Chapter Fifteen
Simone climbed the wooden stairs to her chalet twenty minutes later. It was built on wooden stilts at the foot of a hill overlooking the open savannah. Green grasslands, dotted with acacia and yellow fever trees, spread out as far as the eye could see, along with a few smaller shrubs and the endless grass that lured the wildebeest.
She opened the door and inhaled in a sharp breath as she took in the vast, luxurious space. It was just as she’d remembered it from years ago. Nothing beats a Carlevaro chalet. Her bags stood in the corner. A huge four-poster bed dominated the room, with a mosquito net gathered at the posters. Crisp white linens covered a thick duvet and enough cushions for royalty were placed at the head. There was a lounge area with a sofa and occasional chairs. Simone crossed the room and opened the door to the bathroom. A Victorian bathtub stood in the middle with a folding glass door opening to the back of the chalet, and there was an outdoor shower hidden between two boulders. Over the years, trees had grown between the crevices, and their dense foliage provided privacy.
It couldn’t be a more romantic place, and memories of her and Carlo spending a night in one of these chalets surfaced. He might have left for the day, but he had a permanent presence in every thought she had, in every beat of her heart and every pulse of her blood through her veins.
She needed this day away from him. Everything had become muddled. The original reasons why she’d wanted to keep Sarah a secret had crept into a corner, where they waited, pouting and whimpering, to make sure she knew they were still there.
Strolling out to the deck she took in the view and forced her shoulders to relax, then sat down with her mobile and dialed her mom, something she should have done two days ago. Already her shoulders were hitching higher. Her relationship with her mom was a ball of snarled yarn that she’d never been able to properly disentangle. She’d cut off the pieces that she could work with, and had let the rest go—one more reason why she’d returned to Tanzania.
“At last, you call, Simone.” Her mother’s voice sounded old, dried by too many cigarettes.
Simone sank deeper into the lounger. “I’ve been busy at work, Mom.”
“How is Sarah?”
She closed her eyes, her hand curling into a tight ball in her lap. Sarah had sounded fine over the phone, but was she? Her own separation from Sarah was slowly suffocating her willpower. “She’s with Ruth. I’m spending a few nights away with work.” She told her mom about flying the Carlevaros and her three-week assignment.
“You’re leaving her too often with Ruth.” Her mom coughed. “I wish you’d come home and let me help with her.”
Simone bit down on her jaw. Her mom always made her feel wretched about Ruth. “The money isn’t good enough back home, Mom.” That was only half a reason but presented the easiest excuse. Her mom, finally, had a job she’d been able to keep, and getting Sarah into the mix would be a bad idea for both her mom and Sarah. Her mom’s independence had become a quest, almost unattainable, but something to strive for. Once no longer dependent on her dad, maybe her mom would be able to move on.
“Gabi said the trip to the UK was amazing.”
“We had fun,” Simone said, glad that her mom didn’t push the Sarah button any further. “I’ll send you some photos as soon as I’m back home.”
“You spoil Gabi too much. She showed me the things you bought her.”
Frustration raised its ugly head. “If I don’t do it, who will? Gabi works hard.”
Her mom was silent for a moment after her little tirade. “It’s your money. You should save it for Sarah.”
Simone shook her head. “We’ll be fine, Mom. We’ll look out for each other.”
Mom cleared her throat, her voice wavering. “Yes, I know. It’s just—” She broke off but Simone could complete the sentence as if it was part of a memorized prayer. You never know how long it’s going to last…
Simone stared at the trees over the savannah as the old emptiness washed over her again. It meant so many things…how long was the money going to last, how long was he going to be away this time, how long until he phoned, how long was he going to stay this time around, how long until he left again? Her mom’s whole life had been one long wait, dulled by nicotine, interspersed with severe drinking bouts that were fueled by depression and hovered on alcoholism.
“Any news from Dad?” she asked, loathe to even call him that.
“No.” Her mother took a breath. “Not yet.”
