Leaving Time: A Novel (41 page)

Two months is a long time to be gone. A lot can happen in two months.

I didn’t know where Thomas was, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out. I didn’t know if he was coming back. But he hadn’t just left Jenna and me, he had left seven elephants and a sanctuary staff. Which meant that someone needed to take over the business.

In two months, you can start to feel confident again.

In two months, you might discover that, in addition to being a scientist, you are also a very good businesswoman.

In two months, a child can start talking up a storm, cobbled sentences and twisted syllables, naming the world that looks just as new to her as it does to you.

In two months, you can start over.

Gideon had become my right-hand man. Although we talked about hiring a new employee, we didn’t have the money for it. We could do this, he assured me. If I could balance my research with the more cerebral financial work, he could be the brawn. Because of this, he was often working an eighteen-hour day. One evening after dinner, I picked up Jenna and wandered out to the point on the property where he was trying to mend a fence. I reached for a pair of pliers and went to work beside him. “You don’t have to do that,” he told me.

“Neither do you,” I said.

It became a routine: After six o’clock, we would work in tandem at whatever was still left on the endless to-do list. We took Jenna with us, and she would collect flowers and chase the wild rabbits that ran through the tall grass.

Somehow, we fell into that habit.

Somehow, we fell.

Maura and Hester were together again in the African enclosure. They had begun to bond, and were rarely seen apart. Maura was definitely in charge; when she challenged Hester, the younger elephant would turn around, presenting her bottom, a sign of subordinance. I had witnessed Maura returning to the grave site of her calf only once since our evening in the swimming pond. She had managed to compartmentalize her grief, to move on.

I took Jenna with me every day to observe the elephants, even though I knew Thomas thought it was dangerous. He was not here; he no longer got a vote. My toddler was a natural scientist. She would move around the enclosures collecting rocks and grasses and wildflowers, and would sort them into piles. Most of these afternoons, Gideon found some work in our vicinity, so that he could sit down and rest with us for a little while. I started to bring an extra snack for him, more iced tea.

Gideon and I talked about Botswana, about the elephants I had known there and how they were so different from the animals here. We talked about the stories he’d heard from the keepers who traveled with the elephants when they arrived at the sanctuary, of animals being beaten or stuffed into a chute while being trained. One day, he was telling me about Lilly, the elephant whose leg had never set properly after breaking. “She was in a different circus before that,” Gideon said. “The ship she was traveling on was docked in Nova Scotia, when it caught on fire. It sank; some of the animals on it were killed. Lilly made it out alive, but with second-degree burns on her back and her legs.”

Lilly, who I’d been taking care of now for nearly two years, had been hurt even more than I’d imagined. “It’s amazing,” I said. “How they don’t blame us for what other people did to them.”

“I think they forgive.” Gideon looked at Maura, his mouth turning down at the corners. “I
hope
they forgive. Do you think she remembers me taking the baby away?”

“Yes,” I said bluntly. “But she doesn’t hold it against you anymore.”

Gideon looked like he was about to respond. But suddenly his face froze, and he leaped up and started running.

Jenna, who knew better than to stray close to the elephants—who had never tested her limits before—was standing two feet away from Maura, staring up at her in a trance. She looked at me, smiling. “Elephant!” she announced.

Maura reached out her trunk, huffing over Jenna’s fairy-fine pigtails.

It was a moment of magic, and of supreme danger. Children, and elephants, are unpredictable. One sudden move and Jenna could have been trampled.

I rose, my mouth dry. Gideon was already there, moving slowly so as not to startle Maura into action. He scooped Jenna into his arms, as if this were a game. “Let’s get you back to your mama,” he said, and he looked over his shoulder at Maura.

That’s when Jenna started to scream. “Elephant,” she yelled. “I want!” She kicked against Gideon’s abdomen and squirmed like a fish on the line.

It was a full-blown tantrum. The noise startled Maura, who bolted into the woods, trumpeting. “Jenna,” I snapped. “You don’t go near the animals! You know better than that!” But the fear in my voice only made her cry harder.

