A Mother's Heart (22 page)

“You’re growing on me,” she acknowledged. “Especially when you don’t hide behind the perfect Phil Coughlin you present to the world.”

“You’re growing on me, too. I admit, I took you for a single-minded, hard-bitten journalist whose only interest in St. Agnes was to build your own reputation and pull some strings for the child of someone who had done you a favor. You’ve got your own mask protecting you. You’re full of surprises, Melanie Ames. And I like what I’m discovering.”

He lifted his glass to her.

“I guess that makes two of us,” she said, touching her glass to his.

Beyond the windows of the bar Melanie could see dusk falling; the tension in the city was rising and she didn’t want to be out on the street after dark.

“I can give you a lift home,” Phil offered, when he followed her gaze.

Mel didn’t trust herself to accept. The conversation had already dissolved her resistance beyond the conflicted feelings that had haunted her as relentlessly as her nightmares. If she went with him, she wouldn’t want to leave him. It was insane to open herself up to the possibilities taunting her in this complex and compelling man who had reached out to her across the divide between them. Saigon was about to fall. She had no idea where she’d be when it did, and she knew that wherever it was, there was no room in her life for someone like Phil Coughlin. And she also knew that there was no room in Phil Coughlin’s life for someone like her.

“I’d love to accept. But I need to make my own way home. Goodbye and thanks for…”

He stopped her, placing two fingers on her lips. “Not yet. Not goodbye. Not thank you.”

As she left the room she watched him order another scotch, remaining alone at their table.

P
HIL WAS RIGHT
that it wasn’t yet time for goodbye. They saw each other again at the orphanage, and Mel was relieved that, surrounded by the children and the heightened tempo of activity, the emotional charge between them was muffled. But she couldn’t deny that she was acutely aware of the aura he spread throughout the villa even before she saw him. The children were more animated, dancing around him with gleeful smiles; the nuns, especially the younger ones, hovered near him, soaking up the energy field that seemed to surround him
like the halo of a saint. Even Reverend Mother came under his spell, her austere demeanor somehow lightened, hopeful, by the reassurance he supplied, like the lollipop he pulled out of his pocket to hand to a child he’d just inoculated.

His presence was calming to Mel, as well. He possessed a sureness that what they were doing was right, and Mel began to understand what he meant by the spiritual force that had led him back to Saigon. She questioned whether she would ever know with such certainty that she was following the right path.

Phil sought her out after he finished what had brought him to the orphanage—delivering supplies that he had scrounged around the city for the flight, completing medical exams that were required before the children could leave, ministering to the gravely ill children who were still arriving at the doorstep. They were both exhausted, driven, acutely aware that they had little time left to save the children of St. Agnes. But they found a few moments to talk over a cigarette in the courtyard, Mel leaning back against the wall with her eyes closed and Phil crouched in the position he often took to bring himself down to the level of the children.

“What will you do when this is over?” Mel tried to tell herself that her reason for asking was simply the natural curiosity of a reporter.

“I’m not sure yet. I’ll go wherever I’m needed. One doesn’t have to look very far—perhaps just across the border in Cambodia. And you?”

“Wherever
Newsweek
sends me. The next war. There doesn’t seem to be a shortage.”

“Will you go home?”

Mel hadn’t considered that question. She missed Dessie. But after three years in Saigon she felt com
pletely detached from the life she had left behind in Georgetown.

“I don’t know. I don’t belong there anymore.”

“I know what you mean. This place, this life, changes people irrevocably. One can’t go back to who one was before.” He put out his cigarette and rose. Both of them went back into the villa and the challenges confronting them within its walls.

The next day, the day before the flight was supposed to leave, Anh came to the orphanage for the last time to say goodbye to her daughter. Mel almost didn’t recognize her in her
ao dai.
It was pale yellow, the silk dress skimming Anh’s body over wide trousers. The traditional gown transformed her from tough, war-weary bar girl to elegant and stoically contained young woman. Her face was scrubbed of makeup and she had pulled her hair back into a chignon. Even the porter and the nuns noticed the difference.

