With injuries still stunting her movements, Rhea spent the next few days lingering in the confinements of Sockeye Bar and Lounge. Rusakov sent a collector, pleased she matched his expectations, and the collector informed her Rusakov wanted seven thousand within the next two months. The other four grand were split between Sawyer and Mirek (Mirek went through his share in less than a week).
The hole in her leg was slowly closing, but movement hurt. She tried to power through, with no time to waste as she needed to get up and out again to address her shop's problems. Sawyer cut her some slack, gave her temporary tools, and set her up with customers looking for engine repairs: a boat diesel inboard engine, busted air conditioners, a refrigerator and microwave, and a portable generator.
When she had scraped up enough rupiah (and was able to hide the limp from her injury), she went to the market. There was a single corner shop that sold mechanical tools. The building was degrading where used, and rusted tools were tossed in boxes. She found little of what she was looking for and instead went to Canyon Jack.
"I need to place some orders," she told Sawyer. He had recovered quickly from the trauma over the box of six-eyed sand spiders, going back to work the next day with minimum bandages taped to his back. "I may need to take out a loan…"
"Don't worry about it. Just tell me what you got, and we'll make it work," he said as he grabbed a pad and paper for a list that he knew would be extensive. Wrenches, pliers, screwdrivers, funnels, wire, a multimeter, a crowbar, a flashlight, hammers, ratchets, an automotive stethoscope, an extension bar, a vacuum pump, a battery carrier, and car picks and locks.
"The biggest sets you can get. The more pieces, the better." She dropped 11 million rupiahs on the counter, and Sawyer inputted the order to a high-end mechanic shop in Jayapura.
Pedro installed deadbolt locks on the doors in the shop and a padlock on the garage door, free of charge since she had repeatedly repaired a television of his he stashed in his room to watch tapes of Spanish soap operas.
With her leg reaching the end of its mending and new tools on the way, Rhea sometimes wandered the market, broke but still admiring the goods for sale. Megan didn't mind her treating her bookstore as a library.
Rhea had scanned through almost every shelf in the store, grabbing books on mythology and religion and anything that could enlighten her on some of the occurrences she had heard about in the city. She was currently examining a Spanish text about the Legend of La Encantada: variations of a story about a beautiful woman trapped by a curse that keeps her confined to a cave or castle.
"You can read Spanish," Megan stated when she saw the copy in her hands. "That your native tongue?"
"Somewhat. I was born in Honduras. My was father was from Nicaragua, my mother from the Dominican Republic. But I moved to America when I was six, so I picked up English fast. My father struggled with it a lot, so at home, we spoke Spanish."
"Quite a colorful background. I'm nothing special—Caucasian family, born and raised in the big apple. My family was very religious; catholic practices absorbed much of my life. I still try to practice it when I can. I pray every night."
"Pray for what?"
"Anything. I don't have many wishes I want granted out of life. I don't have anyone I want to be safe and protected. But it's something I've always done for as long as I remember. I talk to God like an old friend. He's been with me all my life, watching me grow. The action is associated with comfort and hope, and though my life has diverted down a strange path, I still know He has a plan. It's just a weirder one than I expected. Now I tell him I will confront whatever obstacles he puts in front of me, and I will thank him when my sporadic life slows down enough for me to enjoy it. I let fate unravel itself."
"My father believed in prayer. He would sit on his knees at dawn, repeating words he thought contained faith. But prayer never did him any good. He was still an unhappy man."
"A sad ending for him?"
"Quite."
"I lost my mother when I was ten. ALS."
"I'm sorry."
"I miss her, but my memory of her is still there. I sometimes talk to her, or I'll pretend she's with me when I'm sad or lonely. I can still see her; her round face, the beauty mark beneath her right eye, the soft pink sweater she loved to wear. She's not gone. Not while I'm still alive."
"I never really fell into religion. I don't find much of a point to it. But others do. Don't understand what makes it such an influence on the majority of the world."
"Religion is a powerful tool, helping to find hope and meaning and an acceptance of the uncertainty. It provides social support and guidance; unity between people sharing those beliefs. Part of what religion does is give us a picture of how we fit in with our community, with family, the larger human experience, and the transcendent element in our experience. It gives us a lens through which we see the world and gives us a supportive community that helps us navigate life's complexities. I made many friends in my community, and they were a great comfort when my family went through such a huge loss. Looking through my religious lens, provided a context for understanding my suffering within the larger picture of the human experience of suffering and despair. It has connected me to so many people! So many who could understand what I was feeling, a helpful healing process during times of suffering. And there is so much suffering in the world."
"My father used to tell me about Hindu elements of death. He talked of death a lot towards the end. He told me how life moves in a cycle of being born and dying in an infinite series of lives, in a universe that itself goes through countless cycles of creation, destruction, and recreation. He talked to me about karma. I think he evaluated his moral self a lot. But as time went on, his mind began to bend his view of morality.
"There was also the Hindu element of death that stated of a supreme being who exists in the universe and the individual souls, who is the ultimate end for all. He told me fear of death was considered based on a false understanding and identification of our true soul with the temporary self of this life."
"And he has the right to believe whatever he wants. That's the interesting thing about our processing of the world. Religion is communal, but belief is something much more personal. No one can force their beliefs on you. Not really. The growing stages can set foundations as to how you see the world; you can be told from birth about God's existence and the severity of sin and the idea of an afterlife, but in the end, some people find themselves pushing away from what others tell them. If you find a religion or belief that works for you, that creates your whole reality, then good for you. But people don't understand that their reality does not extend to others. We all have our own understanding of the unknown."
Rhea put the book down, rising from her spot on the floor. "I've tried to keep my father alive through my memories, the real him, but I remember the bad stuff just as much as the good. I don't just want the old memories. I want new ones with people I won't and can't see again. There are things I wish I had said, things I wish I could have done."
"We all have regrets. But we can't change that."
"If only. By the way, have you got any texts on North American wildlife? Possibly one with pictures?"
Megan returned with an illustrated guide to 2,000 plant and animal species of North America. "Hope to go back one day?" she asked.
"Nope. I have enough memories of there already."