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"Adi," Molly said. She leaned into him fully, knocking him back on the sand and then nuzzling in under his arm. "I'm not really the kind of girl who likes to take center stage."
"Too bad," he said. Adi put his lips into her hair and kissed her scalp as she smiled dreamily. They were in the shade of a tall palm tree, and the sand was cool beneath them. "Everyone here likes you very much, and the kids from your school will love to see you out there. Trust me."
Molly was still hesitant, but the mention of the students at the high school won her over a little bit. "You think so?" She tilted her chin up and looked at Adi's profile.
"Absolutely."
The next evening, Molly and Adi showed up to the big open grassy courtyard at the high school to go over their roles in the meke. Molly still felt nervous about the whole thing, but she soon realized that her role wouldn't necessarily step on anyone else's toes, because (much to her surprise, as she had to admit that she knew little to nothing about the history of Fiji becoming its own republic), the plum role she'd been assigned was that of Queen Elizabeth II, who had been the Queen of Fiji and the head of state.
The other dancers did moves made of strong stances and wore traditional garb. Everyone besides Molly had grass skirts and wore strands of leaves, flowers, or shells wrapped around their bodies like tinsel wound around Christmas trees. The men were shirtless and barefoot, and the women were in small tops made of colorful fabric and were also barefoot. Molly was wrapped in a white sheet made to look like a column dress with a blue sash across her chest, and some of the local women had fashioned her a crown made of shells and bits of glass. The story of Fiji's history was told through dance and song, and while she'd initially resisted the whole thing, Molly found herself in awe of the pageantry and the seriousness with which everyone took the performance.
The guests who'd come from the island's sister church on Futuna were just as boisterous and fun to be around as the Rotumans, and Molly moved amongst the mass of laughing, talking Fijians with her plate of food after the performance, accepting hugs and compliments from friends and strangers alike.
"Hello, my queen!" shouted a man with a huge belly, opening his arms wide. When he smiled, Molly could see that he was missing most of his teeth, and she guessed he was somewhere in the neighborhood of ninety. She leaned in for a warm hug from him as he squeezed her gently. "We are so happy that you're here."
It went on like this all evening: people greeting her like old friends, offering her bits of fruit cake or hunks of fish from their own plates, talking to her about Rotuma and Futuna's history together, and asking her how long she was going to stay. Even in Hawaii Molly had never felt so welcomed by the people she lived amongst, and the whole time she could feel Adi's eyes on her from across the big, open space where they were eating dinner. She'd be talking to someone--say Ema, or Mrs. Chand, or one of the other teachers from school--and she'd glance up and find him smiling at her.
Molly found it easy to fall into a pattern with Adi. He went fishing with his brother every morning before the sun came up, and Molly went to the high school and put in her time there. They met up each afternoon to swim in the sea, cook dinner together in Molly's small kitchen, and to eat outside on the porch with a view of the waterfall. There were moments in the dark of night when Molly would awaken and wonder whether Rodney would be disappointed in how quickly she'd forged this bond with another man, but deep down she knew that he would want her to be living her life. He'd always been that way: generous, caring, and interested in Molly's happiness.
One night she woke up and rolled over to see Adi's sleeping face there next to her, his brow smooth and untroubled, and his shoulder rising and falling as he breathed deeply.
This can't last, a voice said in Molly's ear. It was undoubtedly a thought in her own head, but she sat up and turned to look behind her, certain for a moment that someone was in the room with them, observing and telling her the truth of their situation.He's a part of your story, the voice went on,but he's not the whole story.
Molly sat there watching Adi for a moment, and she knew this was a fact--that he would be just a footnote in the story of her life. Adi was calm, present, and passionate, but like his part in the meke dance as a supporting cast member, he would serve the same purpose in her life, and she would always love him for it. She leaned over and pressed her lips to his warm shoulder gently, kissing him and then pulling the sheet back over her so that she could sleep a bit more.
They were careful never to say "I love you," and were generous with one another's space. While Adi stayed at the house by the waterfall most nights, he made a point of not coming over a few times a week and letting Molly decide how she wanted to spend her time. More often than not she ended up at Ema and Dr. Reddy's to work on crafts in the yard, and by the time April rolled around, she'd amassed quite a collection of woven baskets and mats (though none of them were as expertly done as the local women's handiwork, which they worked on alongside her so that she could watch their nimble fingers weaving and working as they talked to Ema and to each other). She'd also learned how to make a masi, or a tapa cloth. It was created by stripping the inner white bark from paper mulberry, soaking it in water, and then beating the cloth for hours. Once it had been prepared, the artist used vegetable dyes to create geometric patterns and designs in red, black, and brown, and ultimately their creation could be used as a blanket, a table mat, or as a wall hanging.
