Chapter Forty #2
“I’m not saying she did, but I didn’t know you. I had no idea how you’d react. When I realized your daughter hadn’t said anything to you about seeing her father on the night he died, I decided to keep quiet. I thought she had a valid reason for not saying anything.”
“It was wrong of you to keep the truth from me.” My voice trembled with emotion. “When I think of the guilt she’s had to bear all of these months—” My voice caught. “There’s no telling what kind of emotional damage has been done to her.”
Lizzie’s lower lip quivered. “I’m sorry if I made the wrong decision.
I’ve lived in fear of people learning the truth about how Daddy died for so long that I’ve become such a guarded person.
I paid for that with my marriage.” She exhaled long and loud.
“A habit that develops over the course of almost three decades is not easy to break.”
Emotion roiled inside my chest. If only Ali had never met Lizzie or her family.
The decades-old secret they forced him to keep had not only rotted through my husband’s life but crossed generations and damaged our daughter.
I no longer cared about Lizzie, her mother, or her brother, or what their true motivations were.
My daughter needed me. And I wasn’t going to let her down.
Ayla stayed home for a couple of days. I spent that time encouraging her to open up and, in true Arab-mother style, cooking her favorite foods. Binti rarely left her side, and Ayla seemed comforted to have the dog nearby. To my relief, the more time we spent together, the more Ayla opened up to me.
She told me she was only sleeping three or four hours a night and the constant fatigue made it difficult to focus on school. She also felt anxious most of the time. Hearing what she’d been going through gutted me. Why hadn’t I done more earlier? I’d known my daughter was suffering.
“Mom, you were dealing with your own stuff,” Ayla reminded me as she ate some rolled grape leaves stuffed with rice and lamb that I made for her. Binti, ever hopeful of being treated to some scraps, sat alertly by Ayla’s chair. “Not just Dad’s accident but then everything with the secret house.”
I added a few more rolls to her plate. “Thank you for letting me off the hook, but one of a mother’s primary roles is to protect her children from harm, and I’ve done a lousy job of that.”
“We’re pretty much grown up,” she reminded me. “You can’t protect us forever.”
“Maybe, but I’ll never stop trying.”
She put her plate aside. I was satisfied to see that she’d eaten reasonably well. “You still believe in Dad? That he didn’t cheat?”
“I do.” I told her about Lizzie and the stalker. “The main reason Dad helped Lizzie is because he was there when Lizzie’s father died and that bonded them.”
Her eyes rounded. “What?”
I chose my words carefully, explaining how Lizzie’s father had tripped and hit his head on the hearth, a death that was ruled accidental. Ayla probably needed to know at least part of the truth in order to begin healing her emotional wounds.
“So,” I said after sharing a sanitized version of events, “that’s why Dad helped Lizzie out when she told him she was being stalked, because of what they’d been through together as teenagers.”
“But why keep it a secret from you?”
“Lizzie was afraid that I might blab and that the stalker would somehow find her. She wanted as few people as possible to know about the house.”
She set her mouth. “Dad still should have told you.”
“I agree. According to Lizzie, he intended to share everything with me right before he died. That’s why he saw her that night.” I checked my phone. “Come on. It’s time to go or we’ll be late for your appointment.”
Part of ensuring that Ayla was healthy both physically and emotionally involved scheduling time with a grief counselor and our primary care doctor. The first appointment was with Dr. Macias, our family doctor, who’d treated all of us for years. She examined Ayla and spoke to her about her issues.
“You’ve been through a lot,” Dr. Macias said near the end of the appointment. “I’m going to prescribe an antianxiety medicine.”
“OK,” Ayla said.
“How long will she have to take it?” I asked, not knowing anything about medicines used to treat anxiety. “Is it addictive?”
“This is only for the short term,” Dr. Macias reassured us both. “Right now, Ayla is dealing with the aftereffects of trauma and grief. When she is feeling especially anxious or overwhelmed, taking alprazolam will help take the edge off.”
“That sounds good,” Ayla said abruptly. “I’ll take it.”
“Are you sure?” I asked her.
She gave a firm nod. “Yes.”
I had my own misgivings, but I needed to let Ayla do what she thought was best for her.
On the way home, we stopped to pick up the prescription at the grocery store pharmacy. We waited in a short line until it was our turn, and the clerk punched Ayla’s name and date of birth into the computer.
The clerk stared at the screen. “It says here that the pharmacist would like to speak with you.”
“Why?” I asked. “Is there a problem? Did the doctor’s office not call in the prescription?”
“No, that’s not it. We have the order.”
“Miss Abadi?” Overhearing the conversation, the pharmacist, who was in the dispensing area on a raised platform behind the counter, gestured for us to meet her over at the consultation window.
“Who is this for?” she asked, looking between me and Ayla.
