Without taking her suitcase to her cabin, Natalie went straight to the office phone and called home, trying in vain to explain to her mother that the situation in Bangkok wasn’t as dangerous as the international news stations reported.
“Natalie, I insist you come home,” Maman’s voice crackled over the phone. A bad connection. “We didn’t want you to leave to begin with. Your father thought you were running away, and you know you can’t run away from life. Rien ne pèse tant que un secret. You know that, Natalie darling. Nothing weighs more than a secret. It’ll follow you, my sweet.”
Natalie crossed her arms over her chest. “I wasn’t . . .”
“CNN is showing pictures of military patrolling the streets, Natalie. Enough of this foolishness. Come home!”
“Maman, I’m five hours from Bangkok, a very long distance from the uprising.” She’d never tell her mother she’d just come home from the capital city or that she’d seen military patrolling the streets below her hotel window. And even if she did tell the truth, the events in Bangkok didn’t affect the highly-isolated sanctuary. No matter what Natalie said, she couldn’t convince her mother that she didn’t see or hear or experience anything like what was going on in Bangkok.
Somewhere behind her, Natalie heard Andrew make a crack about how hysterical American women can be. She turned and put a finger to her lips to shush him. No way would he understand that Maman’s worrying had a different edge. Maman felt more upset that her daughter wasn’t dealing with her grief than she was about the uprising.
Natalie sucked in a deep breath, but before she could utter another word, her mother was off and running, rambling about Natalie’s inconsiderateness and how she could travel halfway across the world to an unstable country when she had family back in North Carolina that were also going through the grieving process, didn’t she understand what she needed to do? She had to stop running away. Natalie felt her lips and shoulders tighten and turned her back on the other people in the office as she tried to stop Maman-the-runaway-train and get a word in edgewise.
“Maman . . .”
She kept on chattering, not hearing Natalie at all.
“Maman, it’s like going from Wilmington to Asheville. That’s how far away Bangkok is from where I am . . .”
Again, Maman rolled right over Natalie’s words, still harping on how Natalie ignored her own grief, how she should be there with family who understood rather than halfway across the world, that this uprising in Thailand was dangerous and that it was imperative that she come home.
“Maman!” Natalie didn’t normally raise her voice, but sometimes it seemed necessary.
No answer on the other end of the phone. Finally, Maman listened.
“I know you’re worried, but I’m sure Nonna and Boppy worried about you when Pop brought you to the States, and I know for a fact that you didn’t go back to Provence until I was ten, so how is that different from what I’m doing? You were only a teenager! I’m thirty-six years old. Big difference. I’m not a child anymore. I own a business. I’ve been divorced and supporting myself for years. I’m level-headed and smart and well-traveled. Please, please, please calm down about this. I’m not going to step in the middle of machine-gun fire, believe me.”
Natalie paused for a moment, expecting a response. Getting none, she jumped right back in and continued. The words pummeled out of her mouth.
“Remember how the reporters made my world a fish bowl after the shooting?” Her throat constricted and the space behind her eyes itched and watered. “The pain of losing a child never abates, Maman. It’s indescribable. And you know that sometimes the grief is . . . well, it’s like a freight train without brakes. Uncontrollable. Even you, my own parents, cannot possibly understand the impossible agony of . . . putting one foot in front of the other.” She swallowed hard. “There’s nothing more difficult during the first year after a child’s death than just . . . living.”
When Natalie found herself smiling—even painful smiles—that first year, she felt guilty. Here in Thailand, she had been able to smile again. No guilt. Yes, she thought about Danny and Stephen all the time, but she persisted, attempting to live again.
“I’m doing what they would have wanted. I’m trying to help save some of the most sensitive creatures on earth.” She knew in her heart of hearts that was true, and it should make sense to Maman, too.
Still nothing on the other end.
“I’m still grieving, Maman. I always will be. But being here and being able to help others has proven to me that I still have something left to give. Do you understand?”
Maman sighed. “Of course, I understand. We are grieving with you, my darling. That’s why I want you home. Please. Come home.”
Natalie closed her eyes, and Seth came to mind. She wished he were by her side, offering his sympathetic shoulders and that thought surprised her. Normally, she wouldn’t long for a man’s strength to complement her own. And since he wasn’t there, she leaned against the door jamb and picked at a piece of peeling paint. She heard her mother sigh and knew she had meant no harm. What she said and did came from a place of love, yet Natalie knew that being home would mean prolonging the grief until Maman felt it was over. And lord only knows when that would have been.
“Are you sure it’s safe there, Natalie?” Maman’s voice softened, yet she still sounded nervous.
“I’m fine, Maman. I have more of a chance of being hit by lightning than shot by a protestor. Believe me, I’m in the middle of nowhere. In the jungle. In the mountains. So far from Bangkok that most people here have only seen pictures of the city.”
Finally, Maman seemed convinced, so they spent a few moments catching up on family news, then Natalie reminded her mother how much this phone call would probably cost, which convinced Maman to say her goodbyes. Natalie hung up the phone in its cradle and rubbed her eyes before turning around to leave.
Seth sat facing her, his back and elbows resting against the table, his legs stretched out in front of him. He smiled at her sadly. She caught her breath. How much had he heard?
