Free Sea by Heidi Kling

intervenes, said, “You’re right, V. We’re all tired. It’s okay, sweetie.” But he wasn’t looking at me when he said it. He was looking at her.
    “I’m heading back to the dorm for a bit. I’ll see you in the morning?” Vera said, her eyes lingering on my dad’s.
    “See you,” Dad said softly.
    What?
    Should I say something? Confront them?
    No. It was just my imagination playing tricks on me. Dad. Dad loved Mom. Vera probably loved ... furry nocturnal animals. She was the classic crazy cat lady—destined to be found by neighbors dead from natural causes on the floor of her studio apartment at age one hundred and something with her only companions, twenty beloved cats, eating her bony remains.
    Nothing was going on between them, I convinced myself. Nothing at all.

PRETENDING
    After Vera left, Dad and I sat quietly on the grass, just the two of us, watching the kids play with Tom.
    I was amazed how happy they seemed. The kids. I expected something ... different. I thought they’d be wandering around homesick or depressed or something. Maybe they were like me. Maybe they were pretending.
    “I want to talk to you about something,” Dad said suddenly.
    I closed my eyes and leaned back on the moist lawn. “Dad, I already apologized for the soccer ball incident.”
    “No, no, not that. Listen. I need your help with something.”
    I sat back up, slowly. “What is it?”
    Dad lowered his voice. “After the welcoming ceremony, the pesantren owner spoke with me privately about a boy named Deni. He’s popular with the Aceh boys, their leader, it seems, and I don’t want to ask the other kids for him because it will get back to him that the owner mentioned him specifically. Information here spreads like wildfire. Everybody knows everybody else’s business. Nothing is private.”
    “Why didn’t he just point him out?”
    “He said Deni was one of the boys in the drum circle, but he was gone by the time I spoke with the owner. He said if I couldn’t find him by tomorrow, he’d quietly point him out.”
    The leader of the Aceh boys? In the drum circle? I wondered if it could be the same boy.
    My boy.
    “They like to gossip?” I knew all about gossip. The queen bee of my freshman class, Sandra Bizmark, was also the queen of gossip. You could tell her something in the morning and the whole school knew by lunchtime.
    I learned not to tell her anything.
    Dad rubbed his beard. “Gossip has more-malicious implications. Their talk-talk doesn’t have ill intent; they just don’t have the same sense of autonomy that some Westerners do. If something happens to one person, it affects the whole.”
    “So what’s the problem with this Deni guy?”
    “Apparently, he has issues with the way this place is run, argues with the owner ... I don’t know much more than that—but I do know that we’re here to help the kids from Aceh assimilate into this pesantren with the rest of the kids....”
    “Why aren’t they assimilating?”
    “In Aceh things were different. They had more freedom, fewer rules. This is a very conservative institution: strict bedtimes, school schedules, mealtimes. It’s like, imagine transferring to a strict Catholic boarding school after living at home and going to El Angel Miguel High, where you have an open campus and wear shorts to school.”
    “And worse, if I was going because my entire family was dead,” I blurted out.
    My words looked like they caused Dad physical pain. “Yes. You can imagine how hard it would be to adjust after you’ve lived with so much freedom.”
    “I get it.”
    “So if Deni has a problem with how this place is run, I don’t want him to get the idea that I’m on the pesantren’s of the conflict,” Dad explained.
    My eyes popped open. “So you want me to be a spy?”
    He tilted his head. “Not a spy, per se ... I just want you to find out who he is if you can.”
    I matched his sly tone. “Ah ... I see, and what will I get for said information