Behold the Dreamers(87)
“It’s my friend’s idea. Only, I don’t know if it is right or wrong.”
“Oh, I think we’re way past the point of right and wrong,” Natasha said, chuckling.
“Someone I know used to say that to me a lot.”
“Rumi.”
“Who?”
“Jalaluddin Rumi, the Sufi mystic. He’s the one who said, ‘Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.’ Which was his own way of saying, ‘Let’s not dwell too much on labeling things as right or wrong.’”
“But everything in life is either right or wrong.”
“Is it?”
“It’s not?”
“Why would you want to divorce your husband and risk your marriage for papers, Neni? Why? Is America that important to you? Is it more important to you than your family?”
Neni lowered her eyes and stared at the floor. She could hear pedestrians on Thompson Street, chatting as they walked past Natasha’s office window.
“So much could go wrong with this plan,” Natasha said.
“That’s what I told my friend when she suggested it to me. Because I have another friend from work, and her sister did the same thing. She left her husband and children back in their country and came to America and married a Jamaican man for papers so she could bring her husband and children here. But when everything was finished, the Jamaican man refused to give her divorce unless she gave him more money. He wants fifty thousand dollars.”
“That’s awful.”
“Yes, because now she cannot go back to her country and marry her husband back and bring her family here. She’s over here and they are still over there and the woman is just praying that the Jamaican man will stop being so greedy because she really wants to be with her husband and children.”
“And knowing a story like this, you’re still willing to take the risk?”
“My friend’s cousin is a nice man.”
“Oh, I bet! And the Jamaican man is in all likelihood a wonderful man.”
“I just don’t know what to do,” Neni said.
“Sometimes the best thing to do is nothing.”
Neni feigned a smile. Doing nothing was not an option, but it wouldn’t be respectful to contradict Natasha. Besides, it was best she stopped talking about their papier situation lest she say something Jende wouldn’t want revealed. “The guy who used to talk to me about right and wrong,” she said, attempting to change the topic, “he has a little brother who hated doing nothing.”
“We don’t like doing nothing in this country.”
Neni and Natasha laughed together.
“I used to work for the boys’ family and I was always doing something with the younger one, but I liked it—he was very funny. One time I took him to a playdate with his friend and his friend’s mother offered him some food and he said, no thanks, he was not going to eat anything because he preferred to eat my food when we got home. He thought I was the best cook.”
“I bet he’s right,” Natasha said, to which Neni smiled.
That night, while Liomi was counting and tickling Timba’s toes, Neni sent Mighty an email. Within seconds a response came back:
Sorry, we were unable to deliver your message to the following address <[email protected]> This user doesn’t have a yahoo.com account ([email protected]) Below this line is a copy of the message.
* * *
Hi Mighty,
How are you? How is school?
I hope you are being a good boy and obeying your father and your mother. I heard your mother is not feeling very well. Remember what I told you that mothers are the most special things in the world so be nice to your mother.
Take care, Neni
Forty-five
CINDY ELIZA EDWARDS DIED ON A COLD AFTERNOON IN MARCH 2009, alone in her marital bed, five weeks after Neni Jonga walked out of her apartment. Her husband was in London, on a business trip, as she lay dying. Her firstborn son was in India, walking the Path to Enlightenment. Her younger son was at the Dalton School, being groomed to become a man like his father. Her father, whose identity neither she nor her mother ever knew, had been dead for two decades. Her mother, who she believed loved her too little, had been gone for four years. Her half-sister, completely out of her life since the death of their mother, was still in Falls Church, Virginia, living a life of material comfort better than the one they had lived together as children but far less comfortable than the one Cindy had been living in New York City. Her friends were all over Manhattan, shopping at Saks and Barneys, lunching and drinking fine wine, planning dinner parties and galas, attending meetings for charities, looking forward to their next vacation to an exotic locale.
“But I don’t understand!” Neni said over and over as Winston recounted to her and Jende everything he knew based on the story Frank had told him that evening, a day after the passing.
Asphyxiation due to vomit, Frank had said, according to the medical examiner. High levels of opiate and alcohol had been found in her body, leading the examiner to believe she had swallowed multiple Vicodin pills, drunk at least two bottles of wine, fallen asleep, and accidentally drowned in her own vomit.
Anna had discovered her lying flat on the bed, her arms flung wide and hanging stiff off the bed, her eyes and mouth open, dried vomit crusted on her chin, neck, and the neckline of her silk nightgown. With Clark out of town, Anna had immediately called Frank, screaming and crying. Frank couldn’t get out of an important meeting at work, so he had asked his wife, Mimi, to hurry to the Edwards apartment. Mimi had gone there and found their friend dead.