Amelia touched me under the chin. Her nails were short but nicely manicured the way Mom kept hers. “I bet they wanted to rush home and see you.”
I held on to her hand. “This is going to sound kind of weird, but can I have your address in Australia? Or email address? Maybe when I get back home, we can keep in touch?”
“Oh, honey,” she said softly. “I’d love that.”
Her Acehnese assistant came in and told Amelia she had an important phone call.
While she was gone, I tried to pull myself together, but I had no idea what to do next.
“Sienna,” Amelia said, re-entering the room and wiping my eyes with the sleeve of her blouse. “I need to tell you something. Something very important. That was the Reproductive Health Clinic. Someone saw me with you two, and thought to contact me. You were right about someone looking for Deni.” She tilted her head and said softly, “But it wasn’t his father.”
Chapter Thirty-One
I was still sitting on the exam table when Amelia brought her in moments later.
Amelia touched my arm. “Sienna. This is Rema.”
The same wide eyes, the same soft smile. Rema was the girl from the other tent that I’d been talking to…before.
“Hello,” she said. “I am sorry to bother you, but I have a question. I told you the story of running from the wave? I was with a boy. On his motor. I fell off as the water came,” she said. Then she lowered her voice to almost a whisper. “May I ask you, what does your friend Deni look like?”
When she said his name, I felt sick the same way I did when Spider’s mom came out on that rooftop telling me I had to go home right away. The same way I did when Siti started crying outside Rema’s tent. Like whatever words came next were going to change everything.
“Deni? Um. He has dark wavy hair,” I started slowly. “He’s about this tall,” I said, leveling my hand above my head. “He has a little beard, a half of a goatee.”
Her head tilted in question, so I clarified. “You know the word goatee? It’s like this.” I pulled on my chin to describe Deni’s facial hair.
Her eyes flashed with recognition.
“But lots of boys look like that,” I said defensively.
“Does he drive a motor?” she asked.
Yes, but so does everyone. “He used a friend’s when we were in Yogyakarta.”
“His father’s name?” she prodded.
I wanted to run out of the room. “Rhamad. It was Rhamad. Deni just found out—”
“His father is dead,” Rema confirmed with a sad nod. “The picture is on the wall.”
She knew? “Deni didn’t know,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “If it’s the same Deni…”
“I did not know where he was. I could not tell him.”
It was the same Deni.
But what did she want with him? Goose bumps rose on my arms. Rema’s eyes were wide. She clutched her white blouse too hard, crushing the silk material into a ball. “Amelia says you are traveling together. You are…” She frowned. “Deni’s girlfriend?”
My mouth went dry. After last night, after everything we’d been through, there was only one way to answer that, but a selfish part of me didn’t want to share. Not yet. So I settled on, “Something like that.”
Rema looked at me with tortured, watery eyes like I’d just stabbed her in the heart. “We were engaged to marry,” she said. “Before the tsunami.”
Deni was engaged?
Amelia held on to my arm to keep me from tipping over.
Rema waited for a reaction. I tried to catch my breath and failed.
Deni was engaged. To someone other than me.
“He heard someone was looking for him. That’s why we—that’s why he—came back. He was sure it was his father.” I faced Rema. “It was you?”
She nodded. “Yes. I stayed for many months with the family that found me. I was very weak. When I returned finally to Aceh, only two weeks ago, Deni’s family home was destroyed, his family lost to the sea. I could not find many of Deni’s friends and at first, I did not try to find him. But then someone said orphan boys and girls were taken to a pesantren in Yogyakarta or Jakarta. They didn’t know which one. I was hoping Deni was there. He drove so good on his motor. But there are many schools and after losing everything, I wanted Deni to have a good life. To study and succeed. But then I could not bear it anymore. I could not let him think I was dead. I miss him. I love him.”
Her eyes begged me for…something. Acknowledgment? Permission to love him?
Or for me to give him back?
“I spoke to the refugee camps and all the relief organizations here,” she continued when I didn’t say anything. “I told them where to find me if I came home. I took my job, and I waited to hear news—and then, once I learned of his father, I looked harder. I started calling all the pesantrens in Jakarta and Yogyakarta, hoping, looking.”
I bit my lip hard. “He wouldn’t have left unless he thought you—he must have thought you were dead.”
She nodded. “Everyone thought I was dead. I thought I may have been dead, too.”
“Did Azmi and Siti know you were alive?”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Azmi and Siti? I am so happy they are okay. I have only recently been strong enough to work. I have not seen many of our old friends. But then I was speaking to my co-worker, and she told me Amelia spoke about meeting an American girl who was traveling with a boy. A boy named Deni.” She looked at me imploringly. “Please. I need to see him. I need to see Deni.”
The three of us rumbled down the potholed road until we came to an even worse road. I couldn’t believe I was sitting next to Deni’s fiancée or ex-fiancée or whatever she was. I ground my knuckles into my temples.
“How do you know where he is?” Rema asked me.
I will find you.
“I just know,” I said.
Amelia stopped the car but left the engine and the air conditioner running.
