I just pray we aren’t disappointed.
* * *
[Conakry, Guinea, December 4, 2016]
Three days later Dominic and I are standing on the hospital grounds and I’m showing a picture of Christian to a man named Dr. James.
“Yes, yes, this is Christian,” he says in a thick African accent. The man speaking to me is on the far edge of middle age, portly, kind, and wearing gold wire-framed glasses. “Of course, he did not know his name until only a few days before he left us.”
When it became clear the doctor speaks English fluently, and knew Christian, Dominic went back to the boat to give me some privacy.
“He was here?” I ask, scarcely believing it could be true.
Dr. James nods, handing back the photograph of Christian. “Yes, yes. For…oh, eight months. He was very near to death when he came here. He was most dehydrated, with breaks on his left arm and leg, a broken right wrist, many broken ribs, and a most severe concussion. It is a miracle he was alive, to be truthful. He was in the sea for a very long time, and I think only a very strong will and stubbornness kept him alive.” Dr. James eyes me speculatively. “Or maybe it was you. You are Ava, yes?”
I nod. “Yes, I’m Ava. He…he spoke of me?”
Dr. James lets out a long breath. “Oh, my dear. When he did not know even himself, he spoke of you. The fishermen who rescued him said your name was all he would say, even when he was unconscious.”
I choke, eyes burning. “Really?”
Dr. James nods. “Oh yes. To say that he loves you is…it would do the intensity of his love for you a great disservice.”
“He had amnesia, I’ve been told?”
Another nod. “Temporary retrograde amnesia, if you would like the specific medical terminology. When last I spoke with him, he had recovered many of his memories, specifically of you, and your relationship with him. Many other memories he had of himself and his own past were still difficult for him to piece together, but he remembered his name and the shape of most things of his life, at least.”
“How was he, emotionally?” I ask.
Dr. James hesitates. “It is hard to say with much certainty. He suffered a most extensive trauma. Not only the shipwreck, but also the events which preceded it. I think perhaps in some ways, his amnesia was brought on as much by the emotional trauma and his psyche’s need to separate from it. It was as if he needed a rest from the emotional suffering. It was too much, perhaps, and his psyche attempted to repress his memories as a way of giving him a rest, so to speak.”
“Where is he?” I ask. “Do you know?”
Dr. James waves a hand at the sea, audible in the distance. “Searching for you, I believe. He wanted to go back to the United States.” A pause. “He left us around your American holiday of Thanksgiving.”
I am about to cry, and trying valiantly not. “But I came all the way here looking for him!”
“The ship he is on is called Le Coureur D’onde. It departed some two weeks ago, heading eastward from the port of Conakry.” Dr. James leans forward, takes my hands in his. “I am only a medical doctor, but may I offer you a small piece of advice?”
I nod, blinking back tears. “Please—yes, please.”
“Tragedy comes to us in many ways, unpredictable and painful. We cannot avoid it, and we cannot pretend it did not happen.” He removes his glasses by peeling them off sideways, with a twist of his head, and gestures with the arm of them. “You and he, you both suffered much. For your husband to remember, he had to write down what he remembered. It caused him great pain, and to understand some of what drove his pain, I must read some of these journals. So, I know of the loss of your son. This pain…there is nothing like it.”
“No…no there is not.”
“You must forgive.” He smiles gently. “You must forgive first yourself, and then each other.”
“Easier said than done, Doctor.” I blink away more tears.
He nods. “Oh yes. That is quite true. But still, you must forgive or you will never heal.”
“I don’t know how.” I can’t blink these tears away anymore, they are too hot and too many, blurring my sight, running down my cheeks, and dripping off my chin. “I’m so angry. At him, at myself, at God, at life, at the Sea. I’m so angry at everything. I don’t even know where to start.”
Dr. James sighs, with another kind, gentle smile. “You begin where we must always begin—at the beginning. It is easy for me to make such pithy statements, of course, but where is the beginning; this is your next question, yes? The beginning is yourself. I do not know all that happened between you and Christian. I only read bits and piece of your husband’s journals, to understand some of where he was in his mind and in his journey to remembering. But I do know from my own life that when I am most angry at myself, I find it much easier to let my anger at everyone else rise up and grow stronger and eclipse my anger at myself. But the root of it all, the real seed of it, is my anger at me. And so, in order to be able to forgive others, or God, or the World, or Life, or the Sea, or whatever else I am angry at, or have been wronged by or feel wronged by, I must first forgive myself. Even if I deserve the anger or the blame or the guilt, I cannot carry it forever. It is too heavy a burden for us to carry such things around on our backs all our lives. To live, to be truly free, we must put them down.”
His gaze is dark and distant, staring beyond me into the past, perhaps, and I think he understands what he’s talking about more deeply than I could ever imagine.
We converse a bit more, about Christian, about his time of recuperation here, and Dr. James’s impressions of him.
The image that emerges of Christian is…it’s of a man I’m not sure I would recognize, anymore. I might have, once. The Christian Dr. James describes is soft-spoken and quiet and gentle, introspective, humble. All the things Christian used to be, but that he lost along the way, to one degree or another.
