Heart pounding, I slip out onto the porch, c
areful to not rouse Rosie, who is asleep in the other twin bed, just the top of her head visible above the sheet. I have no idea how late she came in last night. I punch Henry’s number, my hands trembling. Is it my parents? One of the kids? Nana Alice?
Henry picks up on the second ring. “Mia.” His tone is tight with worry.
“What happened?” My heart skips a beat.
“It’s Nana Alice,” Henry whispers into the phone. In the background I can hear the rhythmic beep of some machine. “She’s taken a turn for the worse. I don’t want to scare you, tiger, but I think you need to come home now.”
“What?” I panic, feeling utterly blindsided. “But she told me she was recovering, that she was feeling better every day.”
Henry is quiet for a moment, then says heavily, “She’s been lying to us all about her cancer, Mia. She’s really sick.”
I sit down on the deck with a thump, my legs giving out from under me. Henry explains the situation briefly. “She told everyone she had cervical cancer, that it was slow growing and under control, but that isn’t true. She has stage four pancreatic cancer and it’s metastasized. Pancreatic cancer is . . .” He hesitates. “Not good. It’s fast moving and really difficult to cure, especially when it has spread like hers has. She caught a cold last week, and then last night she fainted while putting on her pajamas. She was dehydrated and her blood pressure was very low. The hospital gave her an IV of fluids and she stabilized, but she’s really weak. They’re worried about it turning into pneumonia.”
I feel like I’ve just swallowed a bucket of ice cubes, the cold dread sliding down my throat at Henry’s words.
“What’s her prognosis?” I whisper.
There is silence on the other end of the line. “Even if she pulls out of this, she doesn’t have much time,” Henry says gently.
I give a strangled little sob. For a moment I gaze out at the palm trees waving gently in the breeze, listen to the chirp of birds punctuated by the roar of the surf. The ocean through the trees is dazzling, early morning sunlight sparkling off the water like diamonds. But my tears blur the scene, making the palm trees smudges of green. I feel as though my heart is breaking in two. Nana Alice has been lying to us all. Nana Alice is dying.
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