by Alisha Rai
When her tears had slowed, Zara spoke. “Sadia, did you see that psychiatrist I recommended after Paul died?”
“I had a few appointments. He just gave me some medication and didn’t really seem interested in talking. It felt like a waste of time.”
Zara didn’t look pleased by this. “I’ll find you someone else. In the meantime, let me tell you, quite certainly, you had nothing to do with Paul’s death.”
“But I—”
“If I got a divorce tomorrow, would you call me a failure?”
“No.”
“What about Noor?”
Sadia sniffed. She could see where Zara was going with this. “No.”
“What about any other woman?”
“No.”
“Then why are you crueler to yourself than you’d be to a stranger?”
The rationale made sense, but she couldn’t banish the crushing sense of failure that lingered over her. “I’m a mess in every way, though. I can’t take care of Kareem by myself and I can’t run this business and I can’t get up for this party and I—I can’t do anything.”
Noor tapped her knee. “You take care of Kareem fine. You’re a better mother than me.”
“That’s a high compliment from Noor,” Jia added, in a deliberately light tone. “She thinks she’s the best at everything.”
Noor snorted. “Oh please. I know I’m not the best. And I know you’re not a failure, Sadia. You’re simply an anxious perfectionist like the rest of us.”
Sadia swiped at her nose. “I have panic attacks.”
“Me too,” Zara said, stunning her. Her older sister smiled faintly. “Love, we are all different, but Noor is right. We’re also all basically the same. I’ve had to work at not setting standards for myself I can’t possibly reach, because when I don’t meet them, I feel like a disaster. I used to have an anxiety attack if I ever got a grade that was less than perfect.”
“I threw up every morning in residency,” Noor admitted gruffly. “If I ever got chastised, I was certain I’d screwed up everything.”
They looked at Jia, who scrunched her nose sheepishly. “Whenever I post a photo, I obsessively refresh it until I get a certain number of likes. It’s why I can’t post anything too close to bedtime.”
Zara smiled. “Noor and I have been talking about this a lot this week, haven’t we, sister? About how we’re all different and how success can mean different things to each of us? And we should be allowed to pursue our own dreams?”
Noor let out a rough exhale at the pointed words. “Yeah.” She nodded at their youngest sister. “Jia, I want every piece of financial information you have on this silly—I mean, on this business you want to start.”
Jia started. “Oh.” Her eyes widened, Noor’s words sinking in. “I wasn’t expecting this right now, but yes! I will. I’ll send it to you.”
Zara tapped Sadia on her cheek to get her attention. “Do you see? You did that. You’re our moral compass and our organizational whiz and our heart, Sadia. If you’re looking for what you’re truly good at, that’s a great example right there of your success.”
A trickle of warmth lit her chest, easing the tightness that had threatened.
“If I ever made you feel bad about yourself, I’m sorry,” Noor pulled her close in an awkward hug. “You were right. We should have supported you in whatever decisions you made instead of telling you they were bad decisions.”
Sadia could count on one hand the number of times Noor had ever apologized. To anyone, let alone her. She hugged her back, then sat back against her pillows. “Thank you.”
Noor glanced at her watch and came to her feet. “You don’t have to go to this party, if you don’t want to, Sadia. But could you please tell the rest of us what we need to do?”
Sadia ran her hand through her hair, encountering knots. “I have to go to the party. What will people say?”
Noor rolled her eyes. “Honest to god. Who cares?”
Chapter 21
Livvy had been exactly right. It was impossible to make peace with a dead man.
Jackson found Paul’s grave easily. It was near their father’s and their grandparents’. Someone had been taking care of them. All of his family members’ stones were free of weeds, with fresh flowers in little vases.
Jackson first went to Robert Kane’s tombstone and laid his hand on it. The wind was picking up force, cutting through his leather jacket, dead leaves whirling around him. He pressed his palm against the cold marble. “Hey, Dad. Sorry I haven’t visited in so long.” He’d never visited, actually. Not after his father’s funeral.
He stroked the marble, weathered now after a decade. He hadn’t had the closest relationship with his father but they’d loved each other. Part of him was glad he hadn’t visited this grave before. He’d rather have the image of his father as a big, boisterous man than this cold stone marking his last place.
Jackson stood there for a second, then made his way to Paul’s stone. It was smaller than their father’s. Jackson crouched down to tug at a tiny weed encroaching on Paul’s space. “Hello, brother,” he said quietly. “I’m so mad at you.”
As he said the words, his shoulders lightened, like he’d shed a weight he’d been carrying for a decade. “I’m mad at you for telling me nothing would happen to me. I’m mad at you for lying about Sadia. I’m mad at you for knowing I loved her. But most importantly, I’m pissed as hell that you went and died before I could tell you any of that.” He tugged harder at the weed. A part of him had been certain that one day he’d see Paul again. That they’d fight and scream at each other, and then they’d be back to where they’d been before that horrible day in his mother’s bedroom. “You wrote a letter to John, of all people, you dumbass. You couldn’t write a letter to me? You couldn’t tell me you loved me directly? What is wrong with—” He took a deep breath, realizing he was yelling at a grave. “I’m even mad at that letter. Because you managed to tell me you love me, and I—I’ll never be able to tell you I love you.”
