Chapter 27 The Call Across the Ocean
LEITANA
“Ugh…”
The sound came out rough, like broken glass scraping my throat. I curled tight on the floor, arms wrapped around my neck, coughing and crying at the same time. My knees hurt from hitting the floor. My ass still burned from his hand. But the worst was the ache inside my chest, like something had cracked open and all the light was leaking out.
I couldn’t breathe right. Every breath tasted like tears.
He left me.
He left me on the floor like trash.
I pressed my face into the rug and sobbed harder, rocking back and forth.
The door creaked open slow.
Soft footsteps.
Rosa’s voice, gentle. “Little mrs… oh god…”
She dropped beside me, arms around me tight. Clara too. They pulled me into their laps like I was a child.
“Your neck… look at these marks…” Rosa whispered, fingers brushing the bruises already blooming purple.
I couldn’t stop shaking. “He choke mi… he lift mi off ground… I slap him first… mi stupid… mi scared he hate me now…”
Clara rocked me. “Shh… he doesn't hate you. The master has never treated any woman like he treats you . He lost control because he wants you too much. That’s all.”
I cried into her shoulder. “He call me his… then hurt me… then leave me…”
Rosa wiped my tears with the edge of her apron. “Men like him… they don’t know how . He will come back when he cool down. And he will beg on his knees, you wait and see.”
I shook my head. “He wicked… he no beg nobody…”
Rosa kissed my forehead. “Stop crying, it will be fine .”
They helped me stand on wobbly legs. My dress was twisted, panties soaked, thighs sticky. I felt dirty and small.
Clara fetched a soft blanket, wrapped it around me. Rosa guided me out the library, past staring servants who looked away fast.
Up the stairs. Into the big bathroom.
They ran a warm bath, added sweet-smelling oil. Helped me out of the dress.
I stood naked, shaking, bruises on my throat, red handprints on my ass, bite marks on my breasts from last night.
Tears kept slipping down my cheeks, hot and endless, as I hugged my knees to my chest in the steaming bathtub. The water had long gone lukewarm, but I didn’t care.
“Please stop crying, little Mrs,” Maya murmured, gently stroking my wet hair. “We know the master can be heart…”
Rosa shot her a sharp look.
“Watch your tongue.”
“But I’m not lying!” Maya pouted, lowering her voice. “He’s not even here, and everyone knows he can be heartless. No feelings, no warmth, nothing.”
I didn’t answer. I just turned my face toward the small, high window across the bathroom. The night sky glittered with a thousand cold stars. I stared at them until my eyes burned, whispering a silent prayer that somehow reached all the way to Vanuatu. The loneliness crushed me, heavy as stones on my chest.
I missed my little sisters so much it hurt to breathe.
Later, after the bath, they dressed me in a soft cotton nightgown the colour of moonlight. I sat on the edge of the huge bed, knees pulled up again, staring at nothing.
He still hadn’t come to the bedroom.
He never did.
I had never once seen him sleep not a single time since the day they forced that ring on my finger.
Everything about the man I was married to felt… wrong. Not just different from the boys back home, no, he was different from any human being I had ever met.
“You should eat something, Lady Avery,” Rosa said gently, setting a tray of fruit and warm bread on the nightstand. “Don’t punish your body because of what he did.”
I didn’t touch the food. I only stared out the window, wishing I had wings, wishing I could fly straight up into that sky and never come back to this country or these people again.
Rosa sighed, heartbroken, and turned to leave.
I grabbed her hand before she reached the door. She looked back, startled.
My eyes filled again. “Mi wan call mi family,” I whispered, voice cracking.
She softened instantly and came to sit beside me.
“Of course, sweetheart. Do you have your parents’ number?”
I shook my head. “Not them. Mi sisters… from the orphanage.”
Rosa’s brow lifted just for a second, surprise flickering across her face. But she didn’t ask questions.
“I’m not sure the master would allow…” she began.
“Please, Rosa, please,” I begged, big tears rolling down my cheeks. “Mi no can pretend anymore… not tonight.”
She searched my face for a long moment, then pulled her phone from her apron pocket.
“Tell me the number, baby,” she said softly.
I closed my eyes. The digits rose like a lifeline.
“Six-seven-eight… seventy-seven… fifty-five… twenty-three… four.”
I had memorised it the way other girls memorised songs. Sister Ana-Maria had made us all learn it by heart the day the orphanage finally got a single satellite phone.
“If anything ever happen, you call this number. Even from other side of world, we answer for our girls.”
