Sarah stood there holding William’s hand. Neither one sang. Her stoic face belied the grief that I knew she had to be feeling. Given her illness, I was amazed that she could stand. A glimmer of light reflected off a single tear that rolled down her cheek, so I looked at William. That was a mistake.
Tears rolled freely down his angry face. I watched as he tried unsuccessfully to control his sobs. He looked up, fixing my eyes with his gaze. They screamed out to me, begging to know why his father had to die. I knew the answer, but I couldn’t face it… not with him staring at me like that. So I looked up to safety of the early evening sky. But the sky just provided a backdrop for the the memory of how I had found him on Makunudhoo.
When I had arrived on the island, I saw a dozen other men tied up to palm trees. Rick was one of them. I ran to him. His pants were around his ankles. His legs covered in blood. And his head hung down to his chest where they had branded a circle inscribed with a crescent moon and a single star. It was the symbol for Jamal. I’d seen it six months ago on the island of Embudu, burned on the corpses of men, women, and children.
I knew that Rick was dead, but I had to be sure. As I stood in front of him, the nauseating smell of burnt flesh filled my nostrils. I had to fight the urge to throw up. Gently, I lifted his head by the chin and looked into his open, dead eyes. They seemed to stare at a killer who was no longer there. Blood dripped from his half-open mouth onto my hand. I saw something wedged inside. I looked closer and then jumped back. The fucking bastards had choked him with his own balls!
I shut my eyes tight. Now my head was filled with the song that everyone was singing. The rage that I tried to push deep in the pit of my stomach suddenly broke free. I opened my eyes and threw my candle against a boulder. It shattered with a loud crash. The singing stopped and everyone stared at me. I suddenly felt like I was on trial.
Fuck them!
I turned and ran off.
As I ran through the jungle, I felt Rick’s accusing dead eyes following me. I picked up the pace, but I knew that I couldn’t outrun the truth. If I had gone to Makunudhoo yesterday, then Rick would be back there singing with his family at my funeral.
I couldn’t breathe. Stopping outside the dining hut, I bent over. The taste of bile filled my mouth. I don’t know how long I stayed like that, but it seemed like forever.
Then I felt a soft hand on my back. I didn’t need to stand up to know who it was.
“I’m sorry, Sarah,” I said. “I’m just no good with—”
“I know. It’s okay.”
I stood up and looked into Sarah’s gaunt, tear-stained face and said, “Goddammit, it’s not okay! I even fucked this up.”
“What are you talking about?”
“This,” I said motioning to her and me. “I’m supposed to be the one who consoles you.”
She reached out, took my hand, and smiled. “You know what Rick would say about this?”
“That I’m a dumbass?”
Her sad smile grew. “Probably, but he’d also say that you shouldn’t beat yourself up over this. It wasn’t your fault, Aron. None of it.”
I looked away. I didn’t want her to see the tears welling up in my eyes. “Well… then he was the dumbass.”
I heard her laugh, softly at first, but the laugh quickly grew louder. I looked at her and for a split second, the heaviness that had been crushing my chest vanished. But then the memory of Rick’s dead face flashed in my brain. Suddenly the pressure on my chest returned with a vengeance.
Her laughter turned into a coughing fit. She let go of my hands to cover her mouth. When the coughs subsided she said, “You’re right. For such a smart guy, Rick used to say a lot of stupid things.” Then a gentle look spread across her face. “But he was right about one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“He was right about you.”
I tilted my head, confused.
“I remember the day he came home and told me about…” she looked down at the scars on my wrists. “He told me how he had found you that day, sitting on the edge of the pier holding a piece of glass from a broken bottle.”
Why was she doing this? I didn’t want to hear this… not now.
“He said you felt guilty about not being at home with your family when the storm hit. And do you know what I told him?”
I turned and looked away again.
“I told him that maybe he should’ve left you alone and let you finish what you had started.”
I turned back and looked into her eyes, unsure if I’d heard her right.
She smiled softly and said, “It’s not that I wanted you to die. It’s just that it was such a terrible time for everybody, so much pain and suffering. I simply didn’t understand why he had stopped you from ending your pain.”
The same thought had crossed my mind a million times over the last twelve years and I still didn’t know the answer.
She continued, “Well… he just smiled at me and told me that if humanity had any chance to survive, then we couldn’t stop helping one another. That’s why he wanted to be on the Council of Thirteen, to help people.”
“I don’t want to get into that right now.”
“Into what?”
“Into the Council bullshit.”
Her eyes glistened with fresh tears.
“That was something he believed in, Sarah… not me.” I said, “You know my thoughts on the Mars mission. It’s just a shell game. The people up there have the same probability of dying as we do down here… maybe greater. So what’s the point?”
“The point is hope,” she said. The tears spilled out of her eyes. “Everyone needs hope. I need it, William needs it, and even a thick-headed jerk like you needs it. Rick believed that the Council gave us that hope.”
“But you’ve heard him talk about the Council. You know all the politicking and backroom deals that go on. The only people with hope are the ones with connections to Ahmed and some of the other scumbags on the Council.”
“Not everyone on the Council is corrupt and you know it. You know Shannon and you’ve met Michio. Rick trusted them because they’re good people. It’ll be hard for them to keep the Council in line without Rick there to help.”
I knew where she was heading with this, but I wasn’t going to follow her there. “I don’t really know Michio that well, but I know Shannon. She’s as tough as they come. I’m sure everything will work out.”
I turned to leave, but she grabbed my arm. I stopped. I couldn’t look at her.
“I’m not asking you to do anything that you don’t want to do. I just… I don’t know… I guess I’m just worried about William. Rick and I wanted to give him a chance at a future. You’re a father. You understand, don’t you?”
I understood, but I wasn’t a father, not anymore. Besides, some fucking father I turned out to be. All I had cared about was cashing in on a fishing trip to the Maldives. It was all about me and what I had wanted. Well… I got what I wished for and it cost me the opportunity to be there with my family at the end. And yesterday I fucked up again. I needed some alone time.
“Aron?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you okay?”
I nodded, but took off down the path. I needed a drink.
I watched as wave after wave crashed relentlessly against the rocky shore, sending plumes of water high into the air. From the look of the storm clouds, I could tell that it wouldn’t be long before the rain hit.
I took another swig from the bottle and winced as the moonshine burned its way down my throat. Holding the bottle up to the light I wondered where Mohamed had learned to distill alcohol. It just didn’t seem like something that an Allah-fearing Muslim would or should know how to do. From the taste of this shit, I wasn’t convinced that he did know.