Gideon grunted as one of her little sneakers connected with his groin. “I’m so sorry—” I said, reaching for her, but Gideon turned away. He kept rocking Jenna, bouncing her in his arms, until her screams thinned and her sobs became hiccups. She grabbed the collar
of his red uniform shirt in her fist and started to rub the corner of it against her cheek, the way she did with her blanket when she was falling asleep.

A few minutes later, he laid my dozing child down at my feet. Jenna’s cheeks were flushed, her lips parted. I crouched beside her. She might have been made of porcelain, of moonlight.

“She was overtired,” I said.

“She was terrified,” Gideon corrected, sitting down beside me again. “After the fact.”

“Well.” I looked up at him. “Thank you.”

He stared off into the trees, where Maura had vanished. “Did she run off?”

I nodded. “She was terrified after the fact, too,” I said. “Do you know that in all the years I’ve been doing research I’ve never seen an elephant mother lose her temper with a baby? No matter how annoying or whiny or difficult the baby’s being?” I reached out to pull a ribbon out of Jenna’s hair, which was trailing like an afterthought in the wake of her outburst. “Unfortunately, I don’t seem to have the same skill set in my parenting.”

“Jenna’s lucky to have you.”

I smirked. “Considering I’m all she’s got.”

“No,” Gideon said. “I watch you, when you’re with her. You’re a good mother.”

I shrugged, waiting for the self-deprecating joke to come, but the words—the validation—meant too much to me. Instead, I heard myself say, “You’d be a good father, too.”

He picked up one of the dandelions Jenna had yanked out of the ground and stockpiled before she wandered over toward Maura. He carved a slit in its stem with his thumb and threaded a second through the first. “I sort of thought I would be one, by now.”

I pressed my lips together, because Grace’s secret wasn’t mine to give.

Gideon continued to string the weeds together. “Do you ever wonder if you fall for a person … or just the idea of her?”

What I think is that there is no perspective in grief, or in love.
How
can
there be, when one person becomes the center of the universe—either because he has been lost or because he has been found?

Gideon took the crown of daisies and slipped it over Jenna’s head. It tipped sideways on the knob of one pigtail, falling over her brow. In her sleep, she stirred.

“Sometimes I think there’s no such thing as falling in love. It’s just the fear of losing someone.”

There was a breeze, carrying the scent of wild apples and timothy grass; the earthy smell of elephant hide and manure; the juice of the peach that Jenna had eaten earlier, and that had dripped onto her sundress. “Do you worry?” Gideon asked. “About what will happen if he doesn’t come back?”

It was the first time, really, that we had talked about Thomas leaving. Although we had shared stories of how we met our spouses, that was where the conversation had stayed: at the highest peak of potential, at the moment in those relationships when everything still seemed possible.

Lifting my chin, I looked squarely at Gideon. “I worry about what will happen if he
does
,” I said.

It was colic. It was not uncommon in elephants, especially ones who had been given bad hay, or whose diet had been radically and quickly changed. Neither of those was the case for Syrah, but still she lay on her side, drowsy, bloated. She wouldn’t eat or drink. Her stomach growled. Gertie, the dog who was her constant companion, sat at her side and howled.

Grace was at my cottage, babysitting for Jenna. She’d stay there all night, so that we could watch over the elephant. Gideon had volunteered, but I was in charge now. There was no way I couldn’t be there, too.

We stood in the barn with our arms crossed, watching the vet examine the elephant. “He’s just going to tell us what we already know,” Gideon whispered to me.

“Yeah, and then he’s going to give her drugs to make her better.”

He shook his head. “What do you plan to pawn to pay his bill?”

Gideon was right about that. Money was so tight right now that we had to borrow from our operating expenses if we were going to cover the cost of emergencies, like this one. “I’ll figure it out,” I said, scowling.

We watched the vet give Syrah an anti-inflammatory—flunixin—and a muscle relaxant. Gertie curled up beside her in the hay, whimpering. “All we can really do is wait and hope she starts passing boluses,” he said. “In the meantime, get her to drink some water.”

But Syrah didn’t want to drink. Every time we came near her with a bucket, whether it was heated or cooled, she huffed and tried to turn her head away. After several hours of this, Gideon and I were both emotionally wrecked. Whatever the vet had administered did not seem to be working.

