FOR OFELIA

I first noticed her sitting in a corner of the coffee shop where I went most mornings to write.

She was small and slender, and her full Afro burst like a dandelion above her face. She seemed to be alone, reading quietly, often stopping to think.

The second time I saw her, I was so charmed that I tried a quick sketch of her in my notebook.

The third time, I didn’t know she was there. I’d sat outside, and was absorbed in my work. 

“Are you a writer?” asked a soft, accented voice behind me. “And is that me?”

I saw the opposite page lying open, revealing the sketch -- and I knew who this was.

“Yes, and yes,” I said. “And I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to draw you without your permission.”

“I will forgive you if you make me a copy,” she said.

“Of course,” I said, “and half the royalties will be yours.” She laughed briefly, and sat down.

“I am Mark,” I offered.

“I am Ofelia,” she said, taking my pen and writing her name “O-F-E-L-I-A.”

 She was here in LA, she said, sleeping on a friend’s couch, hoping to break into the movies.

We talked for perhaps an hour. I said a few things about myself, my life, but mostly I listened.

She was the oldest of three girls, born on a tiny farm on Africa’s west coast, in Liberia, where her mother raised vegetables while their father worked far away in a mine. Her mother chose her name because she’d read it in school when she was a girl.

When Ofelia was four, days after her youngest sister was born, soldiers in jeeps came roaring into town, shouting about a new government and shooting their guns. They raped Ofelia’s mother -- and though she said nothing, I could see they had savaged her as well.

That night, Ofelia’s mother gathered the children, took clothes and bedding -- and one vine in a cookpot -- and they began to walk. They walked for weeks until they came to a refugee camp in Ivory Coast, the next country, dozens of miles to the east.

Ofelia and her mother gathered scraps of wood and made a lean-to, and planted the vine.

“That made it home,” she said. She dug about in her purse; opening an Altoids tin, she showed me a dozen brown seeds. She looked up, her eyes moist and glowing. “When I have a home, I will plant these.”

I talked with Ofelia twice more. Each time, she showed up, greeted me with a wide smile and sat down. I learned more of her story -- how her mother died of a tumor in the camp, how her sisters were taken by another family. I shared some contacts I thought might be helpful, and offered to take her anywhere in the city she wanted to go. She always declined.

After our third meeting, I decided I could at least get her a gift. Valentine’s Day was coming,

and I got a card with a pop-up paper palm tree that I thought might remind her of home.  

But I never saw Ofelia again. She stopped answering texts.

Today -- two years later -- I’m still carrying the card. I can’t let it go.