so long, or maybe just because they understand all your bad parts and love you anyway? I think a soul mate makes up for everything you’re missing.”
“Well, then, if you put it that way—you are definitely my soul mate. So now we can just have fun?” I climbed the dock ladder and then pushed off with my feet and did a backflip into the water. I opened my eyes underwater and watched the flurry of particles dance through the green, moss-colored water.
When I came back up, Mina was laughing, but a different laugh from her repertoire, a sadder one. “But don’t you think there are many soul mates, in case we ever lost each other?”
I looked up at the house and saw Kendra and Isabel walking back with the lemonades, two in each hand. Mina followed my gaze and watched them. She nodded. She lifted her hand and waved. Isabel waved in a way that made Mina laugh, and we could see Kendra scold her for spilling.
Mina touched my shoulder, so I would look over. “I’m just saying, Sam. There’s a lot of people in the world. There must be lots of soul mates.”
I was wounded. “But—”
“Lemonade!” Isabel interrupted us with pink frosty glasses, and Mina’s face told me the discussion was over.
CHAPTER
12
IT WAS ANOTHER HOUR BEFORE WE CROSSED over the bridge into Tela, and wound our way down a dirt road to the beach house. We arrived by trial and error, going back to look for a “right at the old Coca-Cola sign,” per Ana Maria’s instructions, and a “left after thatched-hut bar.”
Both cars pulled into a dusty driveway. The headlights showed a large but basic clapboard wood house.
And a slender, barefoot black man sitting on the front porch.
That must be the caretaker, I thought, and waved out my window. Ana Maria had told me about a watchman who lived in a cement house nearby and maintained the vacation home while her family was away. Which, I only now realized after the car accident, must be because the area was unsafe. The beach house was surrounded by the local Garifuna population, whom I was excited to photograph. Their culture blended Indian blood with that of shipwrecked slaves and had grown to inhabit the coastline of Central America. They were supposedly an easygoing and self-sufficient people, but modern world poverty allows few exemptions from discontent and rebellion.
The watchman was lanky and tall, ancient-looking yet nimble. His skin was like shiny wet pebbles in the headlights of the cars. He had his hands in his jeans pockets and stood perfectly still, watching and waiting.
I got out and went to him with my hand outstretched. “Soy Samantha. Mucho gusto,” I said, it dawning on me as I did that he might only speak the local Garifuna language.
The man hesitated then smiled a perfunctory smile of yellowed ivory teeth. He held out his hand. It was smooth and warm.
“Ahari.”
Ahari walked toward the Ford. Arshan got out of the driver’s seat. He looked at me for assurance. I had never mentioned a caretaker.
“You guys, this is Ahari. He’s the watchman.”
Arshan popped the trunk in response.
Ahari grabbed two armfuls of groceries and started for the house.
The vacation club piled in on his heels. It looked like any typical beach house, sandy and worn, with mismatched chairs and tables and paperback books and board games piled along the walls. Truthfully, I had expected something far more luxurious based on Ana Maria’s stories from college. I hoped nobody would feel let down.
“Sammy, I love it!” came Jesse’s voice, as if in answer. “It’s fabulous!”
Everybody went off to choose rooms and unpack, while Lynette threw together a salad with liberal mounds of the unidentified veggies we had bought.
The house was shaped like a horseshoe, with two private bungalows on either end, and palm trees strung with hammocks in between.
Jesse and Arshan headed straight to the opposing bungalows with doors to the outside, and Cornell and Isabel took their bags to the inside rooms. I followed Isabel.
Isabel had said barely a word since the accident. When I entered the room behind her, she spun around. Her scared eyes looked searchingly into mine.
“You okay?” I asked warily. Isabel had truly not been herself these past two days.
“I want you to promise me something.” Not a hint of joking in her turquoise eyes.
I nodded, waiting.
“I just almost watched everyone I love die in a car accident.”
Of course Isabel wouldn’t consider that she had almost died, too.
“You have to promise me that you won’t die before me.”
Isabel’s emotion singed my skin. “Promise.”
I didn’t know how to reply but she read my heart, breaking at her fear, and seemed satisfied. Isabel sank down on one of the twin beds and unzipped her backpack. She took out a book and lay down with her back to me. It took me a second to realize she was reading Mina’s journal.
“Read me something.”
Isabel didn’t answer.
“I’ll let you read mine. I don’t think Mina would mind. She probably expected us to.”
I could see Isabel’s back moving with her breath.
“You know what I do? I ask a question and then a flip to a page for the answer. It makes me feel like I’m talking to her.”
Still no answer. Oh shit, I made her feel worse. I started to apologize, but then I heard her flip to a page and take a deep breath.
“‘December 15. All three of you were here today. I love you, Isabel, for pretending that you and Kendra came home early for Christmas and not because you know I’m going to die soon. I look terrible, right? But when you read this, I want you to know that I’m okay. Or that I was okay, I guess. There’s a kind of peace that comes the closer I get to the end.
“‘The maple tree dropped its last leaves today. Oh, they were long since shriveled and brown. But I know what it means. That tree has taught me things, Isabel. We’re all so much more connected than we know. The tree speaks to me and I don’t even mean it allegorically. It’s probably the cancer, or the pain meds, but what that tree whispers at night makes so much sense that I don’t care where it comes from. It tells me that I’m doing fine, that death isn’t the end we think it is.
“‘I know the tree watches you come to visit me every day. It says that love lives. That love is really all there is and everything else is just different manifestations in different dimensions. Ask Samantha!
“‘I think that means that you’ll be able to feel how much I love you guys even after I’m gone. And that’s good. That makes me feel so much better. Because I love you three so much I just couldn’t imagine how it would disappear. And maybe if
