"Who?" My heart pounds, aches, hurts.
"Don't bullshit me, Lachlan. The only force in this world that has the power to truly change a man is a woman. You died, and that was the spark, because you physically had to change the way you were living. But it didn't really change who you were deep down." She reaches out, takes my hand in both of hers; I don't think she's ever hugged me, not since I was a little boy, and she's certainly never held my hand. So this physical contact between us? It's huge. "So, if you've changed so much that you not only want to go into business, start working...but start a non-profit disaster relief corporation? The only way something like this happens to a man like you is through a truly amazing woman. So, who is she?"
I swallow hard. Keep my eyes on the table, hoping to hide the uncontainable wealth of emotion even thinking about Niall brings up inside me. "Niall. Her name is Niall. She--she's a nurse. With MSF. I met her...well, it's a long story." I blink, focus on breathing, and consider how to tell my story. "Actually, it's not a long story, just a hard one to tell. She and her husband both worked for MSF--Doctors Without Borders. They were here in California between assignments, and they got in a car wreck. Niall's husband died. He--he was an organ donor."
Mom's face pales, and she sets down her glass. "Oh no. Lachlan, you don't mean--"
I nod. Tap my heart over my chest. "Yep. His heart is in here. Keeping me alive."
"How did you meet?"
I don't answer right away. "I had Larry find her. I--I'm still not sure why, honestly. I didn't know what to do with myself. I was just...fucking lost. I was looking for any kind of direction, anything. I don't know. Larry tracked her down in a little place called Ardmore, in Oklahoma. After Oliver died, she sort of...went into hiding, I guess you could say. Lost her drive, her will, or whatever. Her husband had gotten her into MSF, and she couldn't do the work without him. I went down there to find her. I don't know what I was hoping to accomplish, or what I thought I'd find, but what happened was...well, something I could never have predicted. I met her completely by accident, and--" I don't know how to say the rest.
"Fell in love." Mom cuts to the chase, as always.
"I guess so, yeah. She's amazing. A seriously talented nurse, hard working, easy to talk to, and just...beyond beautiful. She's everything good in this life."
Mom's eyes are soft and a little damp, hearing me. "Well, when do I get to meet her?"
I choke. "I don't--I don't know." I stand up, pace away. Clench my hands into fists to disguise the way they shake. Stare out at the view of Los Angeles spread out beneath us. "I ended things. I walked away."
"It sounds like you really care about her, Lock. I've never heard you talk about any woman this way. They've always seemed rather disposable to you, if I'm being honest. So why walk away, if you feel that strongly?"
"Women were never disposable to me, Mom." I speak quietly, keeping my voice under tight control. "I acted that way on purpose. There were several women I really cared about, but I never let them get close because I knew I was going to die. Why let them get attached to a man with an expiration date? It wouldn't have been fair to them."
Mom is silent, hearing this. I hear her chair scrape, hear her heels on the flagstones, feel her behind me. "I never knew, Lachlan."
"That's the point. If I'd told them, oh, don't bother falling in love with me because I'm gonna die, how many of them do you think would have tried to stick it out anyway, or prove some kind of point? It was my burden to bear." I laugh. "Quite a burden, getting to spend that time with all those beautiful women."
"Don't gloss over it, Lachlan." Mom touches my shoulder tentatively. "You were protecting them."
"And sometimes the only way to make sure they left on their own was to play the part, act like they really were disposable to me. They weren't, but they couldn't know that."
Her hand remains on my shoulder and, oddly, I don't mind it. "So what about this woman from Oklahoma...Niall, you said her name is?"
I let out a shuddering breath. "Niall, yeah...I've never felt anything like what she makes me feel. Including...inferior. Which is why I walked away."
"You're not inferior--"
"Fucking bullshit, Mom! Yes, I am! Or, at least, I was. I'm working on changing that, which is the point of all this. You, my own mother, were stunned speechless when I suggested I go into business, let alone start a non-profit. I was a playboy, Mom. I did nothing. I had no value as a man. No way to measure my own self-worth. Everything I have came from you and Dad. I didn't work for it, never earned it. Thirty-one years old, and I've accomplished precisely dick. No skills, no talents, no passions. Nothing. I can't even drink anymore, which was the one thing I was good at! That and fucking, and now that I've met Niall, she's all I want, all I can think about. So that's out too. Makes me pretty damn inferior, I'd say."
