Scattered Ashes

by Dona Sarkar

  Pulling my knees into my chest and hugging them did nothing to numb the dull pain.

  I missed him.

  I missed the way he said things, using every word he knew. I missed the way he made me forget what I’d been thinking and not even care to remember. I missed the look in his eyes when he told me how brave he thought I was.

  Every song that came on the radio reminded me of him, no matter how obscure. Suddenly all those words I’d thought were stupid made complete sense. How could I have developed such strong feelings for him . . . convinced myself I was in love with him, when I’d never known him?

  The best night I’d ever had was staying up with him, talking, only talking, in my room. Him blinking those curly eyelashes, like flowers unfurling, shadows sweeping his cheeks.

  My hand resting on his chest. His hand covering mine and pressing against his heart. The solid, purposeful beat of his heart. The heat radiating off his warm center.

  It was the closest I’d ever been to another human being. In those short hours of the night, I’d known that everything was right in the world and I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

  I could have lain there next to him every day and every night and not run out of things to say. Now it looked like that night, and the past few weeks, they had never been real at all. Our beautiful relationship had never been anything at all.

  * * *

  “Hey, Mars.” Vivek was sitting in the kitchen, nursing what smelled to be espresso, when I left Dad’s office. I hoped the fact that I’d spent a good part of the afternoon crying wasn’t obvious. “How was school? Everything okay?”

  I hadn’t seen him around in a few days, and although Lana talked about the dates he’d taken her on to the local wineries as well as the symphony, I’d been wondering how things had been really progressing between them. I didn’t want to admit it, but I kind of liked having Vivek around sometimes. It gave Lana something to do besides obsess over what I was doing.

  “How’s it going with you?” I sat down next to him and peeked inside his cup. It looked fancy and foamy. Seemed like he had figured out how to use the thousand-dollar espresso maker in our kitchen that had been unused since the day it had arrived.

  “Your mom is getting changed for a hike at Tiger Mountain this evening. I’m taking the bear spray, so don’t worry.” He stood up and poured me a cup of whatever it was he was drinking.

  “Lana is hiking?” I almost choked on the caramel-blended coffee.

  “Sure, why not?” he said in a nonchalant tone that suggested that Lana might as well have been a nature-trail guide on weekends.

  “She doesn’t own flat shoes.”

  “We bought her some great hiking boots at REI this afternoon.” Vivek continued to look pleased with himself.

  Hobby of the week, I presumed.

  “Can I ask you something?” I hooked my toes under the railing of the bar stool I was perched on.

  He took a sip and nodded.

  “How serious is this thing between you and her?”

  The grandfather clock ticked for a few seconds. When someone else was around to talk to, I realized how empty our house was the rest of the time. I could literally hear every creak and tick and rustle. I remembered how lively our house had been the morning the guys had cooked breakfast. The smell of bacon and waffles, the warmth of the stove, the laughter and conversation echoed through my mind.

  Stop, I ordered myself, hating the stab of nostalgia.

  “Define serious,” Vivek said finally, openly stalling.

  “Casual dating? Marriage on the horizon?” I asked, hoping for the former, but knowing Lana, they were probably choosing an engagement ring after their hike.

  He laughed. “Lana told me she plans never to remarry.”

  “What?” I almost choked on coffee again. Classy.

  “She said she only believes in marrying once, and that dream ended.”

  “Oh.” I was shocked into silence. Had she really said that? It didn’t sound like her at all.

  “So, yeah, we don’t talk much about marriage.”

  “Have you thought about why she refuses to marry again?” I couldn’t help but take a dig, though I knew this whole thing wasn’t Vivek’s fault. He’d just gone and fallen for a pretty woman with baggage. A whole trunk full of it.

  “She doesn’t believe your father is still alive, Mars, if that’s what you’re insinuating.”

  So they had talked about him. I hadn’t expected Lana to talk with Vivek about her former life. I had expected that she acted like a coquettish ingénue who had never known anything before she’d met him.

  “She might. You don’t know that.” I shrugged. He thought he knew Lana, but he did not. No one really did, except for Dad. Vivek certainly didn’t know her insecurities or that this confident, fun woman she was portraying was just a farce.

  “She had a funeral to say good-bye to him.”

  “She had to, to appease people.” I retorted. I hated when someone said this. Your father must be dead; we had a funeral.

  Lana might’ve had a funeral for me too in that case.

  “She wouldn’t be seeing me if there was any hope left for her that he was coming back. She’s told me so much about him and how he was everything to her. He was, and always will be, the love of her life. She would do anything for him.”

  “Except give him a chance to come back,” I said bitterly, grabbing my coffee cup and getting ready to leave. “No one believed they would last, not even my grandparents. I guess they were right.”

  “She told me that everyone asked how she could marry someone who killed other people as part of their profession. Someone who would never be able to share himself completely with her. There was so much he kept from her, to protect her.”

  I swallowed uncomfortably, staring at the swirling granite countertop. I had never thought about it. How hard it must have been for her all those years when he was gone for six months at a time. How hard it must’ve been when he wouldn’t tell her what an ordinary day was like for him.

