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She fell asleep feeling a renewed sense of determination and strength.
Yes, this was exactly what she needed, Molly decided: to help herself by helping someone else.
* * *
Molly's first order of business was to go by the place that Professor Puffin had taken Helena. It was a small shack on the edge of town, and it had a sinister look to it that made the hairs stand up on Molly's arms. She stopped on the unpaved dirt lane and stared as two shirtless men wandered around the perimeter of the house, finally catching sight of her.
Helena had described Professor Puffin, and neither of these men fit the bill. The professor was very tall, blonde, and white, with a thick beard and a propensity for blue jeans and sandals. These men were of average size, Black, and wore not jeans and sandals but some kind of brown linen fashioned into shorts. One of them wandered over to where Molly stood.
She asked for the professor by name. It was a guess, but she assumed that neither of these men spoke English, so she used her basic French in hopes that they would understand that.
"Away," one of the men said in French, using his hand to mimic an airplane. "Please come in?" He motioned at the house behind him as he asked this--again in French.
"No. Merci," Molly said. She turned and walked quickly away, refusing to look back but staying keenly aware of the sensation of the men's eyes on her back.
By the time she made it to the resort that day she'd convinced herself that Professor Puffin had fled Madagascar--most likely under threat of police involvement if Helena had escaped and alerted them to his treatment of her--so she felt reasonably safe taking Helena out of the apartment. She'd give it that day and night and then would take Helena out the next day so that she didn't go stir crazy being cooped up unnecessarily.
The next day Molly didn't work, so she woke up early, made them each a cup of coffee, and packed a baguette slathered in butter and ham. She slipped a starfruit and two oranges into her bag and then led Helena to the beach for a day in the sun.
Getting the younger girl there was easier said than done; Helena insisted upon wearing a large hat that hid her face, covering as much of her skin with a long skirt and oversized men’s shirt as she possibly could, and cutting through side streets and staying away from main thoroughfares. And it wasn’t like Molly could blame her: it had to have been traumatic to find herself in a completely foreign place and with a man who she thought she’d known—at least on some level. Even hearing from Molly about how she’d gone to the house on the outskirts of town and ascertained that Professor Puffin had flown away somewhere hadn’t entirely quelled Helena’s anxieties, so Molly stuck to her like glue, letting her do anything she needed to do in order to feel safe and unseen.
But the beach itself was glorious! The water was blue and green and turquoise and jade, the sand a white powder that was warm beneath their bare feet. Thick stands of green trees were clustered all up and down the shore, and Molly chose a spot for them beneath a palm tree that was bent and growing towards the water. They sat and watched the white-capped waves break onto the sand, squinting into the bright sunlight and admiring the postcard-worthy beauty of the scene.
“I’m guessing there are no beaches like this on Lundy,” Molly said, pulling an orange from her bag and peeling it. She separated it in two and handed half to Helena, who took it gratefully and sectioned it further, sucking on a bite of orange as the juice ran down her wrist to her elbow.
“Not even close,” Helena said, smiling for the first time since they’d left the apartment. “How about you? Beaches like this at home?”
Molly shook her head. “Not even. Well, okay—maybe in Hawaii, where I lived with my husband. But California’s beaches aren’t this tropical. At least not where I lived. The sand was darker, and the ocean a deeper blue. Like denim.” Molly motioned at the sand and water. “It’s beautiful, but in a different way.”
Helena ate her orange in contemplative silence, and Molly wondered how to broach the topic with her of how they’d manage going forward, because she was determined not to abandon Helena or to let her fall into the arms of danger once again.
“Why are you really helping me?” Helena asked, breaking into Molly’s thoughts and bypassing any casual conversation of what they were going to do next.
Molly looked at the girl. She’d taken off the giant hat and unbuttoned her oversized shirt to reveal a crocheted bikini top and the kind of flat stomach that comes effortlessly with youth. Her skin was deeply bronzed, and her hair was loose on her freckled shoulders. Helena crossed her legs beneath her, reaching for half of the baguette sandwich in Molly’s bag.
“That’s a good question,” Molly answered honestly. “There’s danger in helping a person you don’t know and who comes to you after getting away from someone who wants to do them some kind of harm.”
Helena nods as she unwraps the sandwich and takes a big bite.
Molly exhales; her shoulders slump and she forgets about the orange slices in her hand for a moment. “But the man I was married to would have wanted me to help you, and that’s enough for me to know that it’s what I need to do.”
“This guy had a thing for broken birds?” Helena asked in her British accent.
“He had a thing for being of use in the world.” Molly looked at Helena, broken bird that she clearly was. “In fact, one time he was terribly late coming home from work. So late that I was worried something had happened to him.” Remembering her orange, Molly pulled off a slice and popped it into her mouth, tasting the tang of it as she chewed. “When he finally got home, he told me he’d been driving around for three hours in the rain, trying to find the home of a stray pup he’d nearly hit with his truck. It was crazy, but also the sweetest thing you can imagine."
"Did he find the dog's owners?"
Molly nodded. "He did. And he said that if he hadn't, he would have brought it home with him and kept it warm and safe and then he would have kept looking the next day."
"So...I'm the stray dog in this scenario?" Helena looked at her dubiously.
Molly laughed. "I guess in a sense you are," she admitted. "But I think the moral of the story is that when someone or something is in need and you have the ability to help, you should. You were clearly in need when I met you--of something to eat, of a place to sleep, of safety--and I could offer all three of those things, so I did."
Helena took another bite of her sandwich. "True," she said around a mouthful of baguette. "And I thank you for that. But I don't know how to pay you. I have nothing. I came here with someone who offered to pay my way, and I was too dumb to realize that he expected me to pay my way with my--"
Molly cut her off before she got too graphic. "It's okay," she said. "I'm not worried about you paying me for anything I've done, but we do need to figure out what comes next."
As they sat there together, two children came running across the sand, each wearing not much more than a piece of fabric wrapped around their waists and tucked between their legs like giant cloth diapers. One had long, dark braids and a girlish laugh, and the other was taller, had a loose, sun-bleached afro, and wore a necklace made of shells. They squealed as they hit the water, splashing one another and shoving each other as only siblings can.
