AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Deep roots are not reached by frost.
If I needed any further affirmation that I had reached the end of the line with Jake, if the bus crash of a dream hadn’t hammered the point home, the final proof came in the form of the Senegalese women who formed the backbone of their villages, these small, dusty outcroppings with a circle of huts and, if they were lucky, a nearby water source.
Students often ask me why the world’s villagers are so eager to up sticks for megacities where they crowd into shanties with foul water and fouler alleys, where the best they might hope for is sweatshop labor that pays barely enough to earn their daily bread. Until you have witnessed lives still governed by the rhythms of the sun, it is a reasonable question.
The women meeting us today had walked, most of them, some five or seven sodden miles, in the daily deluge that defines the wet season in this part of the world. They had done this for the opportunity to share with us the ways in which the basic literacy and arithmetic skills they learned through the works of a particular NGO had allowed them to gain, in the words of that same NGO, “a measure of autonomy over their own lives.”
A measure of autonomy over their own lives.
I rolled that phrase around, trying to remember how long it had been since I had claimed my own autonomy, since I had been able to breathe and be authentically, as me, Liss Miller, the girl with the big dreams.
Subconsciously, I knew the answer. The subconscious always knows.
I mulled the question as the van slipped and splashed through the deep mud of the single track out of the village. I was grateful for the work – and the money – of another NGO that was building bridges in the region, literally, if not always figuratively. A bridge may seem a small thing, until you consider what it is to not have one. Then people drown.As I am drowning now, I thought as our driver skillfully maneuvered us around a fallen tree and into the high grass and deep ruts of the adjacent ground, gunning the engine so that we passengers would not need to pile out and push. It was no idle concern.
Past the baobab trees being lashed with rain, past the mango sellers huddling under twisted pink and yellow umbrellas, their precious fruit covered with cling film as though to protect it from the torrential, pelting rains, I pondered. As we approached the city, my mind worked on the problem past billboards offering a free goat with every purchase of a new cell phone; past the line of broken-down semis, many on their third or fourth or fifth national tour of duty, having begun life, perhaps, in the U.S. or Europe before being traded down again and again until they, too, reached the bottom of the global pyramid.
For miles, these trucks lined the pitted road that led to Mali, less wealthy, less secure, than Senegal. They intermingled with carts pulled by mules, adolescents hauling loads on bicycles, and occasionally the highly recognizable white Toyotas favored by the NGOs. When a big rig gave out, which they frequently did, the driver would coax it back to life on the side of the road, tinkering with the engine or patching the tires or siphoning a little more precious fuel from a jerry can into the tank.
As it does in some people, like the finger-pointers at the check-in counter or the mid-flight air ragers, too often travel brought out the worst in us when Jake and I traveled together, or at least the worst in our relationship. From the hiking trails of Banff where our shouts echoed through the mountains as we fought over who lost the trail guide; to the argument over the tide tables in Normandy; to Golden Hour in Florence where we each stalked off to separategelateriasafter disagreeing over the history of the Ponte Vecchio; to the “Happiest Place on Earth,” where I spent the day at Epcot while Jake explored the Magic Kingdom, we had known our share of bust-ups as we explored the planet. Even when we were together, we couldn’t help but remain apart.
Only weeks before I left for Senegal, at Shark’s Cove on the North Shore of Oahu, we had reached an apex, of sorts. It came at the end of a snorkeling trip gone awry.
“Can you believe all of the aholehole, Jake? There must have been a hundred of them!” I enthused, as we clambered back on shore.
He glowered at me.
“If we get there early enough, the water will be ‘smooth as glass,’” he mimed a flat surface and raised the pitch of his voice to impersonate me.
“Oh, come on. I already said I guessed I was wrong. And that you didn’thaveto come in.”
The sun had barely burst above the horizon when we’d pulled off onto the strip of sand that doubled as a parking lot, but even then, two points were apparent. The cove teemed with fish and the water was rough. Knowing Jake’s preference for turf over surf in the best of conditions, I’d offered that he could wait on the shore. He declined.
Buffeted by the currents, Jake’s shins were bloody by the time we’d had our fill of the underwater world, but despite the waves, the visibility had been excellent.
“Jake? I know your leg hurts, but did you see them all? The parrot fish, the humuhumunukunukuapuaa, there was even a honu off in the distance!” Even I could hear the artificial brightness in my voice that sought to plaster over the blood running from a good four-inch gash in Jake’s shin. Already I was formulating a first-aid plan for the man whose single allergy was to medical adhesive.His allergy, but my responsibility to ensure we always had gauze and compression bandages aplenty,I stewed, silently but resentfully.
“You think I didn’t see the fish, Liss?” Jake seethed. “Of course, I saw the fish. Every damn one. The eels, too. And the reef shark, which I tried to point out to you, but God knows you weren’t paying enough attention to notice.”
“What? I missed a shark! Ugh! I can’t believe it!”
“Yeah, the shark. You missed the shark.That’swhat I’m pissed about. That you didn’t get to see the shark. Because you’ve never seen one before.”
I chose to ignore the sarcasm.
“Well, not –”
“Fuck, Liss! Do you ever even listen to me? To anyone other than yourself?”
Slowly, deliberately, I dried myself, counting to ten, then twenty, then thirty, deciding how to respond. The grains of sand sparkled against my skin. No matter how I rubbed, they were adhered to my thighs, to my shins, to the tops of my feet. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Jake watching my deliberations.
“Liss! Do you ever think about anyone but yourself? Listen to anyone but yourself? Or even yourself? Do you ever even notice anyone else?”
“I notice that you’re being a complete ass right now and I don’t have the first clue why.” My voice was steady and low, which I had discovered over the years was far more intimidating – and therefore effective – than when I yelled.
He snatched the keys to the rental car out of the dry bag and chucked them into the parking area. They pinged against the car and fell into the gravel.
“It’s your vacation, have at it.”
