Eventually, my worries exceeding my pride, I phoned Dad, hoping to borrow some funds.
But as it turned out he had just been sacked. My wonderful Dad tried to help his employees and paid for it. As the company's new Chief Geophysicist, he was petitioned by the local employees to increase their meagre pay. Dad heartily approved, thinking these people deserved it because the company was making HUGE profits.
“You wouldn't believe it!” he confided. “My drafter was only paid a pathetic 75 dollars a month! I visited. They could only afford to live in appalling condition.” It so went against his conscience, because his pay was over a half-million dollars a year.
But the American oil company objected to the pay rise and Dad lost his job.
“What aboutâGeraldine?” I asked.
“She still has her job. At the moment I'm staying here with her while she makes up her mind whether to follow me home.”
“What's there to decide? She wants to build a family with you! She can't possibly want to stay there.”
“But she loves it here.”
“Living in woop-woop?” I asked in disbelief.
“Honey, this part of Balikpapan where the oil people live is a very posh one. Very upper class. Country-club life and such. She's made friends. Expats' wives and highly-educated locals.”
“But she loves you, Dad. Doesn't she?” My Dad was a great bloke.And very handsome too. “You should come first!”
“I'll wait a bit for her decision.”
So Dad was in hot water. No way would I burden him with my own problems. I was too tongue-tied to mention anything, let alone borrow money.
Still I must see Pete urgently. Swallowing my pride, quelling my fear, I called on Mum at her partner's opulent home for help.
She objected fiercely and we had a big fight.
“You're putting too much importance on this relationship,” she protested, ranting and raving. “And at an age when you haven't the maturity to know better. Well, I'll have you know. A man isn't a woman's destiny in life! He is
not
the purpose of a woman's existence. Not a woman's raison d'être. To live happily you first have to discover your own self. Make something of yourself for yourself that satisfies your intelligence and self respect. Know your worth. Find your own purpose in life. And I repeat, your purpose in life isn't the man you're in love with!”
“Of course not,” I retorted. “I totally agree with you. I believe the man we're in love with is our friend along the journey to those goals.
But without him to share our life, the journey will be lonely and those achievements will be hollow.
“I may be young but I know firsthandâthrough
my parents'
abandonment,” I threw her a dirty look, “that as social beings we all need genuine companionship to feel complete. After you left me alone, I found it with Pete. I'm not giving him up for any reason. No, no, no! I wanna grow up with him! Grow old with him! But he's sick, so please⦠I
need
your help to visit him now.”
“No way! You're only 18! You can't leave your study, give up your future, to go halfway across the world.”
“I'm not giving up my study⦠Only deferring it. And it's not like I'm going away for fun.”
“Still irresponsible! Even if it's not for fun. A complete waste of time because there's absolutely nothingânothing!âyou can do over there. You're too young to understand, but teenage love will soon fade.”
“No! Our love will last forever.”
“Spoken exactly like a teenager. But sorry Miss, I'm not paying for you to waste your time and resources on your silly, immature love.”
“Mum?” I begged. “Please⦔
“No way! Do you hear me? No. Way.”
“What do you want me to do? Ditch my boyfriend because he's become an invalid?” I stomped my foot, working myself into a rage.
“You're
so
mean!
So heartless!”âmy volume escalated. “I'm
never
going to visit you again!”
Angry and crying, I left. Hating her. Hating the clash. But as I was running to the door someone snatched at my arm.
Ettoré had appeared from nowhere, looking at me with fury.
“Don't do this to your mother,” he protested sternly, looking like he would love to give me a sound trashing. He whirled me around and dragged me back to Mum in purposeful steps. His grip on my arm hurt. I couldn't believe how strong he was, sophisticated Mr Beautiful of the slender, delicate frame. Fiercely he instructed me, eyes flashing, “Now hug your Mum!”
And somehow I ended up in Mum's arms, both of us crying. We were two different individuals who could not relate to each other.What had life done to us? We used to be a happy family, what felt like a million lifetimes ago. I used to adore her, even when she was bossy and strict and hogged the internet and bought me grownup shoes that I wouldn't be seen dead wearing.
In the aftermath Mum went to freshen up. Ettoré took me to the kitchen and sat me at his table, a contemporary glass-and-steel affair.
“Be good to everyone.” He shoved a glass of cold water at me. His unsmiling jaw tight. “Say only kind words. Soft words. Because you never know one day you may have to eat them.”
“But she wants me to get over Pete!” I railed in full despair. “How could I go on my merry way when Pete's in this condition?” Could you do that to someone dear to your heart? When the going gets very, very tough, would you walk away from him who has taught you the meaning of the word âeuphoria' and has promised to love you until he dies? “It hurts me to know he's in pain.”
“I could help you, you know.”
My eyes widened.
“I could find you sponsors for a visa,” he continued.
For the first time, a glimmer of hope flickered in my heart.
“I have connections. Everywhere.” He took the seat across from me. “My business takes me all over the world. Hey, I can even attend a meeting in New York this week, instead of my deputy. I can easily fly to Boston from there.”
I gaped.
“Yes, I'll do it,” he came to a swift decision. “Your Mum and I will go. But we're not taking you with us. Stay home and study. We'll check on Pete and report everything to you. Alright? We'll assess whether it'll be a good thing for you to go to him then. And if so, what you may need.”
“But I'm going to die if I don't see him
now
!”
“Use your head, Sydney. He's been in the hospital for several weeks, you say. It won't make much difference to wait a week longer.”
“What ifâ”
“No what ifs! And what other options do you have anyway?”
Oh. I stared at him like a halfwit. What other options? Contritely I reined in my temper.
“Butâ, but you and Mum are key executives⦠Very important and very busy. You'd really do this? Drop everything and go thousands of miles to check Pete out for me?”
