“Yes. This right here.” I lay my head on my favorite spot and closed my eyes.
A chorus of frogs croaked around us, the waterfall cascaded over moss-slicked rocks, but all I heard that last night in Africa, as stars hung suspended above us, was the drumbeat of his heart. Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack.
THE SKY WAS low and somber the next morning, as we drove to the airport, the squeak of wipers un-blurring the world every now and then. A fine drizzle fell around us as we turned in to the drop-off area.
There are moments that remain frozen in time—every sound, every color, every breath, crystallized into vivid shards of memory. Sitting in the idling car with Jack, outside the departures terminal, was one of them. Suitcases clattered over concrete slabs. The smell of diesel hung heavy in the air. Backpackers got off shuttle buses with colorful decals stuck to their luggage.
I conquered Mount Kilimanjaro
Kili—19,340 feet
A sea of faces moved through the doors, under the bright yellow letters of the departures building.
Jack and I watched silently. It was easier to focus on something outside of us. All the combinations, of all the letters, could not form a single word for what we wanted to say. We were circles and spirals and heart beats, rolled up into a glorious mess. We were a bundle of memories parked briefly in the drop-off zone.
“Don’t come inside.” I took my bag from Jack when we stepped out. “Please.” My eyes pleaded with him. “I never learned to cry gracefully, like they do in the movies—with perfect, luminous tears rolling down my cheeks. I look like a withered crabapple when I cry.”
“Rodel.” He crushed me to him, my name falling from his lips in a hoarse whisper. Another car slid into the spot behind us, its hazard lights flashing rhythmically like the ticking of a clock.
Jack’s arms tightened around me. “It’s like a piece of me is being ripped away again. First Lily, now you. And yet . . .” His voice softened as he gazed me. “I wouldn’t change a single thing. I would do it over and over again.”
We said goodbye in the language of ghosts, with unspoken words and haunted longings, oblivious to everything and everyone around us.
“Kiss me hard, then let me go,” I said, when the touch of his hand became suddenly unbearable in its tenderness.
I felt the movement of his breath before our lips touched. My heart throbbed at the sweet, savage sensation of his mouth. It was like running without air—breathless and beautiful. I clung to him for a soul-bursting moment, before wrenching myself away and stumbling toward the building. I paused for a beat as the sliding doors opened.
Turn around, Rodel, a part of me screamed.
Don’t look back, the other part countered.
I turned. Because I couldn’t help it. Because Jack honked.
He was sitting in the car, his palm splayed against the window in a frozen goodbye. Our eyes met through the droplets of water that clung to the glass like little pearls of silver. I retraced my steps, wheeling my bag behind me until I was standing beside his car. Then I lifted my hand and placed my fingers against his. The glass was wet and cold between us, but something warm and powerful hummed in my veins. When I removed my hand, my palm print was etched on the damp window, just like Lily’s had been. As our gazes locked, I could feel the connection throbbing between Jack and me through that window. And it was enough. To know, and to have known.
I smiled.
A corner of his mouth tilted up in a way that made my heart skid.
I held on to that image as I walked through the sliding doors and checked in to my flight. As the plane took off, I watched the cars and buildings get smaller and smaller: the pastures where cows grazed, the fields of corn, the mud huts thatched with sheets of corrugated iron. And then the clouds were floating below us like spools of lambs’ wool. I reached into my handbag for the little parcel that Goma had asked me to open on the plane. It was a lace handkerchief, tied into a pouch with a jute string. I was almost done opening it when I looked out of the window and caught my breath.
Kilimanjaro rose through the clouds, like a bride of the Gods, its ice-capped peaks glistening like a crown of majestic crystals. Silver mists swirled around the summit, changing and shifting under the rays of the sun. There was something delicate and poignant in the fleeting, moving play of light—the kind of beauty that only transient things can hold.
I blinked back the tears that trembled on my lashes. The mists reminded me of Mo and Lily, of the albino children who appeared and disappeared without a trace, of a love that reached for the summit, if only to kiss it goodbye.
A hot tear rolled down my cheek and splattered on Goma’s handkerchief. I wiped my face and untied the knot that held it together. A bunch of M&M’s spilled onto my lap. There was a note folded among them. I opened it and read Goma’s bold handwriting.
“Chocolate makes everything better,” it said.
I laughed. And sobbed. It came out like a strange snort.
“Are you all right?” the lady sitting next to me asked.
“Yes.” I dabbed my eyes with Goma’s handkerchief. “I just . . .” I looked at Kilimanjaro and thought of a white manor with a green swing, sitting in the foothills. “I’ve been on a grand adventure.”
“Well, I’m all ears. You must tell me about it.”
“I wouldn’t know where to start.” I smiled at her and stared out the window.
Once in Africa, I kissed a king . . .
I FINISHED MARKING the last paper and flipped to the front to tally up the final grade. My pen wavered momentarily as I noted the student’s name.