Chapter 83

At a small trading post on the border of two East African countries, Dr. Rhondelle Wilde sat under the makeshift reed structure, revising her notes for the day.

She was so focused on her scribbling—nothing else around her registered in her head.

The motorcycles whizzing by, the vendors at the nearby fruit stalls calling out to buyers.

The chickens pecking at bits of food on the ground and erupting into a squawking flurry whenever anyone got too close to them.

All of this she didn’t notice.

So it was understandable that she didn’t see or hear the tall figure until he was standing right before her.

“Dr. Wilde?”

She looked up. She squinted against the sunlight and pushed her purple glasses up her nose.

“Yes? Who are you?”

Raemon held a hand out. “Raemon Kentworth.”

Dr. Wilde did not react in any particular way. But at the sound of his name, she shut her notebook.

“Pleasure to meet you,” Dr. Wilde said, shaking his hand. “Please. Sit.”

Raemon took a seat beside her on one of the long benches arranged in rows under the reed canopy. She noted his dusty, sweat-stained T-shirt and the safari khakis covering his long frame.

The backpack that he shrugged off his shoulders and let fall to the ground screamed, “Tourist!”

“So, Raemon,” Dr. Wilde said, “what can I do for you?”

Raemon took in his surroundings. There was a sense of turmoil about him.

“I’m in love with your daughter.”

“I suspected as much.”

“But she doesn’t love me back.”

“That’s unfortunate.”

His eyes dropped to the dusty ground below them.

“I have to change that.”

“That’s not the sort of thing you can change,” Dr. Wilde said, “If there was some action people could take to make someone fall in love with them…well, there’d be a lot less songs on the radio.”

Raemon was silent. While he wrestled with his inner turmoil, Dr. Wilde observed him.

“Tell me,” she finally said, “have you told Octavia about your feelings?”

“Yes.”

“And what did she say?”

“That I wasn’t good enough for her.”

“I didn’t ask for what you think she said. What did she really say?”

“That…that she didn’t know who I was…because there was no self for her to know.”

“And what did you come all the way here to find out from me?”

“I was hoping you might know…or have some idea on what I should do.”

“You came all this way for life advice? Are there no self-help experts or spiritual gurus in your country?”

“None that I can trust.”

“Oh?”

Raemon looked up to meet her gaze.

“I’ve spent years living as a person that I’m not. I only recently became aware of this. Out of all the people I have known, the only one who was able to show me this was your daughter.”

Dr. Wilde smiled. “Sounds like Octavia. What did she do? Did her condition kick in and she blurted out something brutally honest about yourself?”

“Something like that.”

“Well, Raemon. It seems to me you have some decisions to make. Why do you want Octavia to fall for you?”

“Because…I need her.”

“Need? I thought you said you loved her?”

“I do. And I need her.”

“Loving and needing someone are two very different things,” Dr. Wilde said. “Would you want her to love you back or need you?”

Raemon did not respond to this.

“I can tell you right now she’ll never need you. That’s not how I raised Tavi.”

He directed a cynical smirk toward the dusty earth. “As much as I would like that…I know she’ll never need me. Not in the way I need her.”

She gave him a quizzical look. “But why would you want that? A person who needs someone else doesn’t automatically want that person or love them.

“If Octavia needed you, sure, she might be in your arms this minute. But would she want to be? Would she truly love you…for the person you are?”

“So what you’re saying is this is a hopeless case?” he said, cynicism poisoning his tone.

“Not exactly. She will never need you…but she could want you.” When Raemon looked up to meet her eyes, she continued.

“Octavia’s affections have always been based on who people are. She’s seen too many places and known too many different types of people to have any misconceptions about the worth of humans.”

A wistful smile tugged at Dr. Wilde’s lips. “I looked back at how I was raised, and I wanted something different for my daughter.

“I never wanted her to be a captive in her own body…to be restrained by whatever expectations the world places on her.

“So I tried to raise her as someone free to see things as they are. As someone who experiences life the way it is, not according to anyone else’s agenda.

“Her sincerity is what draws people to her, I think. She is the kind of person most people want to be, deep down. She is liberated from so much…and just being with her is liberating for them too.

“Trust me, you’re not the first man who’s come to me with this confession.”

A rickety van rumbled by with a man hanging out the window calling for prospective riders in his taxi.

Raemon winced as the driver nearly ran over a chicken as the car bounced along the road.

When the dust from the car’s creaky wheels had cleared, he realized a small part of the fog in his own mind had dissipated as well.

“That’s it,” he said, “why I need Octavia to love me. If she does…it will mean that I am finally…someone.”

“And what does it mean to be a ‘someone’?”

Raemon lowered his eyes. “To not be shaped by a string-pulling band of no ones, but an actual, thinking, human being. No longer ~the~ Raemon Kentworth…just Raemon.”

“And how are you going to do that?”

“I don’t know.”

Dr. Wilde smiled. “The thing about life, Raemon, she’s a wonderful teacher. You just have to be smart enough to listen when she’s telling you something. Look around.”

Only then did he glance up and take in his surroundings.

Dr. Wilde’s voice was soothing and wise as she said, “The world is full of people and places that all tell their own stories. You can start with that.”

She stood. “Come. Let me buy you lunch. I think we have a few things to talk about.”