  “Where are you headed now?” Vivek asked.

  “Just . . . figuring some stuff out.”

  “Anything I can help with?” He gave me a knowing look. It said everything he wouldn’t say: I know you’re up to something, but I won’t snitch.

  “No.”

  “How’s Zayed doing?” He reached over me to the espresso maker and refilled his cup.

  Normally I would’ve become indignant at the thought of this man trying to interfere with my life, but I was fairly devastated by my findings on Zayed’s computer and wanted to talk to someone about it, and not someone who would fly into a fit of protectiveness.

  “What did you think of Zayed?” I asked before I changed my mind.

  “He cares about you very much.”

  I listened to the sounds of Lana’s footsteps walking back and forth upstairs. She would be down any minute now. I lowered my voice slightly.

  “How do you know that?”

  “He was extremely worried when Jason said those terrible things to you. He said you’re very strong inside, but still very susceptible to being hurt.”

  That hadn’t stopped him from hurting me in the worst possible way, though, by making my love for him mean nothing. By lying to me about everything.

  “He told me you’re afraid of leaving the past where it belongs. That the only thing holding you back from happiness is you.”

  “That’s pretty heavy for a first conversation.” I tried to sound casual, like these words didn’t mean everything to me.

  “He told me you’ve given him what he needed most. You’ve clearly given him something he’s longing for, someone to talk to, someone to belong to. He seemed to want human contact more than anything else. He’s lonely.”

  Someone to belong to? That’s what the insurgents wanted as well, to belong. Zayed wanted to belong. No wonder he’d stayed behind that morning to help make breakfast. No wonder he didn’t mind spending time with Lana and Vive
k.

  No wonder he hadn’t made a move when we’d been together. He didn’t understand the games we played with the opposite sex. He wasn’t obsessed with when a kiss was appropriate or when it was time to take the next step to more intimacy. He only wanted my company. He wanted to be near another human and have basic interaction that went beyond his formal teaching relationship. This was why he’d been so satisfied to stay up and only talk for a whole night.

  I was just another warm body to him. It wasn’t me he wanted. It was a human being. Even if I’d been anyone else, the story would have ended the exact same way.

  Somehow that made me even sadder than before.

  * * *

  “Is he dangerous?” I pressed. I wasn’t getting a straight answer, and this was not acceptable to me. I had to know, no matter what the truth was.

  I’d left a message for Bree on the phone several hours ago, requesting information about Zayed Anwar, and she had finally called back. Her tone had been reluctant from the first moment. She clearly knew more than what she was willing to share over the phone. I was prepared to go to her house and demand she tell me the truth as a next step.

  Lana and Vivek were still out, and I had the kitchen to myself—to pace and ponder questions to which I needed answers. So far, I hadn’t gotten any that made any sense.

  Bree had started off by asking me questions about how I knew Zayed, why I was so involved with him, and how had I come across the information that led me to believe he was involved with the latest incidents in Seattle.

  I had answered none of them and instead had fired off a series of questions of my own.

  “I can’t share this information with you,” Bree snapped. “Please just listen to what I’m asking you to do—”

  “What did he do?”

  “This isn’t something you need to get involved with. Do not talk to him about it. I think it would be best if you enrolled in another SAT class altogether if you’ve grown attached to him.”

  Attached. I was much more than attached, unfortunately. I was already involved, and there was nothing I could do about it other than to understand what I was involved in.

  “Tell me what he’s done. I’ll ask him myself otherwise,” I threatened. If I was going to do that, I would already have by done so by now. Fortunately, Bree had no kids of her own and didn’t understand idle threats.

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s over. We are on top of things, as are the Seattle police, so you don’t need to play vigilante.”

  Vigilante? Who used words like “vigilante”?

  I had suspected the worst, but hearing it from someone who knew for sure hit home harder than anything else could have.

  God. What had he done? The teakettle I’d set to boil whistled readiness. I reached across and turned the gas off.

  “I need to know more. Why aren’t you just arresting him if you know what’s he’s done. Define ‘things.’ ”

  She said nothing.

  Trash-can fires. Power outages. Bombs at war rallies that hurt people. I waited for her to say these things, preparing myself for the worst.

  “He cannot go back to his country,” Bree finally said.

  “France?”

  “What? No.”

  I didn’t think so. His indifference during Paris, je t’aime. His knowledge about happenings in the Middle East. I had to sit down at the kitchen counter as I digested the information. He was from the Middle East, that I was sure of.

  “What did he do? Did he kill someone?”

  “Mars, this is classified information, and you have no reason to know it. Please forget this and forget him. Where is your mother? I tried her cell phone and got no response.”

  I took that as a yes. He’d killed someone. Zayed, my Zayed had killed someone. Those gentle gray eyes had looked into someone else’s as he’d taken their life.

  Zayed, what have you done?

  Despite everything I was finding out, I didn’t know how to stop thinking of him as mine. How did I stop thinking of his problems as our problems? I had brought him into my life, my home, my entire world. How could I throw him out now without knowing anything concrete?

