No Going Back

by Sheena Kamal

  A huge mansion, set along the rugged coastline, with glassed-in walls. In one of the upstairs bedrooms, Dao and Jia Zhang. The man and the woman in the window. They are naked, pressed against each other, in the throes of an affair I found shocking, though hardly anything shocked me anymore.

  The baby who had cancer, the one they’d kidnapped Bonnie for, to see if she could be a bone marrow donor. But she wasn’t. They were going to get rid of her because she wasn’t a match.

  To the world, the baby was Kai Zhang’s son, but Dao treated it like it was his own. Jia’s child was his own. After she died, that sick child didn’t have a mother anymore.

  He didn’t stand a chance.

  It makes sense now. Dao blames me for killing his family. He was always going to hurt mine for what he thinks I’ve taken from him. His whole world. A child’s death is a black mark against humanity. Any child’s death, but especially hers.

  Jia’s child.

  On the boat, right before a whale breached, David Tao looked at Jia Zhang. A secret glance. A shine of something like love in his eyes.

  Something like obsession.

  Something like both.

  68

  Dao raises his gun. He blinks. His pupils are dilated.

  He’s so high he doesn’t hear boots crunching the snow behind him, until it’s too late. He whips around, weapon still raised, but this time he’s too slow. Kristof has his weapon in hand, too, but he doesn’t fire it, doesn’t have time, because two shots ring out.

  Dao falls.

  I see Nate Marlowe in this moment, in that kitchen in Detroit. Bonnie’s and Lynn’s still bodies. I see their hair in a pool of blood.

  The fallen officer’s weapon slips from my hand. Whatever instinct drove me to grab it when Dao turned to face Kristof is now gone. I want nothing more to do with it.

  Kristof is closer to Dao than I am. “Is he dead?” I ask, my voice sounding stronger than I ever imagined it could in these circumstances.

  “Not yet, but he will be soon.”

  Kristof kicks Dao’s weapon farther away from where it has landed. He takes the fallen officer’s gun away from me, wipes it down, and puts it in the man’s hand.

  He looks behind me, into the cabin. He’s silent as he assesses the scene. Then he collects himself. “David Tao went crazy in here, left, then you found the bodies. Shortly after, this poor officer stumbled on the scene of the crime. He was leading you away when David Tao returned. I heard the exchange of fire and came running, but I wasn’t able to get here in time to save the officer from this madman. This hero in uniform was able to fire his weapon twice before he was shot dead. He deserves a medal for taking down a dangerous fugitive.”

  I don’t say anything.

  Kristof pulls out his cell phone. “I’ll go wait for the authorities. You’ll need to wash your hands. You were obviously near the officer’s gun when it was fired. You two were in close proximity, so there will be residue on your clothing. But your hands are clean. You might be able to get away with this if you’re lucky.” He walks back to the main cabin.

  He’s wrong. My hands will never be clean again.

  I’m alone again, so I move to Dao’s side. Kneel in the snow beside him and watch the life leave his body.

  “The baby couldn’t have been yours,” I say. I don’t know where these words are coming from, only that I couldn’t stop them even if I wanted to. Some part of me acknowledging that this man doesn’t get to slip away quietly. “Bloodwork would have shown that. Jia would never have risked taking Bonnie if Kai wasn’t the father. You were never her family, even in spirit. She was using you. It was just a fantasy she let you believe because it was convenient to her. All this, and for what?”

  His eyes lock on to mine, but he can’t move. Can’t speak. He dies soon after, choking on his own blood.

  It’s not enough. There is no satisfaction. This is the part of me I was hiding from Bonnie when she asked about morality. What I have inside me, you wouldn’t even believe.

  It hurts so much to think of her now.

  The silence returns, and it’s both external with the hush brought by the snowfall and inside of me with the finality of death. So much death, and part of it feels like my own.

  Snow falls heavily now, blanketing the trees. Because death is on my mind, I think of Seb Crow. He didn’t read fiction, but there was one novel he kept on his shelf in the study where I saw him last. Snow Falls on the Cedars. No. Snow Falling on Cedars. But I never read it.

