The Summer We Came to Life

Chapter

63





IT’S DARK, AND REMY’S NOT IN BED. THERE’S A TV on in the living room. I don’t have a TV. I sit up and grab a robe.

Remy is sitting in a plastic chair with his laptop, sipping ice water and watching some old French movie. When I tiptoe over and kiss the top of his head, he reaches around and squeezes my ass. Then he points at the screen and laughs. No subtitles.

“I’m starving!” I say. “Should we go have a nice dinner to celebrate?”

Remy doesn’t look up. He shakes his head and waves a hand at me. “Where would we have a nice dinner in this country, ma chérie? Can you cook something? I saw there is chicken in the congélateur.” He puts a finger to his lips as if I were about to speak. He points at the movie again and laughs. “Hilare! And there is some, eh, garlic and pasta. You could cook this.”

Yeah, or you could. Sigh. He did come to see me, after all. He came all this way, as a surprise. It’s so romantic. Or arrogant, Isabel would say.

On my way to the kitchen, I see a bottle of vodka on the counter. I take a closer look at Remy’s glass of water. Remy always orders vodka on the rocks. He will fill your life’s bowl, a voice says in my head.

Seemingly sensing what is about to come out of my mouth, Remy says, “Come here, baby,” and pats his lap. He sets down his drink so I can sit. Then he reaches into my robe and fondles my breast. I feel him get hard beneath my legs.

“Mmm,” Remy growls, and finally he takes his eyes off the movie.



After another round of melting, pounding sex, I curl up next to him in bed. He shifts away.

“It’s too hot, baby.”

I forgot that he always says that.

“So, how long can you stay?” My head is piling up with activities we can do together. We can go hiking in the cloud forest, horseback ride on the beaches near La Ceiba. Maybe we can take a canoe into La Mosquitia. I still have a few days until the residency. Maybe I could even start a few days late.

“Just tonight, chérie. My work. I cannot be away from Paris now. We leave in the morning.”

“You came all this way to woo me for one night?” Did he just say we?

“To woo you? You are too adorable, chérie. I came to rescue you, princesse. To take you back with me. I thought about it—you don’t have to do this residency thing now. We’ll get your work into all the galleries in France. My friends own them. And you’ll have plenty of time to paint, or whatever you call it, at my house. It’s not like you’ll have to worry about money anymore, angel.” He tweaks my chin. “You can have everything you want.” He kisses my forehead and then my nose. I turn my head before he reaches my lips.

“You want me to leave with you tomorrow? To Paris? Have the wedding there and stay there?”

I try to imagine a fancy wedding in Paris, the girls in French couture, holding lilies. But for some reason, all I can think about is Cesar Guerra. Of course that makes me think about Jesse and now the image of Arshan’s naked butt pops into my mind.

“Oh my God, I have to tell you,” I say suddenly. I can’t help myself, I have to share it. “This morning we caught Arshan and Jesse having sex!”

“Which one is Jesse?”

“Isabel’s mom. Isn’t that awesome? Gross, but awesome, right?”

Remy groans. “I think I would have to agree with gross.”

I laugh and throw my arm across his chest. He nudges me away again. “It’s five hundred degrees in this room without air-conditioning, baby.”

For some reason, now his first comment annoys me more. “Wait? Don’t you think that will be us in twenty years? Still madly in love and doing it in the afternoon?”

Remy laughs again and plants a soggy kiss on my cheek. “Your idealism is adorable.”

Uh-oh, I’m hearing voices again. You will give him your youth, your idealism, and your capacity for hope.

Remy is looking at me, studying me like a Sunday buffet. He touches my hair, traces my freckles. He glides a finger between my breasts. He grabs my hair, pulls my head back and digs his teeth into my neck.

Electricity courses the length of my body, and I automatically give into the heat that threatens to burn me up. I try to imagine a happy life wrapped in that embrace. Instead, I feel a surge of panic and a premonition of regret.

“Remy.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Remy says, biting my shoulder.

“No, Remy, stop.”

“Mmm, you don’t tell me to stop.” He growls and thrusts his fingers between my legs. The sensation is overpowering. Delicious and searing. Dangerous. Everything you could ever want. In a lover.

“Remy, stop!” I pull away, panting, and scoot to the corner of the bed.

Remy looks shocked. Then he smiles. The smile that melts me like Hershey’s Kisses in the summer sun. The danger is gone, and there is safety enveloped in that smile and in those eyes. Eyes that have seen it all, seen a decade and a half more than mine.

