Leaving Time

Serenity is flamboyant and dyes her hair cotton-candy pink. She has a natural psychic gift that she has parlayed into a successful career as a media star. After a disastrous wrong prediction for a US senator, her spirit guides desert her, and her career is washed up. When Jenna comes knocking on her door, it takes several tries before Serenity grudgingly agrees to help.

Virgil is a borderline alcoholic who wears his thinning hair in a buzz cut because he thinks it makes him look tough. Virgil is the investigator on the case that leaves one woman dead and another injured at the elephant sanctuary. He drives Jenna’s mother to the hospital right before her disappearance.

Virgil has always blamed himself for not pursuing the case as a murder investigation rather than an accidental death caused by one of the elephants. When Jenna approaches him about reopening the cold case, he sees this as a chance at redemption.

Alice is the enigma at the heart of Leaving Time. Like Jenna, she has red hair and green eyes. She spends years in Africa doing postdoctoral research on the grieving behavior of elephants before marrying Jenna’s father and joining him at the sanctuary he’s built in New England.

She is fiercely devoted to her elephant charges and wants to prove that their emotional response to trauma is as sophisticated as a human’s, if not more so. Her amazement at the way elephants walk away from grief can ultimately be traced to her own inability to deal with the losses in her own life.

Thomas runs a sanctuary for elephants in the States and comes to observe Alice’s research facility in Africa. He’s earnest and possesses a boyish charm that appeals to Alice. Shortly after they meet, Thomas and Alice start a romantic relationship that results in marriage and the birth of Jenna.

Thomas struggles with bipolar disorder and oscillates between periods of extreme elation and dark rage; during the latter, he physically assaults Alice. He tries to control the problem with medication but is ultimately institutionalized.

Nevvie is a middle-aged woman who formerly worked for the circus. She is the mother of Grace and mother-in-law of Gideon. Nevvie has spent her whole life taking care of elephants. She is devoted to Thomas and the sanctuary but often clashes with Alice about the best way to care for their charges.

Grace is Nevvie’s daughter. She’s small, blond, and ethereal but manages to pull her weight in caring for the elephants. She’s married to Gideon but can’t bring herself to tell him that she will never be able to have children. After she catches Gideon having an affair with Alice, she commits suicide by drowning herself in a river.