The Jade Notebook (40 page)

Layla’s new clown is at her heels, carrying the lemonade as she serves
mole
. In top form, Layla’s found a replacement for Joe and the string of spiritually minded clowns before him. This one is a life-coach-turned-rescue-pig-trainer who performs antics and tricks with the pigs onstage. During the summer months, he lets the pigs vacation on a Nebraska farm, taking a break from their show circuit. From what I can tell, he has no intention of leaving Cabañas Magia del Mar until pig show season starts again this fall. Every once in a while, I wonder if this will be the clown Layla will settle down with … but I’m not counting on it. At least now, the clown sidekicks come to her rather than us going to them.

Layla continues with sunrise yoga and bonfires and Rumi quoting, always an inspiration to the revolving door of travelers who come to our rustic oasis. On starry reviews on travel websites, guests rave about the cabanas, the nature paths through the jungle—which are now complete—and most of all, about Layla, who has truly found her calling.

For once in our lives, we have money—at least, enough money to let us slide through the upcoming low tourist season even with just a trickle of guests. Not surprisingly, Layla sees this as an excuse to leave. Just for a vacation, she promises. To Malaysia, for Joe’s wedding. Just a few weeks, then she’ll come back. And Tortue and my cousins can help me run the cabanas during that time.

My gaze rests on Tortue, across the table from me, strumming the guitar, his head close to his father’s. Tortue has contributed much to our success. He gives our guests ecotours, taking them out on his pink boat, where they never
fail to spot sea turtles. He’s enlisted eager guests to spend nights on Playa Mermejita, side by side with locals, to guard the turtles, their nests, their eggs, and their hatchlings. In the early spring, night after night, we watched hundreds of baby turtles flop down the beach and into the sea—moments that have left everyone, turtles and humans alike, full of hope.

Every night at dinner, Tortue performs, often with his father beside him. I love watching them play guitar together. I especially love it on the busy nights, when Lupita comes by to help cook and serve. All the guests adore my grandmother, and she embraces them all.

After the last guitar notes, Meche walks over to Tortue, kisses him on the mouth, and rests her head on his shoulder. They have fallen in love. For the first few weeks, she and Tortue talked, reminisced, bonded, took long walks and swims together. It became clear that although Layla valued Tortue’s help and his new role as my father, their spark of romance was gone. Tortue realized he’d romanticized it over the years and came to understand that it had simply been one passionate night. A night that happened to result in me, and my new home, and my new family.

When Layla saw the love forming between Meche and Tortue, she told them earnestly that nothing would make her happier than the two of them being together. Now Tortue lives with Meche in her little patch in the jungle. He fills the void that Gatito left in her life. More than fills it.

Meche has patiently helped him manage his bipolar disorder, making sure his prescriptions are filled on time, scheduling
his therapy sessions. And she’s been at his side through the hardest task—coming to terms with the betrayal of his brother.

Pepe disappeared. Maybe he returned to Mexico City. We don’t know. Word spread quickly about his crimes. And word spread even faster that Tortue had returned, innocent, having been framed by his brother.

Every opportunity she gets, Lupita makes sure everyone knows that Tortue and Meche are heroes. The sweetness of gaining a son and a granddaughter—and soon a daughter-in-law, Meche—has eased the bitterness of Pepe’s betrayal. To their credit, the locals gave Meche and Tortue a chance—and ultimately, embraced them. And, after a federal investigation revealed Chucho’s corruption, he was kicked off the police force. If Pepe ever dares to return, he’ll be arrested in a flash.

El Dedo’s body was never found. Neither was Gatito’s. Sometimes Meche and Tortue and I walk to Punta Cometa and stare quietly at the sea. We don’t talk, just watch the water. It’s impossible to put the feelings into words—so much sorrow and joy, all swirled together, inseparable. Waves crashing, churning. Beyond the chaos, sunlight melting into glittering pools. The beautiful mess of life.

Now Wendell walks toward me, down the stone path from the tiny new office hut, where he just printed his travel documents for tomorrow. Seeing him with the boarding pass gives me a stab of pain. This boy I love is leaving on his own path, separate from mine.

He weaves around the guests, coming toward me, and kisses me. “A walk?” he whispers.

I swallow hard and nod.

We head into the jungle, damp and rich with rain-soaked earth, slippery leaves. The air feels alive, all muted green light, the buzz of insects, the hum of frogs. Our interlocked hands swing between us.

Again, it hits me. He’s leaving tomorrow. I stop walking. I could collapse right here, somehow refuse to let time keep going. Make it stop.

Instead, I hold him tightly, as tightly as I can. I shut my eyes and try to savor this moment, find a way to make it infinite. I breathe in his smell, his warmth. Beneath my cheek, I feel his flesh, the muscles beneath, the structure of his bones. I hold on to his long braid. I take in every detail, with all my senses. I’m conscious, suddenly, of the trill of every bird, the beat of every insect wing. I feel as though I’m looking back on this moment, experiencing both my life and a memory of my life. And somehow I know for certain that Wendell will always be part of me.