Mel knew what it must have taken for Anh to make this last visit, reopening the wound caused by her decision to relinquish Tien to a future without her. She took her daughter from the nursery and sat alone with her on the verandah, rocking her silently for nearly an hour. No one disturbed them.

Elsewhere in the villa, Phil was busy organizing group photos of the children. He had arrived earlier with a camera, convincing Reverend Mother to gather the children to commemorate the final days of the orphanage. He offered to take a photo of Anh with Tien. She hesitated, then shyly agreed. Mel watched them—Anh solemnly staring at the camera, Tien curled into her mother’s arms.

When Anh saw Mel, she waved her to her side.

“Take another one with us both, please,” Anh said to Phil.

Up close, Mel could see the tears brimming in Anh’s eyes. Mel put her arm around Anh and held her long after Phil had snapped the picture.

L
ATER THAT NIGHT
, she wearily climbed the stairs to her flat, her mission almost completed. She’d succeeded in getting the papers for all but ten of the St. Agnes children and had promises that she’d have the remaining documents the next day.

Inside the flat she found a note on the floor, apparently shoved under the door. It was in Mrs. Bao’s hand.

“Grandmother call. Father ill. Come home.”

Mel glanced at her watch. It was late morning in Washington. She couldn’t tell from the note when Dessie had called. Mel’s grandmother might be frantic with worry, especially when news like the plane crash heightened the perception in the States of just how dangerous the situation in Saigon was. It wasn’t like Dessie to exaggerate, to create a reason to call Mel home unnecessarily. Dessie always told the truth, unembellished.

Despite the hour, Mel retraced her steps and knocked on Mrs. Bao’s door, the note still in her hand.

“Missy, I wonder where you are all day. Not want to worry Grandma. But you must call.”

Mrs. Bao opened the door wider and ushered Mel inside to use the phone.

The connection took longer than usual. Mel found herself tapping her fingers on the table, impatient and anxious. Questions raced through her brain. She needed information to quell the unease that the news of her father’s illness had set in motion. Despite his absence from her life, Mel had always considered him indestructible, a survivor of violent encounters, a man who
confronted and triumphed over wrongdoing. Illness was something she had never considered.

When she finally heard Dessie’s voice on the line Mel sought the reassurance and solidity that her grandmother had always provided her. But for the first time it wasn’t there.

“Oh, Melanie, thank God! I thought you might be out of reach, off on some assignment, and it would be too late.”

“Too late? What do you mean, Grandma? What has happened to Daddy? Where is he?”

“He’s had a massive heart attack, honey. He’s at Walter Reed Hospital, and needs surgery. They’re going to operate today. It’s time for you to come home, Melanie. For
your
sake. Can you get a flight out? We can probably call someone at the State Department if there’s a problem.”

Dessie sounded frail and exhausted, but unwavering in her conviction that Mel should come home. Mel knew there had been times in the past when her father had been in danger—death threats, consulates under siege—and Dessie had protected her from the knowledge, not burdening her with fear. But she wasn’t protecting her now.

For the second time in a week, Mel began to cry, quiet tears slipping down her cheeks. She wiped them away and answered Dessie in as strong a voice as she could muster.

“I know of a flight that will take me tomorrow, Grandma. I’ll be in San Diego by Sunday and grab a plane to D.C. from there. Don’t worry. I’ll make it home.”

“Thank you, honey. I’ll let your father know.”

“Is he conscious?” she asked.

The phone crackled with static and the connection was broken. Mel replaced the receiver without learning the answer.

Mrs. Bao was waiting in the shadows, wringing her hands.

“Not good? You go now, not come back?”

Mel acknowledged that Mrs. Bao was right. Leaving on the flight to San Diego most certainly meant she would not be coming back.

Mrs. Bao, normally restrained and measured in her interactions, reached out and stroked Mel’s tearstained cheek.

“You good girl, Missy. Good to Grandma, good to Saigon, good to Bao family. Take care of family. Take care of self.”

Mel closed her hand over Mrs. Bao’s.

