The Art of Inheriting Secrets(63)

Mrs. Wells was just coming around the corner. “Well, hello, Lady Shaw! What brings you out on such a terrible day?”

Rain dripped from my hair down my nose. “I just wanted to let you know that I’ve hired an accountant on the advice of the Earl of Marswick, and their office will be contacting this office for information.”

“Is that right?” Her tone was frosty.

“Yes. Is that a problem?” I could match frosty.

“No, my lady, of course not.”

“Thank you.”

In the library, I stood by the fax machine feeding in papers, one after the other, for what seemed like a year. I hoped they would be able to make some sense of it all.

When I was finished, I checked the time. A half hour until the building closed, so I headed for my familiar spot, the microfiche machine. The librarian on duty recognized me, of course, and greeted me by name. “What can I help you with today?”

“I need all the papers from the summer of 1975.”

“Ah. The girl? We heard there’d been a discovery.”

“We don’t know if it’s her yet, but yes. I’d like to acquaint myself with the details.”

I already knew Sanvi had gone missing in late July, so I concentrated my reading there, late July and early August. Because it was a weekly, it didn’t take long to find the first mention on August 6, 1975.





GIRL MISSING


The parents of Sanvi Malakar, age fifteen, have reported their daughter missing. The girl, a student at Saint Ives Cross Secondary School, was last seen when she left for the market Saturday afternoon. According to her parents, she was a good student and did not have a boyfriend.

I looked through the next three papers, and there was not a single other mention—I read stories about dinner parties and a lost dog and the best methods for canning peaches, but not another word about a missing fifteen-year-old girl. Would it have been different if it had been a white child instead of a brown one? It made me sad to think so, but I suspected that was at the heart of it.

I wondered how Samir’s father was taking the possibility that his sister’s remains might have been found. It couldn’t help but reopen old wounds. I hoped that her story would someday come to light.





Chapter Fifteen

On the day my mother fell ill, we woke up the way we always did. I made coffee in her drip pot, which I could not convince her to change no matter how many times I illustrated the virtues of a french press. Through the kitchen window, I saw a neighborhood cat perched on the patio table, tail switching in the rare October sunshine. I heard my mother get up, coughing, which was what a person who had smoked for five decades did. I thought nothing of it. She let herself out to the patio to have a cigarette, wearing her pale-pink bathrobe and a pair of white slippers. She had always been thin but had grown more so over the past year or so, making her look as if she might just fade away. I poked my head out the window. “Do you want some oatmeal for breakfast? I bought some blueberries yesterday.”

“That would be lovely, dear,” she said, smiling at me. “It’s always a pleasure to eat whatever you cook.”

I didn’t know then that our ordinary daily moment would be the last we’d share. Not until twelve or fifteen moments later did I realize she had collapsed outside, and by the time I rushed to her side, she was unconscious. I didn’t know that I’d think of it every single time I made oatmeal for the next six months—maybe always.

Today opened in an ordinary way too.

I made oatmeal for my breakfast, trying to warm myself up in the damp. The rain had slowed, but it was still drizzly and cold for May, and I tugged on one of my favorite sweaters, soft turquoise with a loose, open weave and flecks of gold. It was silly to wear such a thing to explore Violet’s dusty bedroom, but it felt right. Part of me wanted to show up in the ways that were like her, to show her spirit, should it be lingering, that I was cut from the same cloth.

Which also made me feel guilty. My mother would not want me to be like her, would she? In a way, I was lucky to have been spared the wild dynamic of wanting to please both my mother and my grandmother.

Although, really, I wished I’d had the chance.

Samir knocked, and when I opened the door, he was carrying a paper cup with a lid. His hair was damp, as if he’d just come from the shower, and he smelled of orange zest and patchouli and a thousand other notes that wafted in with him. I inhaled. “You smell really good.”

He lifted his sleeve, offered it. “That?”

“Yes,” I said emphatically. “Wow. What is it?”

“Cologne. Someone gave it to me a while back, and Billi knocked it off the bureau this morning.”

Someone, I thought. “Did it break?”

“No.” He blinked, slowly. “But if you like it, I’ll be sure to get it into rotation.”

“You don’t strike me as a cologne kind of guy.”

“Not usually. Anyway”—he held out the paper cup—“special delivery from Pavi. She wants you to try her new smoothie.” His mouth tilted sideways. “Which I would just call a posh lassi, but it sells better as a smoothie. She said you went mad for strawberries the other day.”

“I may have been a bit crazy. They’re better here.” I took a sip of the concoction. “Oooh. She added fresh coriander! That’s amazing. Did you taste it?” I held it out to him. He shook his head, held up a hand, and walked over to the dry-erase board. Touched one finger to Violet’s time line, then Caroline’s. “You’ve got practically nothing on Roger.”