“Oh, honey, don’t get me wrong.” Lizbeth placed a hand on Charlie’s arm, her white-tipped acrylic nails putting Charlie’s bitten-down nubs to shame. “I’m tore up over those poor people and all they’ve been through, what with the earthquake and all. My ladies’ church group back home, we’ve done a bunch for the Haitian people—collecting clothes, shoes. We even made a hundred little dresses out of pretty flowered dishtowels, and sent them on down. I’m just not sure what to expect, going there by myself and all, it being so far, and so different.”
“You’re going down there to find someone?” Bea asked out of nowhere, turning in her seat to face Lizbeth. Charlie steeled herself in anticipation of the reaction that always came from those unfamiliar with her grandmother and her psychic abilities.
Lizbeth’s eyes grew round behind the lenses of her wire-rimmed glasses, the kind that went from light to dark in the sun. “Why, yes, I am going down there hoping to find someone. How on earth did you …?”
Charlie jumped in before Bea could answer, going straight into full hairdresser mode—just as her grandmother had taught her—sitting down cross-legged on the floor and peppering the woman with questions. Soon Lizbeth was confiding in Charlie as if they’d known each other their entire lives.
Within three months, Lizbeth had lost both her husband and her son. Her husband to an aggressive form of cancer that took him before she barely knew what was happening. Her son’s death came in the form of a speeding car that swerved across the dividing line, hitting him head-on. Luke had been temporarily living at home with her, having arrived shortly before his father’s passing, planning on staying until he felt his mother would be able to cope on her own. If only he hadn’t. If only she’d been stronger. He was a good boy, Lizbeth told Charlie, with tears in her eyes. Always trying to help others, watching out for those less fortunate than him, bless his heart. That was what had taken him down to Haiti in the first place. It was a job with a group that was teaching people to manage their water, you know, by building wells and capping springs? One of those NGOs, you know. Maybe Charlie had heard of them? Luke claimed to have loved it there, but Lizbeth always wondered if he just told her that to keep her from worrying too much. She felt badly that he had given up his engineering work to come help her, and the guilt of knowing that he would still be alive today if only he’d returned to Haiti after his father passed, instead of sticking around to babysit her.
Lizbeth stopped, blinking and fanning her eyes with her hands in an attempt to stave off the tears. It didn’t take Bea’s sixth sense for Charlie to see how broken the woman was by so much tragedy hitting in such a short time. Who wouldn’t be broken? She watched as Lizbeth took a deep breath and continued with her story.
It wasn’t until eight months after her son’s passing that a letter found its way to her house. Lizbeth’s hands shook as she took it from her purse to show Charlie. It was addressed to Luke, in what looked to be a schoolgirl’s best writing, all loops and straight lines, the i’s carefully dotted and the t’s firmly crossed. Lizbeth hadn’t had any idea what to expect when it first appeared in her mailbox, smudged and tattered like a weary traveler. Luke didn’t talk about his private life much. He was a lot like his dad in that way. Sweet, but not a sharer. Maybe Charlie wanted to read it?
Dear Luke, the letter read. Why have I not herd from you for so long? I have tried your email, but have had no answers. I have your family’s house address from your job. I hope your mother is ok. I pray to the saints and the spirits and anybody who will listen for this.
I mis you every day. I smell your skin in the pillows, I hear your voice in my ear when I sleep. I want the day to come fast when you are here with me again in Port-au-Prince. I am sad in the city without you.
When I see you, I hope you will be happy like me, because I have news. We will have a child. Soon I will be big like a truck. Already he is starting to move. I am sure it is a boy. I will name him Lukson. But if it is a girl, I will name her Lucille. Whichever it is, I know the baby will be beautiful like you. I hope you are home before the baby is here. Please be fast. Mwen renmen ou anpil. I love you.
Senzey
Lizbeth had looked for a return address, but, as you can see, she told Charlie, there was none. The folks Luke worked for were no help. They said they’d never heard of a Senzey. And, for the life of her, she could not find a way to get into his computer to look for her via email.
Who was this girl? Her friends told her she was crazier than a loon to even pay it any mind, that Senzey was probably just some girl looking to get her Green Card. That there probably wasn’t ever any baby at all, and if there was, who’s to say it was Luke’s?
