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I signed the note with a heart symbol and the letter J scrawled inside. Then I pulled the curtain aside on the side facing the chief's cabin, noticing Nona weaving quietly on the front porch. I feigned a cough and she looked up in my direction. I looked around to make sure I wasn't being watched, then I motioned with my hands for her to come back toward me. I knew this would be my last chance to leave a message with Teuila before the ship arrived.
She placed some fruit in a bowl and carried it back to me, and when she slid it through the slot in my cage, I dropped the husk in the pot and looked up at her. She paused for a moment, and I nodded as she slid the scroll under her dress.
"For Teuila," I said, pointing to her hut. "Thank you for all your kindness."
I steepled my palms in front of my chest and smiled, bowing in gratitude.
At least Teuila won't be entirely on her own once I leave, I thought. She'll still have the love of her siblings and grandmother to keep her spirits buoyed.
As Nona walked back toward her hut, I closed my blinds and sat down on the sand of my crate and began to sob uncontrollably.
32
For the next couple of hours, the village square was a bustle of activity as the children pointed excitedly toward the horizon and the men began bundling up piles of shark fins they'd caught on their recent fishing expeditions. A foghorn sounded from the direction of the lagoon, and my guards began dismantling my crate. Soon after, the bow of a large cargo ship glided into view beyond the cape. As a small skiff jetted toward the beach, Te's father and grandmother emerged from their cabin. Nona was carrying my handbag, and as they began walking toward me, I realized this was to be my final sendoff from the island.
I glanced in the direction of Te's hut and noticed that it was eerily still. It was obvious that Manaia was keeping her from me, and I suddenly began hyperventilating at the thought of not seeing her again. It seemed unimaginably cruel of him and Teuila's father to deny us the opportunity to say one last goodbye.
When the guards pulled the last of the ties away from my crate, they each grabbed one of my arms as Nona handed me my handbag. It was obvious that Te's father wasn't going to take any chances that I wouldn't be getting on the boat. I looked inside my handbag and noticed that everything was just as I had left it. It felt strange and surreal to see all the usual trappings of my old life lying in the bottom of the bag. There was my bikini, a bottle of sunscreen, my smartphone, and of all things—a business card, which must have fallen out of one of my travel guides as a bookmark. It was hard to imagine returning so abruptly to my privileged life on the mainland.
The guards escorted me down the courtyard toward the beach, and as I began stepping into the boat, I turned around one last time, hoping to catch sight of Teuila. Suddenly, she leaped out the front door of her hut with Manaia in hot pursuit and began running down the path toward me. This time she was the one with a head start, and it only took a few seconds before she traversed the full length of the courtyard and flung her arms around me. As Manaia pulled up behind her breathing heavily, the chief held up his hand and nodded, indicating he was going to permit us a few moments to say our goodbyes.
"Jade," Teuila cried with tears streaming down her face. "I got your message, but I don't understand. Don't you love me anymore?"
I pulled away and cupped Te's face gently in my hands.
"Of course I do, baby. I'll never stop loving you. I just wanted you to see the inevitability of our situation. You belong here on Anuta." I glanced at her grandmother and her siblings looking on from the porch of their hut. "You're surrounded by people that love you."
"But what about you?!" she said. "I thought you said you were starting to like it here? We could hide away on the other side of the island."
"If we stayed here, we'd eventually be hunted down. And your father will never let you leave this island."
I choked up, fighting to say the words.
"It's time to move on. I'm sure that once I'm gone, everything will quiet down and return to normal. You can still live a good life in this beautiful place."
"But I don't want to stay!" Te' cried. She turned to face Manaia and scowled. "I will never love that man. You're the only one that I want."
"Oh Te'—" I said, trying to hold back my tears.
Te's father suddenly motioned to the guards, and they grabbed her arms, pulling her away from me. I despaired at the thought of never speaking with her again and reached into my handbag, passing her my card.
"I don't know if you can send mail via the cargo ship, but this has my address if you want to keep in touch."
The boatmen started up the engine and pushed the skiff off the beach, and my face tightened in anguish as Teuila screamed and flailed, trying to escape the guards' grasp. I blew her a kiss and mouthed the words I love you, then the boat turned around and headed toward the cargo ship over the bumpy surf. When we reached the big ship, they threw a rope ladder over the side and I leaned over the gunwales, retching into the sea. I couldn't bear the thought of never seeing my island girl again.
After I got on deck, I peered over the railing toward the village lagoon, but Teuila was nowhere to be seen. For a brief moment, I considered asking the crew to drop me off on the other side of the island, then I realized I'd just be prolonging her agony. I asked the porter to escort me to my stateroom, where I cried myself to sleep.
33
It took me four full days to return home to Chicago. I had to have new credit cards delivered to a branch of my bank in Honiara, then take three flights to transport me from the Solomon Islands back to the continental USA via Sydney and Hawaii. But I was in no hurry to return to the comforts of my previous life. I didn't even buy new clothes en route to the States, happy to wear my tapa dress for a few more days as my fellow fliers looked on curiously.
It wasn't until I'd been home for a few weeks that I began to settle in to my normal routine. But I never stopped thinking of Teuila. Whenever I passed the pineapple stand in my local grocery store, I smiled recalling how she'd scaled the prickly tree to harvest some fruit for us to eat near our favorite waterhole. I cooked seafood on my barbeque and marinated it in lime juice, trying to remember how good the fresh-caught grouper tasted after we'd trapped it in the lagoon. But the only tangible memento I had of her was my little unicorn shell, which I placed on my office desk and gently caressed whenever I needed to let my mind wander back to the pristine waters of our private paradise.
One particularly lonely day, I opened the photo app on my iPhone, intending to browse through the few pictures I'd taken of Anuta before getting lost in the jungle. I knew that I didn't have any photos of Teuila, but I wanted to see the pink sand and big leafy trees of the island again to remind me of the few blissful days we'd shared in our lagoon. I smiled at the pictures of Captain Ben and the rest of the crew of our sailing vessel, and my heart skipped a beat looking at the images of my fellow passengers enjoying our first catch in the lagoon.
But as I flipped through the pictures, my eyes suddenly widened when I came upon some photos of Manaia hunched over one of the village's dugout canoes as smoke poured from the inner hull. I paused for a moment, dumbfounded at how the villagers had figured out how to use the sophisticated electronic device. I knew that young children could quickly decipher the graphical user interface, and I assumed that one of Te's siblings had picked up my unlocked phone and begun playing with it before it ran out of battery power. The camera app was at the top of the screen, and they must have accidentally tapped the capture button while running around the courtyard.
I studied the photos for a mom
