Where the Sea Takes Me

by Heidi R. Kling

  My heart swelled. I tipped my head into his chest. “Oh, Deni.”

  “What?”

  “You make me anything but sad.”

  “Good. And I will tell you my story soon. I promise.” He let go of my arm. “So, let us go do the T minus words Dr. Tom is saying?”

  I laughed.

  “That is not a language translation. That is Tom thinking he’s The Rock in an action film.”

  Our moods lifted. We dove into Team Hope’s gear, grabbing our mutual stuff for a day on the road, and ran out to the car.

  From my place in the back seat, I stayed on the lookout for luxury cars driven by Cambodian versions of Cruel Intentions kids dead set on flattening tourists into roadkill. We hired a car—well, the hotel’s car not a tuk-tuk—to take us from the hotel, which dropped us off at a petrol station. I imagined a rogue Lexus screeching up to kidnap and kill us any second. Deni and Tom laughed at me when the wildlife vehicle finally picked us up, and I scrambled in.

  “Don’t worry, kid, I’d never let anything bad happen to you,” Tom said to me. “You see, Deni, I don’t have kids, but this one’s dad made me promise to watch over her like a hawk, and warned what specific fate would befall me if I let anything happen to her. Deni, too,” he said, and shot Deni a look.

  “Wait,” I asked. “A fate would befall Deni if he did something to me, or a fate would befall you if you let something happen to him?”

  He stood still for a beat. “Hmm. I’m not sure. Let’s not play with fate, and Deni, you don’t do anything to hurt Sienna, and I’ll make sure nothing happens to you.”

  He said it jokingly but pointedly. We hit a bump in the road, literally, and almost hit our heads on the roof. “We should hit up a Happy Pizza place tonight.”

  “What’s Happy Pizza?” I asked.

  Tom grinned. “It’s a pizza with marijuana.”

  “Wait, like on the pizza? Like as a topping like green olives?”

  “I haven’t been but want to try. Wait. Is that bad? You guys are in college, right? Aren’t you the ones supposed to know about this?”

  Deni and I looked at each other and shrugged.

  “Sure,” we said at the same time.

  We watched the Cambodian landscape roll by.

  The road was lined with beggars in such bad shape that I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The people were skinny and malnourished, some with limbs missing, and children as young as two crawled around in the dirt.

  Tom explained people in the rural areas dress conservatively. They cruised by on motors wearing what looked like winter coats, even though it was ninety degrees. The guide told us Cambodians working in the fields wore long sleeves with gloves and hats and masks to keep out of the sun. Like in Indonesia, fair skin was desirable. Mirror, mirror on the wall and all that. Babies and young children might run around naked, and school uniforms were usually navy pants or skirts with white shirts. Older people wore the kroma, a multiuse cloth that could be used as a wrap or skirt for men, or worn on the head of older ladies. People used it to cover up while bathing at a well.

  We rumbled toward the wildlife center, which was an array of rescued animals from trafficking: elephants, monkeys, tigers, bears, gibbons, crocodiles, leopards. We took the inclusive behind-the-scenes tour that allowed private access to certain areas—tiger dens, the nursery with baby animals, an elephant enclosure where we got to hand-feed the giant creatures—and then finished with the animals’ rescue stories. One hundred percent of the admission cost went to rescue, rehabilitate, care, and release of the wildlife back into the jungle.

  Shirtless guys wandered around working, while people in Wildlife Center T-shirts led the tour.

  Our first stop in the center was an explosion of monkeys. It was so fantastic I didn’t know where to look. They were everywhere, swinging and playing and howling. The enclosures were not at all what I was used to in American zoos. The animals were pretty much free to roam about.

  Rounding the corner, we met an elephant that had been saved from poachers. It wore a prosthetic leg after its was blown off in a mine accident. The injured elephant was so sweet, taking food from caring employees and tourists.