  Why does this come to me now? I can’t stay here any longer.

  Back in the guesthouse I kneel beside my daughter and her mother.

  I don’t ever want them to be alone in here again.

  It’s then that I hear a sound, a rattle of a breath. A soft cry. Coming from Lynn—no. From underneath Lynn. From Bonnie.

  My own breath lodges in my throat as desperate hope and panic take hold of me. My throat clears. Lungs open up as full as a singer who’s been waiting for her encore. And I start to scream for help as loud as I can.

  69

  When the police show up, they try to arrest me again even though Kristof explains to them that I had no part in the shootout.

  They believe him eventually, because of his crisp appearance, his pale face shining out at them with confidence. He’s arguing for me, and some part of me wants to be grateful, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters anymore because they have whisked Bonnie away to the hospital and I can’t focus on anything else.

  I’m taken to an interview room. People speak to me, but I don’t hear them. “Where’s my daughter?”

  “Can you tell me—” says a cop with the earnest face of a teenager.

  “How is she?”

  “Ms. Watts, this is a serious—”

  “Bonnie. Her name is Bonnie. She’s seventeen years old. Is she . . . did she survive?”

  “Ma’am—”

  “Is she alive? Tell me!”

  “She’s alive,” the cop says eventually. “And she’ll live. The bullet hit her arm, but it seems she was struck unconscious by the fall to the ground. Broke her nose something awful. Lost a lot of blood, too.”

  It’s only then that I can breathe a sigh of relief and refuse to speak on principle. Firstly, because I’m not about to talk to the cops now that it’s all over. More importantly, I guess I’m still in shock. Bonnie is alive, but Lynn is still as dead as she was when I found her in the cabin.

  Edison Lam has sent me a legal representative. I’m not one to look a gift attorney in the mouth, so I let her do all the talking. Kristof does some speaking as well, though I don’t know what exactly he says; I just observe him, how calm and cool he is. How unsurprised.

  The lawyer gets me out of the interview quickly. I’m in shock, she says. The trauma of finding my daughter near death and her adoptive mother murdered—this is after fearing for my life and going into hiding. Why wasn’t I taken to a hospital first? She hints at racial bias. This could be grounds for a suit. There must have been a fresh batch of sensitivity training, because these are the magic words. They let me go. I go to the hospital to look for my daughter, where I’m told by a nurse who must have once been an army general, with her rigid back and impassive face, that Bonnie has been transferred to a private hospital. The nurse won’t tell me which one.

  “Ma’am, if you don’t leave, I’ll be forced to call security.”

  In fact, she already has. Two security guards approach from behind me and escort me out to the parking lot where I stand, confused and cold, wondering what to do now. I call Leo and ask him to bring Whisper over to Simone’s place.

  Edison Lam is waiting for me when I get there. Simone pulls me into a hug while I stand with my eyes empty and my arms by my side.

  “You sent Kristof to finish the job if I didn’t,” I say to him. “You heard what I said through the intercom? The address I gave?”

  “I’m sorry for your troubles,” says Mr. Lam. “But what does any of that matter anymore?�
�

  We are silent for a moment. There’s nothing else to say, but he finds a way to persevere. “Please send your banking details to my Vancouver office.” He puts a card on the counter. “We’d like to arrange payment for your assistance in the research into David Tao’s background, the work you did when my son initially engaged your services. You’ll be paid in full, of course.”

  He mentions some other things, about services rendered, but what he’s really buying is my silence in his investigation of his son’s death. Because he’s now saying something about a nondisclosure agreement.

  I stop listening. Is this how Brazuca felt when Bernard Lam started talking about money? I think about all the calls I made to Bonnie and Everett that went unanswered.

  At some point Simone tells Edison Lam to get out.

  70

  Everett hits me at the funeral, in the parking lot after the service. A big swing at my jaw that makes me think of Brazuca as it connects.

