Morning and evening, the four of us spent hours walking the beach. I tried to get my strength back, which was slow in coming, and Paulo and Isabella sought to catch every lobster on Bimini, as they’d developed quite the taste for large crustaceans. I taught them how to drive my boat and discovered that not only was Leena good at it but she enjoyed going very fast. At one point, idling back into the dock, with her hair blown into a wild state of disarray in which she looked like she’d stuck her finger in an electrical socket, she turned and joked with Isabella, “You know, life just gets so much better at a hundred and ten.”
Leena’s love of speed was exceeded only by that of her daughter, who looked like someone had not only plugged her into an electrical outlet, but set her hair on fire and looped the sides of her smile around her ears.
Colin offered to return them in his jet, which they’d accepted. Leena was hesitant to be overly forward, but I could tell from her body language and from Isabella’s outright requests that she was wanting to make plans for my return “visit.”
The clock was ticking.
The night before they left, Paulo orchestrated circumstances in which Leena and I had time on the beach to ourselves. She could tell I was trying to get something out of my mouth so she walked quietly beside me—evidence of how comfortable she’d grown around me. There was no easy way to do this, so I finally just dove in. “Leena, do you remember, prior to Hurricane Carlos, when an American company made an offer to buy Mango Café from your father?”
She was surprised I knew the name. “Yes.”
“You remember how much they offered?”
“Ten cents.”
“You remember the second offer.”
“Twelve.”
“And do you remember when someone bought the competition and flooded the market with coffee so cheap that you couldn’t sell your own?”
A surprised nod.
“You remember your father slaughtering his own animals to feed his workers?”
“I remember.”
“You remember him working without sleep to harvest what would be his last crop, thinking by some miracle that he might salvage something and be able to feed his family and his workers?”
“Charlie, what are you getting at?”
If I hadn’t hurt her yet, the last question certainly would. “Do you remember climbing down from a mango tree, placing a rain jacket across your father’s shoulders, and crying in the mud next to him as the world he’d built crumbled around you both?”
Her eyes turned cold and welled up with tears. Her voice rose as she spoke. “Charlie?”
“Leena, I did that. I am that company.”
We had walked knee-deep into a tidal pool rolling in gentle waves. Disbelief spread across her face as she shook her head. “How?”
I told her. I told her everything. Told her how I’d caused it, then hired people to spy on their misery and report back so we could strategize how to capitalize on that, turn the screws, and make it worse. Then do it again.
When I’d finished, Leena was staring at me. Remembering events and the pain that accompanied them. My voice fell to a whisper. “Do I scare you now?”
Somewhere in there, Paulina and I came face-to-face with the real me. No more smoke and mirrors. She took a step back, put her hands on her hips, and considered me. Her face told me she didn’t like him any more than I did. But this is where her reaction to me and my reaction to me parted. This is where she did the unexpected.
Leena had a tenacity unlike any woman I’d ever met, and it was about to surface. While her emotions were very real and they gnawed at her with a raw sincerity, she was listening to something deeper. She was listening to her will, not letting what she felt dictate what she would do. Didn’t let it dictate her life.
And given my experience—with both myself and other women—I wasn’t expecting that.
She shook her head like she was shaking off a perception. Or swatting a gnat. As if something in her gut was having an argument with her eyes and ears. Her will was telling the rest of her what was about to happen.
Careful not to bump the screws in my collarbone or tug too hard on a shoulder that was still pretty loose in its socket, she pulled me toward her and kissed me. Gingerly. Tenderly. Purposefully. Holding it long enough for me to taste the salt in her tears. When she spoke, she was close and I felt her breath on my face. She shook her head ever so slightly. “You’re right. You’re touching some deep places in me. They’re tender. They hurt. There is a part of me that wants to walk away from you so that you can’t hurt me anymore. As if my turning away from you hurts you in return and you get what you got coming. What you deserve. And you’re right, I don’t like the man who did those things.” She held my hand and wrapped her arms inside mine as we continued walking. “But can I tell you something you might not know?”
“Please.”
“My father used to hire men with troubled pasts. Prison. Everything. Give them a second chance when no one else would. One of them—a murderer—asked him one time while they were picking beans shoulder to shoulder, ‘How does a man wipe his life clean?’ You know what my father said to that man?”
I shook my head.
“He said, ‘With the one that you have.’”
She leaned her head on my shoulder and turned to look at me. We were walking along the northern end of the island—within a few feet of where Shelly had returned in the helicopter and given me my watch. Atlantis under our feet. She said, “Can you guess who that man was?”
“No.”
“Paulo.” She registered my reaction with a slight smile. “You look surprised.”
“I didn’t see that one coming.”
She nodded. “My father would have liked you.”
The amazing thing about Leena is that while I had pushed her away, she’d not recoiled. What I’d thought would push her away had brought her closer. I said, “I saw you one time.” A single nod—gesturing toward my past. “Back then.”
She looked surprised. “When?”
“After we foreclosed. You’d lost everything. Parents. Mango Café. Your husband. You were pregnant, walking down the mountain. I’d been in León packing up my office at the hotel. Before I flew out, I rented a bike and rode up in the mountains. I was wrestling with what we—with what I—had done to these innocent, unsuspecting, hardworking, beautiful people. And when I saw them walking down the mountain, and you specifically, I knew I’d done the one thing that Hurricane Carlos and the loss of everything else could not do.”
“What’s that?”
“Broken your hope.”
She weighed her head side to side, considering my words. “Bruised it? Yes.” Then she cracked a smile and shook her head. “Never broke it.”
How I love that woman.
* * *
The next day, before they climbed into Colin’s jet, Paulo shook my hand and held it several seconds. “Gracias, hermano. You dig well.” Isabella clung to my leg. I kissed her forehead and the two disappeared inside the plane. Leena touched my hand and then began climbing the steps. Reaching the door to the plane, she stopped and returned. She lifted my Costas off my face so she could see my eyes and placed her finger on my lips. “You don’t scare me, Charlie. Never have.”
The plane lifted off and quickly disappeared into a blue sky, carrying a part of my heart with it. Colin, Marguerite, and the kids had gone with them, as they planned to route through Costa Rica and spend a week or two at the house. That left me alone on my island. As my heart disappeared into the sky, one emotion bubbled up: Her forgiving me is one thing. Me forgiving me is another.
* * *
I spent the week roaming the beaches of Bimini. Getting my strength back. Then a second week during which I’d walk for miles at a time. Somewhere in the third week, I actually went for a jog and ended up running several hours, clearing my head. Standing barefoot on the beach, sweat pouring off me, I knew what needed to be done.