Quiet in Her Bones, page 7
Professional success or not, the Amazonian Cora of my childhood was now . . . diminished. She still had the cheekbones and the height, her hair as dazzlingly white-blonde as always, but gone was the muscle and the intensity. “And you don’t exactly hide your sessions with Adrian,” I added.
Alice stared at me, her eyes piercing. “Why should I hide getting exercise?” A raised eyebrow. “You know he used to give personal sessions to your mother, too, right?”
She was tougher than she looked—but I had more cards up my sleeve. “I ran into him coming out from her room once. Freshly showered.”
She snorted with laughter, her cheeks glowing. “Did you give a shit then?”
“You know my father. At least Adrian left her smiling.” Weirdly, that wasn’t a lie. No wonder Dr. Jitrnicka thought Paige had been right about my “issues” when it came to relationships; I hadn’t exactly had healthy role models.
“Well, Adrian isn’t making me happy that way—I just get high off exercise.” Expression set in mildly amused lines, she poured the coffee into two mugs. “Milk? Sugar?”
“Neither.”
After handing me my cup, she doctored hers with milk and one teaspoon of fake sugar, then leaned back against the counter opposite where I sat. “You know, it makes me sad that you’re so cynical at such a young age. Cora and I are very happy.”
I thought of how I’d sat in this very room with my mother and helped Cora and Alice make up signs that demanded marriage equality. Both were major names in the LGBTQ community. With the added twist that Alice was from the conservative Pasifika community. She was as much a symbol as a person.
Divorce wouldn’t be a good look. Neither would any hint of trouble in paradise.
“Sorry,” I said, accepting that Alice wasn’t about to budge on this point. “I guess I have my issues.”
Alice blew on her coffee. “Don’t we all? Manaia’s gotten into this habit of saying ‘Do you need tissues for your issues’? I have no idea where she picked it up from, but if only we could fix all our wounds with tissues.” Her shoulder rose, her face half-hidden behind the coffee cup she’d lifted to her mouth and her lashes lowered to screen her eyes.
A second later, she put down her mug, and spoke in fluent Samoan to someone behind me. I’d heard the movement, knew Grandma Elei had come down the stairs. Now, I watched as she went around to hug her daughter.
Elei Savea’s hair was a small puff of steel gray she’d pulled back into a bun. She wore a shapeless ankle-length blue dress in a fabric printed with yellow hibiscus flowers. The kind of thing a woman might wear on a tropical island far from this land of forests that were much colder and darker and wetter than the waving palms of her homeland.
Alice said something to her mother before she moved toward the coffeepot, then reached for another mug and poured out a coffee, smiling all the while. “Aarav, have you met my mother, Elei?”
I heard my name again as she introduced me to her mother in their native tongue.
The older woman, her eyes sharp black dots in a dark brown face, took me in before speaking to Alice, while pointing at me.
“She’s asking about your leg—she saw you arrive home all banged up a month ago. Shanti told us you were in a car accident.”
I wondered what else Grandma Elei had seen over the years. She’d lived here a long time. “Yeah,” I said with a frown, because I couldn’t remember the car I’d been driving.
It hadn’t been the Porsche. I’d have remembered if it had been the Porsche.
Transcript
Session #3
“How are you feeling?”
“Fine.”
“We’ve spoken about this.”
[No answer]
“I’m happy to sit here in silence—after all, you’re paying me a rather exorbitant amount. But I can’t help you if you refuse to let me in.”
“Does that line work a lot?”
“You’d be surprised.”
“I’m . . . It’s the anniversary. Today’s the day she . . .”
“Ah.”
“It shouldn’t matter any longer. She shouldn’t matter any longer.”
12
Single vehicle accident, right?” Alice’s voice broke into my thoughts.
I nodded. “Skidded on a wet road, right into a massive pōhutukawa tree.” I had no memories of the accident itself, which wasn’t that uncommon, and didn’t concern me as much as the blank spot that should’ve held the details of the car. Because that info should be in my long-term memory . . . unless I’d been driving an unfamiliar car that day. “I was on my way home from a publishing party. Anyway, leg’s on the way to healing.”
Alice shared that with her mother, who asked another question. Alice answered that, too. Grandma Elei was actually smiling at me as she left the room, leaving the scent of a very expensive perfume in her wake. I wondered if Elei allowed Shanti to believe her home situation was far worse than the reality, just so Shanti would feel comfortable with her. Then again, my father gave Shanti expensive gifts, too. It was for show, didn’t mean she was valued.
“Mum’s impressed you write books,” Alice explained. “She said you must be very clever.” Creases in her cheeks. “I enjoyed Blood Sacrifice, but did you have to kill off the brother? He was a hottie and struck serious sparks with the investigator.”
It wasn’t the first time I’d been asked that question. Even lovers of murder had a well-concealed romantic bone or two. Probably buried in the basement under two feet of concrete. “All must be sacrificed for the plot.” I drank a quarter of the coffee. “So your mum doesn’t speak any English?”
“She speaks a lot more than she lets on. I think she just likes being able to blank people.” A grin. “I’m taking her to her local Samoan Ladies’ Chess Meet in an hour.”