"Lachlan, you--"
"Just listen, Mom." I turn around to face her. "I walked away because I have to become someone worthy of a woman like her. She's back with MSF, finally, out there doing what she does best, what she loves--saving lives. She literally saves lives for a living, Mom. I watched her work, too. There was a tornado--"
Mom gasps, cutting me off. "My god, you mean that F-4 in Oklahoma? You were there?"
I nod. "We were smack dab in the middle of it. Ground zero. Saw the damn funnel with my own eyes, a few hundred yards away. And she didn't--she never hesitated. She got to work, just automatically. Started a triage center for the injured and ran it by herself until the authorities showed up. And for the first time in my life, I felt useful. I pulled people out of the wreckage. Dug them out, in some cases. Went house-to-house, looking for survivors and bringing the wounded to Niall. It was...terrible, but amazing. Doing something good. Selfless.
"But once we left, went back to Ardmore, I knew I couldn't be with her. She was going to go back to MSF--I knew it then, even if she didn't. And what was I going to do? Follow her around? She deserves better. And I needed to--figure myself out, I suppose. I really do care about her. Love her, even. But it won't work until I get my shit squared away. Until I do something worthwhile. Not for her, but for me. So I can feel worthy of her. That's what this is about. I may never get her back, I realize that. Like I said, this is for me. But if I do ever get a second chance with her, I want to know I deserve her."
Mom is crying. Quietly, elegantly, but crying. "I don't know what to say, Lachlan."
"Say you'll help me." I put my hands around her thin biceps, hold her. "I need your help. I can't do this without you."
She leans into me, runs a knuckle carefully underneath her eye to wipe away a tear without smudging her makeup. "Of course. I would love nothing more."
*
The next few months are a whirlwind. Lawyers, shareholders, investors, clients, donors, Mom sets up meetings with all of them and lets me outline my plan for them. A plan which she helped me shape and articulate: we set up a non-profit corporation--which we name Beyond Thirty-One, for obvious reasons--dedicated to raising money, gathering supplies, and recruiting volunteers and skilled tradespeople, all for disaster relief efforts.
Mom meeting Utah was pretty funny. I fully expected Mom to hate the big hairy dog, but they seem to have bonded. Mom takes Utah to doggy salons for pampering, and takes her for walks around her glitzy neighborhood. Mom, in four-thousand-dollar heels, walking a mammoth beast like Utah who, in turn, is wearing a Swarovksi crystal-encrusted harness, pulling my elegant mother along, tongue lolling, sniffing, pissing. It's hysterical. But it's also helpful, because it lets me work without having to put Utah in doggy daycare or hire a professional dog walker.
And yes, for the interim, I'm living with my mother. Nearly thirty-two, and I'm living with Mommy. But honestly? It's great. Her house is so large that we both have our own privacy, and I'm not ready to be alone just yet.
We found a floor for lease in an office building in LA where we'll headquarter Beyond Thirty-One, and Mom lines up about a thousand interviews for interns and office s
taff. But then, instead of helping me with those interviews, she hands me a printout with a few sample interview questions, and tells me she has her own businesses to run, so I'll have to handle this part myself.
The first dozen interviews are a mess. I'm nervous, have no idea what to say, or what to ask, or what I'm looking for. But by the time I've interviewed the hundredth person, I've got the hang of it.
A week of interviews, and I've got my staff, a couple dozen young, talented, passionate kids with fire in their bellies for the work we're going to do.
Now I've just got to get the financial structure in place, and that's where Mom comes in. I'm not planning on doing this small. This isn't going to be a handful of college kids raising a few thousand bucks to install some wells. This is going to be on an epic scale, with major money for major impact. I'm going to need a board of directors, as well as serious investors and donors.
But they can't be idle ghost partners, or uninterested, invisible, never present investors. They have to be involved. They have to understand.