It is a pitiful thing, seeing such a strong and majestic animal laid low. It made me think of the elephants in the bush I’d seen who had been shot by villagers, or injured by snares. I knew, too, that colic wasn’t something to be taken lightly. It could lead to impaction, and that could lead to death. I knelt beside Syrah, palpating her, feeling the tightness of her abdomen. “Has this happened before?”

“Not to Syrah,” he said. “But it’s not the first time I’ve seen it.” He seemed to be chewing on a thought, equivocating. Then he looked at me. “Do you use baby oil on Jenna’s skin?”

“I used to put it in the bath,” I said. “Why?”

“Where is it?”

“If I still have any, it would be under the sink in the bathroom—”

He stood up and walked out of the barn. “Where are you going?” I called, but I couldn’t follow him. I wouldn’t leave Syrah.

Ten minutes later, Gideon returned. He was holding two bottles of baby oil and a Sara Lee pound cake I recognized from my own refrigerator. I followed him into the kitchen of the Asian barn, where we prepared meals for the elephants. He started to unwrap the cake’s packaging. “I’m not hungry,” I told him.

“This isn’t for you.” Gideon set the cake on the counter and began to stab it with a knife, repeatedly.

“I think it’s dead,” I said.

He opened a bottle of baby oil and poured it over the cake. The fluid began to sink into the sponge, settling into the puncture marks he’d made. “At the circus, the elephants colicked sometimes. The vet used to tell us to get them to drink oil. I guess it gets things moving.”

“The vet didn’t say—”

“Alice.” Gideon hesitated, his hands stilling over the cake. “Do you trust me?”

I looked at this man, who had worked by my side for weeks now to create the illusion that this sanctuary could survive. Who had saved me once. And my daughter.

I read once, in a silly women’s magazine at the dentist, that when we like someone, our pupils dilate. And that we tend to like people whose pupils are dilated when they look at us. It’s an endless cycle: We want the people who want us. Gideon’s irises were nearly the same color as his pupils, which created an optical illusion: a black hole, an endless fall. I wondered what mine looked like, in response. “Yes,” I said.

He instructed me to get a bucket of water, and I followed him into the stall where Syrah still lay on her side, her belly rising and falling with effort. Gertie sat up, suddenly alert. “Hey, beautiful,” Gideon said, kneeling in front of the elephant. He held out the cake. “Syrah, she’s got a real sweet tooth,” he told me.

She sniffed the cake with her trunk. She touched it gingerly. Gideon broke off a small piece and tossed it into Syrah’s mouth while Gertie sniffed at his fingers.

A moment later Syrah took the entire cake and swallowed it whole.

“Water,” Gideon said.

I settled the bucket where Syrah could reach and watched her siphon out a trunkful. Gideon leaned in, his strong hands stroking her flank, telling her what a good girl she was.

I wished he would touch me like that.

The thought came so fast that I fell back on my heels. “I have to—I have to go check on Jenna,” I stammered.

Gideon glanced up. “I’m sure she and Grace are both asleep.”

“I have to …” My voice trailed off. My face was hot; I pressed my palms against my cheeks. Turning, I hurried out of the barn.

Gideon was right; when I reached the cottage, Grace and Jenna were curled together on the couch. Jenna’s hand was caught in Grace’s. It made me feel sick, to know that while Grace had been taking care of someone I loved, I had been wishing I could do the same with someone
she
loved.

She stirred, careful to sit up without waking Jenna. “Is it Syrah? What happened?”

I gathered Jenna into my arms. She woke up briefly before her eyes drifted shut again. I didn’t want to disturb her, but it was more important, in that moment, to remember who I was. What I was.

A mother. A wife.

“You should tell him,” I said to Grace. “About not being able to have a baby.”

She narrowed her eyes. We had not discussed this since first broaching the topic weeks ago. I knew she was worried that maybe I had already said something to Gideon, but that wasn’t it at all. I wanted them to have that conversation so Gideon would know Grace trusted him, wholly. I wanted them to have that conversation so they could make plans for a future that included surrogacy or adoption. I wanted the bond between them to be so strong that I could not, even accidentally, find a chink in the wall of their marriage through which I could peek.