“No work?”
“Night off.” She looked at me over her mug. “My mother also said she saw a police officer and a man in a suit at your door this morning. Everything all right?”
I could see Elei’s room from my balcony, but hadn’t realized she could see down into our front yard. “They found my mother’s Jaguar in the bush not far from here—with her inside.”
A loud smash of sound, pieces of crockery and coffee flying everywhere. Alice stared at me, ignoring the stains on her designer workout gear. “Aarav, no.” Both hands flew to her mouth, her nails short but painted a hot pink.
“I wish it wasn’t true, but it is.” I took in the coffee dripping off her cupboards, the frozen way she stood, and wondered. “You were good friends with my mother, weren’t you?” The third in the triad. Diana and Nina first, with younger, more gauche Alice adopted in later. The junior party to their years of experience.
“I’d say it was more she took me under her wing.” Looking around, she groaned. “This’ll take forever to clean up.” She got busy picking up the shards, while using copious amounts of paper towels to wipe up the mess.
Her Lycra-covered butt waved in my line of sight as she worked and I was certain it was deliberate, an attempt to distract. Unlike with Diana, Alice had never seen me as a child. I’d already been a tall and strong thirteen when she and her family moved into the Cul-de-Sac.
But I was beyond distractions.
I’d been on the verge of asking if I could talk to Elei, find out what she’d seen that rainy night so long ago, but I was no longer sure I wanted Alice in the room when I asked the question. Not that Elei was likely to give me anything if she’d kept quiet all these years, but I had to ask.
Shanti. I’d use Shanti to get to her.
I’d use anyone and everyone to uncover the reason why my mother was nothing but decaying bones.
* * *
—
My father’s black BMW was missing by the time I returned home, but Shanti’s white Audi sat in the drive next to my rental. She never put it in the garage herself; she was scared of scratching the expensive car. Given her way, she’d probably have chosen a cheap runabout, but Ishaan Rai had an image to uphold.
Some would say he’d given her freedom by supporting her in her quest to get a license, but they didn’t see how Shanti sat hunched in the driver’s seat, her hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel. I’d never known her to go anywhere but to the local shops, or to the school to drop off or pick up my half sister. If my father actually cared about her, he’d have hired a driver—it wasn’t as if he couldn’t afford it.
“Shanti,” I said, after tracking her down in the kitchen, where she was turning off the stove. “You want me to pick up Pari?”
Her face lit up as it did every time I made the offer. “Oh, Aarav, do you mind?”
“Of course not. Should I go now?”
“Yes, their bus should be back from the trip by the time you arrive.”
“Traffic’ll be heavy coming back, so don’t expect us early.”
Shanti gave me a secretive smile. “I understand.”
I smiled back, both of us aware that I’d be taking my half sister out for doughnuts or ice cream on the way back. Just before I left, I said, “Where’s Dad? Meeting?”
“He had a phone call and he left. He didn’t sound happy.”
Nothing new for my father there, I thought as I walked out to the sedan. After settling myself into the vehicle, I headed out. Leonid and Anastasia were at the bottom of their drive—situated right before the gates—talking with Leonid’s brother. My father called the family the Russian Mafia.
Given Leonid’s interesting tattoos and the people who dropped by his place, my father might be right. Or, since Leonid had a fair dinkum Aussie accent and one of his visitors had been a face I recognized as a major Australian mogul, he could just be a smart businessman who enjoyed ink and had interesting friends. Personally, I liked the way the thirty-something-year-old put his twins in a stroller and took them for daily walks.
More importantly for me, the family were recent transplants to the Cul-de-Sac, having purchased their property from the estate of old Mr. Jenks only three years prior. Mr. Jenks had been eighty-seven at the time of my mother’s disappearance, and frail even then.
Today, none of the three raised their hands in hello, too deep into an intense conversation. Maybe I’d throw reality and logic to the side, and write a short story about a Mafia family forced to relocate to suburban New Zealand who end up killing the hit man sent after them. They then have to hide his body before their neighbors arrive for a barbeque.
Done right, it’d be pure black comedy gold . . . and fuck! I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath until I passed the spot where my mother had lain buried for ten long years. Only a lone police vehicle remained, the road open to traffic.
I didn’t slow as I passed.
I had to think. I had to remember.
It’d been raining that night, such a heavy rain. Lightning had cracked the sky as she drove away. I’d screamed out her name, but the wind had snatched it away. She was already gone anyway, red taillights in the dark.
No cigar smoke.
It was a sudden flash of knowledge.
My father liked to blow off steam by having a cigar and his favorite spot was out in front of the house. He’d sit in his favorite outdoor chair and watch what little of the main Cul-de-Sac drive was visible from that spot. I hadn’t smelled his cigar that night. Even though I’d heard the front door close twice.
It was possible the rain might’ve masked the smell, but I didn’t think so. Those things were pungent.
My hands clenched on the steering wheel so hard my knuckles showed white against skin. The rug. I couldn’t forget the missing rug. He’d been so proud of that handmade rug, having bought it on his first trip to India as an adult. “Pure silk, boy. One of a kind.” Then, suddenly, it was gone and we never talked about it.