Mom has to understand.
And that's when I come up with another idea.
*
Uganda
One month later
"You look ridiculous, Mom." I grab her arm and direct her back into the hotel. "You can't wear that. This isn't Beverly Hills."
She balks. "Clearly, Lachlan. But I will not comprise my appearance simply because we--"
"Your appearance will not matter. And you'll be miserable wearing that out there. Trust me on this."
This being Africa, it's a little hot outside, and Mom is wearing a Chanel pantsuit, Louboutin heels, and a massive straw hat, a la Audrey Hepburn. Pearls. Jesus, the woman is wearing pearls. We're in Uganda to help out with relief efforts connected to the ongoing civil wars in the north. We're not going to the front lines by any stretch of the imagination, but we'll be close enough for Mom and the other potential investors to get an impression of the kind of relief work I want to do.
All the board members and major investors are here as part of what I'm calling, as CEO, an "operational awareness exercise". Meaning, get the rich, sheltered assholes out of their cushy Malibu Barbie lives and make them see what they're investing in, what we're doing. So far, I'm no one's favorite person. When these people travel, especially on a long trip like this, there are five-star accommodations waiting, limos and helicopters and massages and Mai Tais and cool pools and white sand beaches. But not on this trip. Here, there's dust, dirt, brutal baking heat, smelly, broken-down buses, tiny, cramped, hot rooms in ramshackle, run-down, roach-infested hotels. Languages they don't understand, food they don't understand, cultures they don't understand. They're no more than ignorant white foreigners here, and no one cares how much money they have.
And Mom is the worst complainer of all of them.
And we haven't even gotten to the relief station, yet.
It's another two and half hours of jouncing, jolting, and sweating in a pair of thirty-year-old Land Cruisers. Everyone is wilted, cranky, and glaring daggers at me.
We finally arrive at a rearward aid station, primarily used for dispersing supplies and volunteers to the stations closer to the worst of the fighting. When the vehicle is parked, we all hop out and stretch, working the kinks out of our backs.
A tall black man approaches, dressed in faded khakis and a blue and white striped collared shirt, head shaved, sweating, with a clipboard in one hand.
"You are Lock Montgomery, I think, yes?"
I extend my hand, try not to wince from the pressure of his crushing grip. "Yeah, I'm Lock. You're Peter?"
He nods vigorously. "Yes, yes. Peter Obote. Thank you for coming, we very much need your assistance today. There was a bomb set off in Gulu, many dead, many more injured. Now the fighting has got worse than ever, and all the aid stations are past full. We are a small place here, and there are not many of us to do the work." He eyes my companions, none of them under fifty, all of them inappropriately dressed for the location, the work, and the weather, and all of them looking frightened and out of place, especially when a truck full of UN peacekeeping forces rumbles past, hauling soldiers carrying fully automatic weapons. "You are sure about this, Mr. Lock? You, maybe this is good work. Them? I am not so sure."
"I'm sure, Peter. Lead the way. We're here to help."
He leads the way into a low cinderblock building covered by a corrugated tin roof. Inside is a jumbled, chaotic mess of crates and boxes, cases of water, canned goods, medicine, food, and medical supplies.
Peter points with his clipboard. "We have convoys of supplies coming and going all the time, and we do not have enough manpower to even organize this. It is a mess, and when they come to get supplies for other stations, it is most impossible to find anything."
"You need it organized?"
"I would be most grateful, yes. I have a group of children coming as well, to help with this work."
And then Peter is gone, and I'm left with nine rich old white people who have never lifted anything heavier than a bottle of wine, and a mountain of supplies to organize.
I clap my hands. "Well, folks, this is why we're here. Let's get this party started. Milton, Henry, Vic, why don't you start piling those cases of water by the wall near the door? Jane, Mom, Amy, Martha, get these medical supplies sorted and stacked--like with like, as much as possible. Bob, Thierry, Elaine, we'll work on the food supplies, get them stacked and organized in the back. And...don't hurt yourselves, but don't wimp out on me. Yeah?"
