Because It Is My Blood (Birthright #2)(51)

“Simon,” Mr. Kipling said in a hard voice. “If you knew that this proposal was going to happen, you should have told me. Maybe we could have arranged to get Leo out of Kyoto!”

“I apologize if I made a gaffe.”

“Mr. Green, this is far more than a gaffe.”

Mr. Kipling certainly had a point, but I decided to defend Simon Green. He had been kind to me since my return, and I knew that I had not been the easiest houseguest. (Although I’ve chosen not to dwell on it in this account, I had been depressed and unable to sleep since my return.) “Mr. Kipling, as of December twenty-sixth, I, too, knew about the proposal. I could have called you but I didn’t think there was any need to move Leo. I honestly didn’t think that what had happened with Yuji Ono was serious enough to merit a change. It is my fault much more than Mr. Green’s.”

“I appreciate you saying that,” Mr. Kipling said. “But it is my and Mr. Green’s job to advise you. It is our job to anticipate the worst-case scenario. We have been negligent in this duty once again. Simon and I will discuss this later.” Mr. Kipling closed by saying they would call me once they had spoken to Bertha Sinclair’s office.

I hung up with my counsel and looked at the clock. It was nine in the morning. The day stretched out ahead of me, everlasting and awful. I missed having the cacao farm to tend or a school to go to or friends. I was tired of Simon Green’s apartment, which had begun to reek of cat litter. I was tired of not even being able to go for a walk.

I looked out the window. There was a park but no one was in it. I didn’t even know what part of town I was in. (Brooklyn, yes, but, readers, there are many parts of Brooklyn.) Where did Simon Green live? I’d been staying there almost a week and I hadn’t bothered to ask.

I needed to go out. I borrowed a puffy coat from my host’s closet, making sure to pull the hood up. Since I didn’t have a key, I couldn’t lock the door, but what difference did it make? No one was going to rob a sixth-floor apartment. And even if they did, there was nothing worth taking. Simon Green’s apartment was notable if only for its curious lack of personal effects.

I made my way down the flights of stairs.

Outside it was even colder than when I had landed. The sky was gray and it looked like it might snow.

I walked for maybe a half mile, up a hill and past bodegas and schoolchildren and vintage clothing stores and churches. No one noticed me. Finally, I arrived at the gates of a cemetery. Walk long enough in any direction and you’ll usually find one.

The name on the gates was Green-Wood Cemetery, and though I hadn’t been there since Daddy’s funeral, I remembered that this was where the family plot was. My mother was buried here, too, and Nana, whose grave I still hadn’t visited. (Aside: This also solved the mystery of what part of Brooklyn Simon Green lived in—he lived in Sunset Park, where many of the Balanchines had lived before moving to the Upper East Side.)

I made my way through the cemetery. I thought I remembered the general direction of the family plot, but I still had to backtrack a couple of times. Eventually, I realized I had no idea where I was going so I went to the information center. I typed Balanchine into the ancient computer and out popped a location on a map. I set out again. It was getting colder and grayer by the minute, and I didn’t have gloves and I wondered why I had even come.

The plot was on the outer edge of the cemetery: five headstones and room for several more. Soon, my brother would join them here.

Nana’s grave was the freshest. The stone was small and simple, and the inscription read BELOVED MOTHER, WIFE, AND GRANDMOTHER. I wondered who had written that. I kneeled, crossed myself, and then kissed the stone. Though the custom of leaving flowers at gravesides had fallen out of fashion, I’d seen pictures of it and I wished I’d brought some. Even a couple of Nana’s loathsome carnations. How else to say I was here? How else to say I am still thinking of you?

My mother’s grave was next to Nana’s. Her stone was heart-shaped and read I AM MY BELOVED, AND MY BELOVED IS MINE. No mention of the children she had left behind. How little I had known her, and how little she had known me. Some weeds were growing around the edges of her grave. I took my machete out of its sheath and sliced them away.

Daddy was behind my mother: ALWAYS LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE. Atop his headstone, someone had set three green sprigs of what looked like an herb. The sprigs, weighted by a small rock, were fresh and had obviously been placed there recently. I bent down to smell them. It was mint. I wondered what the mint meant and who had placed it there. Probably one of the men who had worked for Daddy.

You might think me heartless, but I didn’t feel all that much at the sight of these graves. Tears were not forthcoming. Leo’s death, Imogen’s death, Theo’s shooting—I was wrung dry. The dead were the dead, and you could cry as much as you wanted, but they weren’t coming back. I closed my eyes and mumbled the halfhearted prayer of a fledgling cynic.

When I got back to Simon Green’s place, he was waiting for me. “I thought you’d been killed,” he said.

I shrugged. “I needed to get out.”

“Did you go to see Win?”

“Of course not. I took a walk.”

“Well, we have to go,” Simon Green said. “We have a meeting with Bertha Sinclair, but we have to be downtown in twenty minutes. She’ll only talk to you in person.”