Quiet in Her Bones

by Singh, Nalini

  “You shouldn’t eat so much sugar, you know,” Shanti added.

  Grinning, I shrugged. “It’s brain fuel. And Diana’s fudge is made from ­all-­natural ingredients, so it must be healthy.” As Shanti shook her head, I said, “How was Dad after he returned home this morning?”

  Her face fell, her eyes flicking toward the doorway into the kitchen. My father’s study was to the right and down a long corridor, but she still lowered her voice as she said, “He didn’t go to his office. I think he’s very sad. Even though he divorced your mother, he thinks of her a lot.”

  “Shanti, they hated each other.” I ate another bite of the sandwich.

  “Yes, but hate can bind.” Soft, perceptive words.

  I looked up, but she had her head down as she chopped some spinach. But head down didn’t mean no ears and no brain. “Sometimes, I hated her, too.”

  Shanti jerked up her head, her eyes huge. “Don’t say that about your mother. You don’t mean it.”

  Shrugging, I took a drink. “I loved her, too,” I said after putting down the glass. “More than I’ve ever loved anyone else. But you didn’t know my mother. She could ­be …” Mean. Abrasive. Dangerous. “Never mind. It’s just the day I’ve had.”

  “Of course. Of course.” Shanti knew never to touch me, our relationship a thing of carefully drawn lines, but today she smiled with open gentleness. “Your father did mention that we’d do all the appropriate ceremonies.”

  Had he? Well, the bastard was about to get a wake-­up call. Divorce meant he’d severed all legal ties to my mother. I was the one with the right to make the calls about her remains.

  To ensure that my father didn’t do an end run around me, I walked out the front door after finishing my food, and made a call to Constable Neri. “I wanted to make sure that when you’re ready to release the remains, I’m the one you contact.”

  “Your father’s secretary’s already been in touch about funeral details.”

  “He divorced her while ­bad-­mouthing her all over town. Legally, I’m her next of kin.”

  A pause. “I’ll have to talk to my superior officer, ­but—­”

  “Do it. I don’t want him to make a circus of my mother’s funeral.”

  Her voice was noticeably cooler when she said, “If you’ll wait a moment.”

  It took more like five minutes, but when she came back, she said, “We understand your stance, and legally, you do have the right. As such, you are now listed as your mother’s next of kin. However, given the circumstances, it’s probably better if you act as a whānau.”

  Whānau.

  Such a warm word, a word that described far more than just the nuclear family unit. Bonds across generations, bonds chosen, bonds tight and unbreakable, that was what it meant to be whānau.

  My laugh was a crack of ­pain—­because me and my father? Whānau we weren’t. Not in any real sense. “My family ended when my mother died cold and alone.” Hanging up before she could reply, I reached in my pocket for a cigarette.

  “Shit.” I hadn’t smoked since university days, and even back then, I’d only been a social smoker, joining in at parties or with friends.

  Leaning against the wall beside the front door, I exhaled and looked out at the main drive. I couldn’t see much from ­here—­just glimpses of movement. There were too many trees, too much bush. If I wanted an unimpeded view, I’d have to go upstairs to my room.

  From my desk, I could watch the entire neighborhood, see every entry and exit. A few days ago, I’d seen buxom Mellie saunter over to the Dixons’ and emerge two hours later with ruffled hair and a flushed face. Both Paul and Margaret had waved ­good-­bye to her from the doorway.

  The day prior to that, I’d watched through my ­night-­vision binoculars as tall and ­red-­haired Veda Fitzpatrick ran across the road in the dark to stuff something inside Mellie and Isaac’s letterbox.

  Funny the things you saw when no one knew you could see them.

  11

  I didn’t move.

  Soon, the curtain would fall on the day and end even my current limited visibility. Just another night. But this night would be the darkest of my life. No longer could I protect the little flame of hope that had existed inside me all these years.

  “You’re my biggest treasure, Ari beta.” A kiss pressed to my cheek as she tucked me in when I was eight. “Bigger than any diamond your father could ever give me.”

  “Ma?”