But Lizbeth could not stop thinking about it, going back and forth in her head for months, dreaming of her son who she’d never see again, haunted by the possibility of a grandbaby she’d never meet. And now, here she was. On her way, alone, to Haiti to find out the truth for herself.
“But really, how am I gonna navigate?” Lizbeth leaned forward toward Charlie’s spot on the floor. “The only language I speak besides my own is Spanish, and I only had two semesters of that, a long, long time ago. And getting around? I don’t have a clue. My husband always took care of that sort of thing, wherever we were.” Charlie watched her twisting the wedding band around and around on her finger as she spoke. “And, not to mention, how am I gonna actually find this child—if there is a child. The only thing I have is the mother’s first name. My friends are right. I have truly gone nuts.” Lizbeth’s head dropped into her hands, her fingers clutching at her yellow-blond hair that was so stiff with spray it looked as though it might crack.
Charlie felt a sudden surge of protectiveness for this woman. “You’re doing the right thing,” she said quietly.
“You’ll be fine, dear,” Bea piped in. “Sometimes things just fall into place when you least expect them to. By the way, what’s your sign?”
“But Bibi,” Charlie interrupted, “perhaps Lizbeth could use some of our help. You and I both have so much to offer, right?”
Bea narrowed her eyes at Charlie. “Me? I have your rules to follow, remember? And, unfortunately, I doubt you’ll be able to find the time down there to truly help Lizbeth in the way that she needs. In and out, I think is what you said, isn’t it?”
“Well, I’m sure I could make some time …”
“Don’t forget your promise, Charity,” Bea said, using the name that came out only when she was perturbed.
“I won’t forget my promise.”
Charlie turned back to Lizbeth, who seemed to be lost in her own thoughts. “I’m not sure exactly what we can do, but we can certainly try to help you.”
Lizbeth placed a hand on Charlie’s forearm. “I don’t want to be a burden.”
Charlie turned to her grandmother, then back to Lizbeth. “It’s no bother.”
“Bless you for offering. You don’t even know me.” Lizbeth seemed to choke a little on her words.
“You don’t need to know somebody in order to offer them help. Think about your son, and all the people he helped.”
“We’ll do what we can, dear,” Bea added with a sigh.
“But I—”
“Seriously,” Charlie said. “Consider it an adventure. We’ll be like the Three Musketeers!”
“More like the Marx Brothers,” Bea said. And Lizbeth laughed for the first time since Charlie had set eyes on her.
“You’ll be fine, Lizbeth.” Charlie stood and shook out her long legs, the blood returning to her feet with the sting of a hundred needles, prodding her attention back to her own situation. “You’ll be fine,” she repeated, slower this time. “We’ll all be fine.”
4
Lizbeth felt like she’d suddenly been plopped smack-dab into somebody else’s dream; the sights, the sounds, the whole atmosphere were so unfamiliar that they couldn’t possibly be real. The plane ride had been one thing. As she’d passed by the other gates—all those lucky folks heading to Aruba, to Jamaica
, to Barbados—the crowd had started to become decidedly darker. And by the time she and Charlie and Bea were settled into their seats on the plane, Lizbeth was well aware of the fact that hers was one of only six white faces onboard. She felt as if she were glowing like a neon sign on a rainy night. She was definitely out of her comfort zone.
The passengers around her were quiet and still, some seemingly in prayer as the plane lifted into the air. A woman wearing five fancy going-to-church hats on her head, each one stacked upon the other, stared silently out the window through the passing clouds at the ocean below. The man next to Lizbeth slept, his hands folded over a small blue paperback book on his lap. Something in French, it looked like. The flight attendant had asked if she were a doctor. A doctor, for heaven’s sake! Imagine. Of course, Lizbeth told her no, she was not. But she could kind of understand the woman’s assumption, that being one good reason for a person coming down here. Then they commiserated together over the plight of the Haitians. “Those poor people,” the girl had whispered. “They just can’t seem to catch a break. As soon as they get going another disaster strikes. In fact,” she added, “we aren’t even allowed to do layovers there, it’s so dangerous.”