  Yet deep down I knew it was over, that the innocence in our relationship was gone. We would never again sit in his apartment, holding hands, talking about anything and everything. I would never see Coconut again. The realization was almost enough to bring on the onset of sheer mania.

  Why had he done this? Why had he made me fall in love with some illusion of who he was?

  “Will he hurt me?” I had to know.

  Bree hesitated. “I’m not saying any more. I do know that you need to stop your involvement with him. I need to speak to your mother. Do you know how I can reach her?”

  “He won’t hurt me, will he? Come on, Bree, he’s an SAT instructor. How is he still working there if he is capable of hurting someone?”

  Silence.

  She wasn’t going to tell me anything more. I tried one last bluff. “Shouldn’t someone let the Institute know? I can talk to the receptionist tomorrow.”

  “No!” Bree quickly cut me off.

  “Why not? Do they know?”

  “There is nothing you need to do, Mars.”

  “You should just tell me. Did he cut some kind of deal? Did the police set him up with a job and a place in return for something?”

  Silence. Again.

  “That’s it, isn’t it? He killed someone, and you guys are willing to protect him if he does something for you.” My imagination ran wild as I starting pacing frantically. “What is it? Is he bait? Tell me he’s not bait.”

  “I can’t talk to you about this; you have to understand that. All I’m asking is that you stay away from Zayed Anwar.”

  I wish that was so easy to do, I thought bitterly.

  I stopped walking as Bree said her final words. “Promise me, Mars. This is what your father would want. Promise me.”

  CHAPTER 17

  The Confrontation

  I knew it was dangerous. I knew it was risky and stupid and my father would be horrified if he knew what I was doing. I also knew Zayed had had plenty of opportunities and he would never hurt me.

  It took me three tries to make it past the front door of the College Prep Institute. The roof had seemed like the best place to meet. I didn’t trust his apartment. I didn’t trust myself to be alone with him.

  I didn’t know how to begin or what to say after. I wanted to know the truth, but I wanted to hear his story, too. Had anything he’d told me about his family or past been true? I needed to know if he was even capable of being honest with me.

  I wanted to know if it was ever me he’d cared for.

  Zayed was already waiting, legs hanging over the edge of the building, leaned back on his elbows. He didn’t make eye contact, and he didn’t smile as I took a seat a few feet away from him. He knew something was up, and I had a feeling Bree Nguyen had gotten to him first.

  “You missed class last night. And you should be in school right now,” he said after I arranged my hands on my lap. His voice was low, casual, like we were two strangers making conversation in the grocery line.

  “You should be in jail right now,” I retorted.

  Zayed didn’t look surprised or shocked or any of the things I’d expected. “I asked you to stay out of it.”

  “Then you shouldn’t be in my life,” I stammered as I saw the look in his eyes, sad and defeated when he finally turned to me. “That’s how this works. This relationship business.”

  He gave me a look that was half hurt, half annoyance. My hands were trembling, betraying my bravado. I didn’t have a very good escape plan if I was wrong and he tried to hurt me. The thought of throwing him off the roof wasn’t appealing at all to me, but I knew if it had to be done, I would do it.

  I wrapped my hand around a stray brick, ready if I needed it.

  “Tell me the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. You’ll be doing that soon enough if I understood Bree right,
” I demanded.

  He glanced at my hand clutching the brick and, I thought, almost smiled. “Mars, I can’t involve you in this.”

  I loved how everyone kept saying that. I couldn’t be involved. I was too delicate, too naïve, too so-many-things to be involved. I was already involved. More than I’d ever imagined or wanted to be.

  “After everything we’ve been through, you owe me the truth. You’re in trouble, Zayed, with the law and your country. You have nowhere to go. Now I expect you to tell me what’s going on. It’s the least you can do after all the lies.”

  “If I involve you, we can’t go back to what we were before.”

  His eyes were closed, as if he was resigned to whatever fate awaited.

  “The before was a lie, right? So why would I want to go back?”

  He tapped his fingers on a large cardboard box that I’d just noticed sat next to him on the ledge. I wanted to ask what was inside but wanted other answers more.

  “Talk. Do it now. The truth can’t be worse than what I’ve imagined.”

  He only stared out into the city, the shadows of an early sunset creating spirals across the planes of his face, brooding and beautiful all at once. He was a broken prince in my short-lived fairy tale.

  It was every girl’s dream to meet a dark, mysterious stranger and fall hopelessly in love. It was no girl’s dream to discover that her stranger was in fact a criminal, a violent one, and that every magical moment they had shared was a lie.

  “I’m an informant,” he said.

  “A criminal informant?” I’d spent the sleepless night doing frantic research on the internet about spies and informants and whistle-blowers. None of them sounded like a good person to be.

  “Yes.”

  “To the Army?”

  “The Marines. They sent my case to the Army Reserves of Washington. The Seattle police are involved too. This,” he said pointing at the gorgeous silver watch on his wrist, “is my father’s watch, but they planted a tracker in it.”

  “Where are you really from? Do you even have a family?”

  “I’ve lived in Iraq my whole life. My parents are exactly as I told you before. Educated people. We aren’t wealthy, but we are very comfortable, and we are good people.”