Leaving Time

 

Recently, I can actually finish an entire novel within a day. Well, I finished this book in two, but it took me roughly about 10 hours plus, which can be done in a day hahaha. Once again, just a reminder, all my posts contain spoilers. So the story starts with Jenna, a thirteen year old girl who is looking for her mother. To her knowledge, her mother left her when she was three years old, and she has been looking for her ever since. She has tried every logical method (or at least most of it), to search for her mother, until recently when she decides to seek out a psychic who can contact the dead. She eventually finds Serenity.

Serenity, has a big background history. She became famous for her ability in contacting the dead, and also getting information from the dead about the living. Until one day, when she lied about a high profiled case involving a senators son. When things got ugly, she just went down slope then on. Ever since then, she has never been able to contact the dead. She has been basically doing cold reading on customers and bullshitting her way through life - until Jenna appears. 

Jenna's mother Alice, is an elephant enthusiast, a researcher on elephants and so is her dad. Her dad is currently being treated in a psychiatric hospital. After Jenna's visit, Serenity had a dream about elephants and a blue scarf belonging to Alice and there were elephants, she took that as a sign of nature to help Jenna look for her mother. At the same time, Jenna also looks up for a private investigator. This private investigator was actually the detective in charge of Alice's case 10 years ago. Together, all three of them restart the investigation in search of Alice. 

So, rewind 10 years ago. There is Alice and her husband Thomas; then there is Gideon and his wife, Grace and his mother-in-law, Nevvie. Alice moves from South Africa (studying elephant grief) to where Thomas is because she became pregnant with his child when Thomas came to visit South Africa. A few months later, Jenna is born. Thomas has a history of anxiety and depression, and he is on medications for it. His minds starts to slowly disintegrate as he starts writing formulas on walls, just the way John Nash (Russell Crowe) did in the movie A Beautiful Mind. Alice starts to get worried and asks help from Gideon to paint the walls white, every time Thomas fills the wall up with formulas. 

Eventually, due to Thomas' recent personality changes and slight violence, and Gideon always being there for Alice - both of them (Gideon and Alice) start to develop a thing for each other, and before you know it, they are at secret spots in the elephant sanctuary making love to each other. Grace has PCOS and therefore can't have kids (medically inaccurate actually, but then again I'm very forgiving). Grace eventually finds out about the affair, and kills herself. She loads her pockets with stones and walks into a river. Gideon doesn't feel bad about it, but Alice does. A few months later, Alice is pregnant with Gideon's child. Gideon tells his mother-in-law (Nevvie) about it, however, she doesn't freak out that much. Seeing that, Alice builds up courage to tell Thomas. Thomas indicates that he is not blind, but starts getting violent instead. A few nights later, Jenna goes missing. Alice goes in search for her only to see Nevvie with her child, but her child (Jenna) is bleeding all over. Nevvie killed Jenna and tells Alice, "Now you know what it's like to lose a daughter". What happens after this is a blur because there was a struggle between Alice and Nevvie, and Alice looses consciousness, but its expected that the elephants trample on Nevvie causing serious injuries - broken skulls, bones and lots of bleeding. 

Turns out, Jenna was the one dead all along. The private investigator Jenna hired was also dead, He committed suicide on the day of his detective promotion because he couldn't live with himself, closing Alice's case while knowing that there were evidences that lacked explanation. He drove himself off a cliff. The two people Serenity was with, were actually dead people. Jenna was the soul looking for help, and her mother Alice has been alive all along. Alice miscarries her child with Gideon, Gideon joins the army and dies at war. Thomas was admitted into a psychiatric hospital. Alice is left all alone, and I guess that's where cheating gets you.

I kind of saw that coming, but it almost feels like that's exactly what Picoult wants. Anyway, I really really enjoyed this story throughout and I learnt a lot about elephants of which the details I left out of this post. Elephants are capable of grief and emotion, and they are able to compartmentalize grief, although there are some exceptional cases. The elephant matriarch and the relationship with her calf was used as the metaphor of how the bond of a mother and child is inseparable. Get between an elephant mom and her calf, and you can be sure to pronounce yourself dead. Humans tick the same way. See ya! :)