was curling in damp waves around her shoulders. “And why are you still stressing over your mom’s anniversary?”
She picked up her tea, sipped, put it back down. “We’re only human.”
“I know. But I should be ashamed of myself for feeling this way. I got everything I ever wanted. I mean, seriously, look at this place.” He scowled at his opulent surroundings. How rich and privileged and spoiled could he be?
“I thought your sabbatical helped.” She seemed to be evaluating how long he’d been gone, separating himself from her and everyone else.
He’d taken nearly a year off to travel the world, to search for inner peace. He’d also visited hospitals and orphanages and places where he’d hoped to make a difference. “The most significant part of that experience was the months I spent in Nulah. It’s a small island country in the South Pacific. I’d never been there before, so I didn’t really know what to expect. Anyway, what affected me was this kid I came across in an orphanage there. A five-year-old boy named Tokoni.”
She cocked her head. “Why haven’t you mentioned him before now?”
“I don’t know.” He conjured up an image of the child’s big brown eyes and dazzling smile. “Maybe I was trying to keep him to myself a little longer and imagine him with the family his mother wanted him to have. When he was two, she left him at the orphanage, hoping that someone would adopt him and give him a better life. She wasn’t abusive to him, like my mother was to me. She just knew that she couldn’t take proper care of him. Nulah is traditional in some areas, with old-world views, and rough and dangerous in others. It didn’t used to be so divided, but it started suffering from outside influences.”
“Like drugs and prostitution and those sorts of things?”
“Yes, and Tokoni’s mother lived in a seedy part of town and was struggling to find work. She’d already lost her family in a boating accident, so there was no one left to help her.”
“What about the boy’s father?” she asked. “How does he fit into this?”
“He was an American tourist who made all sorts of promises, saying he was going to bring her to the States and marry her. But in the end, he didn’t do anything, except ditch her and the kid.”
“Oh, how awful.” Lizzie’s voice broke a little. “That makes me sad for her, living on a shattered dream, waiting for a man to whisk her away.”
It disturbed Max, too. “She kept in touch with the orphanage for a while, waiting to see if Tokoni ever got a permanent home, but then she caught pneumonia and died. The old lady who operates the place told me the story. It’s a private facility that survives on charity. I already donated a sizable amount to help keep them on track.”
She made a thoughtful expression. “I can write an article about them to drum up more support, if you want.”
“That would be great.” Max appreciated the offer. Lizzie hosted a successful philanthropy blog with tons of noble-hearted followers. “I just wish someone would adopt Tokoni. He’s the coolest kid, so happy all the time.” So different from how Max was as a child. “He’s at the age where he talks about getting adopted and thinks it’s going to happen. He’s been working on this little picture book, with drawings of the mommy and daddy he’s convinced he’s going to have. They’re just stick figures with smiley faces, but to him, they’re real.”
“Oh, my goodness.” She tapped a hand against her heart. “That’s so sweet.”
“He’s a sweet kid. I’ve been wanting to return to the island to see him again. Just to let him know that I haven’t forgotten about him.”
“Then you should plan another trip soon.”
“Yeah, I should.” Max could easily rearrange his schedule to make it happen. “Hey, here’s an idea. Do you want to come to Nulah with me to meet him?” He suspected that Lizzie could manage her time to accommodate a trip, as well. She’d always been a bit of a jet-setter, a spontaneous society girl ready to leave town on a whim. But mostly she traveled for humanitarian causes, so this was right up her alley. “While we’re there, you can interview the woman who operates the orphanage for the feature you’re going to do on your blog.”
“Sure. I can go with you. I’d like to see the orphanage and conduct an in-person interview. But I should probably spend most of my time with her and let you visit with Tokoni on your own. You know how kids never really take to me.”
“You just need to relax around them.” Although Lizzie championed hundreds of children’s charities, she’d never gotten the gist of communicating with kids, especially the younger ones. A side effect from her own youth, he thought, from losing her mom and forcing herself to grow up too fast. “For the record, I think you and Tokoni will hit it off just fine. In fact, I think he’s going to be impressed with you.”
“You do?” She adjusted her lounge chair, moving it to a more upright position. “What makes you say that?”
“In his culture redheads are said to descend from nobility, from a goddess ruler who dances with fire, and your hair is as bright as it gets.” Max sat forward, too, and leaned toward her. “He’ll probably think you’re a princess or something. But you were homecoming queen. So it’s not as if you didn’t have your reign.”
Her response fell flat. “That doesn’t count.”
He remembered going to the football game that night, sitting alone in the bleachers, watching her receive her crown. He’d skipped the homecoming dance. He wouldn’t have been able to blend in there. Getting a date would have been difficult, too. As for Lizzie, she’d attended the dance with the tall, tanned star of the boys’ swim team. “It counted back then.”
“Not to me, not like it should have. It wasn’t fair that my other friends didn’t accept you.”
“Well, I got the last laugh, didn’t I?”
She nodded, even if neither of them was laughing.
Before things got too morose, he reached out and tugged on a strand of her hair. “Don’t fret about being royalty to me. The only redhead that influenced my culture was a woodpecker.”
She sputtered into a laugh and slapped his hand away. “Gee, thanks, for that compelling tidbit.”
He smiled, pleased by her reaction. “It’s one of those old American Indian tales. I told it to Tokoni when he was putting a puzzle together with pictures of birds.” Max stopped smiling. “The original story involves love. But I left off that part when I told Tokoni. I figured he was too young to understand it. Plus, it would have been hypocritical of me to tell it that way.”
She took a ladylike sip of her tea. “Now I’m curious about the original version and just how lovey-dovey it is.”
“It’s pretty typical, I guess.” He went ahead and recited it, even if he preferred it without the romance. “It’s about a hunter who loves a girl from his village, but she’s never even noticed him. He thinks about her all the time. He even has trouble sleeping because he can’t get her off his mind. So he goes to the forest to be alone, where he hears a beautiful song that lulls him to sleep. That night, he dreams about a woodpecker who says, ‘Follow me and I’ll show you how to make this song.’ In the morning, he sees a real woodpecker and follows him. The
