by Kate Hewitt
“We went to the police station.” Her voice was low, almost frightened.
“The police…?”
“They called Maria. They asked her to come in.”
“I thought they might.” I wasn’t really worried. “They must have realized she was in that photo.”
“What photo?” Alexa’s voice sounded high and thin, with a ragged edge.
“Just a photo from CCTV…” I hadn’t shared the details of the investigation with Alexa, although she’d asked on occasion. I’d just told her they were pursuing some leads. “It doesn’t really matter, Alexa. It was just a photo of the street. Maria was walking and there was a man behind her.”
“The man who…”
My stomach clenched at the thought. “Yes.”
“She seems weird,” Alexa said after a moment. “All afternoon, she’s seemed really weird.”
“Weird?” I still wasn’t alarmed, not then. I was holding onto that feeling of hope; I wasn’t going to let anything shake it. “It’s just that she doesn’t like going to the police, Alexa.”
“Why not?”
“It… it brings back memories, I think.” I didn’t want to tell any more than I had to. “Why don’t I talk to her?”
“I don’t know…”
“Please.”
After a moment, Alexa mumbled her assent and the phone clattered onto some surface. I waited, and then a few seconds later I heard Maria’s voice, small and tense.
“Nathan?”
“Hi, Maria. Alexa told me the police called you.”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry if it was distressing for you. You should have called me. I would have come with you.”
“It was okay.” She did sound strange, sort of blank, as if she wasn’t really listening.
“Are you sure? Were they asking you about that photo?”
“Yes. And they were… suspicious, I think. Because I now work for you.”
I frowned. “Why would that make them suspicious?”
“I don’t know. They said it was… an odd connection.”
Looking back, I knew it had been odd, that I’d asked a virtual stranger to take care of my children, and yet I couldn’t regret it for a moment. We’d come so far, together.
“I don’t know why they would suspect you of anything,” I said. “You weren’t involved.” It was so obvious, I felt uncomfortable even having to say it.
“No,” Maria agreed after a pause. “I was not involved.” Her voice sounded heavy, and I didn’t understand it. Perhaps I didn’t want to.
“So you’re okay? Because Alexa was a bit worried…”
“I am fine. Please, do not worry yourself.”
“Okay.” I still felt a little bit uneasy, unsure, although about what I didn’t know. “I’ll be back for dinner.”
“All right.”
“And we should talk… the three of us. You, me, and Alexa. Get it all straight…”
“Yes.”
I couldn’t judge her tone, but I knew it felt off. I felt the need to say something more, but I didn’t know what. “Take care, Maria,” I said finally, although that didn’t feel like the right thing.
She let out a choked sound—so small I thought I might have misheard or even imagined it—and then she disconnected the call.
The conversation lingered with me all afternoon, although I tried not to think about it. Not to worry about it. And when Sarah texted me a few hours later, asking if I’d like to go out for a coffee one afternoon this week, as we both worked near Madison Square, I pushed those concerns away and focused on the present that was unfolding in front of me.
Maria seemed mostly back to her usual self that evening, although perhaps a little quiet. I read Ruby a story and listened to Ella play piano, and later I coaxed Alexa out of her bedroom to watch TV with me. Small but important triumphs.
Maria went to bed early, saying she had a headache, postponing the reconciliation chat I’d been planning, but that was okay. I told myself she would feel better tomorrow.
When the girls were all in bed, I walked through the quiet rooms of the apartment, savouring the peace, even as I made notes to myself. Over President’s Day weekend, we could strip the wallpaper in the dining room. I’d sand the walls and paint them a nice mellow cream. We’d do the same with the living room; perhaps I’d let the girls choose the color. And I’d start to box up Laura’s things.
