The Summer We Came to Life

Chapter

60





KENDRA AND I HOP INTO A CAB OUT FRONT OF the airport. We fall into a comfortable silence. Our two faces stare out opposite cab windows, absorbed in our own worlds of thought, both knitting future scenes of our lives with new handfuls of thread.

So for me, the whole way back, past the stadium and the vegetable market, along the grimy alleyway streets with the broken windows and the corner bars, across bustling Boulevard Morazan with its parade of fast-food chains and electronics stores, and up the hill past the barb-wired police headquarters, I can think of nothing but Remy. My chest and toes hum and buzz and tingle with nervous energy. Outside the dusty cab window, I see flashes of life scenes to come.

Remy’s hello when he answers the phone. His laughter turning to relief as I relate the vicissitudes of the trip. In three weeks, he picks me up at the Charles de Gaulle International Airport with roses and a waiting limo. He takes me by the waist and dips me like a movie star kiss in the middle of baggage claim. People clap. Old women cry.

The cab jerks to a stop outside of the apartment, jolting me out of my daydream. I look at Kendra and smile.

“Home sweet home, for a day,” I say, and tug on the rusted handle of the cab door.

Kendra looks a little queasy. Is it morning sickness or the errant cow that just parked itself outside her cab door? I remind myself that Kendra isn’t Isabel on the traveling front. She’s a Green Zone traveler. Predictable five-star resorts with exotic letterhead.

“Come on, honey,” I say, and tug her over to my side to exit, while I hand the cabbie some lempiras.



When Kendra comes out of the bathroom holding a wash-cloth to her forehead, I’m sitting on the balcony. I called Remy twice but got no answer. I left a positively ebullient message I’m now regretting. He knew I was getting home today and, what, he’s not waiting by the phone? Kendra looks at me and then my phone and starts to ask questions I don’t want to answer. I hand her a glass of iced tea and cheers her with my beer.

“So, Ana Maria—the girl’s house we stayed at—she called, to see if we had a good time. And she invited us to a dinner party tonight.”

Finally Kendra smiles. Dinner parties are a concept she can relate to.

I pat the seat next to me and Kendra sits down, putting her feet on the railing, an echo of the day Isabel arrived a week before. As I watch her look out over the city, I think of everything that has changed. Mina is gone. I know she was before, but now the absence is final in a very different way. Not sad, but in a way I would gingerly describe as freeing. It wasn’t my fault. It isn’t my fault that Mina is gone and can’t return. The responsibility, the guilt—they’ve lifted. Mina gave me that. Now my choices are mine alone.

Kendra looks over like she heard me. “Are you really going to just marry him, Sam?”

“Just marry him?” I don’t look over yet, but I can feel her eyes running over me, searching. Now I look. Hers aren’t the judging eyes I was expecting. More like thoughtful concern. Who is this Kendra? Are we all changing then, so fast? “Not so long ago you were the one who would’ve been thrilled.”

Kendra nods but rests both hands on her belly pointedly. “Yes, but things change, don’t they?”

“Why did you break up with Michael?”

“Ah, now there’s the question. I suppose I always knew what he was, who he was, but I was lazy. Lazy and in a hurry. A bad combination.”

“I don’t get it. You always seemed to adore him.”

“I certainly adored giving that perception. On paper, he was perfect. But underneath, he was mean and lacking in integrity. Which is so painfully obvious now that I’ve had some time alone to think. Something I never took much time to do before.”

It’s true. Kendra surrounded herself with acquaintances and boyfriends in succession. She quantified her self-worth by her social network.

Kendra sees my answer and smiles sadly. “I think we choose people who mirror our own insecurities, either in contrast or collusion. My biggest fear was always that I was weak, that I wasn’t a good person—”

I start to protest.

“Lemme finish,” she says. “I play tough. But I’ve always suspected that I lack conviction, that when push came to shove I couldn’t make the hard decisions you and Isabel make. That I wasn’t quietly brave like Mina. And I knew I wasn’t a woman who could be alone. I wanted to seal the deal on that one as soon as possible.“

“But Kendra, you’re not pretending to be strong. You—”

“Well, that’s kind of the amazing thing. The worst, most humiliating thing that I could imagine was getting pregnant and having my theoretically soon-to-be fiancé insist on abortion. But it forced me to see my choices as my own, apart from anyone else in the world. Which is—well, scary, isn’t it?”

Kendra looks at me and waits. Is she right? Will I be choos ing Remy out of fear? Is he a mirror of my faults or a Band-Aid? What am I scared of? I’m scared of failing. I’m scared of being a nobody. I’m scared of living an ordinary life.

I sigh. I look out over the twisted city, the dusty chaos that doesn’t scare me one bit. But in the fading light, it does seem distant and lonely. Being alone—is that the scariest thing?

“Come on, let’s get ready for dinner.”