He patted the seat beside him and beckoned her over.
“Will you forgive me? When I arrived, you were in the middle of your conversation and I wanted to talk to you, so I sat and waited.” He wore a khaki shirt, sleeves rolled up, tail out, unbuttoned to the third button, and he hadn’t shaved, but instead of looking scruffy, he looked sexier than he had in that tux in Bangkok, if that was possible. She refrained from touching him.
“I was talking to my mother.”
“I got that.”
“What else did you get?”
“That she’s worried about you.”
“Hmmm. And?”
“That there’s something—no, someone—you haven’t told me about.”
He’d heard more than she wanted anyone here to know. Damn. “That’s true, but it’s not another man.” She took a deep breath and turned away. Tell him, her inner voice said. He’s going to find out anyway. But another part of her refused. “They’re my children, and they’re not something I want to discuss right now. I haven’t even had a chance to unpack.”
“I know this might be a bit too soon, Natalie, but I do care for you and . . .”
“—Natalie, I need to talk to you.” Mali suddenly stood behind them, wringing a cloth in her hands. Her face was streaked with tears.
Without thinking, Natalie left the tense discussion with Seth and went straight to Mali, enveloping the smaller woman in a hug. For several moments, Mali simply cried, but when she could finally get her breath, they sat down. Natalie glanced over Mali’s shoulder to see that Seth had left, always the gentleman, so they had privacy.
“What in the world has you so upset?” Natalie wiped Mali’s last tear away with her thumb, then caught Mali’s hands in hers. To see the normally strong and cheerful Mali disintegrating made her want to cry herself.
“Siriporn’s gone. He disappeared right after you left for Bangkok, and I know he’s probably down there . . . but now they’re saying that some of the protestors are dead, and he’s not bloody answering his phone, damn him, and none of his friends . . . none of them have seen him for the past couple of days. I talked to one of them only an hour ago.” She blew her nose and raised her black eyes to Natalie.
Natalie had seen that type of pain before. In the mirror.
She knew what it felt like to lose a son, whether to a senseless act of violence or to a choice the son made, a loss was a loss. “The last time they saw him, the army had begun . . .” Mali’s voice cracked again. “Oh, God, Natalie, they were raising their guns!”
“No, no, no, Mali. Don’t think that way. Listen, let’s sit down. Talk. Calmly. Tell me what happened.”
She steered Mali to the seat Seth had vacated. Mali wiped the tears from her cheeks with the flat of her palms.
“Right after you left, Siriporn came to me and told me he needed to return to Bangkok. I did not . . . I did not handle that news well. I’m afraid we got into a bit of a tiff.” She inhaled in a jagged fashion like a child who’d been crying for a long time. “He left without speaking to me. You weren’t here. Andrew had left. The only person I could talk to was Karina, and you know she’s not particularly fond of my son.”
Natalie restrained herself from grimacing. One thing she knew for sure about Karina was that she probably had never had a compassionate thought. Andrew, her older brother, had practically raised her, and she’d been by his side throughout the time he’d built his philanthropic empire. She believed his word was gospel, though everyone knew Andrew and Siriporn barely tolerated each other. Mali might have had no one else to talk to about her heartbreak, but she would have received more sympathy from one of the elephants than from Karina.
“I overheard her talking to Peter about my concerns later on after I’d asked her to keep it to herself, and you know me, Natalie, I prize my privacy so I confronted them. I’m afraid I could have used a bit more tact.”
“Tact? Do you really need to be tactful with those two?”
Mali shrugged with her palms up, ducked her head and gave Natalie a tearful grin. “Truth is, I was downright crude. I read them both the riot act for not being sympathetic. I believe I called them sub-human. By the time I finished, neither one of them would look at me straight.”
Natalie giggled. “I think I would’ve paid money to see that.”
Mali shook her head. “Maybe you won’t think it’s so funny if I tell you what happened after you all returned.”
Not much else would have surprised Natalie, but she sat back, folded her arms across her chest and said, “Try me.”
“When I woke up the next day, this place was pretty much a ghost town.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m afraid I ran everyone off. Karina and Peter were gone. Siriporn was gone. You and Andrew were gone. I’ve been running the place by myself ever since.” Her chin quivered.
Natalie realized now that Mali’s tears weren’t all about Siriporn’s disappearance—though she definitely had a right to worry. Mali was purely and simply exhausted. No one could run this place alone.
“To put the kidney in the crust, Andrew blew his stack when I called and told him what happened.” That admission brought on a fresh onslaught of tears. “Can you please talk to him for me, Natalie? He’s the only one who can find out what’s happened to my son, but right now, he’s not talking to me.”
Though Natalie doubted she’d get any further than Mali had with Andrew, she promised her friend she’d do what she could. They hugged, a hard and affectionate embrace, and Mali headed for the kitchen. Natalie went to her cabin to unpack and while taking her shower thought long and hard about the best way to approach Andrew.
When she was dressed, her hair still damp, she headed for Andrew’s cabin, the meeting weighing heavily on her mind. There were a million things she’d rather do other than to talk to her boss about the sanctuary’s missing personnel.