“It’s for me,” Ayla said. “This is my mom.”
“We do have your prescription, which is for the generic form of this medication. But I won’t have generic until the day after tomorrow.” She handed a bottle over to Ayla. “So I’m giving you a few tablets of the brand name until then.”
“And it’s the exact same thing?” I asked.
She nodded. “Yes, it contains the same active ingredient.”
“Can I see?” I asked, and Ayla promptly handed the medicine over. I examined the three light-blue oval-shaped pills inside and read the label. “This says these are Xanax?”
“Really?” Ayla said. We exchanged a surprised glance. We were both thinking of Ali.
“Yes,” the pharmacist said. “Your doctor prescribed alprazolam, which is the active ingredient in Xanax. It’s the same thing. It’s just that one is generic and the other is name brand. I’ll have the generic by the day after tomorrow.”
Despite an uneasy feeling, we thanked her and walked out to the van.
“It’s weird to be taking Xanax after what happened to Dad,” Ayla said. “Do you think he took antianxiety meds without telling you?”
“I really don’t know.” I supposed it was possible now that I knew how stressed and guilt ridden Ali must have been. But something still felt off. It was like having a word on the tip of my tongue, just beyond my grasp.
“My friend Rachel from college is coming over when we get home,” Ayla said once we were back in the van heading home. “She came down because she had a scheduled dental appointment. We’ll probably order in dinner.”
“Are you sure you feel up to it?”
“Yes, it’ll be a nice distraction.”
“OK. I’ll try to stay out of your way.”
She groaned. “Go out, Mom. I’m OK. Or at least on my way to being OK. You’ve been home with me twenty-four seven. Get out of the house.”
“Fine.” I mock pouted. “I know when I’m not wanted.”
She smiled at me. “Helicopter Mom needs to take some time off from hovering or else she’ll run out of gas.”
“If you insist.” Seeing that Ayla needed a little space and would be occupied for the next couple of hours, I made a decision. “I’ll let you off at home, and then I’ll go out for a little while.”
“Hey, stranger.” Claudia was out by her mailbox when we got home. I’d dropped Ayla and was pulling out of the driveway. “We’re due for another walk.”
I rolled down the window. “Ayla’s home for a few days, so I’ve been busy with her.”
“Isn’t it the middle of the semester? Or is she here to see your brother?”
“My brother? I don’t have a brother.”
“You don’t? I could have sworn the man I met in your backyard told me that he was your brother.”
I stilled. “You saw a man walking around my backyard? When?”
“He was in a suit, walking around kind of looking at the windows. I thought he was checking out security for you. Maybe he said he was your brother-in-law and I didn’t hear him right.”
I pulled out my phone and scrolled through my photos until I found a shot of Khalid. “Is this the man you saw?”
“No.” She shook her head. “That’s not him.”
Was it Nasser? He was the person who put in the security system to start with. I pulled up Nasser’s photo from his law firm website.
“Wow, he’s cute. I’d definitely remember him,” Claudia said as she inspected the photo. “No, it wasn’t him.”
A low hum of anxiety settled in. “Maybe there’s an innocent reason that man was in my yard. It’s just that I’ve been on edge since the break-ins—”
“Break-ins?” Claudia cut in. “As in plural? Did you have another break-in?”
I nodded. “Besides the guy who went through Ali’s office, someone broke into the garage, too, but my security cameras don’t have a view of the side of the garage.”
She paused. “Mine might.”
“Yours? Since when do you have security cameras?”
“Since you came home alone and found a man in your house. Matt said we shouldn’t take any chances. Do you want to come in and see if our cameras caught anything?”
I looked at the time on my phone, debating with myself. “I’ve really got to be somewhere. Can we do it tonight?”
“Sure,” Claudia said. “When did the second break-in happen? I can look up the date and have the footage ready for you when you get back.”
I gave her the date. “I’d appreciate that.”
She shook her head in confusion. “I really thought I saw you talking to the guy who said he was your brother.”
“You did?” I was perplexed. “When?”
“The other day when I was walking Buddy, you were out by your mailbox talking to the man. We waved at each other. Don’t you remember?”
It took me a minute to place the scene she referred to. But then it hit me. She saw me talking to Bill Warren when he came to explain why he’d pretended to be Fake Jake. “Are you sure it was the same man?”
“Pretty sure. Who is he?”
“Definitely not my brother or even a friend.”
Her eyebrows went up. “OK, then. I’ll check our security cameras to see if there’s a picture of him.”
“That would be great. Thank you.” I pulled out of my driveway and set the GPS to my destination.
Normally I would have jumped at the chance to see Claudia’s footage to confirm Bill Warren had been sneaking around my backyard so I could call the detectives. But nothing felt more critical than the mission I was on.