He also describes a Christian obsessed with me, holding on to memories of me as the only lifeline keeping him from madness and despair. He describes a man who would sometimes drown in sorrow, especially as he began remembering what happened.
The Christian I remember, especially after Henry died, was hard and angry and distant. He tried, with me, but it felt as if he was trying out of obligation, or because he needed me. He also drank a lot and I cannot imagine that helped either; I know it didn’t help my recovery or grief at all, only prolonged the hurt.
I think there was a chasm there, between reaching out to me and trying to help me because he loved me and wanted me to be okay, and doing so because he needed me for his own emotional well-being.
But then, I’m guilty of the same thing. I retreated into silence and apathy because I couldn’t handle reality, I couldn’t handle life. I withdrew utterly and completely.
Selfishly, I never even considered him in my grief, never thought of him or his needs or my love for him—he never even entered my mind. Once Henry died, the pain of his loss was all, totally consuming me, devouring everything I was.
He retreated into alcohol and the recesses of his own mind, and I, doing the same, had no idea where he was, emotionally, or what he was going through. We should have been there for each other, but we weren’t.
We’re both guilty of that.
He abandoned me, but I abandoned him too.
So…who’s more at fault?
Does it matter?
I don’t think it does.
All that matters, now, is finding him and—I don’t know. Forgive him? Then what?
I don’t know. Find him first, figure the rest out afterward.
And so I find myself back on The Glory, standing at the bow of the boat, one hand on the railing, phone in the other. I call my sister, because I need her advice.
The handset rings, and after a few rings, Delta answers. “Hello? Ava, is that you?”
“Hi, Delta, yeah, it’s me.”
“Good to hear from you, honey. So, where are you calling from and what’s
the latest on your search?”
“Christian was alive as of two weeks ago. I’m calling from a place called Conakry, which is a port city in Guinea, an African coastal country. Christian was rescued by fishermen and brought to a hospital here. He had temporary retrograde amnesia, which just means he couldn’t remember anything at first but eventually recovered most of his memories. When he finally remembered enough of who he was, he left and went looking for me.”
“But…you’re out there looking for him.”
“Exactly.”
“So now what? He’s alive, but he’s out there looking for you and you’re out there doing the same thing?”
“I don’t know what to do next, honestly.” I have to hold back tears, which seem to be on the surface all the time now. “Do I go after him? He’s got a two-week head start on me.”
“I don’t know much about boats and all that, obviously, but can’t Dominic just hail them on the radio or whatever?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t talked to Dominic about any of this yet. I got back to the ship and I immediately called you. I’m just—I’m relieved and I’m frustrated and I’m confused all at once, and I—it’s all too much, sometimes.”
“You set out to find your husband, Ava. Well, you’ve almost done it, right? You know he’s alive, you know he didn’t just vanish, or die, or decide to not come back or whatever, so…this is all good news, right? I’m just saying, there’s got to be a way of getting hold of the boat he’s on. Like, you could take a helicopter or something. Like I said, I don’t know how things work out there, but I feel like there has to be a better way of catching up to Chris besides chasing him all the way back across the Atlantic.”
I let out a breath. “You’re right. It’s just frustrating to be so close yet so far. I mean, this doctor I talked to, he knew Christian. He treated him and took care of him for the last eight months. Helped him get his memories back.”
Delta hesitates. “You know, I’ve heard that people who go through memory loss sometimes aren’t ever quite the same as they were, even if they remember pretty much everything.”
“Yeah, and from what this doctor told me, it seems like Christian is going to be…different.”
“He’s been through a lot. It’d be impossible for him not to be changed by everything, memory loss aside.” She hesitated again. “For that matter, you’ve changed a lot too.”
“I have? How?”
A long silence. I can hear the sound of people speaking in the background, and then Delta’s answer. “You’re more…internal, now. I don’t know how else to put it. Inside your own head, if that makes any sense. More closed off. Quieter. A little more hard-edged.”
“None of that is good,” I say, with a deprecating laugh.
Delta didn’t laugh with me. “Ava, honey. You lost your son, and then your husband left you, and then you went through a hurricane and almost died, and then you found out Christian had been lost at sea and was likely dead, and now you’ve spent more than a month at sea, which you hate…looking for the husband most people would assume is dead.” A sigh, from Delta. “How are you supposed to go through all that and not come out the other side a little worse for wear? Everything you’ve been through is going to change you too, Ava. It has to. It’s going to.”
I feel one of those truths I’ve been hoarding deep inside trying to bubble up and out, and I let it. “I—I’ve had a lot of time to think, lately. Not a lot for me to do except cook and clean and think, you know? And…I—I’ve realized I don’t really know who I am.”
“Ava, come on—”
“No, for real. Like, my identity has always been so wrapped up in Christian and then Henry, and now I’m finally being forced to face the fact that I don’t have either of them anymore, and I don’t—I don’t know who I am. What is it I do? I’m not blogging anymore, and I don’t think I ever will again. I’m not writing anymore either, and again, I don’t think I ever will. Not on a novel, at least. What would I write about? And my one novel wasn’t worth shit, so why go through that again? So…if I’m not a wife, if I’m not a mother, and I’m not a writer, then who am I? What am I? What value do I add to this world?” I swallow hard, and my voice is more a whisper than anything else.