  Next was the Bear Care tour. I wouldn’t have considered Cambodia a “bear” habitat in general, but it was. The bears, called moon bears, were different from our brown and black bears out West. Moon bears were dark brown with light brown masks around the long, angular nose and eyes and mouth, with tan spotted chests and long, sharp nails.

  They were so sweet, rolling around upside down playing with rubber balls, like our dog did at home. I commented on that, and the guide said, “They aren’t playing with the balls, they are eating. Want to see?”

  “Sure,” we said, and followed her into a shed-like room with green, piled-up strips of something—Grass? Edibles? We found out right away when the guide, Trixie from Australia, handed us each strips of green grass with the instructions to stuff them by the handfuls into the balls.

  Next, we were invited into a nursery with baby animals and got to do something eight-year-old Sienna would’ve freaked over, and nineteen-year-old Sienna thought was awesome, too: hold the baby monkeys! They climbed all over us, balls of swift-moving fur and noise. We even got to bottle feed a newborn monkey. Well, I did. Deni let me have the first turn, and he watched me as I cradled the sweet thing in my arms like a real baby.

  I couldn’t wait to tell Bev. She and Vi would love this place.

  The whole thing was a welcome break from both the chaos in town and the sad girls we were teaching how to swim.

  “I wish I could keep him,” I said about the tiny baby monkey in my arms. “Let’s sneak him out of here and bring him home.”

  Home.

  Like Deni and I had a home together somewhere. Our home was wandering around homeless. That’s where we were most at home together. Traveling. Travelers.

  “You want to have babies?” Deni asked me seriously. He hadn’t taken his eyes off me since I picked up the baby monkey.

  A flush crawled up my neck. The room smelled like animal pee and bleach, but the moment was pure intimacy. For a second, I wasn’t sure how to answer. What did the question mean coming from him?

  “Sure, one day,” I answered truthfully. I pulled my eyes away from his and concentrated on the baby monkey sucking on the baby bottle. “Maybe after grad school, after I’ve worked for a while…”

  Deni hopped up on the counter and watched me. “What do you want to do, do you know?”

  What did I want to do? I didn’t know for sure. I hadn’t declared a major yet, but psych and social sciences interested me. Each day on this trip my interest in those fields grew, but I also liked writing and science and history. “I’m not completely sure, but probably something like my dad and mom. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree I guess.”

  “Apple?”

  “Oh, it’s just a dumb saying. It means kids are often like their parents.”

  “Yes.”

  He hopped off the counter and settled next to me. I handed the baby monkey to him, and he cradled him easily, the monkey snuggling into his chest. Deni was wearing his plain white T-shirt today, and I thought about how lucky that baby monkey was, snuggled into Deni’s chest.

  “Cute little guy,” he said. “We have monkeys in Indonesia, but they are not cute like this one. They are like little rats. Or squirs. How do you say? With the fluffy tails running all around, the black fluffy rats?”

  My laughter spooked the monkey who, in fear, tried to crawl up Deni’s chest. Deni soothed him with sweet noises, until he retreated back to his bottle.

  “Squirrels,” I corrected him. “Black squirrels. Demons, those guys.”

  “Yes! Squirrels. Weird name, yes?”

  “Now that I think about it, yes. It is a weird name.”

  The monkey looked at Deni with strangely human eyes.

  “What about you?” I dared to ask. “Do you want to have kids?”

  He nodded. “Rema wante
d to right away…but I did not.”

  Thump.

  Rema.

  Was this it? The moment of truth?

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I wanted to see the world before I had children. Once you have children, you need to be there for them; you cannot be out exploring as much.”

  “True. But my parents had me and they still explored.”

  “Yes. That is something I strive to do as well. Your dad can do anything.”

  “Aw, that’s sweet. But in the end, it was the travel that took my mom away from me…so I’m not sure I could do that to a kid. Just this trip, think about what we would have done if we had a little baby at home. I wouldn’t risk all this: sitting on top of the boat, running around where there could be landmines…”

  We.

  “Yes. A little boy or girl at home,” he said. I was surprised he went along with it, and we met eyes and smiled. Flushing, I looked away.

