Someone Else's Shoes(111)

She remembers the journey, how she had wept on the plane and Carl had become steadily more irritated and said that all teenagers got moody. She and Ray needed to be less sensitive, and the boy was in the best place with the psychiatrists and people who could deal with that stuff. He had already raised two teenage boys with his first wife. He said it had been the same with them, and they’d grown out of it, and the worst thing you could do was keep fussing around them, and she had believed him. Even though his adult sons seemed to despise him, unless they wanted money, she had actually believed him. What had she known about good parenting, after all?

“Ray. Ray. Listen to me. Just give me a couple of days more, okay? I promise. Even if everything goes wrong when I speak to your father, even if I have to go get another passport and borrow money from my workmates for a plane ticket. Even if I have to swim the damn Pacific I will come get you.”

“It’s the Atlantic.”

“That too.”

He lets out a reluctant laugh.

“And I’m a fast swimmer. You know it.”

“I hate my life. I hate living like this. It feels like nobody wants me and I’ve just been dumped here.”

“None of that is true. I am coming, baby.”

A long silence. She closes her eyes and drops her head onto her knees. “I love you so much, sweetheart. Please hang on in there. I won’t let you down again, I promise. It’s just going to be you and me together from now on.”

She can hear his breathing, the million unwelcome thoughts whirring around his head.

“Want me to sing for you again?” she says, when she cannot bear the silence any longer. “You are my sunsh—”

“Not really,” he says. And ends the call.

And then, before the sense of panic can set in, her phone pings.

    Yes this is still my number



Juliana.





thirty-three


Hey.”

“Hey.” Nisha swallows. “Thank you for picking up.”

“It’s fine. I’m just . . . surprised. How are you?”

Juliana’s voice is polite, wary. The way she used to speak to their employers, all the Brooklyn girl ironed out for something professional, something acceptable. She remembers how Carl used to talk about Juliana, how Nisha shouldn’t be hanging out with a maid now they were married, how she was too coarse, too uneducated, a bad influence, his fury when she insisted Juliana was to be Ray’s godmother, instead of one of his moneyed friends. What he meant, she understood now, was that Juliana was simply too poor.

“I—Listen. I don’t know how much credit I have on this phone. But I have a favor to ask.”

Juliana’s voice hardens. “Right.”

“Look, I know I don’t deserve to ask you anything, but it’s about your godson. It’s Ray.”

“Ray? Is he okay?” Juliana’s tone switches immediately.

“Not really. I know it’s been a long time and it’s a big ask but I need someone I trust to check on him. I’m stuck in England—it’s a long story—and he’s . . . Juliana, he’s really low. He’s had some big problems and some of them are my fault and I—I need someone I trust to see him. To just—I don’t know—tell him I’m coming. Tell him it’s going to be okay.”

There is a long pause.

“Tell me where he is.”

“You’ll do it?”

“You have to ask?”

And then Nisha is crying. The tears come out of nowhere, tears of relief, of guilt and release. She covers her face with her other hand, trying to wipe them away, to get her voice under control. “Really? You’d do that? After all this?”

“Text me the address. I’ll go straight to him once I’ve finished work.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much.” Nisha cannot stop. She is shaking.

“Will he know who I am?”

“Yes. We still talk about you.”

“I still think about him. All the time. Sweet boy.”

Nisha screws her eyes shut, her shoulders heaving as she tries to gather herself, to hide the emotion in her voice. They discuss a few details, so that Juliana has an idea of where she’s headed, what she might expect. She tells her—in bursts—that she is no longer with Carl. That she is doing everything she can to get back to her son. Juliana tells her in turn that she is married now. Two children, eleven and thirteen. The fact that these seismic things have happened in Juliana’s life and Nisha knows nothing of them causes something in her to constrict painfully. And then a recorded message tells her she has almost reached her credit limit.

“I’ll text you, okay?” Juliana says. “Once I’ve seen him.”

The feeling of relief is overwhelming. Juliana will do what she says she’ll do. The most honest, the most straightforward person she has ever met. And then the tears come again.

“I’m so sorry,” Nisha says abruptly. “You were right. About everything. I’ve made such a mess. I missed you so much. I just got swept up in everything. I’ve wanted to call you so many times. I’m so, so sorry.”

There is a long silence. She wonders, briefly, whether she shouldn’t have gone there. What right has she to ask anything of Juliana after all? But when Juliana’s voice comes back on the line, it is thick with emotion. “Me too. I’m here, baby. Okay? I’m going to go see your boy.”