Out of Captivity : Surviving 1,967 Days in the Colombian Jungle

318 OUT OF CAPTIVITYtime, you have to rely on so many other people to keep you safe andalive. I had Marc and Tom, and I knew that they needed me in someways, but the truth of the matter was that if I was somehow no longerin their picture, they were going to be fine. I took comfort in knowingthis, but I also liked the idea that someone needed me. Kyle and Laurenwere always on my mind, and I knew I wanted to get back to them,but by September of 2007, I wasn’t sure just how much they neededme. They were twelve and seventeen; I’d been fourteen when I lost mymom. I knew it wasn’t easy to lose a parent at any age, but I believedthey’d be okay.With Patricia and the twins, I wasn’t as certain. Colombia was a prettyvolatile place. Their mother was, at least when I was with her, a flightattendant. That meant she was going to be gone a lot. I didn’t know howher family was going to react to her giving birth to half-gringo kids outof wedlock. I didn’t know what their lives were going to be like once theygot to be school age. I knew all too well from my youth that there wereasses out there who would give them all flavors of grief for being bastards.As antiquated as that idea might have been in most of the U.S.,Colombia was a fairly conservative place when it came to such matters.Still, the irony that Patricia, a woman I’d parted on angry terms with,was staying loyal wasn’t lost on me. It was just hard for me to believethat she genuinely cared for me when my own fiancée wasn’t evenpicking up the phone to send messages. The fact that Patricia seemedto be devoted to me meant something, but what it would mean when Igot out was anybody’s guess.“I just hope it’s not about the money,” I confided to Marc one dayafter Juan Carlos told me about Patricia’s messages. “I told Patricia I’dbe there for the kids. She doesn’t need to do this for money.”“Who cares about her motives? It’s pretty admirable for her to hangin there,” Marc pointed out. I thought about his words for a minute,and I thought about the fact that Marc’s own wife hadn’t been sendingmessages.