  “I saw a child whose foot was blown off by a landmine outside a playground.”

  “Hunt told me he recently taught forty men to swim. Men who were hired to swim to the bottom of the Mekong and deactivate the landmines on the bottom. Can you imagine placing landmines in a river?”

  “This war seems to have been terrible.”

  “All war is terrible, but yes, this one sounds particularly bad.”

  We watched the monkey eat in silence, listening to the sound of him slurping on the bottle. So did Deni break up with Rema or Rema with Deni over the subject of having children? I had to find out more.

  Later, when we were back at the hotel and I was alone again, lying in bed and watching the fan swirl, swirl, swirl above my head, I kept thinking about how casually I said “we.” If we had a baby at home.

  We, Deni and I, we.

  And he hadn’t even blinked at the thought. He kept right on going with the conversation.

  I hadn’t even meant to say it.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Dear Bev,

  Deni and I got to hold and feed a baby monkey yesterday. Of all the things we’ve seen so far, that was the highlight. Sorry for making fun of you and Vi and your guinea pig baby. I get it now.

  PS. Please don’t tell Spider about this.

  Love

  S

  My email pinged nearly five minutes later, which was immediate for transcontinental email:

  Dear S.

  Told you. Crazy, right? Hits like a ton-o-bricks. And not in a bad way. IN a OH HOLY SHIT, I GET IT NOW way, yeah? I never said this by the way. PS. Spider took off. I think he’s in Mexico with his friends. Don’t worry, but I thought you should know. xx B

  Dear Spider,

  You’re in Mexico? I…

  Delete. Try again.

  Dear Spider,

  How are you? I’m so sorry we left things the way we did. I’m not sorry I went on the trip, but I’m sorry for deceiving. No. Too dramatic. Delete. I’m sorry for not telling you about this trip to Cambodia. I don’t want to make excuses, but I didn’t think you’d want me to go… No. I already told him all this. I hope you’re having fun in Mexico.

  No. That was ridiculous.

  He didn’t want to hear from me, nothing cheerful and friendly-like anyway.

  I’d try again later.

  I spent the whole next week teaching swim lessons, each day making a little more progress.

  Bubbles was my star student. She slayed at swimming, encouraging the others to come around, too. Amelie helped me coax the shyest one into the pool. I got the feeling she must remind Amelie of her younger sister, the one who was stolen away from her. The one she couldn’t save.

  How she managed to get through each day with that weight on her chest was beyond me. I noticed her rubbing her arm, rubbing the shark, like it was a reminder: never stop moving.

  Together we tried to get the shy girl to kick her legs up. They were tiny and lacked muscle. She was such a thin little thing. She was not crying, not protesting…she was simply numb. Only her eyes carried the expression of her heart.

  “It’s okay,” I said repeatedly. “We’re going to teach you how to float.”

  When Amelie translated in Khmer, the girl’s legs went limp. Her deadweight positioning freaked me out. “What’s going on?” I whispered.

  “She’s okay,” Amelie replied. “Stick with it.”

  I steadied myself and carried the girl into deeper water. Things seemed to be going well…but then suddenly the girl wrapped her arms around my neck like a python coiling me underwater. She hung on so tight, I couldn’t pry her off. She was light but not that light, and panic made people strong. When her legs kicked and pushed at the water, she pulled me all the way under.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  Desperate to peel her off and save us both, I scratched at her hands.

  She wouldn’t let go. I opened my mouth to scream and punch, but that didn’t work either.

  We were sinking.

  Tiny bubbles popped from her open mouth as she flailed.

  No. No. This can’t be happening. Where is Amelie?

  I was almost out of breath when a strong arm reached around my waist, pulling me up to the surface.

  Deni! I’d never been so happy to see him in all my life. I flung my arms around his neck like I was drowning. “Bubbles?” I said.

  “She has her,” he said.

  Amelie swam alongside us, carrying the floundering girl. We somehow made it to the side of the pool and were lifted out together.

