Where I Found You

by Heidi R. Kling

  “The art part is fine, Andy, but I’m not sure about the therapy. She was pretty resistant the last time we worked together, if you recall.” Her voice changed cadence like she was making sure he got her point. “I don’t want to cause a bigger strain.”

  “Yes, but she’s older now,” Dad said.

  Vera’s voice reduced to a whisper. “Don’t you think that would be too much for her? Listening to those trauma stories?”

  “I can handle it,” I said, leaning forward.

  Dad’s and Vera’s eyes went wide like I caught them making out in their car. If I hadn’t heard them talking, I’d probably think I had, too. Their shoulders were touching, their faces nestled in close together.

  Dad faced me, his tone guilty. “I thought you were asleep, kiddo.”

  He leaned away from Vera and sat up in his seat. I don’t think I made up the flair of disappointment shooting across Vera’s face.

  “If you’re sure, that would be a big help,” Dad said. “Also, we’re going to place you in a dorm with a group of the younger girls, to try out the family group approach.”

  Vera’s blackout mask pulled back her wild hair like a headband. She asked the flight attendant for coffee. Dad and I ordered orange juice.

  “Don’t the little kids already have older kids rooming with them? Or an adult?” I asked.

  “Strangely, no,” Dad said. “But we’ve convinced the orphanage owner to try out our theory. We’ll mix the teens with the younger kids and observe the pros and cons of doing so during our two weeks there.”

  “Two weeks doesn’t seem like long enough to do something like that,” I said.

  Dad shrugged. “We couldn’t close the practice for longer than two weeks this time around. Two weeks will make a difference. You’ll see.”

  “I don’t see how changing the bunking arrangements is going to help a six-year-old deal with the fact that her entire family was killed in a tidal wave,” I said.

  He studied me for a beat. “A tsunami isn’t a tidal wave,” he said totally ignoring the meat of my comment.

  “I know it’s not literally a tidal wave,” I grumbled. “Tsunami is Japanese for harbor wave.”

  Dad grinned. “Oh, somebody has been reading up.”

  “Or…contrary to popular belief, I just turned seventeen not seven, and I grew up surrounded by world travelers.”

  His smile was both proud and sad. “Fair enough. How’s your guidebook reading going?”

  “Slowly,” I said. “You got me.”

  “Well, you have a few hours left. Picking up a few basic phrases and cultural aspects before we arrive will give you a boost while acclimating.”

  “Bev explained a tsunami is more like a wave train then one big wave.”

  “Correct. Triggered by an earthquake, the sudden movement of ocean floor at the tectonic plate causes water to surge and fall. Hence Bev’s wave train. Once you see the ocean retreat, you seek higher ground as soon as possible and stay there.”

  “Wave train doesn’t stop at one,” I said, getting it. “Wave train doesn’t stop at a hundred sometimes.”

  Later

  “The kids on the video…” I said. “Most of them looked so happy? I don’t understand.”

  Vera leaned forward and peered at me over her reading glasses. “Remember the children were being filmed. My guess is they’re not happy all the time.”

  “And they’ve had a bit of time to adjust,,” Dad added. “Not much, but some.”

  I’d had five years and hadn’t adjusted.

  No matter what Dad and Vera thought, or what the video wanted us think, those kids were in pain. Whenever I saw their eyes, I saw myself.

  Maybe Dad was right about me needing to be there. Maybe I could help.

  Not that I’d been able to help myself yet.

  Dad’s face brightened. “Here comes the breakfast cart.”

  I ordered eggs, which turned out to be some sort of noodle dish. While I picked at it, I wondered about Mom and Dad. What they were like on their trips back when it was just Tom, Dad, and Mom, instead of Tom, Dad, Vera, and me. What did they talk about on long trips over the sea?

  I pushed the tray aside, the smell suddenly making me queasy.

  The sky outside the plane broke into the full colors of day: swirls of orange, red, and yellow. The glaring sun warmed my forehead as I thought about the Orange Popsicle Haze and daydreamed of Mom sitting next to me on the plane. Of her laughter instead of Vera’s as Dad told a joke. I closed my eyes again but didn’t bother trying to sleep.