  “Yes, Ari?”

  “You won’t leave me if you go away, will you?”

  “Kabhi nahi. I’d never leave you.”

  A flash of white through the foliage, coming from near the front door of the house just down from ours to the right. I don’t know why but I moved down the drive and directly behind a mass of native ­bush—­from where I could properly see the house. The “luxe log cabin” with lots of natural wood and wide glass windows was home to the ­Savea-­Duncans.

  Two mums, one kid, and Grandma.

  I didn’t see the older woman outside that often, but Shanti had mentioned that she didn’t speak much English.

  “You remember how Alice and Cora brought Alice’s mother over from Samoa to help with their baby?” she’d said, her expression oddly furtive. “Well, with Manaia thirteen now and on that school exchange to France this term, I don’t think Elei has much to do.”

  I figured Shanti went over to hang with Grandma Elei while my father was out and my half sister at school. Both of them transplants from distant countries, with little freedom and no local networks. I wouldn’t give her up, least of all to my father, but while Shanti liked me, she had no reason to trust me.

  I didn’t hold that against her.

  I wouldn’t trust me, either.

  Adrian emerged from the doorway, dressed in his customary white shorts and the ­aqua-­blue sleeveless tee that advertised both his biceps and his gym. Sports shoes and socks made up the rest of his outfit. He carried a duffel over his shoulder.

  His smile was toothpaste perfect against white skin tanned to light gold as he spoke to the woman who’d just emerged to stand on the porch. Alice ­Savea-­Duncan. On the verge of forty and on the taller side of average, the emergency room nurse could easily pass for a decade younger, her flawless brown skin and taut abdomen giving no indication of the child she’d carried in her womb.

  Those abs were clearly visible between her colorful spandex bra top and tight black leggings. No shoes and her ponytailed hair looked freshly brushed.

  She cocked her hip and twirled her hair a little as she chatted to Adrian. I wondered what Alice’s wife would think of the interaction, but other people’s relationships weren’t my business and I had other priorities. Still, Alice should be careful. I’d seen Cora park her car partially up Isaac’s steep driveway the other day, out of sight of the main drive, then walk down to stand and peer through the bushes toward her home with Alice.

  I could’ve told her it was a waste of time. Adrian didn’t come to the Cul-­de-­Sac on Wednesdays.

  Shifting back from my concealed position, I walked around to the main drive. Alice and Cora were our direct neighbors, but it still took a while for me to reach a spot where she could see me.

  Adrian glanced over my way as he turned to leave. A quick nod was all I got.

  I wondered if he was still embarrassed about the time I’d met him on the stairs of our family home, freshly showered and emerging from my mother’s bedroom.

  Maybe.

  More likely, he had another appointment.

  I raised a hand in hello to Alice. She wiggled her fingers before sauntering inside. She’d leave in another hour or so if she kept to her usual pattern. A senior nurse, she worked shifts in a rotation. This week was the night shift.

  Cora was an aeronautical computer specialist on the early shift at the moment. She headed out around the time Alice came home. No wonder Adrian had a standing appointment. Aside from the ­Fitzpatricks—­and Calvin, I ­supposed—­Alice and Cora we
re the only ones in the Cul-­de-­Sac who worked “normal” jobs, but they weren’t exactly average in the financial stakes.

  The house had been a gift from Cora’s wealthy family, and I’m sure that family continued to funnel more money their way. The house was well maintained, Cora and Alice’s daughter attended an exclusive private school, and both women drove luxury cars.

  A curtain twitched on a ­second-­floor window: Grandma Elei. Alice’s mother and keeper of her secrets. She didn’t wave back when I raised my hand, just dropped the curtain and pretended she hadn’t been watching.

  Making a spontaneous decision, I found myself walking up the drive to the front door. Alice opened it soon after my knock. “Aarav,” she said, propping one hip against the doorjamb. “You want to borrow a cup of sugar?” Flirtatious words, but she had a lazy, satisfied look in her eye.

  “I need to get away from my father,” I said with my best smile. “Invite me in for coffee?”