“Sometimes—” She paused. As a child, her dad had been absent for months on end, on exploration for mining companies in the era before cell phones and the internet connected the world. He still lived in that bubble of total disconnect. The problem was that the card had been played so often, it was as if the whole deck of cards was a replication of that one, stabbing ace of spades.
“What?”
“You’ve got a job now, Mom, your own money. You could divorce him, then this waiting game would be over.”
“It’s not a game, Simone. And a divorce wouldn’t help, I’d still wait for him,” her mom rasped into the phone. “I don’t expect you to understand.”
Simone shook her head. Her mom had been waiting forever…and deep down, hadn’t she been doing the same thing, waiting for Carlo? No. “It’s been six months now, how long is it going to take this time?”
“I don’t know. Two years was the longest. All I know is that he’ll be back.”
“I was there. No need to remind me.” Why did it still hurt? When her dad had come back after that two-year stunt, the year she’d turned sixteen, he’d had money. Now she was convinced that he’d been into money laundering and corruption, that the money hadn’t been a fat bonus as he’d told them. She stopped asking him details about his life a long time ago. But she couldn’t stop envisioning the breadcrumb trail of children he’d left across the African continent, pinpointing where he’d been. Little organ pipes in height, from tallest to shortest, with her his firstborn, all of them sporting similar green eyes, like his. I don’t want to know.
She pressed her palm to her forehead, reluctant to face the reality that she’d been unwilling to wait for Carlo because she hadn’t wanted to turn out like her mother. Waiting, waiting, waiting. The realization was a painful bruise right under her heart. It had been sitting there all this time, unable to heal.
She understood her mother better in that moment than ever before. And herself. Her own independence, which had been so hard to gain, her mother always leaning over her shoulder, wanting to make sure her daughter didn’t make the same mistakes she’d made. Her love of flying had taken her away from it all, and once she had her wings there had been no going back to the nest.
“Mom, I need to ask you something.”
“Yes?”
“When I returned home from Carlevaro Air after those first three months…” She swallowed. She hated talking to her about the time when she’d returned pregnant from her first stint in Tanzania, because her mother hadn’t been supportive of her having Sarah. The intense fight she’d had with her mother, about her returning knocked up as her mom had predicted, blared in her ears as if they’d had it minutes ago. “And I left again…” She had to take a breath.
“You didn’t leave, Simone. You absconded.”
That her mother could still conjure that bitter tone and drive the corrosive guilt in her… “I did phone you to tell you I was fine and you shouldn’t worry about me,” Simone shot back, wishing she could have the conversation without the brutal swordfight that would draw blood. “Did anybody call for me during that time?” She rubbed at her eyes. “You never passed any messages on to me when I was back home for Sarah’s birth.”
“Call for you? At the house? No.”
“I meant a phone call,” Simone said softly, scared to face the truth now that she was at the door of it.
“I can’t recall. Possibly?”
“Someone from Carlevaro, Mom?”
“Carlevaro?”
Fury rushed through her at the dumb echo. Her mother had probably been in a drunken haze and couldn’t remember squat. She no longer wanted to talk to her mom. She’d run out of patience. “I’ve got to go. I’ll call you soon.”
“Wait, Simone.” Her mom’s voice wasn’t urgent, but it held a promise of recollection. “A man from Carlevaro phoned a few times. He had a stutter or something, he kept on saying Carle, Carle Carlevaro.”
A shiver crept over her as if a ghost had spread itself over her body, pricking her skin with goosebumps. The wet, hot trail of a tear ran down her cheek, followed by another and another that trickled to her neck. Simone closed her eyes. “And?” she whispered.
Her mom snorted. “If I jotted down a message for you, it should still be with the post I kept for you. It’s somewhere in the house. You didn’t take it when you left.”
The last sentence was said in accusation, as if collecting her four-year-old post was more important than anything else. Maybe it had been.