  Even Later

  “Oh. My. God. How. Much. Longer.”

  My butt was killing me. The too-small blanket the flight attendant had given me was driving me so crazy I chucked it onto the floor. Dad’s hair was starting to look all oily, the shadows under his eyes darker. We’d been flying nearly eight hours.

  “Easy, tiger. We still have a long way to go. How much of the guidebook have you read? If you’re bored, this would be the perfect time to crack it open.”

  I grumbled and, needing to stretch my legs, I excused myself to the bathroom.

  “Hey, kid, if you want to switch places with Vera later, we can watch this game show together,” Tom said as I passed him. “It’s hilarious!”

  A spiky-haired male host wearing a plaid suit was jumping around on a circus stage screaming into a microphone. I frowned. “How can you understand what’s going on? You aren’t even wearing headphones.”

  “I can’t.” He laughed. “That’s the fun of it.”

  Okay.

  The line outside the bathroom was three deep. Nasty smells were leaking from the crack under the door. Great. Hoping the one in the front of the plane might be better, I headed up the aisle, passing ten rows of young Chinese men wearing matching red uniforms. A soccer team, maybe? One of the guys smiled at me and I smiled back.

  The door to the front bathroom was unlocked, and it didn’t smell as bad as the first one. I slipped inside, but before I had a chance to pull down my pants, the tiny bathroom rattled and the plane jerked. I fell forward, grasping onto the wet sink. Another big bump followed by a bunch of smaller ones; my hands were slipping around on the slick metal basin. Even the mirror and the soap and the paper towel dispensers were jiggling around. My heart raced like crazy. It was just like my nightmare. I knew we were going down.

  Ding, Ding, Ding

  The flight attendant said something frantically over the loudspeaker in Chinese. The flashing sign above the door read:

  Fasten Your Seat Belt

  系紧安全带

  What was I supposed to do?

  If I tried to walk, I’d fall. But I had no choice. I had to get back to my seat and prepare for whatever happened next. Chest pounding, I flung open the door. I ran back as fast as I could, bumping against the aisle chairs. Like in my nightmare, I was expecting the other passengers to be freaking out, too, shoving dangling oxygen masks on their faces like in the instructional video, but no oxygen masks were in sight.

  When I reached our section of the plane, Dad was looking for me.

  “Dad!” I yelled. “Didn’t you feel those bumps? Buckle your seat belt!”

  “Are you okay, sweetie? I wanted to go find you but they wouldn’t let me out of my seat.”

  I plopped down into my seat as fast as I could and buckled up, tugging the belt tight across my lap.

  I blinked away anxious tears, unable to breathe, hating how my fear got the best of me.

  “We hit a rough patch of turbulence. Deep, slow breaths.”

  I did what he told me. Eventually, I managed to get to a we’re-not-about-to-die state of hyperventilation.

  “Are you okay?”

  Nodding shakily, I wished this to be over. For me to wake up home, safe in bed.

  Turbulence happened. And planes crashed.

  I opened my guidebook at stared at the blurred words.

  Over Taipei, Taiwan. Don’t know the time. Don’t care.

  Dad held
my hand as we prepared for landing.

  As the plane started to descend, I lost my stomach. A death drop, yes, but fortunately, no death. You’d think with two world-adventuring, relief-worker parents that some sort of recessive tough gene would have kicked in with me by now, but nope. No such luck.

  I’d never felt so revolting in all my life.

  Our plane bounced to the ground, pinning me to my seat as it screeched to a halt. I squeezed Dad’s hand so hard his knuckles turned white. The flight attendant spoke over the loudspeaker in Mandarin. Part one of our flight was over.

  Somehow, I was still alive.

  Chapter Six

  The airport was crowded. And broiling. And so humid it was like walking through a vaporizer on full blast.

  “You can change in the bathroom,” Dad said. “Hang in there. And make sure you stay right next to me. I don’t want to lose you in here.”

  As our group was pushed along by a huge wave of people swarming through the Taipei airport, I clung to Dad’s arm like a pathetic kid.

  How did I get myself into this mess?