The next two hours are brutal. Everyone complains and no one wants to put their back into anything; this is probably the first time most of them have done hard physical labor in their lives. And then, all at once, a huge gaggle of Ugandan children arrive, everyone shouting and chattering in their native language, a good twenty of them all shepherded by two older women wearing headscarves and severe expressions. The kids don't bat an eye when they see us. The women in charge of them immediately size up the work we're doing and divide their charges into several groups and instruct them to help us.
Those kids put us adults to shame, even me. They work like dogs, scrambling as if their lives depended on it, working in effortless unison when something is too heavy for one person.
This is the first breakthrough.
The second comes the next day when Peter sends us with a convoy carrying supplies to a nearby village. More hours by truck, in the dust and heat. And then we're in among the straw huts, surrounded by curious faces and strange voices, hands reaching out desperately. The convoy helpers push back the crowd, and now I can see why Peter sent us here; I think he understood my purpose in bringing the board members here rather well. This village was obviously hit hard by a recent battle of some kind, and one that wasn't localized to organized adult male fighters.
Nearly everyone is sporting a bandage of some kind. Faces are still bloody and bruised and swollen. Limbs are missing. Agony and desperation is on every face. Thirst. Starvation. There are very few adult men, and the few I see are crippled by injury. Women, children, the elderly. All battered and cut and wounded.
I watch the faces of my board members; they are horrified. Shocked. Distraught.
They move on autopilot, following the instructions of the aid workers. Handing out food and water, helping set up a medical tent, assisting the medics in re-wrapping bandages, checking wounds, dispersing medicine. I see tears. Vomiting. Shaking.
I see Mom with a male aid worker, who seems to be translating for the woman Mom is helping. The woman has a bandage wrapped around her head, speaking rapidly, gesturing. The more she speaks, the more upset I watch my mother become. If I'm reading the woman's gestures correctly, she's telling my mother about being struck on the head, thrown to the ground, and likely raped. When the medical aid worker finishes re-wrapping the woman's bandage, Mom leans in and hugs her. Mom, who is the single most standoffish and least physically affectionate human being I've ever known, is hugging a perfect stranger.
We spe
nd the day in that little village, helping. We don't leave until well past sundown, and the ride back is utterly silent, everyone staring off into space, lost in thought.
I don't give the board members a chance to think too hard; we spend an entire week living in that aid station, helping Peter and his people. By the time the week is over, pretty much everyone has picked up a few useful words and phrases, has learned to jump into situations and help out without being told.
They're not bad people, these board members, just sheltered. Privileged.
When the week is up, we make our way back to Kampala and the international airport, and we board a private jet bound, not for Los Angeles, but for Monaco.
You can't put people like this to work like I did and not reward them at the end, after all.
I give them forty-eight hours to unwind, catch up on sleep, relax by the pool, sip some champagne, and then I gather them in a meeting room.
When everyone is seated around the table I stand up, move to the front of the room, and wait until the silence has grown uncomfortable.
Mom breaks the silence. "Your point is well-taken, Lachlan." Her voice is soft, containing a note of what I would normally call humility, if I didn't know any better. "Thank you for this trip. I know I balked at the beginning, and...honestly, I feel a bit foolish, setting out wearing Chanel and pearls. But then we went to that village, and I met that woman. Oh--look at me. I'm a mess just thinking about her." Mom is crying again, which sets everyone else on edge, makes them shift in their chairs, clear throats and look away, remembering their own similar experiences, most likely. "Seeing the things we saw last week...I get it now, Lachlan. I get it. So...thank you."
Milton stands up. Shifts on his feet. Clears his throat. "I have a motion for the board. I know this isn't how things usually work, but we're all here, and I want to pass the motion while it's fresh in our minds. I propose we do this again. Once a year, at least, as a board. Uganda, somewhere else, anywhere. Wherever Lachlan sends us. We'll put our feet on the ground in the places we've spent the year sending supplies. We'll get down there and meet the people. I've always prided myself on staying in touch with every part of my companies. I visit the mailrooms and the break rooms, attend company picnics, visit employees in the hospital, things like that. Stay connected."