  It’s an act of blatant misogyny.

  If I were a man, he would have swung harder.

  Whisper goes for Everett’s throat, and Simone barely manages to pull her back. Everett is restrained by two people I’ve never seen before in my life while my daughter stands listlessly off to the side with bandages over her nose. She won’t say a word to me. Won’t even look in my direction. She’s wearing a black parka over a long black dress. The wind sends her hair flying, and she’s shivering with cold or rage. I can’t tell. Maybe it’s a little bit of both, but she won’t bother to clarify. She’s ignoring me the same way she’s ignored all of my attempts to reach her. She rips the brass key from around her neck and drops it on the ground.

  Someone calls the police on Everett, for the assault. I decline to press charges.

  “It should have been you!” he shouts as the strangers drag him away, his face smeared with tears.

  I nod. Yes, I know. It should have been me.

  Bonnie and Lynn were both shot at as they tried to flee. Two bullets in Lynn and one in Bonnie. Three bullets to take a life. Lynn died almost instantly. There’s almost no comfort in that thought.

  Everett finds none, either.

  “Don’t listen to him,” Simone says, pulling me back to the Corolla. But I do, of course. It’s the only thing that happened at the funeral that makes any sense. The Corolla refuses to start. It, too, gives up on me. Simone arranges for a boost from the funeral director.

  Afterward, I stop by Brazuca’s apartment and stare up at the window. A habit I can’t kick. Then the memory of a shoulder, a square of sunburned skin.

  A shadow crosses the window. As I watch, I listen to the messages he’s been leaving me. Asking me to call him back. Asking for an explanation. Offering his condolences. Et cetera. There, on the spot, I delete the messages.

  I don’t send Edison Lam my banking information, so he mails a check to Simone’s place. I didn’t know they still had those. I burn it in Simone’s sink. She calls him to ask for another one. Which she keeps for me.

  Leo sends me an advanced copy of Seb’s memoirs, to be published in several months. In the acknowledgments Seb has thanked me for being his caretaker and his friend. I burn the book, too, this evidence that I’m a good and worthy person.

  People have been hurt because of me. Bonnie, Brazuca, and Nate.

  People have died. Lynn. Mike Starling. Joe Nolan. The Zhangs, who may have deserved it. The baby, who didn’t.

  In a moment of weakness, I call Nate and apologize for what happened to him over voicemail. I don’t hear anything back, and that’s about what I deserve.

  There are times when I think of my daughter and then all the strength bleeds out of me when I realize I will never have a relationship with her. There’d been days when I cursed her for the darkness she came out of, what she’d represented in my life. She was the best part of me and I had spent years trying to forget she was alive.

  I try to burn the brass key as well, perhaps to see if brass can burn, but Simone pushes me away before it chars and saves it. She gets a brand-new leather strap for it.

  The key sears into my chest every single moment of every single day. It’s no less than what I deserve. It’s like a Stradivarius violin. Rare, precious, a piece of history to hold in your hands. But take away the history and you have an inanimate object. A violin is only as good as the musician. A key is only good if the door it opens exists. If you can put it into a lock and, with a turn, enter a room you long to be in. But what if the room and the door aren’t there anymore? Or, worse, they are but no one knows where to find it?

  There’s a lock in Palestine that opens with this key, but I don’t know where it is. Some people sneer that Palestine doesn’t exist anymore. That sounds about right. There’s a group of people in Winnipeg who might share my father’s bloodline, but he never found them.

  These are my thoughts in the wake of Lynn’s death.

  Just before Christmas Leo sells the business to Stevie Warsame, who is upset he has to learn bookkeeping for an entire company. Leo leaves me rambling messages begging me to visit on Christmas Eve. He says I can stay for New Year’s Eve also. I can stay as long as I like.

  I delete the messages. He just wants my dog. I think she wants him, too, the whore. But she is content to go with me on my long walks, the drive-bys of Brazuca’s place.