“That’s okay, Mom.” There was no quiver in her voice, but shivers ran through her. “I’ll chat with you again soon, okay?”
She rang off and tossed her phone on the end of the lounger. She drew her legs up in a hug that would never be tight enough.
It was a long time before she had calmed herself enough to go back into the room. She washed her face but didn’t feel any better. She had to hear Sarah’s voice, so she phoned Ruth at the worst possible time of the day, as Sarah was tired and hungry. They had a short chat, which didn’t help.
She slumped down on her bed, almost having come full circle. To close the loop, she had to speak to Gabi.
“You’ve been too quiet,” Gabi reprimanded. “What’s been going on?”
She filled Gabi in on the poaching and trafficking investigation and having to work with Carlo at much closer quarters than anticipated. “I think he suspects I’m involved in the trafficking.”
“No!” Gabi drawled the word out. “That’s ridiculous.”
“He knows I’m hiding something from him.”
“Sounds like you’ve been spending too much time together,” Gabi said drily. “Besides his obvious idiocy, what’s he like? Still same old, same old, or changed?”
“He’s the same…but different. Older, wiser,” she said, her voice catching on the words. And he was no idiot.
“Falling for him twice as hard, aren’t you?” Gabi murmured. “I told you not to let him close.”
Her sister was no idiot either. She’d been falling for Carlo, slowly, paragliding down from the dizzy height of his unexpected arrival back in her life. And the landing was going to be far from smooth. She couldn’t lose control now. “I’ve no idea what to do.”
As if Gabi sensed her distress she spoke softer. “About Sarah?”
She didn’t want to break down again, but the conversation between her and her mom just gushed out. Carlo had tried to get hold of her.
For once Gabi was shocked into silence. There was no jab to follow. “I’m so sorry, Simone. What a mess. If I’d been home at the time…” Gabi had fled to boarding school as soon as she’d convinced her mom that it was the best idea ever. A prestigious scholarship had sealed the deal. By the time Simone had been ready to start flying commercially, Gabi had been out of the house, finishing the last years of high school in Johannesburg.
“There was no way you could’ve known.” Simone wiped at her eyes. “Everything is muddled. I don’t know if I should tell him about Sarah or not.”
“What can you gain by telling him? What can you lose?”
Sarah. Her fear popped up as if by instinct.
“It’s about that fight they had, isn’t it?” Gabi said eventually, the pain in her voice so tangible, it pressed down on her own chest, making it hard to breathe.
Flashes of memory burst through her mind and Simone dropped her head into her hand. “Yes. Probably.”
She’d hardly turned ten when, for a whole week, they’d huddled together in terror as their mom and dad fought, days on end. She tried to protect Gabi, who was only five at the time. So little, just like Sarah. Her dad’s words about their mother being unable to care for them… About her mother’s drinking bouts, the fact that he had money, and would get custody of the children if it ever went as far as divorce. That he could take them in any case. He should take them now. That her mom had no say and that he knew some pretty smart lawyers. It was real, the fear so intense that it overshadowed most of her teenage years.
Her mom, dependent, intimidated and uneducated, had never stood a chance.
“The problem is, this is not about us, it’s not about me,” Simone said. “This is about Sarah.”
The idea of Carlo with Sarah, being the father that was the missing piece in their lives was the image she hadn’t been able to wipe from her mind the whole day.
The idea of being loved and being cared for was something that left her so aching with want, for Sarah’s sake. But then…the image of his virile body covering hers made her go limp; the fantasy of them making love had become physically agonizing. The things Carlo had been saying… If only it was only about Sarah.
“And you think telling him would do her any good?” Gabi’s retort was laden with doubt. “Simone, you don’t need him. Sarah doesn’t need him. You’re fine on your own. You want for nothing.”
“I know,” she swallowed, “but I can’t help thinking that keeping Sarah from him would be the perfect mistake.”
Gabi groaned into the phone. “Honestly, that’s your call. All I can guarantee you is that he’ll disappoint you as much as the average male.”