I feel I’m going to scream. Shriek.

“I need—” I put my hands out instinctively, defending the buffer of space between us. “I need a minute. I don’t feel well. I’m going to get some air. Just—” I inch away from him like a scuttling crab, claws hovering ridiculously between us “—stay.”



The steamy air outside is flirting with cold. It feels heavenly. The chill scrubs my skin of the itchy heat from the bedroom. My heart stops thundering against my rib cage, and settles into a distant drumming. Just a second. I need a second to think. My brain’s doing that spinning thing and there is the definite impression of bathwater being sucked down a drain. I wish I could roller-skate.

What is my problem? Just say yes. To all of it.

“Yes.” I whisper it, trying it out on the city. She blinks, streetlights flickering, but doesn’t answer.

Just say yes, Samantha, and everything will click into motion. There will be a wedding. And children. Every burden will be shared, some will simply vanish. There will be money and plans and routine. I will be legitimized. I will be successful. I will be loved. There will be sex and kissing and a succession of “good morning, honey” and “good night, baby.” No more worrying or wondering if you’ll find the one, because you’ll be one of the ones that chose. Done. Just like that. Just accept and it will be done—the deciding—done and over.

So why am I crying?

The balcony railing heats up under the death grip of my fingers. I hang on tight but drop to my knees. I peer through the balcony bars, a comforting prison for my rushing thoughts. Mina left me. My mother left me. I have the vacation club, sure. But really, I take care of myself. It’s a fact I’ve always prided myself on, but now the thought is exhausting. All these years, all these adventures. All the new decisions to be made, the arrangements, new people, new places—all of it alone. The weight of it—the weight of being responsible for my life story, my make or break success as an artist, my aging eggs, society’s expectations—makes me feel like ostrich-ing out. Head in the sand. What if I can’t do it? What if I end up a failure? What if I end up old, unsuccessful and unlovable?

I let go of the railing and lean my forehead against the bars, my eyes squeezed shut. Like Kendra said, we were going to have to start making decisions like this—all alone. This thought makes the air temperature feel another ten degrees colder. A breeze kicks up on the balcony and spits dirt across my bare legs, scratchy leaves scurrying across my thighs like mice, catching under my knees.

My eyes fly open. Caught under my left knee is a maple leaf. An orange and red and yellow maple leaf, a sunrise in the middle of the night. When I make to grab it, a breeze snatches it up and sends it over the edge of the balcony. No! I shoot my hand out between the metal and glue my forehead to the bars, watching it flutter away.

A rustling tugs at my back. I turn to see the wind whipping up a minicyclone on the balcony. I gasp. A small tornado of maple leaves dances beside me. I watch them—yellow and orange and dazzling red—as they spin round and round together, seemingly laughing. Around they go, shifting with the breeze, colliding and rising. As I watch it my tears turn to laughter. The breeze is warm now and it encircles my shoulders like the familiar hug of a childhood best friend. The twister moves closer, a spinning top that pauses next to my knees. With a jitter, the leaves drop into my lap. I laugh aloud and shake my head. Then I look up at the stars above the city.

“Thanks, Em.”

I pick out a red leaf and twirl it between my fingers, smiling.

The balcony door opens, making me jump.

Remy steps onto the patio with one hand behind his back. Without a word, he kneels down beside me. He holds out a green velvet box. I am transfixed. Remy seems to notice for the first time I’m not wearing the cheap ring he gave me. His confidence wobbles, but then he smiles. Still holding the leaf between my fingers, I watch him open the box to reveal an obscene yellow diamond glinting in the streetlight.

I’m an idiot. I’m a complete and utter idiot. But here it goes—“Remy, I want to marry you—”

Remy beams, slips the ring from its perch.

“For all the wrong reasons,” I continue.

He frowns. I inhale. Steady does it.

“What you’re offering me—” I can’t look him in the eyes “—what an offer.” I focus on the leaf, rubbing the smooth stem between my thumb and forefinger. “It’s everything anybody should want. Security. A family. Fame and fortune.” Tears. No. “And a lifetime of getting to say ‘I’m married, I was chosen, I’m not alone.’”

Remy doesn’t say anything right away. He watches the leaf, too. When he finally speaks, his voice is sad and haggard. “Those are very good reasons, Samantha. What other reasons are there?”

“Fear. If I married you, it would be because I’m afraid I’m running out of time. Because I’m afraid that I’m not enough on my own or that I can’t achieve my dreams for myself.”