“I’m more closed off, hard-edged—that’s what you said, and you’re right. And yeah, that’s just a natural effect of what I’ve been through. But…what do I do now? What do I do if I never find him? What if something else happens to him? What if we never find each other? Or what if we do, but there’s nothing there between us anymore? I mean, we were horrible to each other, Delta. We both were just…horrible. We were husband and wife, and best friends—we should have been there for each other through the loss of Henry, but instead we both drank ourselves half to death and ignored each other. Or, at least, I ignored him, and then he left because he couldn’t deal with my hatred anymore.”
“Do you hate him?” Delta asks. “For real?”
I have to think about my answer. “I—I think…I think I was in so much pain I couldn’t even process it, and the only thing I had was anger, and the only person around to be angry at was Christian. Do I hate him? No, I don’t. I’m angry at him, but I’m just as angry at myself, so…” I shrug, even though Delta can’t see me. “I don’t know what I feel. It’s all a big messy jumble of shit I can’t process. I don’t know what to do.”
“Want to know what I think?”
I laugh. “Why do you think I called, Delta? You’re my big sister. I’m hoping you have answers I don’t.”
She finally laughed with me. “Well, I don’t claim to have the answers, just what I think you should do, in my opinion.”
“Just tell me already!”
“Okay, so I think you should ask Dominic about the radio thing. There has to be a way of contacting the boat he’s on and getting them to turn around so you guys can sort of meet in the middle. That’s step one. Step two is, once you and Chris are back together—in the same physical space, I mean—you just…figure things out one day at a time. You won’t know what he’s like after everything that’s happened until you see him, and that’ll affect you both. Things are going to be different—you have to go into it knowing that much. You won’t ever be able to go back to the way things were, right? You know that as well as I do. Too much has happened for that. But that doesn’t mean you and Christian can’t find a future together.”
“I thought you didn’t like him?”
“It doesn’t matter whether I like him or not, Ava. I know he loves you, and I know you love him. So, unless you feel like you really truly don’t love him anymore, or if he says he doesn’t love you anymore, then there’s got to be a way through this for you guys.”
“A really huge part of me—pretty much all of me, in fact—doesn’t even know what I’d do without him. Like I just—I can’t picture my life without him. But I also can’t picture our future. I see Henry. I remember the way I treated Chris, lying in bed for two months ignoring him, and what that must have been like for him, to be so alone with his own pain plus me being…whatever I was. I remember waking up one day and finding him gone, and then receiving that stupid fucking letter he sent me. And all the emails. That fucking story about the selkie, all that. What if we can’t make it past all that?”
“Don’t let not making it be an option, then.”
“Is it that easy?”
She laughs. “Easy, no. Simple, yes.”
“Helpful.” I sigh. “Speaking of making it, how are you? We’ve been talking about me this whole time. What about you? How are things with Jonny, and the tour?”
A long sigh. “Oh, Ava. I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my whole life. Everything is just…magical. I’m playing music every day, my own music. I’m on the radio. I’ve got plans for another album, after this tour. And…I’ve got the most amazing man in the whole world who loves me and takes care of me.”
“I’m happy for you, Delta. I really am.”
“I am too,” Delta say
s with a laugh. “I mean, shit, I’ve earned a little happiness, I think.”
“How’s Alex doing being on tour with you?”
“He’s loving it. One of the guys on the crew used to be an elementary school teacher, so he’s sort of acting like a tutor for Alex. We’re doing an online homeschooling program. Jonny is teaching him Spanish, and now those two are jabbering away in Spanish all the time and I have no idea what they’re ever talking about. Alex loves Jonny, like—he worships the ground Jonny walks on, which I understand. And Jonny is just amazing with him. Plus, Alex is surrounded by music all the time, and everyone on the tour is just amazing and they all treat him like actual gold. They let him help set up and tune the guitars, and every time I turn around someone else has him on their shoulders, or he’s sitting on a speaker stack while someone sets up. It’s not a traditional way to raise a kid, but it’s working for us.”
“Sounds like life is finally treating you right, huh?”
“Yeah, after damn near forty years of shit, right? But yeah, it’s awesome.”
“What are you guys doing for Christmas?” I ask.
“The tour is taking a break the week after next and we don’t pick up again until the New Year, so we’ll have time off. And, honestly, I don’t know what we’re going to do. The tour bus is our home, and we haven’t really discussed where we’d call home base. We’re kind of nomadic at the moment, I guess. We’ll probably end up just staying on the bus and having our own little Christmas there. We have a little tree, and we have each other, and I think that’s all we’ll really need.” A pause. “What about you?”
I choke. “Oh god, Delta, I have no idea. I guess it depends on what happens.”
“You know you can always spend it with us, right? I mean, you’re way over there in Africa, but I’m just saying so you know without a doubt that you’ve always got a place with us, if you ever need somewhere to just…be, I guess. I don’t know. We’re family, Ava. Don’t forget that. I love you.”
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