He knows.
For a second, he wondered if someone had whispered the words, but then he realized they were coming from inside him. “He didn’t know.” All his brother had known was that he coveted the man’s woman.
You were ready to take on a felony charge for him. For Sadia, yes, but also for him. He knew.
Jackson closed his eyes. He wasn’t a man given to praying, but he prayed that was true. He prayed his brother had known he’d come back eventually, that he’d loved him unconditionally. He really needed his brother to have known that.
“Jackson?”
He opened his eyes and looked up at his mother. Tani was holding multiple bouquets of flowers in one hand. Her cane wasn’t in sight. She came closer. She was walking with a slight limp.
“You’re out here alone?” he asked gruffly. He came to his feet and took the flowers from her. She let go of them, but reluctantly.
“I always come alone. A broken hip wouldn’t stop me from that.”
He stepped back and let her circle her son’s grave. When she started to painfully get to her knees, he held her arm. “Let me help you, please.”
He assisted her to the ground, and she removed the older flowers from the vase and held out her hand. He placed the bouquet in it and watched as she carefully, methodically arranged the flowers. “I am surprised to see you here,” she said quietly.
“Livvy said I needed to make peace with Paul.”
“That sounds like something Livvy would say. She’s been speaking like some kind of therapist since she got back.”
The words were a criticism, but the fondness underlying them couldn’t be hidden. Livvy and their mother had always had some sort of odd, half-critical, half-kind relationship he’d never been able to parse. Growing up, his mother had never sniped at him about his weight or his eating habits or hygiene, so he assumed this was some sort of mother-daughter thing he didn’t fully understand.
He crouched down next to his mother, hating
the way she flinched. He kept his gaze on Paul’s grave. “You don’t have to be scared of me,” he murmured. “I’m not . . . I was mad at you. Maybe a part of me still is. I thought I was your favorite, but you chose Paul so quickly. You backed up his lie about Sadia. And then you didn’t come see me when I was in jail, and I was scared. But I’m trying to get over that mad. I’m hoping I can, someday, and we can have some sort of relationship.”
There.
He started to rise to his feet, but his mother placed her small, trembling hand on his arm. “Have you ever driven through a thunderstorm? When the rain is pounding down on the windshield and the wipers are working overtime, but you can’t even see the car in front of you?”
At his nod, she continued. “That’s how I felt in the weeks after your father died. I don’t completely remember every minute of it. Livvy asked me last week if she thought I was perhaps having a depressive episode, and maybe I was, I don’t know.”
“We don’t have to talk about this,” he interjected.
“We do. Because I remember the panic of Paul confessing what he’d done, and about the man who saw him. I backed him up about Sadia, because I believed him at the time. I didn’t know until later that she wasn’t actually pregnant.” She took a deep breath. “I asked you to go with the police, Jackson, because I honestly thought it would be resolved in a day or so. It shouldn’t have taken as long as it did.”
“None of us really knew the law, so that makes—”
“I knew the law,” she countered crisply. “That witness kept upping his price. It took me a couple of weeks to liquidate the cash necessary to pay him off.”
He reared back. Instinctively, he looked all around them, but the graveyard was empty. If there was any place to confess secrets, this was it. “What?” He shook his head, as if that would clear his hearing. “Wait, what?”
Tani sighed, and adjusted a flower that didn’t really need adjusting. “There was no way in hell I’d let either of my boys go to prison. Luckily, I had Brendan’s money for the shares in the C&O, though it took a while for all of that cash to clear. You ask me why I don’t regret selling that place? For one, it made it possible for neither you nor Paul to pay with your lives for one moment of reckless passion.”
“Mom. Jesus.”
“Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain,” she said primly, this woman who had covered up arson. “All of this is between the two of us, of course. And it’s no excuse for my not coming to see you or talking to your attorney. But driving through that rain and fog while trying to raise enough money to pay off that man? That took all of my resources then. I had none left to spare on making jailhouse visits. And I’m sorry about that.”
He didn’t know what to say. He was generally a champion for fairness and justice, but who would benefit from him chastising his mother for bribery? Nicholas and John had already said they didn’t care about what Paul had done. Paul was dead. Nicholas’s asshole dad was the only one who might stand to benefit from this revelation, and Jackson wasn’t about to go snitching to him.
And in an odd sort of way, he was touched. He knew better than anyone what shape Tani had been in then. It must have taken all of her spoons to get up out of bed and . . . commit a crime.
He exhaled roughly. No one had ever said his family wasn’t dysfunctional as hell. “Are we done with secrets? Is there anything else we should tell each other?”
“You could tell me what you’ve been doing all this time.”
“It’s a long story.”
His mother rose to her feet, and he assisted her, coming to his feet as well. “I have time,” she said.
He needed to figure out what to say to Sadia, but he couldn’t turn down this offer. These sorts of second chances came too rarely. “We can go home. I can make lunch for us and give you a quick rundown. Maybe you can help me too.”