  Husky laughter before she stepped back in welcome. “Ishaan is a bit of an asshole, isn’t he? You know he made me and Cora take down that old cherry blossom tree by the fence? Threatened to report it as a hazard.”

  “He just can’t stand two strong, successful women next door.”

  “You got it. You gonna be okay on this floor?” She nodded at the smooth and slick hardwood below my feet.

  “Cane has a rubber grip on the bottom.”

  I followed her swaying hips down the hall without a problem. The place was tidy but no ­showpiece—­despite the fact I knew it boasted a ­mini-­theater in the basement. Even though Manaia had been gone a couple of weeks, you could tell a kid lived ­here—­her sneakers lay kicked off by the door, her softball gear sat forgotten in a corner in the kitchen, and a school timetable was held to the fridge by a magnet in the shape of the Colosseum.

  Manaia’s class had gone to Rome as part of their geography lessons.

  Also on the fridge were multiple family snapshots. Alice was a compulsive photographer, making use of both ­professional-­type equipment and her handy phone camera. I’d seen her sticking her head out of her mother’s bedroom window, a camera with a massive zoom lens held to her eye, but hadn’t yet figured out what or whom she was photographing.

  Might just be the bush in all its changing moods.

  “So,” she said after putting on the coffee, “you’re not hankering to move back in with dear old Dad after this little return?”

  “Shoot me now.”

  Her laughter was warm and ­full-­bodied, her confidence in her body a statement. At around ­five-­eight, she was all curves and lithe muscle, and she knew she looked good. I could see why Adrian had no trouble with this appointment. “Hard workout?”

  A secret smile. “You could say that.”

  “Don’t you ever worry?” I asked.

  A raised eyebrow.

  “About Cora finding out?”

  No obvious panic on her face, but I barely caught a glimpse of that face before she turned away to reach into the fridge for the milk. “Not you, too. I thought it was just our friendly local walkers who thrived on gossip.”

  “Hey, I don’t give a shit.” I’d just wanted her ­off-­balance. “You’re hot as hell and Cora ­has—­to put it ­kindly—­let herself go.” It had begun with a mugging that had left her with a permanently damaged left hand that might’ve derailed her career if she hadn’t already been a supervisor at the time; she was apparently brilliant at running her team and ensuring all work that came out of it was of the highest standard.

  I knew that because a local newspaper had profiled her a year earlier. “I could’ve permitted my injury to stop me,” she’d said. “Instead, I took it as a challenge to find innovative new ways of working. I now do much of my input via ­voice-­recognition systems, an area that’s a particular interest of mine.”

  Professional success or not, the Amazonian Cora of my childhood was ­now … diminished. She still had the cheekbones and the height, her hair as dazzlingly ­white-­blonde as always, but gone was the muscle and the intensity. “And you don’t exactly hide your sessions with Adrian,” I added.

  Alice stared at me, her eyes piercing. “Why should I hide getting exercise?” A raised eyebrow. “You know he used to give personal sessions to your mother, too, right?”

  She was tougher than she ­looked—­but I had more cards up my sleeve. “I ran into him coming out from her room once. Freshly showered.”

  She snorted with laughter, her cheeks glowing. “Did you give a shit then?”

  “You know my father. At least Adrian left her smiling.” Weirdly, that wasn’t a lie. No wonder Dr. Jitrnicka thought Paige had been right about my “issues” when it came to relationships; I hadn’t exactly had healthy role models.

  “Well, Adrian isn’t making me happy that ­way—­I just get high off exercise.” Expression set in mildly amused lines, she poured the coffee into two mugs. “Milk? Sugar?”

  “Neither.”

  After handing me my cup, she doctored hers with milk and one teaspoon of fake sugar, then leaned back against the counter opposite where I sat. “You know, it makes me sad that you’re so cynical at such a young age. Cora and I are very happy.”

  I thought of how I’d sat in this very room with my mother and helped Cora and Alice make up signs that demanded marriage equality. Both were major names in the LGBTQ community. With the added twist that Alice was from the conservative Pasifika community. She was as much a symbol as a person.