Now here Lizbeth was, on the ground, bouncing around in the back seat of a four-wheel drive like a Mexican jumping bean, the words “so dangerous” still ringing in her ears. How could anybody call these roads? She prayed she was doing the right thing in agreeing to go with Charlie and Bea to their hotel. She’d been planning on staying at the Best Western, but when she told them she was going to take the courtesy shuttle, Charlie had laughed. Now Lizbeth understood why. The minute they got off that plane, everything turned into sheer chaos. People running around like chickens with their heads cut off, no signs to tell you where to go—or where not to go. And not a help desk in sight. Charlie had Bea on one arm. She had looped Lizbeth in with her other, literally guiding her through the maze of immigration, to the luggage carts, and to the carousel where their bags came tumbling down the chute like boulders in a landslide.
Outside was even worse, the heat and the swarm of strangers pressing together under the shade of a corrugated tin roof practically making her faint. And everyone, simply everyone, wanting to help. Carry your bags? Find you a hotel? Sell you some beads? Get you a taxi? Lizbeth, clutching her slash-proof zipper-locking travel purse close to her chest, didn’t know which way to turn. She marveled at Charlie, the way she just kept marching straight ahead in her flip flops and ripped jeans, tossing out a million smiles and what sounded like a “no, messy” to anyone and everyone.
On the other side of the tinted car window, life was exploding onto the streets. Everything was in motion. Little buses and covered pick-up trucks painted from head to toe with slogans—“The Best”, “Nice Girl”, “Merci Jesus”, “Thank You Lord”—and plastered with images of queens or superheroes or people she did not recognize. Bigger trucks roared on by, weighed down with water or gravel, their wobbly wheels looking as though they were about to fly right off and follow their own route through the city. An endless swarm of motorbikes flitted in and out of the heavy traffic carrying three, sometimes four people, some of them just babies barely big enough to hold on, and not one of them wearing a helmet!
Then there was the parade of pedestrians, spilling out from the sidewalks and onto the streets, merging into any space left open for a body to pass, like a steady stream finding its way along the bottom of a rocky canyon. Everyone seemed to have somewhere to go. Was it rush hour? she wondered. Or was there always this much activity on the streets?
And the colors! It was as though someone had emptied a giant bucket of ice-cream sprinkles from the sky. Everything was screaming with color, from the walls of the shops to the merchants’ umbrellas lining the curbs, the bananas and melons spilling from their baskets, the uniforms of the children on their way home from school, the T-shirts and dresses of the grown-ups out tending to their business under the blazing afternoon sun.
Thank you, sweet Jesus, for air-conditioning, she thought as she settled back into the seat behind Bea. What a funny old bird she was, all trussed up in her scarves and turban, those big round glasses giving her the look of an owl. And how brave she was to make this trip, what with her eyesight failing and all. What must this craziness look like to her? Lizbeth squinted her own eyes and watched as the bustle on the other side of the glass melted into a rippling rainbow swirl.
She tried to picture her son among these people. With his shaggy blond hair and his big blue eyes, he must have stood out like a sore thumb. His father never did understand why Luke would choose such a job. She could still hear their last argument in her head. “All that money we spent on your education, and this is what you decide to do with it? If you want to help people,” her husband had hollered, “why does it have to be them? There are plenty of deserving folks around here who could use your help.” Lizbeth remembered being taken aback by her husband’s anger. She didn’t always agree with his way of looking at things, and often wished he’d keep his opinions to himself, especially when it came to his son. But she imagined he had to have been pretty upset at the thought of their boy going to live so far away. She knew she was.
Luke had wanted them to come visit and had invited them down to Haiti plenty of times. But her husband had stubbornly refused, insisting if he were going to spend his hard-earned money on a trip, there were hundreds of other places he’d rather go. Now she wished she’d fought back. At least she would have maybe got a better sense of what Luke’s life was like, who he’d been seeing. Being as good-looking as he was, Luke never did have a problem with the girls. And he was so darn trusting. It would have been no surprise to her, she thought as she watched the circus outside, if he’d fallen prey to a local girl more attracted to his wallet than to his face. How easy it must have been for a woman to wrap that sweet boy around her finger.
