They arrived at the hotel later than he expected. Well, if Charlie was honest with himself and he was working very hard to be, he didn't know what he expected. It had been over thirty nine years since he set foot in the Hotel Le Royal in Phnom Penh. The driver from the airport talked about how the hotel was restored in 1997 and been reopened as the world class resort hotel that it now was. The building was beautiful and in much better shape than he had ever seen it in his lifetime. Nancy watched him and saw how just like a small child, the wonder behind his eyes as he took everything in.
He didn't leave Nancy right away because he wanted to be sure that she was settled and had everything that she needed. When he started to make mention of staying in the room for dinner, Nancy gave him the unspoken permission she finally realized he was searching for. "Charlie, you need to go." She watched him swallow the invisible lump in his throat and shake his head in acknowledgement. He held her wrist, pulled her against his body and planted kisses on her forehead as his other arm held her close.
Charlie hired a driver from the front desk and let the car wind though the dark streets of Phnom Penh that echoed with familiarly and the impact of the current world. The only one thing that truly kept him from slipping back into time was the prevalent use of cell phones by everyone that he saw. It seems almost worse than New York, everyone had one planted to their ear or had one clutched desperately in their hand.
When they arrived, the driver left a card with the information for the hotel to call for a return ride. He looked at the ordinary grey building for a long time. He suddenly remembered why they moved here and the memory picked at him a little bit. She had been harassed while living at the Hotel Le Royal and as their relationship progressed, the harassment took a turn that he couldn't abide by. So the fact that she was here and not at the Hotel Le Royal wasn't lost at him. She wanted to feel safe.
He didn't have anything on him, any offerings or gifts of consideration for her. For a fleeting second he thought maybe that he should have something but dismissed the thought just as quickly. It would probably end up as fight; in fact he realized that if this was really happening he was about to be violating her wishes. There didn't need to be any more ammunition such as last minute gifts. He shrugged off his jacket and dangled it off one arm as he entered the building and easily remembered where the stairs were to walk up to the fourth floor.
The door was slightly ajar. He assessed that this was not purposeful. In fact, he remembered that sometimes the door failed to catch when it was intended to be closed. As he drifted there to hear and see what he could, he heard a soft voice speaking in French. He could tell that the voice belonged to a woman, it was a local voice. His French was incredibly rusty and he wished that he thought to brush up during the flight on the way here. He was able to pick out the important pieces, that she did well eating her dinner, more than she had in days. Then he heard her name, Miss Leona.
That was enough for him to knock on the door and push it open, sure and unsure all at once that he wanted to see what it was he was about to see.
She locked eyes with him at once from her place on the bed. He didn't waver and didn't even take a moment to take a look at the surroundings. The space was the same but nothing else was. The inside was polished now with the microscopic kitchen area looking like it was out of Swedish catalog with a table and chairs to match. The largest room was occupied by a full size bed with detailed dark wood headboard and footboard which one would recognize as local craftsmanship. They are just looking at each other as the small woman that was tending to Leona is suddenly in his face rambling on in French and holding her arms in front of her, indicating that he should leave. Charlie breaks eye contact with Leona to face this woman, dark hair and eyes, but in modern dress with a smart blue blouse and black slacks. Charlie is raising his hands taking a step back as the woman verbally unleashes on him when Leona intervenes.
"Mon ami," My friend. It comes out as a rasp, not as loud as she needs to be, so she says it once more, differently. "Mon copin." My friend.
Charlie realized what she said, even though it wasn't very loud. "Ami," Friend, he tells the woman. "Ami." Friend. The woman turns to Leona who was now sitting straighter in her bed than she was before and Leona nods.
"Tu peux quitter la pièce, maintenant." You can leave the room now. Her intent is clear, but Charlie notices at once that she was labored in saying it. "Revenez demain." Come back tomorrow.
The woman looks Charlie with a look that he immediately interrupts as displeasure, almost as if this stranger is silently angry with him for not being here sooner. She comes back to Leona and collects the dinner tray off the bed, leaves it on the small table and fetches a purse from one of the chairs. Charlie has shifted out of her way and within a few moments, they are alone and he's just standing there, looking at her and finally the surroundings. She's surrounded in clean white sheets and blankets, and he can see she's chosen grey pajamas, a men's style. He didn't think this was a farce, but he can see in her face that it is in fact not an act, she is gaunt and etched with exhaustion lines.
She's examining him now, in his white dress shirt and khaki pants. He was wearing clothes as if he was visiting her in the office during normal working hours. She watches as he drapes his jacket over one of the chairs and finds himself standing at the foot of the full size bed. He looks at his shoes for a minute and finds himself, digging his hands into his pocket he simply looks at her. "Why didn't you tell me?"
He can see her visibly take a deep breath as she prepares to answer. It takes a moment before the words come. "Didn't want you to worry."
His breath lets out a small snort. "That's not an answer. In fact, I think that's its rather rude on your part for you not to let people in your life express their love for you."
