"If we stayed here, we'd eventually be hunted down. And your father will never let you leave this island."
I choked up, fighting to say the words.
"It's time to move on. I'm sure that once I'm gone, everything will quiet down and return to normal. You can still live a good life in this beautiful place."
"But I don't want to stay!" Te' cried. She turned to face Manaia and scowled. "I will never love that man. You're the only one that I want."
"Oh Te'—" I said, trying to hold back my tears.
Te's father suddenly motioned to the guards, and they grabbed her arms, pulling her away from me. I despaired at the thought of never speaking with her again and reached into my handbag, passing her my card.
"I don't know if you can send mail via the cargo ship, but this has my address if you want to keep in touch."
The boatmen started up the engine and pushed the skiff off the beach, and my face tightened in anguish as Teuila screamed and flailed, trying to escape the guards' grasp. I blew her a kiss and mouthed the words I love you, then the boat turned around and headed toward the cargo ship over the bumpy surf. When we reached the big ship, they threw a rope ladder over the side and I leaned over the gunwales, retching into the sea. I couldn't bear the thought of never seeing my island girl again.
After I got on deck, I peered over the railing toward the village lagoon, but Teuila was nowhere to be seen. For a brief moment, I considered asking the crew to drop me off on the other side of the island, then I realized I'd just be prolonging her agony. I asked the porter to escort me to my stateroom, where I cried myself to sleep.
33
It took me four full days to return home to Chicago. I had to have new credit cards delivered to a branch of my bank in Honiara, then take three flights to transport me from the Solomon Islands back to the continental USA via Sydney and Hawaii. But I was in no hurry to return to the comforts of my previous life. I didn't even buy new clothes en route to the States, happy to wear my tapa dress for a few more days as my fellow fliers looked on curiously.
It wasn't until I'd been home for a few weeks that I began to settle in to my normal routine. But I never stopped thinking of Teuila. Whenever I passed the pineapple stand in my local grocery store, I smiled recalling how she'd scaled the prickly tree to harvest some fruit for us to eat near our favorite waterhole. I cooked seafood on my barbeque and marinated it in lime juice, trying to remember how good the fresh-caught grouper tasted after we'd trapped it in the lagoon. But the only tangible memento I had of her was my little unicorn shell, which I placed on my office desk and gently caressed whenever I needed to let my mind wander back to the pristine waters of our private paradise.
One particularly lonely day, I opened the photo app on my iPhone, intending to browse through the few pictures I'd taken of Anuta before getting lost in the jungle. I knew that I didn't have any photos of Teuila, but I wanted to see the pink sand and big leafy trees of the island again to remind me of the few blissful days we'd shared in our lagoon. I smiled at the pictures of Captain Ben and the rest of the crew of our sailing vessel, and my heart skipped a beat looking at the images of my fellow passengers enjoying our first catch in the lagoon.
But as I flipped through the pictures, my eyes suddenly widened when I came upon some photos of Manaia hunched over one of the village's dugout canoes as smoke poured from the inner hull. I paused for a moment, dumbfounded at how the villagers had figured out how to use the sophisticated electronic device. I knew that young children could quickly decipher the graphical user interface, and I assumed that one of Te's siblings had picked up my unlocked phone and begun playing with it before it ran out of battery power. The camera app was at the top of the screen, and they must have accidentally tapped the capture button while running around the courtyard.
I studied the photos for a moment and spread my fingers to zoom in on the images. The pictures provided unmistakable proof that Manaia had sabotaged the canoes shortly before the battle with the other tribe. But what could I do with them? I could try printing the images and sending them back to Teuila and her father. But how would that change anything? He'd just think it was another trick by the jealous American, who was manipulating her Western technology to accuse a rival of violating their custom of Aropa.
But I couldn't just stand by and do nothing. If there was the slightest chance to use the pictures to convict Manaia of his crimes, maybe the chief would excommunicate him from the tribe, or at least annul his marriage to his daughter. And if the wedding was overturned, this could open a window for me to return to the island and reclaim my girl. I rushed to the nearest photo shop and asked to have the pictures de
veloped immediately then called the shipping company that had picked me up from Anuta to see when the next ship would be passing by the island. They said another ship was scheduled to return the following month and that they could deliver a package to the island for a fee.
I mailed them the photos together with a bank draft for two hundred dollars, with explicit instructions to deliver the package to the chief's daughter only. Concerned they might just take my money and run, I told them if they could return a note from Teuila, I'd send them another two hundred dollars as proof of delivery. Four hundred bucks was a pretty steep price to send a package overseas, but it would be worth it for my peace of mind knowing that her father at least had tangible proof of Manaia's treachery.
I waited over a month for some kind of word back from Teuila. Then another month passed. And another. Eventually, I resigned myself to the fact that there was nothing further I could do to convince the chief of Manaia's lack of fitness for his daughter. For weeks, I cried myself to sleep every night pining for my lost love, realizing that I'd never see her again. It seemed ironic that I was the one having difficulty letting go, not her.
Then one day, returning from running some errands, I noticed a shiny stone lying atop the welcome mat in front of my front door. I squinted at the object, then widened my eyes, recognizing the familiar shape. I picked up the gem and ran my fingers around the edges as my heart began to thump in my chest. It looked just like the stone Te’ had picked up off the beach of our lagoon and said she'd keep it as a memento of our love.
I suddenly gasped and swung around to see Teuila’s pretty face smiling at me.