“Time for parental leave,” he reasoned. “Annette loves you. I'll talk her into agreeing to this. And with the phone and internet, I can still do most of my work throughout the trip.”
“Please tell Pete,” I asked with pent-up emotion, “Tell Pete I love him.”
“Be strong,” he ordered strictly. “You're useless to Pete broken.”
It was extremely hard to cope with the interminable wait.
Missing my school friends, I perused their emails.
Lucy was in the Army and “so not writing about it” because she had had enough “after the whole day living it.” She wrote she was awfully tired every night and could not manage to jot down more than a few lines each time.
In stark contrast, Brenna who was studying music in Melbourne waxed rhapsodies about the pianist she had fallen madly in love with.She went on and on about him, positively head over heels.
Meanwhile Alex in India grimly recounted the world's many miseries he witnessed. Appalling living conditions. Child slavery.Underage prostitution. Poverty beyond imagination. Contaminated water and diseases. Deforestation. I asked him if it was so disturbing, why didn't he move on? “
The lovely people
”, he replied. “On my first day, I wondered why the hell had people come here. At the end of the third day, I was already making plans to extend my stay. And I'll definitely come back here in the future.”
How could I mention my woes to these friends? Lucy, struggling to be the future hero of our country. BrennaâI would not dent her joy.And Alex. Wouldn't it be shallow of me to compete with hefty world issues?
In silence I grieved for my Pete.
Then one morning, during my break at campus, I had a phone call from Nina.
“Sydney. You okay?” she enquired in a concerned tone.
For a moment I could not answer.
“Why shouldn't I be?” I replied after a pause.
“WellâI had a dream about you. In the dream, you looked sad.”
Somehow this made me burst into tears.
“Pete's injured!” I wailed. “He had an accident, Nina. A despicable hit-and-run! It's been weeks! And still he's hardly conscious!”
“No⦠So sorry to hear that. Where is he?”
“In Boston! So far away I can't see him!”
“Pray for him to get better.”
“But he's in America!”
“Sydney? Your prayer for him will reach God, no matter the location. It's the same one God, darl, wherever you are.”
“If there was a God, he wouldn't be so cruel! If there was a God, he wouldn't have let this happen to Pete! He's the most wonderful person, Nina. He doesn't deserve this. Not at all! No, I don't believe there's a God!”
Then I realised a few people were watching me. In fact, Trevor was looking at me strangely. Did I look deranged? I whirled around and stormed off.
“May I visit?” Pete knew her from his stint at the call centre and I needed to pour my heart out to someone who had met my love.
“Can't talk right now.”
I arrived as her kids were leaving for a kung-fu practice, all in their white uniform.
“You don't take your mum along?” I asked.
“She already knows how to throw you. Easy.”
“Really?” I turned to Nina. “Then why don't you go to their practice and throw all the smart-assed guys?”
“UmâI don't touch strangers. You know, it's hard to throw a man without touching him.”
I laughed.
Nina had baked some pastries for me, making me miss Pete even more. My loveâa champ in the kitchen.
“Pete needs your prayers,” she advised. “God does exist and He is there for your benefit.”
“What God? There's no God. If God did exist, why so much mess?If he was one, then why did he create so many confusing religions?”
“Because our ancestors had not developed the internet. Or TV. Or jet planes. One civilisation didn't have the means to communicate with another. So the limit was with the peopleânot God.”
“Oh?”
“Religion is God's grace, His way to show people how to live easier. God loves
all
people. So He chose a messenger from among each people as a guide. Confucius for the Chinese. Zoroaster for the Persians. There haven't been any people to whom a messenger of God has not been sent.”
“But how come God picked unintelligent guides? Take how Moses preached âcreation'. That was plain uninformed!”
“That was in parables, though, don't take them literally. Three thousand years ago Moses' followers weren't exactly attending the likes of Oxford or Harvard there in Egypt, were they? God could hardly sprout quantum physics then, could he? He taught creation in metaphors people could understand then. The limit was with the people
then
ânot God.”
“But why are there such enormous discords among religions? How come they differ so much from one another?”
“Sydney⦠in the beginning they varied depending on the level of intellectual and psychological evolution of the different peoples.Later, certain followers altered them to suit their ego or politics.Handed down through generations, they've suffered the Chinese-whisper effect, changing them from the original teachings. Safe to say, all abhorrent beliefs or practices you see in any religion are later additions, instead of from God. But the basics of all religions are the same. Love for all. Be accountable for your actions.”
I mulled this over. Supposedly there were rational answers to humanity's infinite questions. If you hadn't stumbled upon these answers yet, the limit was with youânot with God. The Perfect, All-Knowing God loves you and provides for you. Like, God has started to create petroleum in the earth's subsurface 400 million years ago, knowing you would need it for cars and planes today.
“Give Pete the gift of prayers, Sydney. You'll find that God does listen to those in anguish.”
“What if there's no God? I'll be praying in vain.”
“What's there to lose?” she countered. “Praying is free.”
“How do you even expect me to pray when I have no flaming idea which religion to follow?”
“How do you visit your Mum when you don't have her building pass?”
“I phone her, of course.”
“That's it. You contact her directly and she'll let you in. So speak directly to God. Pray in your own way for Pete's recovery.”
Did I believe there was a God? Perhaps I did. Pete said he had seen and read about several very spiritual people. Did I believe in God?Well⦠I still had to find out more about this.
“So Nina,” I stood up. “You really think an old guy with a white beard in the sky will listen?”
She laughed. “Stop it. God is invisible. We know He's here through His works.”
When I came home I cried to Godâwhoever God wasâbecause with distance and money as hindrance, praying was my only option. I needed to believe there was a Being who had the power to help my Pete.
“God, if you exist, please help Pete and me.”