We sat inside for a few minutes, parked about a hundred yards from the mosque. I didn’t know for sure if he was inside, but if I ever knew him at all, that was where he would be.
Rema looked nervous and was wringing her hands. “I hope this does not cause a problem for you, Sienna. You have been so kind.”
I forced out the words. “He thinks you’re dead. He knows his father is dead. Just go. It’s okay, really.”
I’m not going to say it was easy watching Rema get out of the car. In fact, it was really, really hard, and I felt guilty for hating her, for wishing it was me going into that mosque to comfort him. But I could never give him the gift she was about to.
I wasn’t the girl he needed to see.
“Good luck,” I said to her as she stepped out.
I watched Rema walk toward the mosque.
Amelia gently laid her hand on top of mine. “Sweetie, I know this is the worst timing on the planet, but it’s already 4 p.m. If you’re going to make it to the airport, we have to leave now.”
No.
“I can’t leave without saying goodbye. Whatever happens between them, I still need to say goodbye.”
I didn’t want to spy, but I had to know if she found him. I walked up the stairs and peeked through the cutout windows. They were standing on a prayer mat, in the center of the room, Deni and Rema, framed in the arch of their mosque. He was shaking his head, talking in their language, clutching her arm. The light from the windows reflected on the floor. Rema looked down at her bare feet and Deni reached out, lifted her chin.
I was going to throw up.
I clutched my stomach. I couldn’t watch for another second, but I couldn’t tear myself away.
Amelia finally led me back down the stairs.
“I’m going to the ocean,” I said.
I wanted to be alone.
She nodded. “I’ll wait in the car,” she said. “It’s going to be okay, Sienna. I promise.”
I stepped over sand and rocks and muck and mud. I stepped over sad, broken th
ings like a beat-up tennis shoe, a muddy piece of cloth, half of a plate, and a headless doll.
I stepped farther and farther away from Deni.
The air was humid and broiling, fitting for this hellish moment.
What did Deni say when he saw her? Did he think he was seeing a ghost, like Dad did that first morning at the pesantren when he thought I looked like Mom?
I wanted so badly to be happy for him, but what was making him smile was breaking my heart.
I was going to miss my plane.
I didn’t even have my backpack with me—it was still at Azmi’s. I just had my camera and the clothes on my back. No Deni. No parents. No way home. Nothing except the blue-brown water lapping against the rocks. Small fishing boats bobbed around in the water not too far from where I sat alone on the pebbly shore. Bugs buzzed around my head. Too late, I slapped them away.
The air smelled like spices and rot.
It smelled like regret.
We never should have come to Aceh.
He would have been happier not knowing about his father. He could have lived forever with hope, and I could still have Deni as my own.
What was so great about the truth anyway? It just made everyone miserable.
Angry, selfish tears stung my eyes.
And then I noticed something in the water.
I had to stand up to know for sure. Humps, dark humps, rose up and down in the low waves close to the shore.
No. It couldn’t be.
Sea turtles.
There were two of them swimming side by side, just like the ones on the front of Mom’s postcard from Thailand. Huge ancient turtles that floated along as if this place wasn’t damaged at all. They looked exactly as Mom described in her last words home to me.
The Indian Ocean. I was finally here.
Chills ran up and down my spine.
This is the place I hoped for a miracle. Where my mom would magically appear, explaining that she’d been knocked unconscious for years. Like Rema, she’d been living with kindly strangers who nursed her back to health, and now poof, here she was.
But that miracle wasn’t mine today.
That miracle was Deni’s.
One of the turtles looked at me with wise brown eyes, and I dared to say something stupid. “Mom?” I asked quietly. “Are you here?”
No response. Of course. I watched the turtles, thinking about when I first met Deni at the pesantren, the drum circle, kissing in the alley in the rain. The images threatened to rip my heart right out of my chest.
“Mom?” I blurted out again, unable to stop myself.
I’m being ridiculous.
But then the bigger turtle spun around and lifted its head like it was listening to me.
“Hello.” I knew I must sound like an idiot, but I didn’t care. Deni was with Rema. I’d already lost. “Mom,” I started again. “I need you.”
Except for the hum of the waves, everything was still.
I listened. Listened for her voice in the waves.
Weirder things had happened, and if her spirit was there with me, her crazy mixed-up teenage daughter, I needed to ask her for help.
“How am I supposed to say goodbye to Deni?”
I shut my eyes. Imagined her reply.
When you see him, you’ll know the right things to say. And if for some reason you don’t get the chance, trust he knows how you feel.
Trust he knows how you feel.
I opened my eyes again.
“Thanks, Mom,” I said as the turtles disappeared beneath the turquoise sea.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Deni walked toward me, alone, and it hurt to look at him.
I hoped the tears in my eyes stayed where they were but fat chance of that happening.
We didn’t say anything at first. There were just no words as I got up and we walked together over the rocks and debris along the shallow shoreline.
I knew this was the last time we’d be alone together. He was back home. And now he belonged to another girl. Maybe he always had.
My heart caught in my throat.
Nothing was worse than goodbye. Especially when you were in love.
