Leaving Time(11)

WEDNESDAY

0636 Worried about Kagiso, who has not been to watering hole.

1042 Kagiso kicks brush over body of calf. Breaks off branches to use as cover.

1546 Brutally hot. Kagiso goes to watering hole and returns to remain in vicinity of calf.



THURSDAY

0656 Three lionesses approach; begin to drag off calf’s carcass. Kagiso charges; they run east. Kagiso stands over body of calf, bellowing.

0820 Still bellowing.

1113 Kagiso remains standing over dead calf.

2102 Three lions feed on calf carcass. Kagiso nowhere in sight.



At the bottom of the page, my mother had written this:

Kagiso abandons body of her calf after keeping vigil for three days.

There is much documented research about how an elephant calf under the age of two will not survive if it’s orphaned.

There’s nothing written, yet, about what happens to the mother who loses her baby.



My mother did not know at the time she wrote this that she was already pregnant with me.


“I don’t do missing people,” Serenity says, in a voice that doesn’t allow even a sliver of but.

“You don’t do kids,” I say, ticking one of my fingers. “You don’t do missing people. What exactly do you do?”

She narrows her eyes. “You want energy alignment? No problem. Tarot? Step right up. Communicating with someone who’s passed? I’m your girl.” She leans forward, so I understand, in no uncertain terms, that I’ve hit a brick wall. “But I do not do missing people.”

“You’re a psychic.”

“Different psychics have different gifts,” she says. “Precognition, aura reading, channeling spirits, telepathy. Just because I’ve been given a taste doesn’t mean I get the whole smorgasbord.”

“She vanished ten years ago,” I continue, as if Serenity hasn’t spoken. I wonder if I should tell her about the trampling, or the fact that my mother was brought to the hospital, and decide not to. I don’t want to feed her the answers. “I was only three.”

“Most missing people disappear because they want to,” Serenity says.

“But not all,” I reply. “She didn’t leave me. I know it.” I hesitate, unwinding my mother’s scarf and pushing it toward her. “This belonged to her. Maybe that would help …?”

Serenity doesn’t touch it. “I never said I couldn’t find her. I said I wouldn’t.”

In all the ways I’ve imagined this meeting going down, this was not one of them. “Why?” I ask, stunned. “Why wouldn’t you want to help me, if you can?”

“Because I am not Mother Freaking Teresa!” she snaps. Her face turns tomato red; I wonder if she’s seen her own imminent death by high blood pressure. “Excuse me,” she says, and she disappears down a hallway. A moment later, I hear a faucet running.

She’s gone for five minutes. Ten. I get up and start wandering around the living room. Arranged on the fireplace mantel are pictures of Serenity with George and Barbara Bush, with Cher, with the guy from Zoolander. It makes no sense to me. Why would someone who hobnobs with celebrities be hawking ten-dollar tarot readings in East Nowhere, New Hampshire?

When I hear the toilet flush I race back to the couch and sit down again, as if I’ve been there the whole time. Serenity returns, composed. Her pink bangs are damp, as if she’s splashed water on her face. “I’m not going to charge you for my time today,” she says, and I snort. “I’m truly sorry to hear about your mother. Maybe someone else can tell you what you want to hear.”

“Like who?”

“I have no idea. It’s not like we all hang out at the Paranormal Café on Wednesday nights.” She moves to the door, holding it wide open, my cue to leave. “If I hear of anyone who does that sort of thing, I’ll be in touch.”

I suspect this is a flat-out lie, spoken to get me the hell out of her living room. I step into the foyer and wrangle my bike upright. “If you won’t find her for me,” I say, “can you at least tell me if she’s dead?”

I can’t believe I’ve asked that until the words are hanging between us, like curtains that keep us from seeing each other clearly. For a second I think about grabbing my bike and running out the door before I have to hear the answer.

Serenity shudders as if I’ve hit her with a Taser. “She’s not.”

As she closes the door in my face, I wonder if this is a flat-out lie, too.


Instead of going back home, I bike past the outskirts of Boone, three miles down a dirt road, to the entrance of the Stark Nature Preserve, named after the Revolutionary War general who coined the state motto, “Live Free or Die.” But ten years ago, before it was the Stark Nature Preserve, it was the New England Elephant Sanctuary, which had been founded by my father, Thomas Metcalf. Back then, it sprawled over two thousand acres, with a two-hundred-acre perimeter between the sanctuary and the nearest residential home. Now, more than half the acreage has become a strip mall, a Costco, and a housing development. The rest is kept in conservation by the state.