Chapter Twenty-Five
Twenty-five
The scenery rushes by in a blur as I speed toward the agency. Fiona’s black Lincoln is behind me, keeping pace. Hitting a red light, I reluctantly press the brakes. I anxiously tap my fingers against the steering wheel. Logan’s words won’t stop ringing in my ears: My money’s on the fact that it’s someone close to you.
He’s wrong. He has to be. It can’t be true. There’s no way it is.
But it doesn’t hurt to rule everything out, does it?
While the light shines red above, I grab my phone from the passenger seat and text Amara.
Any chance I can take you up on the contact information for an independent investigator?
Her response comes immediately: Check your inbox in five—will send you a PDF with our vetted options.
I push away the guilt curdling inside me. I’m only doing this to clear things up for myself. This way I can put Logan’s pushy presumptions out of my mind once and for all. I’ll have proof positive nothing is amiss.
My phone buzzes as the light turns green. It’s Nina: Can you come over when you have time? Mom’s okay now. But swing by when you can.
My heart flutters. I make a sharp U-turn and head down the street toward Khala’s home. Nina said she’s okay now . Which means she wasn’t okay before.
I check my smartwatch and push down the lump rising in my throat—this gadget is basically useless now that I don’t have my phone on me, but I still wear it every day, checking my steps each evening. I haven’t seen Khala since I was at the hospital. We’ve not had a real conversation in ages. I keep meaning to, but I haven’t been ready. I figured we’d unpack everything later when life was less fraught, except we don’t always get to choose our timing, do we? Sometimes life swoops in and makes our choices for us. Sometimes we can push things off for so long that the perfect moment doesn’t arrive, and it’s too late. The knot of resentment that I’ve been carrying loosens. Now all I feel are the pinpricks of tears behind my eyes.
Even if Khala is all right today, I’m going to get more and more messages like these as the years go by. Dr. Pang said that her memory won’t go out all at once, like a light turning off, but more like a flicker—bits at a time—until things eventually accelerate. What if the first memories that flicker for Khala are the ones of me?
I pull into the driveway. Fiona and I walk up the steps to Khala’s front door. All I have to do is turn my key into the lock and step inside, but I’m frozen at the prospect. Afraid of what awaits me on the other side.
Summoning up my nerve, I knock on the door. I hear small footsteps, and then the door swings open.
“Auntie!” Lilah exclaims. She gives me a hug.
“Hey, you!” I kneel down to give her a hug and push away the image of her on the front porch last time I was here.
“Who’s that?” She peers over my shoulder.
“That’s Fiona.” I point to her. “She’s helping me out.”
The security guard pulls off her sunglasses and gives Lilah a wave, her otherwise businesslike expression switching seamlessly to perky kindergarten teacher.
“Guess what? I got a stuffed Eevee! Want to see it? It’s as big as me!” Lilah tells me excitedly about the newest addition to her Pokémon collection. “Mama got it for me because I know all my sight words.”
“That’s great! I would’ve thought you’d pick Charmander.”
“They were all sold out.” Her expression falls. “Mama says we’ll check again next time.”
“Where is your mom?” I ask her.
“On the phone with the doctor.” Lilah points to the stairs leading to the second floor. “Nani’s in bed because she broke her leg.”
“She what?!”
I rush toward my aunt’s bedroom. Khala is indeed in bed. A black boot encases her right foot and runs up to her knee. I hurry to her side.
“Nura.” She turns off the television. Her eyes light up. The joy is so clear on her face it makes me ache.
“How did this happen?”
“This?” she chuckles. “It looks far more serious than it is. I tripped walking to the kitchen last night. Wish it was a more dramatic story. I thought it was a sprained ankle, but turns out it’s a light fracture. I will be back to normal in no time.”
“You should have told me right away.”
Though we both know why she didn’t. She’s downplaying her pain. Her frustration. Because this is her way. To try to make the path easier for me. To ensure the motherless girl who showed up unexpectedly at her doorstep all those years ago doesn’t have to take on any more heartaches than she’s already endured. This is all she’s ever tried to do—make things easier for me. Raising her young niece had never been in the plan. She was an empty nester at last, her daughter grown and off to college, when I arrived. But she’d never made me feel like a burden. She only showed me love.
“Nina is making a big fuss, but I am all right. Really,” she insists. “Tell me, though, how are you ?”
“I’m…” I want to tell her I’m okay. The need to say it is overwhelming. But—Khala was at my bedside when the cops questioned me. She more than handled it. She didn’t fall apart. And what affects me affects them too. I need to let my family know what’s happening. Even if I’d feel better if they didn’t. No more secrets.
“Things aren’t great,” I tell her.
The door creaks. Nina pokes her head in.
“Mom, I’m going to head to the—Oh.” She pauses when she sees me. “Nura. Hey. I’ll leave you two to talk.”
“Stay,” I tell her. “There’s news I need to tell you both.”
She sits at the edge of Khala’s bed. They watch me expectantly.
With a deep breath I dive in. I tell them everything. I hold nothing back. When I finish, they watch me with haunted expressions.
“I’ve got round-the-clock security,” I tell them. “Fiona’s outside right now. I’m safe. But I’m going to look into getting coverage for all of you, just in case.”