“Sienna?” Deni said finally, breaking the silence between us.
He looked at me the way he always had. We were back to being Deni and me, only we weren’t. We couldn’t be ever again.
“I’m so sorry about your father,” I said, sniffling.
He rubbed his chin, nodding. “So am I. But I am not sorry I had hope.”
“You were right to believe.”
He looked at me like he wanted to touch me but didn’t. Couldn’t. “I am sorry I did not tell you about Rema before. It was too hard to talk about.” He glanced out at the ocean as if seeing it happen again. “We were trying to escape the wave. People were everywhere. Tugging on us, trying to get on the motor, too. Remember when I told you the boys tried to jump on the motor? We crashed. My leg was bleeding. I pushed the motor off me, and she was gone. I never saw her again after the crash. She must have been picked up by the crowd. I revved the engine, tried to go back to find her, but the water was coming—rushing to me. I…couldn’t turn around. The giant wave was coming, and she was nowhere.” His face broke. “I had to leave her behind.”
I couldn’t believe he’d been living with all this guilt. No wonder. “You should’ve told me.”
A shadow of pain crossed Deni’s face. “I know. I’m sorry for that, but I didn’t want you to think I felt this way about you because I lost her.”
It didn’t matter anymore, but I guess that was good to know.
“She said she lay alone in a village. I looked for her for weeks! No one had seen her. I saw the wave come. Bodies were everywhere. There was no way she could have lived and then…she lives.”
“It’s pretty crazy,” I said, so torn about how to feel.
“It was my fault she was alone. I should not have left.”
“Was she… Were you in love with her?”
He broke my gaze, looking back at the sea. “Our families wanted us to marry since we were young,” he said without answering my question. “It is good we came back. I would never have known she was alive if we had not come. But now I have made you a promise, too. And I do not want to break my promise.” His face crumpled. “I do not know what to do.”
I took both his hands in mine. They were big, warm, soft and familiar.
But his eyes looked like they did when he was telling me about his nightmare that night in the rain. He looked lost and alone again. I had to fix this. Making him choose was cruel, and I couldn’t hurt Deni. Not today, not ever.
I remembered Dad’s words: He’s already lost way too much, Sienna. Do it for him.
It made me sick to say the words.
“You have to forget about me. You have to stay here with Rema.”
His eyes flashed, angry, like he wanted to swat away my words. “How do I forget you? That is impossible.”
The crashing waves filled in the blanks.
I sat on the sharp rocks, pulling him down next to me. No one was around. I put my arms around his neck and kissed his face.
“I am very sorry, Sienna,” he said, rubbing his eyes.
“I am, too.”
He hugged me, pulling me closer to him. We clung to each other like that.
“I wish you have a happy life back in America,” he said, his voice cracking. “A magical life. I have my ole-ole to remember.” He pulled his fake gold statue out of his pocket. The one I gave him. I couldn’t believe he’d kept it with him all this time.
I nodded, swallowing back tears.
He tried to smile. “And you like motors now, yes?” He raised his eyebrows. “What do they call them in America?”
“Vespas,” my voice squeaked out.
“Vespa,” he repeated. “Buy one. You are a rich American.” He grinned, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You can remember us.”
I saw us on the moped. Me clutching his waist, my face press
ed against his back.
His fingers wiped the tears from my cheek. “Like I will always remember you.”
I nodded, but didn’t say anything. Remember him? How could I ever forget him?
We were quiet for a moment, watching the waves soak the shore. He let go of me and reached into his pocket. Handed me a neatly folded piece of paper. “For you. Forgive me the bad English. Please do not read it until later.”
I fingered the edge of the paper. “When did you write this?”
“Last night after I left your room.” His face crumbled. He had to turn away to pull it together.
I squeezed his hand. “I want you to have a happy life, too, with…” God, this was hard. “With Rema. Finding each other after all this time is amazing. Like the mosque still standing after the storm. It means something bigger than us. Bigger than we can understand.”
“I understand,” Deni said tenderly. “It was the same thing that brought you to me. Brought your father to the pesantren. Helped to chase away our nightmares. It is all the same thing.”
“My mother,” I said, because this was my chance, my only chance to tell him. “I told you her plane crashed in this ocean.” I said it quietly and slowly. “The Indian Ocean. It was five years ago, off the coast of Thailand, which would mean really close to the epicenter of the quake. It means her plane crashed somewhere out there.”
I looked out over the endless sea. “Before she…before she died…” I cleared my throat, the word died still so terrible to say. “She mailed me this postcard of two sea turtles swimming off the shore. It was the last thing I had from her, and while you were up there with… I saw them. I mean, maybe not the same ones, but two sea turtles just like she described. It was like she was trying to say something to me.” I frowned. “I know it sounds weird.”
He sighed and pulled me into him again. I buried my face in the small of his neck.
Deni whispered into my hair, “Your mother loves you. She is everywhere protecting you. She is here with us now. Your mother, my mother, my father, my sisters. They do not disappear when they die. They leave us their strength.”
Where I Found You Page 21