Remy inches closer to me. “I have worked hard for many years for everything I have. Why not let me pull you up to that level?”

“It’s not the same level without the work.”

Remy smiles, but now his smile is cold. “You are too smart for your own good, you know that, princesse? Come here.” He grabs me before I see it coming. He wraps me up in his arms and they are so warm. He whispers into my ear, “I love you, Samantha Wheland. I swear that I will do right by you and your dreams.”

I freeze at those words, and feel the weight of sixty years bear down on me. I see Jesse’s gray eyes meet Cesar Guerra’s in a crowded nightclub, Lynette’s red dress moving through a sea of screams. I see Arshan throw a rose on Maliheh’s grave.

Now the tears come, hot and wet on my cheeks and spilling over onto Remy’s shoulder. I know how cold it will feel outside his embrace. But for once I have clarity.

Kendra was wrong. I was wrong. We don’t make decisions alone and apart from the world. I am more than my name and my individual lifetime. I am the daughter of a mother who left and a father who never forgave me for it. But I am a product of Jesse’s laughter in the face of sorrow, of Lynette and Cornell’s struggle to love against all odds. I will affect Arshan’s battle with fate. I am indebted to the esteem Kendra holds me in. To the time that Isabel has invested in me. To the vows that Mina made me take.

We are all entangled like a field of grass, like water molecules in a cresting wave, like lines in a poem.

I am indebted to myself, to the gift of life that I won back. I will have to look at myself in the mirror of this world I chose. I am responsible now for the outcome. I will be worth only as much I believe I am.

“I’m so sorry, Remy.” I kiss his forearm even as he stiffens and starts to edge away. “But I have to do right by myself.” Remy drops his arms. I straighten up to face the chill.

Now it’s time to stand up and walk to the door. Come on, Samantha. Get up. Get. Up.

I slide open the balcony door and see my cell phone inside on the chair. “And besides, after the residency, I’m moving to New York. Kendra, Isabel and I are going to have a baby.”





QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

The book opens by saying birth and death are uncontrollable. Does the book disprove this by the end? How literally did you take this notion? To what extent can we control our existence and shape our reality using our consciousness?


Do you think Samantha made the right decision about Remy and about her life path? How is her decision representative of the state of the modern woman? Women have more choices than ever in terms of their career and relationship roles. Do you think that is something exhilarating and liberating, as Jesse and Lynette might say, or do you think it’s bound to be overwhelming, as Samantha feels it is for much of the book?


What did you make of Ahari? Is he a shaman? A protector? A spiritual being? Do you believe that there are people amongst us that can tap into a supernatural realm?


At one point, Samantha feels a sense of contentment about her unlikely family. How does the book define family? What family have you been a part of that wasn’t related by blood, but no less important? If to raise a child means to nurture them, feed them, guide them and educate them—who “raised” you?


The vacationers have a tense discussion about the Garifuna as they drive through the villages. Which side did you find yourself taking? How else is the issue of race addressed in the novel? How would racial relations have changed or not changed in the time from Lynette’s childhood to her daughter’s childhood?


Kendra faces a heartbreaking decision when she discovers her pregnancy. What did you think of the way she made her ultimate decision? Do you agree with Kendra’s assertion that ultimately we make decisions all alone or with Samantha’s conclusion that the opposite is true—that our decisions are tied to the important people in our lives?


The book casts several major historical events—the Iran Revolution, U.S. Civil Rights, and political upheaval in Panama—through the lens of personal experience. We all experience history this way. What is the book’s message about history? What, if any, is the difference between your elders’ experience of historical events— Civil Rights, for example—and the experience of those younger than you of events in their lifetime, such as 9/11?


Religion is touched on only lightly in this book. What do you make of Samantha’s metaphysical journey with Mina? Is there a way to make it fit with classical notions of religion? Did that bother you in any way? Or do think there is a way to combine science and religion?


In Joseph Campbell’s notion of the monomyth (also known as the hero’s journey), the hero travels from his or her everyday world into an extraordinary realm, then must fight to return after having gained powers that he or she can then impart on others. In what ways does this apply to Samantha’s journey?


The physics that Samantha references in the novel—the Copenhagen Theory, the Many Worlds Theory, etc.—are actual, well-known principles of quantum physics. Would you have been happy without any kind of scientific explanation about Samantha and Mina’s reunion world? To what extent do you believe parallel universes and the power of consciousness can explain the mysteries of our world?