Rosa typed it in without asking questions. She pressed call and put the phone on speaker so I could hear and laid the phone between us on the bed.
I held my breath while it rang… and rang… and rang.
Then a click. Static. Wind in palm trees. A voice I knew better than my own.
“Allo? Santo Orphanage, Sister Ana-Maria i stap.”
My breath caught so hard it hurt.
“Sister…” I whispered, tears already falling again.
A sharp intake of breath on the other end.
“Lele? Leitana, beb? Be yu?”
“Mi hia… mi hia, Sister…” I sobbed, clutching the blanket to my chest like it could hold me together.
Rosa quietly slipped off the bed and stepped outside, closing the door soft so I could have this moment alone.
The line crackled, but Sister’s voice came strong, like she was sitting right beside me.
“Bebe, yu oraet? Yu voice… yu cry. Wanem happen?” (“Baby, are you okay? Your voice… you’re crying. What happened?”)
I tried to speak, but only broken sounds came out.
I pressed the phone so hard against my ear it hurt, but I needed to feel them closer.
“Sister… mi want go home… plis, mi no want stap hia anymore…”
(Sister… I want to go home… please, I don’t want to stay here anymore…)
“Slow, Lele, slow. Breathe. Tell me everything from the start.”
I swallowed the tears.
“Mi papa, mi mama lie, they lie to you all,”
“What?”
“When we arrive, they tell me the truth. They say their real daughter Avery (my twin sister I never meet,) is gone. So I must pretend be Avery.
Take her name, her life, her everything.
They say the rich man in America, that I have to marry him”
A shocked gasp on the other end.
“They force you pretend be another person??”
“Yes… I tell them mi no lie… mi no want be Avery… mi Leitana… so mi papa slap me hard across the face… pull mi hair… say if I no do it, he will beat me worse. Now I'm married…” (“Yes… I told them I wouldn’t lie… I didn’t want to be Avery… I’m Leitana. But my father slapped me hard across the face, yanked my hair, and said if I didn’t obey he’d beat me even worse. And now… now I’m married.”)
Sister Ana-Maria’s voice cracked.
“Married?? Leitana, yu married now??
We no get any letter, any call, nothing!
Mother Superior standing right here, she shock too!”
I heard quick footsteps, then Mother Superior’s calm, strong voice took the phone.
“Leitana, my child. I am listening.”
“Mother…” I sobbed harder. “Now mi stap long this big house… and today mi husband… he put hand on me… he choke me long neck… lift me off the ground because mi slap him first… he leave big bruises…” (“Mother…” I sobbed harder. “Now I’m living in this huge house… and today my husband… he put his hand on me… he choked me around the neck… lifted me clean off the ground just because I slapped him first… he left big bruises…”)
Mother Superior’s voice turned like steel.
“He struck you? This man you were forced to marry?”
“Yes, Mother… and… and he already take mi purity… last night… many and mi feel shame because… because mi body like it… mi feel dirty… mi feel mi betray God…”
A soft, sad sigh through the crackling line.
“Child, listen carefully.
You are not dirty.
You were beaten, lied to, sold, and forced.
None of that is your sin.
Your body only did what bodies do when touched.
The shame belongs to the people who hurt you, never to you.”
Sister Ana-Maria came back on, fierce now.
“Bebe, if he touch you in anger again, you call this number straight away.
We call Father Luke in Vila, he call Australian embassy, we pull you out fast-fast.
You still have your real passport?”
“They hide it… but mi will find it…”
Mother Superior again, gentle but firm.
“You are not Avery.
You are Leitana, daughter of Santo Orphanage, daughter of the Church.
That paper marriage is not real in the eyes of God when it was made with lies and violence.
One day soon, when you are safe, we will fix everything.
For now, you stay clever. You stay alive. You pray.
And you remember: every sister here, every little girl in the dormitory, we love you.
We are waiting for you with open arms.”
I was crying so hard I could barely speak.
“Mi love yu ol… mi miss yu evri dei… tell the children mi love them…”(“I love you all… I miss you every single day… please tell the children I love them…”)
“We will, bebe. Sleep now. The sun will rise tomorrow, and God still walks beside our Leitana.”
The call ended.
I curled on the bed with Rosa’s phone against my heart, staring at the mo
on.
For the first time since they stole my name, I whispered the truth out loud to the empty room:
“Mi Leitana.
Always Leitana.”
And the moon seemed to shine a little brighter, like it had heard me.