Leona looks away now and Charlie sees one of her hands clutch a fist full of sheets. "People."
Charlie waits because it's all too obvious that it's a struggle not only to speak but to even find the words. She was never very good with her words whenever he called her out on the carpet about actions she's taken. That and now the fact is that it's compounded because of her health that she is unable to retort as quickly as she wants.
"People ignore the dying." She takes a moment to take another deep breath. "Had things to do."
"Leona!" it's somewhere between a shout and chastising her. "People would have listened to you. Rebecca listened to you! She did everything you ever asked of her and things I'm pretty sure you didn't ask her to do. Why did you think she did that?"
A small smile appeared on her face. "Paid her."
"You paid her." Charlie repeats. He's trying not be infuriated with her, but he realizes that she's just being herself. The way she never wants to do the expected or respond in the way people think she should. Charlie finds himself now coming around to her right side and sitting on the bed. He finds her hands, and not with a little bit of resistance he frees the one that had been holding the sheets. "Lee. Leona. My Lovely Leona." He looks at her face, making sure he can see her eyes as he spoke. "You know I would have done anything for you. Anything you would have asked of me I would have done it for you. Believe me."
She shakes her head no in rebuttal. "Couldn't ask you to." She tries to wiggle free of his grip and he's not relenting. She takes another breath and these words come out quickly. "Not mine."
He's hurt. Her words hurt him more than probably either of them imagined. He lets go of her hands and turns away from her, looking outside the window. Charlie covers his mouth with his hands. He can feel it now; the elephant in the room, their collective past they thought was neatly packed in suitcases that were weighed down and thrown into the deepest depths in the ocean. "You've always had heart." He says simply. "I made choices. Choices that I thought were the best and don't think I haven't been haunted by them. All the things I've done, I've done out of love Leona, out of my love for you."
"Know that now." She says, short of breath from behind him.
"Really?" Charlie asks as turns back to look at Leona. "The love I had for you from the moment we met? Do you know how many sleepless nights you caused me? How much I went out of my mind whenever you would do something stupid? Believe me when I tell you that you have done a lot of stupid things. I still can't forgive myself because I could have saved you from so much unnecessary suffering. Had I known then what I know now, not a single hair on your head would have been out of place and you would have been safe. I would have willing gave up knowing the greatest love ever just to revel in the knowledge that no harm would ever fall on you. "
"Time together would have been shorter." She struggles to say a moment later.
"Leona! I was constantly fighting with myself and it boiled down between having you and wanting to protect you. Because I knew deep down that if you went home we would never be together again. I had your heart and you had mine and I just wanted us to be together while we could. All those years ago, we were living in a different reality and nothing that happened here was ever going to translate into real world. Then everything changed and it wasn't just you I was trying to protect anymore!"
"You never asked what I wanted." She struggles to say those words and falls back on the pillows. "Tired."
"I know you're tired. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I never asked you what you wanted. " Charlie gets up and finds the path to the bathroom and engages in a very familiar routine. Everything in the bathroom is shiny and new, with a shower to boot. He starts the water in the sink and splashes his face a few times, finding a towel to dry it. He looks at himself in the mirror and decides for the first time that he in fact looks old and tonight, for a moment, foolish. Like a tired old lovesick fool. He also thinks that this not going well, not that he had any idea on how this was going to go. He fitfully chucks the towel he was using on the floor.
He stares at himself for a moment longer before he reaches into his pocket and pulls out his wallet, setting it on the sleek modern sink. Charlie looks at his hands for a moment and slowly removes his gold wedding band, staring at it like it was a foreign object. Because, for whatever reason tonight, it was a foreign object, it simply didn't belong in this narrative. He set it on the sink as well, opposite of his wallet and returned to the room.
She was struggling to get comfortable, trying to sleep on her right side. Charlie came to the edge of the bed, toed out of his loafers, pulled back the comfort slightly and placed one knee on the bed as he reached under her and helped her into a more relaxed laying position. When he was satisfied she wasn't moving around anymore, he simply climbed into bed next to her, looking at the ceiling with his arms behind his head. Her back is against his side and they say nothing for a few moments before he decided to speak again.
"I'm sorry I never asked you what you wanted. I'm sorry I didn't think you were capable of taking care of yourself or able to make your own decisions." He tilted his head towards her. "You've proven me wrong on both counts, multiple times since."
"Young." He hears the retort from her, muffled as she was facing away from him.
"We were ridiculously young, especially you. We were young and reckless and you were nothing short of fucking fearless. You weren't afraid to speak your mind or tell someone to go to hell. How I watched you run into a burning building or run towards gunfire instead of away, I should have known that you were made of sterner stuff than I. I swear to God it got even worse after… after you came back. After twenty three days of utter darkness."
Leona starts to shift now and she ends up rolling towards Charlie, her head finding the crook of his arm, his arm reflexively wrapping around her. "Don't." This is all she says to him to stop him from going there, from talking about those events.
"Okay," He says to her and absently plants a kiss in her hair. "I'm sorry."