I turned into the street that housed Pari’s private girls school. Cars lined both sides. Knowing the crush that awaited me if I got any nearer the school gates, I parked a little ways back, then got out with my cane.
Sleeping for so many hours, then sitting in Alice’s kitchen, had given my leg enough of a rest that I didn’t have any major problem making my way to the heavy iron gates. It still didn’t feel great to put my weight on it, but the doc had said I had to start trying, so I got on with it. No way in hell did I want to be stuck in my father’s house forever. Dr. Binchy had been adamant he wouldn’t release me from hospital if I was going to be living alone.
I frowned.
Why would Dr. Binchy make that demand when I was fully capable? A broken foot was hardly the injury of the century.
“Bhaiya!” The high-pitched voice cut through my thoughts, a small skinny girl running toward me. My little sister always addressed me by the Hindi word for brother. She was also one of the very few people in the world I truly liked.
I intended to settle a bunch of money on her when she turned eighteen, so she could travel or study as she liked. She was also the main beneficiary in the will my lawyer had made me draw up after my influx of cash.
The money would ensure Pari never had to bargain for her freedom.
I held up a hand so she could high-five it. Afterward, as we drove to the doughnut shop, she regaled me with tales of her day exploring the iconic cone-shaped peak of Rangitoto, the dormant volcano that sat, a majestic and quiet threat, in the Hauraki Gulf. And for a while, I forgot about bones, about a missing rug, and about why Dr. Binchy wouldn’t discharge me without reassurance that I wouldn’t be alone.
13
We ate the warm doughnuts sitting in a small park—it was edging to winter-dark even though it wasn’t yet six, but hadn’t quite crossed the line. Mothers with young children smiled at us as they gathered their offspring from the playground equipment in preparation for heading home. Having Pari with me didn’t make me immune from suspicious stares—but having Pari plus a bum leg worked wonders. A couple of the younger mothers even recognized us from previous visits and waved.
I waved back with a cheek-creasing smile.
“Honey is never wasted, Ari.” My mother, pouting in the mirror as she put on her scarlet lipstick, the color a perfect match to the fluttery red dress that she was wearing for brunch out with Diana . . . and Alice. “Your father snarls at everyone, and while people are polite to his face, they’ll stab him in the back at the first opportunity. Respect is one thing. Being liked and respected, that’s true power. People will do anything for you if they like you.”
Alice had been twelve years my mother’s junior. Diana, in comparison, had been thirty-seven to my mother’s forty-one when my mother disappeared. Far closer to her in age and experience. The only major difference was that my mother’d had me when she was twenty-five, while Diana had waited till thirty to start her family, but even the divide in the ages of their children hadn’t stood in the way of their friendship.
The two of them had been bonded by indestructible glue by the time Alice came along.
No wonder I’d all but forgotten that Alice had occasionally been invited to their girly dates. All of them in pretty dresses, off to champagne brunches, or to get their nails done. All three of them in my mother’s Jaguar.
“What’s wrong?”
I looked down at my sister. The big brown eyes she’d inherited from her mother almost overwhelmed her narrow face, her skin a warm shade of deep brown, and her hair a rich black Shanti had woven into two neat braids on either side of her head. She’d tied them off with ribbons that matched Pari’s school uniform.
My sister was young enough that the whole discovery of a body might fly over her head, but then again, she had more empathy in her small body than I’d ever develop, so who knew. I’d leave it up to Shanti to decide what to tell her. “My leg,” I said. “It hurts sometimes, but the doc says I have to start trying to use it.”
A smile dusted with sugar. “Your head got better. Your leg will, too.” Then she jumped off the wooden seat and asked if she could play on the swings for a while before we went home.
I nodded, but I was thinking about the migraine from earlier today. Whiplash could be a bastard. Which reminded me.
Taking out my phone, I called Dr. Binchy’s office and left a voice mail requesting more of the migraine medication. I needed to think clearly with my mother’s bones finally out in the open. I couldn’t afford to go down with a splitting head. Shoving my hair back from my forehead afterward, I found my fingers brushing over a ridge of scar tissue.
I pressed, probed.
It was from when I’d fallen off my motorcycle during my aborted attempt at a university degree, but it felt thicker and weirdly sensitive. I took away my hand before I irritated it any more. Had to be all the medication they’d pumped into me directly after the accident—and the shit I was taking now. I couldn’t remember anything about the first few days following the crash but I knew they’d put me into a medically induced coma.
Probably because a branch—that was it, a branch—had punched through my chest.
Funnily enough, that grisly wound had mended far faster than my foot. No damage to the heart, though the lungs weren’t quite at full capacity. Right now, however, my most important organ was my brain.
Ten years was a long time, but it wasn’t long enough for the truth to disappear forever.
* * *
—
Once home, I left Pari talking a mile a minute to her mum and walked upstairs to my suite. With every step I took came the acceptance that no matter the depth of my loathing for my father, I’d never been able to cut ties with him. Part of me had always been waiting for a moment of revelation, an explanation of that scream, though neither one of us had ever brought it up.