  I slipped into the restroom and cleaned up the best I could, changing into a long-sleeved T-shirt and dark tan cotton pants I would never wear at home. Vera assured me they’d be perfect for the trip. Since she was the only woman around, I listened. It was either that or one of Bev’s retro tees. Based on what everyone in the airport was wearing, I couldn’t imagine that going over well.

  When I spotted a McDonald’s inside the terminal, I was suddenly starving. I almost hugged the Chinese boy at the counter while Tom ordered my meal in Mandarin.

  I dipped the salty fries in my vanilla milk shake, eating until I was stuffed, and when it was time, I headed for the boarding gate without complaint.

  On the plane, it seemed we’d swapped Chinese passengers for Indonesians, and again, we were the only Caucasian people on the flight. I’d never felt like such a fish out of water in my life. Vera and I were the only women not wearing scarves on our heads. “Should I wear one?” I whispered.

  “You can if you feel more comfortable, but you don’t have to,” she said. “I usually do when traveling out of respect.” Vera pulled a silky scarf out of her bag and draped it around her head and neck. “They’re called hijabs. I have a couple extras if you want to borrow one. Otherwise, just keep your hair back in a ponytail, and it should be fine.”

  I wasn’t sure which way would be worse: standing out because I was the only girl not wearing a hijab, or awkwardly trying to fit in by wearing one. The ponytail route seemed like a happy medium, so I pulled out a hair elastic and scraped my now-unruly hair back into something less conspicuous.

  Hair situation solved, I settled into my seat, feeling ten times better than I had on the last leg of the flight. I had a fresh blue blanket, a fresh white pillow, and an American action movie dubbed in Indonesian playing on the wide screen a few aisles away. I sat back and savored. Not because I liked the film, but because outside of Team Hope nobody on the plane was even slightly familiar to me and it felt like home.

  Stepping off the plane at the Yogyakarta airport, my eyes darted this way and that, taking in the flood of different faces.

  The airport was sort of like the ones in Hawaii: all open and bathed in moist, hot air, like a sauna with too many people piled inside. My new shirt was already sticky with sweat.

  Women draped in colorful robes and head coverings walked by, carrying bundles of packages or full baskets of food. Some men were wearing turbans, and some women’s faces, in addition to head coverings, were covered with veils, only their dark eyes peering out. Most of the veiled women walked straight ahead without looking around.

  We wound up in some line, and I squinted up at the sign posted above us.

  Azab untuk penyelundupan narkoba adalah Kematian

  The penalty for drug smuggling is death.

  Oh, great. Finally, something written in English and that was it? Death? A scene from that movie where a young woman ends up in a Thai prison because a creeper at a beach resort planted drugs in her bag played in my mind. I patted my pockets and prayed that the customs officer didn’t find anything on me. Where had I put that extra Tylenol PM? Was that considered an illegal drug here?

  Then Dad pulled out a wad of American money and paid an armed, Indonesian officer.

  “What are you paying him for?” I whispered. Was he paying him off to let us in? A bribe?

  “Visiting visas,” Dad said.

  Oh. I gulped and handed the officer my passport. He waved me through without even looking at me. Looked like I wouldn’t be spending the rest of my life in an Indonesian prison.

  “Our host should have a car waiting for us outside.” Dad rested a palm on my head, ruffling my hair like he used to do when I was a kid. The relief in his smile matched mine. We’d made it over the ocean in one piece.

  The closer we got to baggage claim, the more the open-air terminal filled with spices. Whiffs of cinnamon and cloves wafted through the heat. Locals were selling wraps weaved in all colors of the rainbow. Flowing skirts and elegantly carved wall hangings were displayed in small wooden booths. Masks, marionettes, and large orange spiky fruits I’d never seen before were for sale by eager shop owners who called out to us, “Lady, lady!” holding up their wares.

  “Can we buy stuff?” I asked Dad as a gap-toothed man dressed in a deep purple tunic pedaled right through the center of the airport driving a meat-on-a-stick cart. My eyes darted from him to another booth. “Hey, are those puppets made from paper?”

  “They’re shadow puppets,” Tom said, sweat trickling down his hairline. “Pretty cool, huh?”

