“No, Dad,” Hallie said, with one of those “duh” kind of smiles, “she wants it with
Pilar nodded. The mother nodded as well.
Hallie pressed the shutter.
She showed the digital shot to Pilar, who grew excited. “I’ll send it to you,” Hallie said.
“Thank you so much, misses,” Pilar said haltingly again.
“We have to go,” I said apologetically to a chorus of even more
We hurried out of the hospital, Hallie strapping her bag around her shoulder, and jumped into the old Land Rover I was driving here, which was on the street in front. I started it up. Out of the central square with its old church and government center. Over cobblestone streets, which quickly turned to gravel as we pulled out of town.
Stone buildings gave way to metal-roofed storefronts and huts. Fruit vendors on the sides of the road hawking their bounties. Kids kicking a soccer ball on bumpy fields. And those beautiful green hills that surrounded the village.
“That smile was worth a million dollars,” my daughter said.
“That’s the way I kind of feel about yours,” I said back.
After it all was over, Hallie took the rest of that semester off from school. She’d go back in the fall, but not to UVA. At least not now. She’d transferred down to Lynn University, which was close to us. I perfectly understood. It had taken a couple of months of coddling and feeling close, a couple of months of not wanting to be alone. Or even ride.
But after the headlines went away and the investigations were completed, after months of counseling and a lot of time with Liz and me, we saw signs of our old Hallie returning. The one with the quick laugh and easy smile. The one who trusted people. Now she was even starting to ride again. She’d even found a beautiful chestnut Appaloosa here in Nicaragua.
“Oh, don’t get all emotional on me again…” Hallie smiled with a roll of her eyes.
I was doing that a lot these days, getting emotional. I still hadn’t gone back to operating at home. I couldn’t. Not yet. Not that kind of work. I knew I would soon. Maybe after the summer. I just didn’t care about it right now.
Not with Hallie and what I was doing down here.
“You better move it, Daddy-o, you don’t want to be late.”
“Late” was a relative term down in Central America, but I agreed. “No. Not today.”
I pulled ahead of a cart and oxen that were hogging the road, pushing the Land Rover into fourth gear. We drove another mile or two until there was nothing around us but green mountains.
Until we hit a plain, lettered sign:
Basically just a dirt landing strip. With a hut and a wind sock and fuel pump, which was usually empty. The kind of aircraft that came in here, four-seaters from the capital or forty-year-old cargo planes carrying medicine and food, didn’t need much more.
We turned in and pulled up right next to the runway. We waved to Manolo, the chubby airport master, whose job it was basically to sit around all day directing traffic that never came and see if anyone needed fuel.
“Ah, Doctor. Henrique,” Manolo exclaimed. “
In a couple of minutes, we heard the drone of an aircraft somewhere high above us and Manolo pointed to a glint in the sky.
It circled around the valley and came in from the west. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Or a sound.
Other than the sound of my heart.
“Yeah.” I looked at her and couldn’t pretend otherwise. “I am.”
The plane came down, landing along the bumpy strip, and pulled up to a stop directly in front of our car.
Someone opened the door, and the steps were attached to it.
First, a local came out carrying a heavy burlap sack. Probably grain or flour.
Then I saw Carrie.
She was in a white, V-neck tee and khaki shorts, her hair underneath a straw cap, which she had to hold on to in the propeller draft.
And Raef.
The second I saw her I knew my time alone was probably at an end. Though she probably didn’t know that yet. Or maybe she did. Our eyes met, lingering a second in anticipation, and it was the second best smile I’d seen that day!
“Welcome to Boaco, senora!” Manolo announced. “Place of the Enchanter.”
“He says that to everyone,” I said. I went up to her. “Kind of an official duty. But he’s right. Amazing things do happen here,
“Not quite yet,” Carrie said. “Another six weeks. But close…”
“Down here, things happen in their own time. So close works for me!”
I gave her a kiss-which kind of lingered. I couldn’t help myself. I knew Hallie and Manolo were probably giggling. I held her close, so she could feel the excitement in my heart, and I felt hers too.
“And, Raef, I’m Henry,” I said, kneeling down and putting out my hand. “I know all about you. And we have a bunch of cool things lined up. And this is Hallie. I think you remember my daughter?” I said to Carrie.
Thank-yous had been said a hundred times on news shows and in person, and Hallie went up and hugged her and Carrie smiled. “Yes, I think I do.”
Looking at Hallie and Raef, with the suns of their two new lives dawning inside them, I suddenly had a feeling that I might never leave this place. That I had found what mattered.
That it didn’t matter if I ever went back or not.
And I found myself squeezing both their hands. And I looked at Carrie and saw what both of us had done to bring our children here.
All the rest…
“Yeah, I am,” I said, putting my arm around her. Around Carrie too. “I’m perfect.”
The rest was all just clutter.
Acknowledgments
This all actually happened-being pulled out of my car, cuffed, told I was under arrest and going to jail, and thrown into the back of a police car while other police vehicles arrived on the scene-incredibly, while on book tour in Houston. (Whoever said writing was a noncontact sport!) Even the threatening, 9/11-type questions that were hurled at Henry were directed at me.
Fortunately, my situation had a far more benign ending than the one in this book-both for me
