And Gina was bereft. There was no other word for it. She contacted a group of physicians who volunteered their time and skill to help children in other countries and begged them to take on Rani’s case. She told him it was not the first time she’d called that organization, but it was the first time she’d sobbed into the phone while talking to the woman who was their liaison. The woman told her how sorry she was, but “there are just too many children. We wish we could help them all, but we can’t. And especially not a child in an orphanage, where she is unlikely to get the sort of aftercare that is so necessary to her recovery.”
In bed at night, Clay held Gina close to him and let her cry. She slept poorly, tossing and turning and keeping him awake much of the night. She offered to sleep in her own room, but he wanted her with him, and he knew that was what she wanted—what she needed—as well.
Lying there awake at night, a plan began to take shape in his mind. He thought about it for a day or two and talked it over with his father, who gave him compassionate, if reluctant, support. He had decided not to tell Alec the real reason behind Gina’s desire to raise the lens. He would tell him in time, but right now, he needed his father on his side, and that information would only increase Alec’s already conflicted feelings about Gina.
On Saturday night, Clay sat with her on the top step of the lighthouse, watching the stars and fighting off the mosquitoes, and he told her what he wanted to do.
“I don’t have two hundred thousand dollars for you to give Mrs. King,” he said. “And I think you know that I wouldn’t give it to her if I did. But I do have enough money to take us both to India, and to let us stay there and take care of Rani while you—while we—fight the system.”
She looked at him, wide-eyed. “Why would you do that for a child you don’t know, much less love?” she asked.
He rested his hand on her cheek and kissed her, the woman who had given him back his life.
“Because I love you,” he said. “That’s why.”
CHAPTER 56
Monday, May 17, 1943
Today I understand the meaning of the word ambivalence. I’ve heard it before, of course, and read it in books and had some knowledge of what it meant, but I never realized that it perfectly describes what I am feeling.
This will be the last time I write in my diary. Or at least, in this diary. My life has changed, and I need to put all that has happened to me in the last year behind me. Often, when I write in this book, I read back over what I wrote in the past and it keeps it alive for me. I can remember every moment. I want to stop remembering. I want to look toward the future and not back at the past, because the past makes me feel sad and regretful.
Last night, Dennis and I made love for the first time. I cried for an hour afterward, not even sure why I was crying, and he held me close to him and told me everything would be all right, that he would take care of me forever. I think I was crying because I knew I had to give up the past. I suppose somewhere in my heart I’ve been hoping I could return to Kiss River to see my parents and to get back that future Sandy and I had talked about, that I could get back to Sandy. I keep thinking about certain things, like how strange it is that I used the ruby necklace he gave me as a tool to turn him in. And here’s another thing I thought of: he told me that he was the one who murdered that man I found on the beach, because the man was snooping on him. But unless I am going completely crazy, Sandy had not even arrived in Kiss River when that man was murdered. See how I can go round and round about this? It is so hard for me to let go.
But last night, I finally did make myself let go of Sandy and my parents and the past. I am with Dennis now. If there is a better man in the world, I don’t know who he is. And so I am going to do my darnedest to be happy with him, and to make him happy, too.
I am ambivalent about it all. I left Mr. Hewitt the etched message in the Fresnel lens in an ambivalent way, wanting to do my duty to my country by turning Sandy in, yet not wanting to see him hurt. I gave up my baby with ambivalence. I move through my days with ambivalence, not really caring that I excel in school, doing so mainly to please Dennis. It’s time for all that to change. It’s time that I moved forward with certainty. And that is why, dear diary, I am putting you away for all time. Thank you for being there for me. I have needed your complete acceptance of me, with my warts and all. Thank you thank you thank you. And goodbye.
CHAPTER 57
It was a caravan that made its way to Norfolk and the airport the second week of August. Gina and Clay rode in Alec’s van with him and Olivia, Jack and Maggie. Lacey followed behind, transporting Walter, Henry and Brian in her car and Walter’s wheelchair in her trunk. No one wanted to miss saying goodbye and good luck to Gina and Clay as they embarked on the first leg of their long journey to Hyderabad.
Gina worried they were taking too many things with them. The waitresses and some of the customers at Shorty’s had given her a baby shower, and she had toys and clothing for Rani, as well as a diaper bag and a stroller, which she hoped would be allowed on the plane. All the gifts were borne of a certain optimism on the part of her friends, and Gina prayed that their optimism would be rewarded. Rani was still at the state orphanage, becoming more withdrawn by the day, according to Denise’s latest e-mail. For whatever reason, Mrs. King had dropped the price of her bribe down to a hundred thousand dollars again, but even if Gina had the money, she knew that she wouldn’t pay it. They would fight through legal channels now, difficult and frustrating though she knew that would be. Now, she would not be doing it alone. She had gotten a bit crazy these last few months and she owed her newfound sanity to the man sitting next to her. Clay seemed to think it was the other way around, though, as he thanked her regularly for making him care about living again.
They arrived at the airport very early, not only to allow enough time for the security check, but to have a meal together, all ten of them. They sat around two pushed-together tables in the airport restaurant. Everyone was talking at once, but Gina’s eyes were on Maggie. At Maggie’s request, Gina had made her a copy of one of Rani’s pictures, and the girl had it propped up against her water glass where she could see it easily. Gina was touched. She looked around the table at the people she cared about, and who cared about her. This was the world she wanted to bring Rani home to.
She didn’t know what the future held. Bellingham seemed very far away, and she had already told the superintendent of her school she was taking a leave of absence. She would have quit altogether, but she needed the insurance to cover Rani’s surgery when she brought her home. What she would do for a paycheck, though, she had no idea. She would figure that out when she needed to. Right now, the only thing on her mind was getting her daughter.
By the time she and Clay—and Rani, for they were both determined not to leave Hyderabad without her—returned from India, the lens would be on public display. People would admire it in awe, that nearly perfect glass shell. A few very observant people might notice the faint etching of a name on one of the prisms and wonder how and why it came to be there. They would probably think it was the work of Walter Liscott himself, the prank of a young boy, perhaps, who wanted to leave his name there for all time. They would never guess that it had been the ambivalent etching of a heartbroken fifteen-year-old girl.
The search for the lens itself may have been misguided; it had certainly failed at giving her the answers she had hoped for. But as Gina looked around the table at people she had come to care about, she knew that she had found what she had been looking for: a family.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-3686-2
KISS RIVER
Copyright © 2003 by Diane Chamberlain.
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Diane Chamberlain, Kiss River
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