  Vera scooted between me and Dad. “We’ll have plenty of time to shop later,” she said, as if I was asking her. “We have to get our bags.”

  I rolled my eyes. Party foul.

  Near the airport’s exit, drivers held signs with various names written on them. I scanned for ours. Not one read Team Hope.

  Vera’s high forehead glistened with sweat as she poked at her BlackBerry with her pen. “We have a message. The driver went to the wrong airport.” She looked apologetically at Dad. “I’m not sure what happened.”

  Dad touched her elbow. “No problem. We’ll just take a cab.”

  Keeping Vera at ease was apparently a top priority.

  “Hey,” Dad said, “did everyone remember to take their malaria pills this morning?”

  Everyone nodded except for me. “Oh, sorry. I forgot. Is there a drinking fountain?” I asked, looking around.

  Tom burst out laughing. “Yeah, if you want to get malaria! Bottled water, sweetheart. Remembering that will save you a lot of time in the mandi.” He handed me a bottle out of his backpack.

  “What’s a mon-dee?” I asked.

  Vera’s eyes widened. “You didn’t tell her, Andy?”

  Tell me what?

  “She read the Indonesian handbook,” he said. “Didn’t you, Sienna?” He raised his eyebrows expectantly.

  Uh.

  “I read some of it.” Not a total lie. I did flip through it, but I was looking mainly at the pictures. But I couldn’t exactly admit that now and look totally unreliable. “I don’t remember anything about a mandi.”

  Tom snickered. “Then clearly you didn’t read the handbook.”

  “You only had fifteen hours to read it.” Dad sighed. “Never mind. Let’s just get our bags and hail a cab. They’ll be expecting us at the orphanage. You can catch up on your reading there.”

  Feeling guilty, I looked down at my ratty orange Converse sneakers.

  “Hey, cheer up, kid,” Tom said. “Now you’ll get to find out about the mandi the fun way.”

  I slugged him on the shoulder. Whatever this mon-dee thing was, how bad could it be?

  As we waited at the curb for an empty cab, motorcycles whizzed down the busy street in front of the airport, weaving through taxis and tiny square cars that were screeching along way too fast.

  When a woman cruised by on a scoot
er sidesaddle like she was on an English horse, I grabbed Tom’s arm. “Wait, is that a baby on that thing?”

  Sure enough, a toddler was balancing on the driver’s hip as she zoomed past us.

  “They all drive motors here,” Tom explained. “Women, men…even babies.”

  “Motors? They look like mopeds.”

  “Same thing. Part scooter, part motorcycle. Motor.”

  “Do they crash a lot?” I had always wanted a moped, but of course my dad and Oma wouldn’t let me on one, never mind own one.

  “They crash all the time,” Tom said. “See those helmets? They call them ‘crackers’ because your head cracks open if you crash while wearing one. A volunteer I knew crashed while riding here. Split in half when he hit the pavement.”

  “His head?”

  “The helmet.”

  “So he lived?” I pressed.

  Tom shrugged. “No. He died.”

  Fabulous.

  “Tom, that’s enough,” Dad said.

  “Yes, lovely, Tom,” Vera chastised. “Lovely. Thank you.”

  Tom winked at me. “Just stay off motors, kid, and you’ll be fine.”

  I highly doubted that. “This place obviously has some archaic public health policies.”

  Vera adjusted the red hijab so it laid more snugly over her skunk stripe. “Careful about making rash cultural judgments, Sienna. Remember, they might think our customs were odd if they came to America.”

  Like what? Helmets that worked? “I’m not,” I said defensively. “It’s a safety observation, not cultural criticism.”

  I stepped farther back from the curb—and Vera’s annoying commentary—as a female driver wearing a chic black pantsuit cruised by. The sun was bright. The tropical air too hot and too wet. I pulled my sunglasses out of my bag and slipped them on.

  Vera, now adorned in a dorky floppy white hat she’d placed over her hijab, squinted into the hazy light. Horns blared, and I noticed the skyline was brown, like California on a Spare the Air day. It also smelled like cigarette butts.

  “It’s pollution from burning garbage and rice fields,” Dad said, reading my mind. “They don’t have air pollution laws like we do in California.”