  Two days before Christmas I pick up the phone and a man whose voice I used to know says, “Hey there, Trouble.” As far as nicknames go, it’s a little on the nose. But this man in particular has good reason to know just how much trouble I am.

  “Hi, Nate,” I reply, surprised at how clear my voice sounds.

  The next day I put all my belongings into the Corolla, including Whisper, of course. We stop in front of Lorelei’s house. It’s the same as always, an East Van bungalow. There’s a wreath on the door, the single holiday decoration.

  “Should I go in?” I ask Whisper. She ignores me, riveted by the action across the road where some poor soul is stringing up lights on Christmas Eve and his chocolate lab pup is standing by the ladder for helpful encouragement.

  I take one long, final look at my sister’s house.

  The lights are on, and there’s movement inside. She’s entertaining. At another time I would have been perverse enough to knock on the door and guilt her into letting me in. But I don’t see the point of that anymore. I put the car in drive before I can second guess myself. Then head to Leo’s apartment building. There’s an open space in front just waiting for me. Something has finally gone right. I couldn’t bear having to park around back, seeing the place where Brazuca’s MINI got hit. Reliving the memory of Brazuca.

  Leo comes down and opens the back door of the car. Whisper gets up, wags her tail, and licks the side of his face. He breaks out into a grin. “Come on,” he says to her.

  She stays in the car.

  “Come on, girl. Uncle Leo bought you some new food. I hear it’s delish.”

  Whisper isn’t having any of it.

  “Go ahead,” I say to her.

  She ignores me and plants her butt.

  “She’s not coming,” Leo says.

  I don’t understand her hesitation. She’d left with him so easily before. “Go on, girl.” I give her a little push. She growls at me. Actually growls.

  Leo closes the door. He lingers outside of the car, and I know he has something to say to me. Now that I’m here, I wait. But he decides to keep whatever it is to himself. An act of mercy, perhaps, but for me or him, I’m not sure.

  He gives me a little wave and goes back to the apartment. Across the street the Szechuan place is closed. A closer look tells me that half the storefronts on this block are going out of business. There’s a sign up a few doors away, a community notice asking for input. Peter Vidal’s Devi Group has bought up the block and wants to open an art gallery and cultural center.

  I look up.

  The neon pink lights of the Szechuan place are indeed off, permanently now. To make space for art and culture, I su
ppose. For community, or someone’s idea of it anyway.

  Whisper barks at me from the car. She’s telling me to hurry up.

  71

  Brazuca dismantles the telescope and puts it in the carry bag it came in.

  He opens the safe in his bedroom and takes out his documents, the gold watch his father had given him when he turned eighteen, and the engagement ring that once belonged to his mother. The one his ex-wife returned calmly before she asked him to leave. She was tranquil, growing increasingly more reasonable toward the end, as his addictions spiraled out of control.

  “I’ve never been unfaithful,” he said to her one night, after a particularly vicious argument about where he’d been. It had come out like a plea, but that wasn’t what he meant. He guessed he meant he was at a bar, as usual. Drinking alone.

  She’d given him a curious look. He remembers it to this day, how puzzled she was by his insistence that he wasn’t all that bad. That there was still something to save. “What does that have to do with anything?” she asked.

  He didn’t know, but it had seemed to be an important point at the time.

  She set her boundaries and said, “You can no longer cross this line with me. I’ve had enough. It’s over. Good-bye.”

  He never understood how she could be so cold, until now. Until he’s faced that coldness, yet again, from Nora. Who won’t return his calls. He’d seen her at Lynn’s funeral, from a distance. Something in him broke when Everett Walsh hit her. Her expression, the emptiness there . . . it’s going to stay with him for the rest of his life.

  Brazuca puts all his things in a small rolling suitcase, along with a few items of clothing that do the best job of hiding his gauntness. He closes the empty safe. There’s one item missing. His handgun, the only weapon he owns, which was never recovered from the MINI after the crash.

  He takes one last look at the apartment and leaves it behind without a moment of regret.

  A week later, he watches the sun go down from his patio.