“Thank you. Take care of yourself, too, Mrs. Bao.”

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, her duffel bag packed and slung over her back, Mel stopped at the
Newsweek
office to leave word of her departure. Joe was there, fumbling with the coffee pot.

“Good luck, kid. Sorry to hear about your dad. Hope everything turns out okay. See you in the next war.”

At the orphanage, the tension was unmistakable. Several more unfamiliar people were in the villa, conferring with Reverend Mother, furiously leafing through documents, making phone calls.

Mel waded through a maze of boxes and people to find Pamela Boniface. Her flowered blouse was a little rumpled this morning, but she was still meticulously groomed, her bright red fingernails rifling through a sheaf of documents.

“Pamela, I’ve reconsidered. If there is still room, I’ll fly with the babies.”

Pamela looked up in surprise. “Oh, I knew we could count on you!”

Mel had no intention of telling this woman why she had changed her mind. She opened up her knapsack and pulled out a stuffed brown folder bound with a rubber band.

“Here are all the stamped release forms I was able to get. My contact is working on the forms for the older boys that the government is holding up.”

She spent the morning with Reverend Mother, Pamela and Trudy reviewing the logistics: the buses that would carry the children to the airport; the boxes of supplies—diapers, formula, blankets—that had been gathered from around the city; the preparation of the final manifest.

Every hour some new piece of information was brought to their attention; plans were adjusted, expectations realigned. The pace of activity suited Mel. It didn’t give her time to think about her father and what awaited her when she arrived back in the States. But it did not obscure the loss gnawing at the edges of her concentration. She had known for weeks that the time she had remaining in Saigon was limited and she had made her farewells to the few people who mattered to her. But with her unexpected departure now only hours away, she was acutely conscious of the one goodbye that remained unspoken.

“Do you expect Doctor Coughlin before we leave?” she asked Reverend Mother, trying to restrain the urgency she knew her voice must be conveying.

The nun looked at her, and realization spread across her lined face. “So his effect has reached you, as well. Oh, my dear girl, I should have guessed that two people so committed to saving our children would have found in one another a kindred soul.”

Mel was about to deny such a profound connection, but acknowledged that the nun had spoken the truth. Her face crumpled in despair.

“Found, and lost in the same moment. Our lives are about to diverge. Who knows what lies ahead for either of us?”

The nun took her hands. “Life, especially in times
like these, is filled with uncertainty. Trust that if it’s meant to be, you’ll find each other again.”

Mel wanted to believe her, but the turmoil of the last twelve hours in her own life, coupled with the desperation surrounding her in the city, had taken its toll. Nothing seemed permanent or secure. The image of her father in a hospital bed tethered to machines and the prophetic nightmares of the last two weeks had crushed her childlike belief that her father would always be somewhere in the world, that Dessie would always be her rock and her comfort, that she herself had the resilience and strength to make her way no matter what befell her.

The fear that she had been reading on the faces of the refugees inundating the city was now lapping at her ankles. She felt it rising in her, threatening to drown her. She had never known herself to be so adrift. The clamor and frantic pace of the preparations around her heightened her shattered sense of control. She managed to whisper a thank-you to the nun and retreated to the courtyard, hoping to compose herself.

It was there that Phil found her.

“I heard that you were leaving with the children. Is it true?”

He seemed as unprepared as Mel for her departure. The anguish in his question laid bare what was still unspoken between them, what they no longer had the time to reveal to one another.

She nodded.

“Why the change of heart? I thought you planned on writing the last story of this war.”

She hadn’t meant to share with anyone the reason for her decision to leave, but in her vulnerable state the words came tumbling out, along with the self-doubt that she was
neither as brave nor as strong as she had once imagined herself to be.

“I’m sorry about your father. But don’t lose faith in yourself. We’re all afraid, Melanie. But what I’ve seen in you since you first set foot in the villa convinces me that you’ll prevail over your fears. Now, more than ever, the children need you to be strong. I know you won’t fail them. You’re an amazing woman. You have to know that you’ve saved the children of St. Agnes, not only with your talent, but also with your persistence.”