The Candid Life of Meena Dave(7)

Meena gave them a friendly smile. “I’m happy to chat later, but I’m on my way out.”

“I was going to teach Wally a few tricks in the backyard. Why don’t you come with us, Tanvi auntie?” Sam picked up the pup. “We can catch up with Meena later.”

As they walked out of her unit, Meena heard Tanvi say, “Sabina is going to lose her shit.”



A few hours later, she was sated thanks to a sausage, egg, and cheese from the café Sam had mentioned. She’d even showered to freshen up, though she didn’t have a change of clothes because she had yet to pick up her suitcase. Luckily, her A-cups required little support. As a teenager she’d been shapeless and skinny. Dresses had hung off her, jeans had needed to be slouchy to fake that there was a slight butt somewhere. She’d filled out a little in the hips, but there were no curves, only sharp angles. At least she didn’t have to worry about not being asked to the freshman dance anymore. Meena got dressed in the same tank, sweater, and jeans she’d been wearing for three days, sniffed her armpits, and hoped the shower had helped.

She went into Neha’s bedroom to look in the large vanity mirror while she fixed her long black hair. The room had another fireplace in the shared wall between it and the living room. This one was decorative, with a giant bouquet of pink and white silk carnations in an orange bronze vase in the center. It matched the cheery bedroom. To her left, wide white french doors opened to a small veranda overlooking a fenced-in garden. The bedding, in pink and purples, popped with color. The white vanity had fairy lights around the mirror. It seemed like a young girl’s bedroom, not that of a woman in her midsixties. A small trinket box sat on the vanity, and Meena flipped it open to find an index card.

I am a lexicographer. A mouthful of a word, one that doesn’t quite roll off the tongue. Not like chef, cop, maid, judge. I write dictionaries. I keep a record of our ever-evolving language. I like knowing that what I document, what I write, can be read long after I’m gone. I have no children. Only words I spend my life defining.

Meena recognized the handwriting, the same as on the tea bag packet and index card. She sat on the edge of the bed and looked around, wondering if there were more notes.

For a few minutes, she allowed herself to acknowledge her fatigue. Usually something like hidden notes popping up would tickle her curiosity. She loved puzzles of all kinds. Right now, though, in this place, it felt too heavy a lift. Mostly because Meena hadn’t been searching for this; it had found her, stopped her in her tracks as she was living her life.

She reined in her thoughts. Everything was temporary. She’d learned that from a Buddhist monk in Burma. She’d adopted it as her mantra. When her mind wandered to what had once been, she’d rein it back to the present. For now, she was here, and she had things to do.

Meena added the note to the others she’d collected. She grabbed her shoes, her wallet, and her broken phone. It was going to be an afternoon of errands. As she went to get her jacket from one of the blue chairs, she brushed up against a book on the fireplace mantel and it fell.

Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost. A sliver of white paper peeked out from inside. Meena opened the book and tugged out the note card.

My husband left three days ago. I haven’t gone to look for him. In fact, I wish him well. We did not suit, married only because we had both given in to societal convention. He was constantly seeking happiness. An elusive, subjective, situational concept.

He’s a regular sort of person. I use the present tense because I do not believe he’s dead.

I suppose I could start at the beginning, but to what end? That’s a fun sentence. I could parse it out. It should not make sense, yet it does because the English language is fluid and alive.

Meena flipped over the note card.

Beginning—a noun and an adjective. As a noun, the point at which something begins. You need more, especially if you do not know the word begin. The first part—a rudimentary stage or an early period. It can be an adjective as well—just starting out. Being first.

I imagine it took us months to define this word, annotate it, dissect it in different ways, stare at it until it no longer made sense, became a mere jumble of letters in a certain order.

Meena sat on the couch, reread the note, then glanced around the room. What a curious woman Neha had been. She rubbed the prickles on her arm. The room was chilly, but it was the haunting words of the note that unnerved her.

It wasn’t signed. But as with the others, Meena sensed it had been written by Neha. The handwriting was the same. A very exact penmanship with the words small and precise. She wrote in straight lines even on the unlined paper. The opposite of her chaotic apartment. The stranger had found a way to communicate from beyond the grave. Curiosity crashed like a giant wave over Meena. She needed to know more.

She flipped open her laptop and logged in. She typed “Neha Patel” in the search bar. Close to twenty-four million results. She narrowed the search down to Boston and added the street address. Finally a match. An obituary without a photo. What is with this woman and not having photos? It was a short mention of her death in the Boston Globe.

Neha A. Patel, 65, of Boston, Massachusetts, passed away on April 24 from natural causes. She is survived by her parents, Ambalalbhai Dhirubhai Patel and Chanchalben Ambalalbhai Patel. Harvard graduate. Editor, Merriam-Webster.

That was all. No mention of a husband, even though the note said she’d had one. Meena dug around a little more but couldn’t find anything more than cursory information. She wondered if Love’s Labour’s Lost was a hint or just a convenient place for Neha to hide her note.