“With Sadia? What happened, did you upset her?” She smiled at his surprise. “Yes, I assumed there was a reason you were staying with her. A fool could see you loved her when you were young. Paul would be happy.”
“Are you sure?”
“Your brother loved Kareem and Sadia more than anything. To have someone like you in their lives? When you’ve already proven how willing you are to sacrifice for that woman? He’d be ecstatic.”
“I hope so.”
“I know so.” His mother wasn’t an expressive person, but she seemed lit up from within, her skin glowing. There was no hesitation when she took his arm.
And there was no hesitation when he put his hand on hers.
Chapter 22
After a couple of hours with her sisters, Sadia felt well enough to attend the party. Not because she ultimately cared what people thought, but because she truly didn’t want to miss it. Her parents would never have this party, this anniversary again. Her sisters had helped her get dressed, Jia wielding makeup magic so she didn’t look quite so exhausted.
The house was loud, packed with guests who had known the doctors forever. Sadia did her best to smile and nod and mingle, even when she felt like running away and going home to see if Jackson had packed up his apartment.
I love you.
She blew out a breath, still unsure of what to think about that. Maybe she wasn’t a total failure, but she still had no guarantee everything would work out perfectly. He’d left her before, what was to say he wouldn’t leave her again?
There were extenuating circumstances then.
“Hello, Sadia.” Her father appeared at her side. He was dressed in a suit that she was certain he’d had tailored for the occasion, but it still hung a little limply on him.
“Daddy. You look so handsome.” She straightened his tie, though he didn’t really need it.
“I still don’t see why I had to wear a suit,” he grumbled.
Sadia leaned in close. “It’s because Mom likes to see you dressed up. She thinks you’re handsome, too.”
His cheeks darkened. “Hmph. Nonsense.” He paused. “Did she tell you this?”
She allowed herself the first real moment of amusement she’d experienced all day. “She didn’t have to. I’ve seen the way she looks at you.”
Tall as he was, Mohammad was able to easily search the crowd for his wife, his face softening when he spotted her, dressed in her pretty new blue shalwar kameez. “I suppose there is something to dressing up now and again.”
“Indeed.”
Mohammad turned back to Sadia, expression warm. “Thank you for throwing this party. Everything is perfect.”
“Oh, we all organized it together.”
“Sadia, I know my daughters.” Her father put his arm around her and gave her a quick squeeze. “When you were young and we would go on trips, you were the only one who didn’t make me feel like I was herding five cats.” A reminiscing smile played on his lips. “You had lists and then lists for your lists.”
Sadia’s smile was genuine. “I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself.”
He pressed a quick kiss on top of her forehead. “I am. MashAllah, I am a blessed man.”
Warmth spread through her. She cleared her throat, wondering if one of her sisters had said something to their father. He wasn’t normally enormously demonstrative, though he’d always been affectionate enough for a man with a demanding profession and five children. “Why don’t you go compliment your bride?” She leaned over to the nearest hightop table and pulled a white rose out of an arrangement. “Give her this. Be smooth.”
He accepted the rose. “That is why your mother married me. Because of how smooth I am.”
Sadia watched him make his way across the room, grinning when he bowed in front of Farzana with a flourish. Her mother tittered and blushed, glancing around them at their guests, but then she accepted the rose with a secretive grin.
Sadia turned in time to catch Kareem scurrying past her. She grabbed his arm before he could disappear, tsking over the juice he’d already spilled on his shirt. “Kareem, really.” She blotted at the stain with the nap
kin she held.
“Mom, come on,” he whined. “I wanna go play.”
His usual refrain when he was around his cousins. She rolled her eyes and stood. “Fine. Go.” All of the kids would have more than juice stains on their shirts by the end of the night, of that she was sure.
He ran off, then stopped and pivoted. “Is Uncle Jackson coming?”
She swallowed the sting of pain, her mood dimming again. “I told you, he’s not coming tonight.”
Kareem’s disappointment was palpable, but he darted off, the lure of his cousins too bright to maintain pouting.
If only she could not pout about this.
She drifted through the crowd and she was sure she said all the right things, but it was hard to know for sure when her brain was barely there. It was firmly stuck on the man who’d managed to worm his way into her mind and heart in barely a few weeks.
I love you. I’ve always loved you.
“Where’s that nephew of mine? I have some more gum for him.”
Sadia’s shoulders relaxed and she turned to face Livvy. “You came.”
“Of course.” Livvy had toned down her look for the party, bundling her dyed hair up in a neat updo, and wearing a simple black dress and flats.
Sadia had invited Livvy last week, but she hadn’t been sure the other woman would attend. “Is Nicholas here?”
“No. We decided he would be too distracting.”
That was a good call. Chandlers tended to draw attention no matter what, and Nicholas and Livvy together would definitely pull the spotlight off her parents. Sadia glanced around. “I need to talk to you.”
Livvy’s smile was rueful. “I figured you might, sister. Come on.”
Livvy easily navigated her way through Sadia’s childhood home, until they were at the back door. They slipped outside onto the porch, which was blessedly, thankfully empty.