The car made a left turn up a slight incline, onto a road even more pitted than the last. Lizbeth felt as though her kidneys were being pounded flat with every bounce. Pretty soon they’d be like two little bean-shaped pancakes.
“This must be it,” Charlie said as the car slowed to a stop at a solid steel gate, one side open to the road. The driver waved to a guard slumped in a chair on the edge of the property, a shotgun resting across his lap. Lizbeth, her eyes darting around the teeming streets surrounding them, wondered if he’d ever had reason to use it.
When the guard bolted upright and waved them through, they were transported to another world entirely. Gone in a flash was the frantic hubbub of the city. Here, hidden behind thick walls of solid concrete, was a tropical Garden of Eden, as green and lush as she imagined a jungle would be. There were leaves as big as elephants’ ears, and skinny palms stretching up to the sky. She saw the most beautiful purple bougainvillea, and clusters of flowers in a shade of orange she’d never before witnessed in nature. She half expected to see a monkey swinging from branch to branch. Now out of harm’s way, she lowered the window beside her.
And then she saw the statues. At first, from a distance, she’d thought they were some sort of scarecrow, that maybe that was how they did them down here, out of metal and twigs and chunks of wood. But on closer inspection, there was something strangely mocking and lewd about the figures, whose eyes seemed to follow her as the car rolled up the driveway. There must have been at least two dozen of them—skeletons and stick figures, skulls in top hats and crowns and pith helmets, some wearing sunglasses, some draped in fabric, and others naked as jaybirds with their big old red-tipped private parts hanging out for all the world to see. It was like a graveyard of crazy walking dead people.
Lizbeth shuddered as the car lurched to a stop, the rickety white hotel looming above them like a wedding cake made out of matchsticks. One little fire, or teensy earthquake, and the place would be history.
Dear God, she thought, shrinking back in her seat. What have I done?
5
Charlie peered up through the windshield at the
grand old hotel, which seemed to be welcoming her like a quirky great-aunt, draped in filigree and lace, her face plastered in layers of white as if she were trying desperately to hold on to the illusion of a more youthful and innocent past. Charlie hopped out of the car and flung her arms wide to embrace the glorious air—thick and wet, like you could stick out your tongue and take a lick. What a relief to be out of chilly Carmel-by-the-Sea, where summer and winter were indistinguishable. She’d always loved the tropical heat. It was something she was used to, something that made her feel like herself in a visceral way that was hard to explain. Some people might call it being comfortable in your own skin. To Charlie, it was as though she were home—as surprising as it might be, even to her, that she’d come to think of the Amazon as home. Of course, it was not nearly as hot and humid here as it had been in the rainforest, especially at night when the generators went off, when her long braid would become so damp with sweat she’d have to practically wring it out with her hands. Now Charlie twisted up her curls and held them in place with an elastic band, pushed up the sleeves of her linen shirt, and turned to help the driver unload their bags from the back of the SUV.
What the hell had her grandmother packed, she wondered as she struggled with the old red Samsonite, and exactly how long was the woman planning on staying? Charlie had to laugh. She probably shouldn’t worry about Bea. Charlie knew how adaptable she was. Her determination to retain as much independence as she could as her eyesight slowly disappeared was testament to that. The woman never complained, at least not about her own situation. And she was curious. Once something or someone caught Bea’s attention there was no letting go. Which is what made her apparent disinterest in Lizbeth seem out of character. She was probably just tired. Once her grandmother was settled into her room at the hotel, Charlie thought, she’d be fine.
Lizbeth Johnston was another story. Judging by the look on her face during the ride from the airport you’d think she’d landed on Mars. Her fingers had turned stiff and white from their grip on the car’s armrest, her blue eyes as round as coat buttons, her wrists pre-emptively protected by a trio of mosquito bracelets that looked like old coiled telephone cords and worked like a flea collar. Still, Charlie had to admire the woman, sucking it up to do the right thing. Please, she thought, whatever god or spirit or holy being is listening right now, let this poor woman find what she’s looking for.
Island on the Edge of the World Page 3