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“I think I’ll take a walk on the deck,” I say, folding my napkin and standing up.
Harvey and Gerald Markman half-stand as I leave the table, an old-fashioned courtesy that touches my heart.
“Thank you for the chat,” I say to Harvey, reaching for his arm and squeezing it gently. “It was lovely talking with you.”
“And you,” he says.
Before my tears fall, I quickly head outside.
It’s a little after 6:30pm, and sun has mostly set, but I can still see the wideness of the river through the dimming twilight. I’d always thought of rivers as narrow places where you can easily see each bank clearly from the middle, but the Amazon is vast and mighty, with the silhouetted shapes of trees and hills in the distance. I watch the outlines until they unite with the blackness of the night sky.
You can’t go back.
Leaning my elbows on the prow railing, I can make out single lights here and there on the left bank of the river. No towns. No villages. Nothing I can clearly see. A light here. A light there. A quiet life in the jungle as our boat slides by, its motor humming, the lights from cabins, decks, and dining rooms a moving torch on the otherwise inky river.
Is Harvey Schlemmer right?I wonder.Did my dad leave this place and never return to preserve it—and the people he loved—in his memory?
“Are you...okay?”
I turn to find Rio standing behind me, his muscular body backlit by the light streaming through the glass window behind him, his handsome face in shadow.
“I’m fine.”
“You didn’t look fine. At the table. You looked...very sad.”
I take a deep breath and let it go slowly. I know from experience that he’s easy to talk to. I also know from experience he’s not interested in me. Bearing both in mind, I decide that chatting with him won’t hurt anything.
“I miss him,” I whisper, turning back to the dark banks of my father’s river.
You can’t go back.
Rio’s hands land on the railing beside mine, his body buffeting me from the cooling breeze.
“Your father?”
“Mm-hm.”
“My father died when I was a baby,” he tells me.
“I’m sorry.”
Harvey’s children will lose their father someday. I lost mine as a young adult. Rio lost his as a child. There is no rhyme or reason to loss. No pattern to explain or anticipate it, which means that no matter when it happens, it hurts. Badly. And forever.
“Yara,” he says softly, staring at the water, “last night at the hotel...I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”
My cheeks flare and I’m grateful the darkness hides it.
“You are beautiful and charming. Extremely desirable. You must know that.”
I open my mouth to say something, then close it. My father was fond of saying, “If a question isn’t asked, don’t offer an answer.”
“But my job,” he says, “—this job...I need it. I need it, and... and...onde se ganha o pão não se come a carne.” He stands up straight, crossing his arms over his chest and looking annoyed.
Now, I don’t speak Portuguese, but I’d bet my life he just recited a rendition of “don’t shit where you eat” to me, and you know what? I get it. I own a business. I take business matters seriously. If there’s a rule against fraternization with cruise guests, I shouldn’t be breaking his balls for complying with it...even if it did hurt my pride to feel rejected.
I take a deep breath and let it go, turning to him slowly.
“You’re a bartender at the hotelandon the ship?”
