I wasn’t expecting to feel anything when I sat down by the north gallery wall that morning. The forest around Angkor Wat was already warming up, insects humming low in the humid air, and a small family group of long-tailed macaques had settled into their usual spot among the carved stone roots of a banyan tree.
That’s when I first heard it. A thin, repeated cry — sharp at the start and trailing off like a question. Leo, the youngest of the group, was sitting about four feet from his mother Libby, his tiny hands pressed flat against the warm stone, his face crumpled in distress. He wasn’t hurt. He wasn’t in danger. He simply wanted her close, and she had moved just far enough away that the distance felt enormous to him.
Libby groomed herself slowly. She glanced once in his direction, then looked back at the tree line. Leo cried again. And again. Each time, you could hear the effort in it — that particular frequency that infant monkeys use when they’re not alarmed, but genuinely unsettled. Lonely, maybe. Confused about why she wasn’t coming.
What struck me wasn’t the sound itself but what came between each cry: a long pause where Leo watched her, still and patient, waiting to see if this time would be different. It reminded me of something deeply familiar — that particular childhood feeling of wanting to be seen and wondering if you will be.
Eventually, after several minutes, Libby shifted her weight and moved three slow steps closer. She didn’t touch him. She didn’t groom him or pull him in. But she was nearer, and that seemed to be enough. Leo’s cries softened to small chirps, then faded altogether. He pressed himself against her side and closed his eyes.
The forest settled back into its usual sounds. A temple bird called somewhere overhead. A group of tourists passed on the stone path below, unaware that something tender had just happened in the branches above them.
It’s easy to project onto these moments. But sitting there in the early light, it was hard not to feel that what Leo wanted — and what Libby eventually gave — was simply presence. Not rescue. Not explanation. Just the quiet reassurance of not being left alone.