Khala still doesn’t speak. Maybe honesty was not warranted in this instance. If her stress levels shoot up—
“It sounds as though you are doing everything right,” Khala says. “You have security cameras at home as well as the office. Your team is monitoring everything. Let’s pray we find the person behind this as soon as possible.”
“Ameen,” says Nina.
I look into Khala’s warm eyes. I think of the words she said to me as a child when I was lost in my grief: Be present. Be here. Be with me. I squeeze her hands. All those years ago, she was teaching me how to savor this temporary time with her. It hits me as though anew: I am going to lose her. Whether through her degenerative condition or the passage of time. No matter how much I want to, there are some things I can’t fix. But while she’s here, I’ll try to not only be there for her, but be with her too. And maybe, at least for now, she can handle more than I’ve given her credit for. Secrets never strengthen, they only calcify.
When I step back into the foyer, Nina follows me.
“When will she get out of the boot?” I ask her.
“She can’t bear any weight on it for at least eight weeks,” she says. “Then there’s some fun physical therapy to follow.”
“I wish I’d known.”
“It was a long morning at the ER, there was nothing you could’ve done, but you’re right, I should have told you right away. I just didn’t want you to think I was expecting you to drop everything. You have every right to be angry after everything that happened.”
“Nina.” I quell my familiar frustration. “I want you to expect things from me. I would drop everything for her because I want to. She’s your mother, but she’s also important to me. Yes, I know I was upset, but that doesn’t change that we’re family.”
“I know,” she says. “You’re right.”
“She really fell right here in the house?”
“Tripped over the rug on her way to get water,” Nina says. “I was asleep, and she didn’t even call out. I found her in the morning. She’s got a spiral fibula fracture. The bone is broken in three different spots.”
Lightly fractured. Right. “We should get her one of those buttons you can press if you’re in danger.”
“The ‘help, I’ve fallen and can’t get up’ thing?” She grins. “I think she’d rather fall and stay on the floor.”
“We’ll have to get it attached to her against her will, then.”
“Have you met my mother?”
“We can be persuasive if we set our minds to it.”
“You mean gang up on her? I like the sound of that.”
“Yeah.” I smile a little.
We look at Lilah coloring at the coffee table. “I’ll look into an after-school helper,” I tell Nina. “Things got sidetracked at work, but I’ll get on that ASAP. You’re going to need support.”
“I’ve been making it work.”
I hesitate, remembering the last time I made this offer, but say it anyway. “I can watch her too. I want to be a bigger part of Lilah’s life.”
“Careful what you offer,” she warns. “You free tomorrow?”
“I can be. We assemble a mean puzzle together.”
Her smile falters.
“Wait, is there really something going on tomorrow?”
“It’s no big deal.” She shrugs. “I have a networking event at the High Museum. The executive director invited me to attend. There’s a vacant part-time docent position. Not as exciting as curating a collection, but it means more time with Lilah and looking after Khala. Mom was initially going to watch her, but…”
“In what world is this a networking event? This is a job interview. Yours for the taking, I bet.”
“I don’t know about all that,” she says. “I doubt Portland will even recommend me given how abruptly I bailed.”
“Those were extenuating circumstances. I’ll be here to watch Lilah. I’d be happy to. Azar and I can tag-team it.”
“If we’re finally being real with each other—Azar and you? Total mystery.”
“Well,” I reply. “Maybe not so mysterious anymore?”
“Do you mean what I think you mean?” She breaks into a grin. “About fucking time.” Her smile wavers. She looks at her hands. “I’m sorry, Nura. For everything. For how you found out about the past. That wasn’t right. I’ve been on her to tell you for years.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I should have,” she says. “It’s crossed my mind a million times. How do you break something like that to someone, though? How do you upend someone’s life? I didn’t want to be the one responsible for saying what can’t be unsaid. Doesn’t make it okay. I’m sorry. And even sorrier you found out the way you did.”
“It explains why you were so against the work we do.”
“I was angry for many years about how everything unfolded, how she slipped right back into a job that caused our family so much trauma.”
“All this time, I thought the reason for your digs at our work—at me—was that you were jealous,” I tell her. “I’m feeling pretty stupid right around now.”
She regards me silently, then says, “You weren’t wrong. I have been jealous. When I was growing up, Mom was getting the agency off the ground. We didn’t even move into this house until I was a junior in high school. You and I had different childhoods. We were raised by different women. I resented the job; I hated how much it took her away from me. Now that I’m a mom, I get it. The choices she had to make weren’t simple. In the early years, my mom was carrying all of us alone. I didn’t love it, but now I get that she did what she needed to do to keep us afloat. She was doing her best. I’m happy for you, Nura. I’m glad you got the best of her. And somehow you can manage to spend five minutes with her without wanting to strangle her. Who wouldn’t be jealous?”
“I want to be more involved. With Lilah, with everything going on around here,” I tell her. “I know I messed up last time you leaned on me, but I can do better.”
“It wasn’t your fault. Lilah’s bullheaded.”
“Don’t know where she gets that from.” I raise an eyebrow, and Nina laughs.
“I’ll watch her tomorrow,” I tell her. “Thanks for trusting me.”
I think of my conversation with Logan. His emails. His insistence that he wants to help. It’s possible he’s pulling one over on me. But I can go into a conversation with him with my eyes wide open. Maybe he can help me figure out what is going on. I certainly can’t fix this on my own. Maybe he gets the story of his life, and maybe I can finally find out who is after me.