The thought brought me a pang of grief, but I knew it was the right time. I’d go through her jewelry and pick something for each of my girls. Laura had never been one for expensive stuff, although I’d given her a few pieces over the years. A sapphire and diamond bracelet from Tiffany’s for our tenth anniversary. A diamond eternity ring for our fifteenth, just a few months before she’d died. We’d been planning to go to Paris this summer to celebrate, just the two of us, a trip of a lifetime. Perhaps I’d go now with Alexa, Ella, and Ruby.
The future wasn’t what I’d thought and hoped it would be, but it still was.
In the kitchen, I glanced at the calendar; March, in just a week’s time, had none of Laura’s handwriting, no appointments she’d made, no reminders she’d needed. It was a blank slate, a fresh start. At least, I was trying to look at it that way. I was trying to find the good amidst all the grief and loss. Was it even there?
I stood in the kitchen, the apartment quiet all around me, the night so dark. Was I still searching for meaning when there wasn’t any to be found? Was making sense of all this even possible?
I thought of Maria, of how she’d cried in my arms like with no one else. I thought of Ella, sobbing about swimming, needing to let it go. I thought about Alexa, sitting silent next to me as we watched a repeat of Designated Survivor. Perhaps that was what we all were. Perhaps that was where the meaning lay.
I left the kitchen, switching off the light, and walked in darkness to my bedroom.
Twenty-Six
Maria
I do not remember much about those days after I saw the photograph of Petar. Everything felt as if it were happening far away; as if there was static between me and the world, a constant crackle so I couldn’t hear or speak or even think.
And yet my thoughts circled and circled, a flock of crows with nowhere to land. How could it be Petar? How? He was dead. He’d been dead for twenty-six years. I’d heard the gunshot; he had to be dead.
And even if he hadn’t died, why would he be in New York? Had he really shot Laura West, and if he had, why? How had he been walking right behind me and he had not seen me, told me? How had I not known?
I thought I might go crazy with the questions, I might tear my hair or claw my skin. There was a scream inside me trying to get out, and every time I opened my mouth, I feared it would emerge. It would start and never stop.
I thought of how I’d been afraid of what would happen after I slapped Alexa’s face; that seemed like so little compared to this. So ridiculously unimportant, and yet it still lay unresolved between the two of us, because I did not know how to apologise to Alexa with this scream in my chest. I did not how to do anything.
And yet somehow I made it through the days, step by step, one foot in front of the other. I picked up Ruby from preschool, I picked up Ella from school, I spoke to Nathan, I made dinner. I could not tell how I sounded; I could not judge the expression on my face. I felt frozen, my circling thoughts trapped now, forever stuck in flight. I did not want them to land. I did not want to think about what this meant, what would happen if I told Nathan, if I told the police.
Because I knew that was what I should do. Of course it was. How could I do anything else?
And yet I was so afraid. They would find Petar. They would arrest him, if he really did this terrible thing, and I knew in my heart, in my leaden gut, that he had. Perhaps they would even arrest me. And everything would be over, forever this time. I couldn’t bear any of it, and so for those few fragile days, I stayed silent.
I told myself it didn’t matter that I knew him
, that he was my brother. I hadn’t known he was in the country. I hadn’t even known he was alive. It didn’t make any difference to anything. But I knew that these things didn’t work that way. I knew if I told the police who he was, they would suspect me too. Lisa’s tone would lose that conversational bent and all would be accusation.
Are you telling me you did not recognize your own brother? Are you saying that he never once contacted you? Did you tell him to kill Laura West?
Who knew what conclusions they would jump to, what they would let themselves think. Perhaps they’d think I planned it all—I was living in her home, after all. I was practically taking her place.
For three days, I did not sleep. I lay in bed the whole night long and stared at the ceiling. I was trying not to think about the future, and so it was the past that claimed me.
I thought of Petar as a child—his dark hair, his blue eyes, his slender hands. He had always been so quiet, so gentle. I hadn’t realized it until I was a bit older, but he’d been teased at school, for being too shy. Too soft.