The silence is comfortable and Charlie is taking a strange comfort in just listening to her breathe against him, like she used to all those years ago. This is when he realizes that he's not her for her, but he's here for himself. Part of him knows that she knows it too, because she would have sent him packing the minute he saw her. He's looking for something from her and knows that he will get there eventually. He's not Leona; he can't just blurt things out like she does without considering the consequences of doing so. He's never been like that. He's always been keen to observe before speaking and to make comparisons and to contract different sources of information. Sometimes to the point of having to write things out in order to full understand the events as they related to one another.
He did some of this writing while on the flight. He threw all of it away once they landed; he felt no need to keep any of it. Because there was something else that was bothering him, something he thought for sure was true and now had learned that it wasn't. It was a secret he kept for all these years and it turned out it wasn't even true. Because the baby was the catalyst and what finally put into focus for him that he needed her to be safe, because while she was well within her right to do whatever she wanted with herself, he granted her no such grace to endanger a child, their child. So when he had heard later that she had been married and a baby followed sooner than should have been logically possible, he thought he did the right thing by his child.
Charlie didn't have the privilege of knowing Reese as a child and now knows that Reese was probably not a happy one. He couldn't understand why Reese behaved the way he did unit a few nights ago and Charlie would readily admit the he held contempt for the man he had become. Now, with new information, he wasn't sure what to think. He wasn't going to breathe a word about what Reese admitted to him. There was no point in devastating her now. "Was Lansing Reese's father?"
Leona nods the affirmative into his chest. "Premature."
"I thought for years…why didn't you say anything?"
He can feel her take a deep breath. "Didn't want you…" She has to take a moment before speaking again. "To think it was for nothing."
Of course she would do that. It's the most logical thing in the world for him to hear. It was one of the most agonizing decisions he ever had to make on his part and if he ever found out that he sent her away for nothing, it would completely destroy him and instead of doing the damage it did to him. As he finished the thought, his heart started to ache, because she just admitted in a roundabout way: "You knew it was me the entire time?" His voice cracks now. "You knew I was the one that told your family where you were? You knew for all these years Leona?"
She nods in the affirmative again. "Who else?" She whispers, her voice labored even more than before. "Fate."
He doesn't know where it comes from, but the words just tumble out of his mouth. "What fates impose, that men must needs abide; it boots not to resist both wind and tide." With that, there is nothing more to say between them.
Since her admission, he doesn't know how much time has passed. She's been calm and content in his arms and he's not sure if they have both been awake the entire time, sleeping or a combination of the two. He finally asks for what he's wanted to ask her all night long. "Leona. Do you forgive me?
In the clearest voice she speaks the least impaired sentence she's spoken all evening. "Charlie, there is nothing to forgive." With that, she effectively declared the conversation was over.
He couldn't have told you the exact time it happened. They had rolled to their sides, her back to his chest and they had been like that for some time when her breathing eventually slowed and then ceased. He stayed there for a while longer as his mind cataloged the details for later recollection before kissing her hair a final time and extracting himself from the bed. He returned to the bathroom, collected his wallet, and placed his wedding ring on his finger. He came out, found his loafers. He looked at her figure one last time before he found his jacket and walked out the door.
He decided not to call anyone for a ride and walked the miles back to the hotel.
The sun had been up for quite some time when he finally walked into the hotel room. Nancy was there, sitting at the desk, red hair pinned up on her head with strands escaping. She was wearing her glasses as she poured over a book with a note pad to the right, her pen making some absent comments. When the door clicked behind him she shot to her feet at once. She looked at Charlie and was surprised at what she saw.
He looked amazing. His face was full, his eyes were bright and his shoulders were square. She hadn't seen him look like this in months. She closed the distance between them and his arms instantly wrapped around her waist, pulling her close, causing her to instinctively look up at him. "I want to do the news. I want to do something that we can be proud of together. I want - no I need you to be there with me. The two of us together working together again on getting stories and producing the news just like we used to for CNN. Please say yes. Please come to work with me, for me."
"Yes, of course Charlie." He dips his head in and kisses her with a ferocity she hasn't felt in a while and it leaves her breathless. "Charlie?"
"Grab your bag. There's word that Minister of the Interior is blocking protests and I want to get that son of bitch on record as to why he's been quashing multiple peaceful protest attempts."
Nancy is taken aback but finds herself a moment later and scurries to find her messenger bag. Charlie finds his phone on the night stand and thumbs through the numbers until he finds the one he wants. "Hey Mac, Charlie here. Can you get me the names and the numbers of some of the stringers we have in Phnom Penh?" A pause before he speaks. "No, I'm here. I'm in Phnom Penh right now. I was out on a walk this morning talking to some folks and there are people trying to mobilize yet again to have the 1991 Paris Peace Agreements implemented. This will be their fifth attempt since October and its reaching critical mass." He's at the hotel room door and as he opens it, Nancy darts out in front of him, and they are ready to go.
Ready to do the news.