Epilogue
I am on my way back from India, bereft at having had to say goodbye to Preeti at the airport. She is going back to Lamu, but
we have spent the past ten days together, visiting the three schools that have already been established by our joint foundation,
overseeing the five schools that are in the process of being built.
Nasreen’s charity has folded into ours, and, in what feels like a life come full circle, Nasreen is now in charge of the charity
in India, finding sites for the schools, bringing the women from the more remote villages to the crafts centers to show them
an alternative life that will help them provide for their families in ways that were previously unimaginable.
Nasreen didn’t tell me what was in store when we went to visit the first school on this trip. We pulled up in Nasreen’s car
(I bought her a new one that has all its parts firmly attached) to a low stone building containing three classrooms, next
to a playground with a wooden slide and climbing frame. Nasreen explained, this was the lower school, and the high school,
which we would visit later that afternoon, was bigger and far better equipped.
In the classroom a group of young boys and girls sitting at low tables were listening to their teacher explain something on a large chalkboard.
The walls were painted with an underwater mural filled with turtles, fish, and dolphins.
It was bright and cheerful, in contrast to the muted grays, blacks, and whites of the children’s clothes.
“This is our cheaper alternative to a uniform,” explained Nasreen. “We give the children a limited palette of colors from
which to choose so no one is distracted by the clothes.”
The children immediately turned to us, unused as they are to visitors. Nasreen explained who we were to the teacher, who then
told the children. They all put their hands together to clap for us, thanking us for their school.
One of the girls put her hand up, wriggling uncontrollably in her seat. She kept looking at us, then back at the teacher,
desperate to have permission to speak. Eventually, the teacher nodded.
The little girl hopped off her chair and walked over. I recognized her instantly. It was Ananya, in a crisp white dress, and
a long shell necklace.
“They don’t allow jewelry,” Nasreen whispered to me, “but they allow Ananya to wear the necklace because it’s from one of
our founders. She never takes it off.”
Ananya took me by the hand and led me over to her desk, smiling broadly. I noticed there were gaps where two of her baby teeth
had fallen out since I last saw her. She lifted the lid and showed me her notebooks, her pens, and her pink plastic ruler,
of which she seemed particularly proud. She showed me artwork, insisting I take a large pile of drawings. They were of a smiling
woman with brown hair.
“She says it’s you,” said Nasreen with a smile. “She has been waiting for you to come back and visit so she can give them
to you.”
I take the jet back to SFO, and this time, I sleep. I am CEO again, but this time I feel grounded. I’m surrounded by extraordinary people at ipryy, with Jerome as my COO, and friend.
When I wake up, we are minutes from landing. A car is waiting to take me home, but my mother texts me asking if I can come
over. She has good news.
I am guessing Gary has proposed. She’s still dating him, and is happier than I have ever seen her. I pull up outside her house,
a pretty arts and crafts cottage in Berkeley that I bought for her six months ago. I wanted to buy her something bigger, but
she didn’t want anything bigger, wanted a house that was manageable, that had a small garden with a large terrace; a house
that would be just big enough for her, Gary, and his rescue mutt, Kevin.
My mother opens the door as I am climbing out of the back of the car. I can see, even from the street, that she is excited.
She cannot stop smiling, and as I walk up the wide stone path, I find my eyes darting to the finger of her left hand, expecting
to see a small diamond glittering there. Surely she is now engaged, but her finger is bare.
“What’s the good news?” I ask.
She leads me inside, and hands me a stapled sheaf of papers from the kitchen counter. It is a book contract. I look at my
mother with a frown, a feeling of dread starting to wash over me. “What book? What is this for?”
My mother was defined for so long by her marriage to Marty Cooke, I have always been convinced, and terrified, she would one
day write a memoir. Who knew Marty Cooke’s early years better than my mother? Who has carried more anger and resentment through
the years, than my mother?
“I wrote a novel,” she says, a smile stretching from ear to ear. “And I got an agent, and the novel was accepted.”
“What kind of a novel?” I ask, knowing it must be a thinly disguised roman à clef.
“Historical fiction,” she says. “I became obsessed with the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. I’ve written a fictitious story
of what happened after she disappeared.”
I fling my arms around my mother, truly delighted, shaking with relief that it has nothing to do with my father. It seems
I am not the only one learning to stand on my own two feet.
In the glass Spider, I stop every few steps to hug someone hello, to be hugged, to have someone stop and congratulate me.
I help myself to coffee from the machine just outside my office, the office that used to be my father’s. My assistant leaves
a large file on my desk every morning, bringing me up to speed with everything I need for that day. I take it outside to the
terrace, and look out across the hills, then down to the parking lot, where my father’s Indian Woodsman motorcycle sits. I
ride it to the office every day, and every time I tear through the hills, leaning in to let gravity take over without a hint
of fear, I think of my father, and how proud he would be.
The coffee is scalding hot, and I set it on the balcony as I take a quick scroll through my phone. I still have one piece
of unfinished business. I try not to think of him often, but he pops into my head at the most unexpected of times, times like
today. He said to get in touch if ever I needed him, that he would always be there for me. Need is not the same as want, I think, as I pull up Noah’s contact information. I smile to myself, as I think about what to text.
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