Lying on my bed, I recalled my father’s arm slung about his shoulders, the murmured word. Don’t pay any attention to them, Petar. Don’t pay any attention at all.
I remembered the faint smile on his face as I capered about the room, being my silly self. The friendly glint in his eyes.
How had that man, that gentle, lovely boy, come to shoot a stranger on the subway?
But then, of course, I remembered other things. I remembered Petar at the camp, the men hustling him away, one taking each arm.
I remembered the blank, deadened look in his eyes the last time I saw him.
Where was he now? Lisa had said the assailant had been in the country since September. All this time, and Petar had not found me? Yet he had been so close. He had walked right behind me.
What if he had found me… and chosen not to reveal himself?
I could not think about it. I could not let myself. And so I went through the days, step by painstaking step, just trying to survive. To get through this, even though I could see no end in sight. How would it end? They would find Petar, or they wouldn’t. Neither option was a solution, not for me.
That week of blurred days, I remember Alexa watching me. She was at home all day, phoneless, going out with me wherever I went, and always I felt her eyes on me. Ever since I’d answered the call from Lisa, I had felt her eyes. I hadn’t thought I had something to feel guilty about, but now I knew I did.
Still, I tried to keep going. I made myself speak to her, stumbling through an apology for that terrible slap. She shrugged me off, refusing to speak of it, or to me at all. When I looked at her, I wondered how, just weeks before, we had shown each other our scars, we had shared each other’s pain. Where had that healing gone?
Ella and Ruby didn’t seem to notice the tension between us or the strangeness in myself; neither did Nathan. One afternoon he came home from work early and, with the girls’ help, he put all of Laura’s things in boxes. I watched from the kitchen as he let them each pick out a piece of her jewelry, an item of her clothing, for keepsakes. Ella was tearful, Ruby excited, Alexa silent but willing.
Afterwards, he put his arms around them all, and they stood there in the bedroom in a tableau of both grief and acceptance. I turned away.
Nathan was full of vigour, those days, buoyed by a hope he’d never shown before. He told me of his plans for the weekend—no more skiing, instead they would all work together to redecorate the dining and living rooms.
“I should have done it ages ago,” he said. “But I’m doing it now. You’ll help, won’t you?”
I nodded, because I did not know what else to do.
And then, on Wednesday I went to the greengrocer’s around the corner, more just to get away from Alexa’s watchful eyes than anything else, and as I rounded the corner with a paper bag of apples, I felt someone’s hand on my shoulder.
“Maria.” The voice was low, gravelly, raspy with smoke, and yet I still recognized it. I always would.
Even so, I did not want to turn. The hand was heavy on my shoulder, and I stilled beneath it. I bowed my head.
“Maria,” Petar said again.
I turned to face him. His face jolted me; even now, I had been expecting the boy I remembered, not from Vojno, but from before. Always before. The boy with the quiet eyes and the slender hands and the faint smile.
The man in front of me had a face hatcheted with deep lines, blue eyes sunk into weathered skin. He wore a woolly hat over wild, unkempt hair, a mishmash of baggy clothes. Dirt rimmed his nails as he lifted one hand as if to touch my cheek, and then dropped it again before he did.
“It really is you,” he said in Bosnian.
I clutched the bags of apples to my chest, my head whirling and my heart thudding. Here was Petar, my brother. Here was Petar, the man who had shot Laura West, who had made three girls I’d grown to love motherless. I could not reconcile the two; worlds collided inside me and then broke apart again, spinning into the void.
“Petar…” I whispered. “How… what…” I did not even know what to ask. Part of me just wanted to run away, even as I ached to hug him.
He shook his head slowly. “After all this time.”
“Petar.” I glanced around, fear rising like a hydra inside me, its many heads writhing. “What are you doing here? How did you find me?”
“I found you months ago, Maria. Back at that center.” He spoke with a sort of weary despair, as if it was of no consequence anymore; it was all finished.
