The Moon in the Mango Tree by Pamela Ewen

Author:Pamela Ewen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: B&H Publishing Group
Published: 2008-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

“Mem! Missus Perkins!” a frightened voice called to me from a great distance. I struggled up through the fog, into the light, and opened my eyes.

Kham Noi stood beside the bed. As my vision cleared, I saw that his face was contorted … with fear, perhaps, and with a flicker of something else that I couldn’t name right now. I blinked, confused, and gazed at him, then past him to the window and, as the memory emerged, quickly to the picture on the wall across the room.

The tokay was gone.

“He is outside, Mem,” Kham Noi said in a gentle voice. “Gone.”

I shuddered, closed my eyes for a moment, then opened them and looked at him and forced myself to smile. His face relaxed.

“Is Barby Jeanne all right?” He nodded. “Is Harvey back?”

His eyes grew flat. “Not yet. But he will come. Ai Mah would come if the Doctor were harmed.” I lay still, letting the words sink in. “I will get hot tea for you,” he said in a tone of relief and disappeared.

Turning my face toward the window while I waited for Kham Noi to return, I was filled with a sense of desolation, a new feeling of terrible loss. Outside I saw the pale, washed-out film of sunlight through the mango tree. Where is Harvey? I wondered in despair. A thought slipped in. He could have been here by now, and try as I might, I couldn’t fight off the feeling of abandonment, as if he’d chosen another love over Barby Jeanne and me. Abandoned. I said the word out loud. A bleak, empty feeling struck a chord, like dark, sorrowful music in a minor key that crept into my heart.

In the nursery Barby Jeanne began to howl.

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