I feel, all over again, our first kiss in a candlelit crystal cave, our secret swim in hidden springs, our salty, sunlit naps in the hammock. I feel all of these sensations at once, filling me, and I don’t know what to do, so I keep holding him, tightly. We stand in the middle of the path, clinging to each other as droplets of rain find their way through the canopy of leaves, dripping down our hair, our eyelashes, mixing with our tears as we hold each other.

I lie in my hammock, alone, swinging slowly, listening to the waves, watching the stars. It’s late, close to midnight, nearly the end of August second. A year and a day after the handfasting in France. This is the day Wendell and I promised to meet if we want to stay together.

He’s been gone nearly two months. With every phone conversation and text, I’ve felt our paths diverging farther and farther. He’s caught up with new friends, classes, ideas.
Hey Z! Gotta run! More later …
, and the later becomes later and later. And there’s not more, but less.

But it’s not just him. I’ve become absorbed in life here, helping with the cabanas, meeting new guests, hanging out with my cousins and the other
bolibolistas
, filling up more jade notebooks. It’s the same on my side—
Busy now, W! Love you! Thinking about you.…

And I am thinking about him. But mostly just during the quiet times, and those are few and far between. Sometimes a fleeting sadness overwhelms me unexpectedly, like a wave sneaking up on me from behind. The tears come, and I hold on to that feeling from the jungle, the moment I believed in with my whole heart. The moment I still believe in, even now that our handfasting anniversary has almost come and gone.

I push the ground with my toe, giving the hammock a fresh swing, and soak in the expanse of stars. Suddenly, it seems unbearably sad that we picked the perfect spot for the handfasting, yet at midnight, it will be empty.

I sit up. I’ll go alone. It will be just me and the sea turtles, but I’ll be there. I peek at the clock by my bed. Eleven o’clock. There’s still time. I grab a light shawl and head through the jungle toward Playa Mermejita. Emerging from the trees, I see the beach gloriously full of small olive ridley turtles—this season’s species—inching up the beach, at various stages of their journey. I breathe in the salty air, wishing Wendell were here to see this.

As I weave around the turtles, careful not to disturb their nests, I ponder their journey, the same one their grandmothers took. This beach is a constant in their lives, over so many generations. This beach, in some way, defies the limits of time.

The moon is nearly full, illuminating the waves, the surf, the determined mass of little shells moving up the beach. I find the spot near the giant log of driftwood where, many
months ago, Wendell suggested we renew our handfasting. I sit down on the sand, hugging my knees, grateful for the company of turtles. I wonder if they understand that this journey is just one of many in their lives, in the lives of their ancestors, the lives of their descendants. I wonder if they grasp this miracle.

Gradually, I sense another presence on the beach. A human presence. Someone is walking toward me, skirting the surf. I watch the figure draw closer and closer. The moonlight bathes him, almost ghostlike. A visitor from my past, or maybe my future, slipping into the present.

“Wendell?” I call.

“Zeeta,” he calls back.

“You came,” I say, my voice breaking.

And now he’s here, at our spot, our handfasting spot, and I’m staring at him, wondering if he’s real. He leans in, kisses me, wraps his arms around me. “Of course I came.”

I want to explain to him what I was just thinking—about the turtles, about so many journeys, about glimpsing the sum of all the journeys in our lives. Instead, I kiss him, until he pulls away, sits in front of me on the sand, his eyes on mine.

“Zeeta,” he murmurs. “I could only come for the weekend. But I needed to tell you something. A vision I had.”

I close my eyes for a long moment. I’m not ready for more danger. Not after all we’ve been through. “What is it?” I ask under my breath.

“Something I saw while I was stranded in the ocean.
When I thought I was about to die.” He pauses, his eyes growing shiny.

My muscles taut, I reach out and take his hand. “What did you see?”

“I saw you and me, Z. Together. You—you had white hair, and wrinkles, but the same eyes. I could tell it was you. You were crouched down, digging in a garden, planting flowers or something, and you looked up at me and smiled.” His voice cracks; his eyes fill with tears. “The way you looked at me—you knew me better than anyone in the world.” He swallows, cups my face with his hand. “We’ll be together at the end of it all, Z. I don’t know how we’ll get there, but we’ll be together.”

And that’s when, finally, I trust, deep in my bones, that I can let him go completely. He can go to the far reaches of the sea—or wherever life takes him—but he’ll come back. We sit, hand in hand, the miracles of turtles and waves and sky and stars and a zillion grains of sand surrounding us, things you can never quite grasp, things of infinite beauty, pathless mystery, things that are rough yet smooth, simple yet complex, things without end.

Since Mexican Spanish has sounds that don’t exist in English, this pronunciation guide is an approximation. Note that the Mexican
v
is often pronounced as a soft
b
. The
-o/-a
ending indicates masculine and feminine genders, respectively.