“Back at the center…” The bag of apples slipped from my hands, the paper bag tearing. Apples bounced and rolled around us. Petar crouched down to pick one up. “No.” I glanced around again, and then up, at the living room of the Wests’ apartment, that faced this street corner. The windows glinted in the sun, bright and blank.
I grabbed Petar by the arm and pulled him around the corner, nearly tripping on one of the fallen apples. Petar didn’t protest, following me docilely without a word.
I drew him to the side of a building, near an alley, the only shelter I could find. People walked past in a busy stream, barely sparing us a glance.
My mind was racing, racing. Petar had always known where I was. He knew where I lived. Were the Wests in danger from my brother? What could I do?
“Why didn’t you talk to me?” I demanded. “Why didn’t you let me know you were alive?”
“For a long time, I didn’t know you were.”
“I was in Mostar for five years after the war ended.” I did not know whether I was angry at him or just afraid. “Surely you could have found me then?”
Petar shook his head. A broken, blank look had come over his face that scared me. It was as if there was nothing behind those eyes.
“What happened at Vojno?” I asked. “I heard a gunshot…”
“Yes, what happened at Vojno?” Petar asked me, his voice turning hard and unfamiliar. “What happened to you at Vojno, Maria?”
My mouth dried as I recognized the knowledge in his eyes. “How did you find out?” I whispered.
“A guard was bragging about it in the camp.”
Nausea churned in my stomach. I couldn’t bear the bitter look on my brother’s face. “Why didn’t you die?” I cried, and Petar’s lips twisted.
“Is that what you wanted?”
“No!” And yet yes, because look what had happened. Laura was dead. I pressed my forehead against the rough brick wall, grinding my skin into it until I felt it burn. I took a deep breath and turned back to face him. He was standing there loose-limbed, hands spread, as if the fight had all gone out of him. And yet he’d shot Laura. “What happened after they took you away? The last time I saw you?”
Petar stared at me for a long moment. “They gave me a gun,” he finally said. “And they told me it was either me or him.”
I pressed one hand to my mouth. “You shot another prisoner?”
Petar shrugged. “It was either me or him.”
I closed my eyes, squeezing them shut, longing only to block all of this out. “Why didn’t I see you after that?”
“They kept us separate, and then you were released.”
I opened my eyes, stared at him hard. “And what happened to you?”
He shrugged. “More of the same.”
“Oh, Petar…” I shook my head. “Why didn’t you find me in Mostar?”
“I couldn’t.”
“You knew I was there?”
He shrugged. Behind the blankness in his eyes, I saw far too much despair.
“Were you ashamed of me?” I asked. “Because…?”
“I was ashamed of me.” His voice broke and then firmed again. “I couldn’t stand to be back there, staring at all those faces…”
“I know,” I whispered. “I felt the same. But where did you go? Where have you been all these years?” And how did you come to America? And why did you shoot Laura?
He hesitated, and I felt myself tense.
“Petar…”
“I worked in Doboj for a while,” he said finally. “For the railway.”
“And then…?”
Another awful pause. “I went to Syria,” he said at last, and I sagged against the wall as the full meaning of that slammed into me. Syria… to fight. Why else would he go?
“Oh, Petar. Oh, no. No.”
“A few of us joined up. You know what they did, Maria, to us during that forsaken war, just because we were Bosniak. The injustice of it… I wanted to fight back—”
I wanted to put my hands over my ears. As it was, I kept shaking my head. “No. No, no, no.”
“But they were just the same,” he said after a moment. “Just as bad, everyone, no matter who or what. I couldn’t make sense of any of it,” he said, his voice broken now, nothing but jagged splinters of sound. “All I saw was cruelty. No one was right. No one was good, on any side. I went back to Bosnia, and then to Albania, to find work there. And then I thought I’d find you, that finding you might be something good—that was when they told me you’d gone to America.”
“Who did?”
“Tetka Emina and Ujak Daris. I wrote to them.” My aunt and uncle.