The Candid Life of Meena Dave(88)

“I didn’t choose this.” Anger rose in Meena. “I wasn’t looking. I never wanted to find you. I didn’t think about you. Even when I lost my parents, I never thought, Hey, I still have a birth mother out there somewhere. Never. You didn’t exist to me. This was all Neha’s doing.”

“So then go,” Sabina said. “I am nothing to you, and you are no one to me. You can walk away with almost three million dollars and get on with your life.”

Meena hunched her shoulders and crossed her arms to protect herself. “You made a choice. When you were seventeen. I’m making one now. I will live with yours, and you can live with mine. We can be enemies or acquaintances, it’s up to you. I’m not going anywhere.”

Sabina looked up, lowered her arms, and made herself tall. “I see.” She turned to leave.

Meena knew she should let her go; she owed Sabina nothing, should want nothing from her. “The thing is,” Meena said, “I was sixteen years old for a very long time.”

Sabina stopped.

“Even in my twenties,” Meena continued, “I was older, I knew more about the world, how to navigate, move through, make a living. Inside I was still this young girl, frozen in time, by one event. I learned how to cope, to fake maturity, but the fear I carried with me, that was the fear of a little girl who’d lost everything. This place, not just the people in it but the history of this place, the one you are the curator for, gave me something, a past that hadn’t disintegrated into ashes. By coming here, by choosing to stay here, I finally let that sixteen-year-old girl grow. I hope you find a way to do the same.”

Sabina turned. There were tears in her eyes. The eyes she shared with Meena.

“You chose,” Meena said. “I did not. Still, we both lost something. I’m not staying here to make you face it, relive it. I’m staying for me. All I can hope is that you find a way to come to terms with your choice and this circumstance.”

There was nothing left to say. Grief made her tired. With head high and chin up, Meena walked back to her apartment, happy when Wally followed her in. She looked back to see Sam talk to Sabina, put his arm around her, give her comfort.

Meena marveled at his empathy and didn’t resent him for it. There was no hatred or anger left in Meena’s heart for Sabina. The woman had been forced to face her past just as Meena had. There was no blame. Sabina had made the best decision for herself at seventeen, as it had been her right to do, and there was nothing wrong with not wanting to rescind that decision because Meena had shown up on her doorstep. None of this was fair to either of them, but if they could find a way to coexist, to have an occasional cup of chai, that would be enough.

She poured water in a short bowl for Wally and stroked his fur as he lapped it up. He turned his wet face and nuzzled her neck, then jumped on her. She lay on the floor in the kitchen and played with the fur ball who’d grown from a puppy into forty-five pounds of dog. Laughter echoed in her home and Meena reveled in it.





CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN


Meena checked her face in the small mirror she’d hung next to the door before heading out. Her hair was loosely tied back, and she’d added a cropped faux leather jacket she’d found on the sale rack at Anthropologie to her long dress. The tiny red flowers on the black silk were as playful as the handkerchief hem. She’d also added her usual black boots. Nerves danced in her stomach, but she wanted to do this.

Sam met her in the hall. “Ready.”

She took a deep breath and nodded.

He took her hand as they headed to the alley where he parked his car. As they drove west, away from the city and suburbs, the landscape changed. It was sparser, greener as the weather warmed.

“Thanks for coming with me,” Meena said.

“I’m glad you asked me.” Sam took his eyes off the road for a second to give her a smile.

“You are a badass, going ten above the speed limit.”

“That’s how we fucking saints roll.”

Some of the tension eased with laughter, only to return as she saw the sign for Northampton. She’d programmed her childhood home’s address into the GPS, and the phone noted they were ten minutes away. As they passed the center of town, she recognized some storefronts and streets, and the large historical building of the music academy. Within minutes they were away from downtown, and the GPS called out for Sam to make a left. They crossed over the Mill River via a one-lane bridge and made their way to Meadow Road. They pulled up in front of a place that used to be her home.

Meena stepped out of the car and stared at the white house with a wraparound porch. “Our house was blue. The windows had these little white shutters. We didn’t have a porch, but there was a small deck in the back, off the kitchen.”

Sam stood next to her as they leaned against the car.

Meena pointed down the street. “The school bus stop was all the way down there, and I remember walking home from it after school. In the winter sometimes it would already be dark by the time I got off the bus. We knew all the neighbors. It’s so strange. This could be any street, anywhere. I recognize some of the neighboring houses, but with my house not here, it’s not my street. I know that doesn’t make sense.”

“It does,” Sam agreed. “There’s no anchor for your memory.”

“Exactly.”