  “Does she need CPR?” I managed to choke out. “I don’t think she was breathing!”

  “She swallowed some water, but she is okay.” Deni looked back at me. Wet hair. Skin slick with water drops. “Are you okay? You do not look okay.”

  “I—I didn’t even know you were here.” My teeth chattered. I wasn’t cold. I was terrified.

  Understanding, he reached out and touched my cheek, lifting hair stuck to my face off my eyes.

  “She will be fine.”

  Next to us, Amelie took care of Bubbles, who rocked back and forth on the concrete making horrible moaning sounds like she’d disappeared into herself.

  Deni wrapped a white towel around my shaking shoulders and pulled me in for a hug. I rested my forehead on his chest. “You are shivering.”

  Why wouldn’t my teeth stop chattering? “I couldn’t get her off me, Deni,” I choked out. “She clung on so tight like those monkeys in the zoo. She pulled me under. For a second I thought…” I looked up into his warm brown eyes. “I thought I’d drown. I thought we’d both drown.”

  “It is okay,” he said, wrapping his arms around me tighter, holding me close.

  Only then did I cry.

  After the near-drowning setback, I needed a break from lessons, as did the girls. The incident scared the crap out of all of us. New rules were made. Two swim instructors in the pool always, per girl. Shallow end only.

  I knew the next time we met we’d have some healing to do, all of us.

  That night I met Deni on the roof.

  “You saved me,” I said when I found him. “You jumped into the water and saved me.”

  “You were drowning,” he said.

  “How did you know?”

  “I was there filming.”

  “You were?”

  “Yes. I film all the time. I lurk in the shadows.” He wiggled his fingers like a magician trying to make me laugh. “Since the girls do not want me in there and I have to get the footage for the project. Hunt and Dr. Chhim suggested I wait outside the fence.”

  “So you are there, all the time?”

  “Not all the time. I try to get little clips made, and then I go back and edit. It would be a pretty boring film, hours and hours of swimming lessons. For a person who did not want to watch the beautiful instructor all day anyway.”

  I grinned.

  “For me, it is easy of course.” He patted the spot on the asphalt next to him.

  I
t was hot from baking in the sun all day. I happily sat next to him, soaking up the warmth from all sides.

  “I thought you didn’t know how to swim.”

  He shrugged. “I do not.”

  “Then how did you rescue us?”

  He looked at me like I was crazy. “Because you were drowning,” he repeated like it was the most obvious thing ever.

  “Oh, Deni,” I said, tilting my head into his chest. How can I ever leave you again? “I need to teach you how to swim,” I said out loud. “Come on.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “No more no.” I grabbed his hand. “Let’s go now.”

  I held both of his hands and dragged him up.

  We ran to our rooms and then met back in the hallway carrying our hotel room towels, then tiptoed down to the tropical pool. It was even prettier at night, so lush and gorgeous with waterfalls cascading down boulders and rich green foliage planted all around.

  Deni jumped over the gate, and opened it up for me.

  closed, the sign read.

  That didn’t stop us.

  “We need to be quiet,” I said.

  “I will try,” he said, taking my hand in his.

  He followed me down the stairs into the shallow end.

  “First, we need to teach you to float,” I said. “Whatever you do, don’t try to drown me.”

  “I will not.”

  Shirtless, he stood in front of me. I sucked in a breath. Wet and shirtless. I hadn’t seen him without his shirt since the orphanage. His muscles were way more defined than before, his stomach flat and strong.

  But even more unnerving was the heated way he was staring at me.

  Concentrating on a lesson would not be easy.

  “Deni, okay, stop looking at me like that,” I pleaded, giggling, secretly loving the way his eyes were glued to my bikini.

  “What?” he asked, pretending he didn’t know what he was doing. I could tell he loved the way I was looking at him, too. He took my hand in his and caressed my thumb. “I like your swim suit.”

  I flushed, and underwater I crossed my legs. “It’s time to learn to swim.”

  “Oh, is it?”