Molly took her artwork to the dock one hot spring morning and boarded her boat, throwing open the doors for the first time in months. She hung her tapa cloth on the wall above her narrow bed, swept the floors and decks, wiped down the tiny galley kitchen, and cleaned the head. She ran her water maker to double-check that it was in working order, and as she drank a glass of her purified water, she stood and looked around at her boat, imagining herself on the next leg of her journey. She'd have to say goodbye to Ema and Dr. Reddy, to her little house by the waterfall, to the kids at school. She'd need to let go of the sense of home she felt on Rotuma, and to walking barefoot on the sand and swimming in the ocean each day. And, maybe most significantly, she'd need to set Adi free again, thanking him for the time together and wishing him a happy journey through life.
Molly sighed as she walked over to the edge of the rocking boat, leaning on the railing. She'd learned a lot on Rotuma, and she'd healed in some very important ways. She'd had her own quiet ceremony at the waterfall, sprinkling some of Rodney's ashes there and feeling her heart heal just a little bit more. Finding strangers to take her in when she'd been ill and feverish and half-crazed by the month alone at sea had been a gift, and meeting Adi, whose own heart had been bruised and battered by the cruelty of life and fate, had been balm for her soul. She'd learned from him that companionship could--andshould--be a part of her life, and that her body was still young and alive and filled with the spark of romance and feeling that sprang to life again with the touch of a man. It had been an important lesson for her, and the six months she'd spent on Rotuma would forever be etched on her heart.
Molly looked out at the horizon and imagined herself sailing freely across the open water, bow pointed towards an unknown destiny, and for the first time in months, she didn't feel nauseous at the thought of sailing again.
It was time to go.
Ruby
Molly's journey has had quite an impact on Ruby's outlook. She almost feels ridiculous when she considers the facts: Rodney died during the good years--those first sweet, loving, honeymoon-tinged years of marriage. So far as she knew, he'd never hurt Molly in the way that Jack had hurt Ruby over their much lengthier relationship. There'd been no talk of deception or of a child sired with a mistress, no abuse, no neglect--nothing but love and happiness in the stories that Molly has shared with them so far. And even with that, Molly had been able to compartmentalize the loss of the man she loved and understand that it was time to let her heart start to beat again.
At the young, tender age of twenty-six, Molly had lost her husband and had the capacity and the understanding to know that opening herself up again to someone new was in no way a blight on what she'd seen as an otherwise loving and fulfilling marriage. So why can't Ruby easily do the same? Why is it so difficult for her--at the ripe old age of fifty--to process Jack's choices and his death, and to accept that she still has the rest of her life ahead of her? Rationally she understands that there's probably no one in the world who would look at her situation and think that she was being unfaithful to Jack by moving on and finding out what kind of relationship she could have with someone else, and while some women might not understand the appeal of a man fifteen years her junior, she's willing to bet that plenty more mightfullyunderstand what she sees in Dexter North.
Ruby is sitting in the small office over her bookshop as she thinks about the differences in their situations, and she can't help but admire Molly's gumption. Of course, being in your mid-twenties gave a person a totally different outlook on life than one had at fifty, but still--Molly had done something incredibly brave and bold by deciding to sail the world and to forge a new life on her own, and Ruby desperately wanted to take a page out of Molly's book and do the same thing for herself--minus the boat and the solitude on the water.
The phone rings as she sits there, chin in hand, thinking about Molly's story. Ruby picks up her phone and flips it over, looking at the screen: it's her mother.
"Hi, Mom."
"I'm coming to visit," Patty Dellarosa says without preamble. "I'll be there in two days."
"Mom?" Ruby laughs. "What? Did I miss something?"
"You called me. You didn't know what to do. I've been thinking about your problems, and now I know what you need to do. So I'm coming to visit and we'll get it all sorted out."
Ruby laughs again. "Okay. It's just a big trip for you, isn't it?"
Though they aren't on FaceTime, Ruby can picture her mother's scoffing face. "Ruby. I'm seventy-six, not a hundred and six. It's a quick First Class flight from LAX to Pensacola with a little stop in Atlanta, then a drive to Destin and a boat ride to the island." She pauses. "Okay, when I say it out loud it does sound kind of insane--are you sure I'm not traveling to Timbuktu?"
"That's what I'm saying!" Ruby picks up a pencil from her desk and scribbles on a notepad. "So you already got your ticket?"