  Divorce wouldn’t be a good look. Neither would any hint of trouble in paradise.

  “Sorry,” I said, accepting that Alice wasn’t about to budge on this point. “I guess I have my issues.”

  Alice blew on her coffee. “Don’t we all? Manaia’s gotten into this habit of saying ‘Do you need tissues for your issues’? I have no idea where she picked it up from, but if only we could fix all our wounds with tissues.” Her shoulder rose, her face ­half-­hidden behind the coffee cup she’d lifted to her mouth and her lashes lowered to screen her eyes.

  A second later, she put down her mug, and spoke in fluent Samoan to someone behind me. I’d heard the movement, knew Grandma Elei had come down the stairs. Now, I watched as she went around to hug her daughter.

  Elei Savea’s hair was a small puff of steel gray she’d pulled back into a bun. She wore a shapeless ­ankle-­length blue dress in a fabric printed with yellow hibiscus flowers. The kind of thing a woman might wear on a tropical island far from this land of forests that were much colder and darker and wetter than the waving palms of her homeland.

  Alice said something to her mother before she moved toward the coffee­pot, then reached for another mug and poured out a coffee, smiling all the while. “Aarav, have you met my mother, Elei?”

  I heard my name again as she introduced me to her mother in their native tongue.

  The older woman, her eyes sharp black dots in a dark brown face, took me in before speaking to Alice, while pointing at me.

  “She’s asking about your ­leg—­she saw you arrive home all banged up a month ago. Shanti told us you were in a car accident.”

  I wondered what else Grandma Elei had seen over the years. She’d lived here a long time. “Yeah,” I said with a frown, because I couldn’t remember the car I’d been driving.

  It hadn’t been the Porsche. I’d have remembered if it had been the Porsche.

  Transcript

  Session #3

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Fine.”

  “We’ve spoken about this.”

  [No answer]

  “I’m happy to sit here in ­silence—­after all, you’re paying me a rather exorbitant amount. But I can’t help you if you refuse to let me in.”

  “Does that line work a lot?”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  “I’m … It’s the anniversary. Today’s the day ­she …”

  “Ah.”

  “It shouldn’t matter any longer. She shouldn’t
matter any longer.”

  12

  “Single vehicle accident, right?” Alice’s voice broke into my thoughts.

  I nodded. “Skidded on a wet road, right into a massive pōhutukawa tree.” I had no memories of the accident itself, which wasn’t that uncommon, and didn’t concern me as much as the blank spot that should’ve held the details of the car. Because that info should be in my ­long-­term ­memory … unless I’d been driving an unfamiliar car that day. “I was on my way home from a publishing party. Anyway, leg’s on the way to healing.”

  Alice shared that with her mother, who asked another question. Alice answered that, too. Grandma Elei was actually smiling at me as she left the room, leaving the scent of a very expensive perfume in her wake. I wondered if Elei allowed Shanti to believe her home situation was far worse than the reality, just so Shanti would feel comfortable with her. Then again, my father gave Shanti expensive gifts, too. It was for show, didn’t mean she was valued.

  “Mum’s impressed you write books,” Alice explained. “She said you must be very clever.” Creases in her cheeks. “I enjoyed Blood Sacrifice, but did you have to kill off the brother? He was a hottie and struck serious sparks with the investigator.”

  It wasn’t the first time I’d been asked that question. Even lovers of murder had a ­well-­concealed romantic bone or two. Probably buried in the basement under two feet of concrete. “All must be sacrificed for the plot.” I drank a quarter of the coffee. “So your mum doesn’t speak any English?”

  “She speaks a lot more than she lets on. I think she just likes being able to blank people.” A grin. “I’m taking her to her local Samoan Ladies’ Chess Meet in an hour.”

  “No work?”

  “Night off.” She looked at me over her mug. “My mother also said she saw a police officer and a man in a suit at your door this morning. Everything all right?”

  I could see Elei’s room from my balcony, but hadn’t realized she could see down into our front yard. “They found my mother’s Jaguar in the bush not far from here—with her inside.”