An Illusion of Trust (Sequel to The Brevity of Roses)

by Lewis, Linda Cassidy

  “But I don’t fit in here.”

  “Maybe you’re not supposed to.”

  “But Jalal—”

  “Be yourself, Renee. That’s who Jalal loves.”

  Kristen and her friend, Brittany, are supposed to be keeping the kids preoccupied while the rest of us set up for Adam’s birthday party, but I worry that their minds are more on the guys. Ryan and Jason brought a friend when they drove up from Cal Poly yesterday, and Kristen, apparently, fell in love with Chase at first sight. Kristen had already clued me in that Brittany hopes to get Ryan’s attention this weekend, so who’s watching who out there in the back yard is anyone’s guess. I make a move toward the window to check, but Jalal gives me that look. I know. I know.

  Jennie announces her arrival by calling out, “Where’s my birthday boy?” Then the kitchen door swings open and she’s hugging me. “He’s outside with Kristen,” I say because I know she’ll go there. “Let me know if Mia Grace seems hungry, okay?” When Jalal gives me another look, I stick out my tongue at him.

  “Something smells good,” Eduardo says and takes the beer Jalal’s offering him.

  “Come outside and observe Hank as barbecue king. My father is here too, and have you met Paul?” Jalal turns to me and says, “Can you manage?”

  I can manage. I wish they would all go somewhere and let me finish up, but Judith, Nasrin, Goli, Azadeh, and of course dear Diane are all hell bent on helping, even if that translates to standing around the great room, talking. Though really, I guess there’s not much left to do. The cake is set up and the dining room decorated. We prepared all the food yesterday, except the mixed salad and what Hank is now grilling, and there are just a few more dishes to add to the buffet.

  Judith hands me a glass of wine. “You’re not drinking enough of this,” she says and looks pointedly at Diane.

  “I’m fine. I doubt she’ll flirt with Jalal in front of this crowd.”

  “If she does, sic Jennie on her. I’d pay to see that.”

  “What’s so funny?” Goli asks, coming up behind us.

  “Everything’s funny with enough wine,” Judith says.

  Goli holds up her glass. “Amen to that.”

  Everything is perfect. After we ate and had the cake and presents, the wind came over the mountains, cooling the air enough for the party to move outside. Jennie and Nasrin set up a table with the drinks and remaining appetizers to fuel the conversation, which rises and falls as each topic is introduced and then exhausted. I’m reluctant to leave for even a moment, but babies make demands.

  While I’m changing Mia Grace’s diaper, she picks at a thread on my top and loosens a button. Laughter rises from the yard while I’m putting on a new top, and I look down on the party from our bedroom windows. From here, I can see them all—friends and family, my husband, my son. My son is two years old now. He’s beautiful and smart and loved. Loved. He has everything.

  Mia Grace touches my lips. When I look at her, she puts on her serious face, babbles in what sounds like Japanese, and then laughs at her own joke. I cover her with kisses. I have two beautiful, perfect children. I can’t believe I’m so lucky. Worth more than any house, or car, or diamonds, this is what Jalal has given me. I want to tell him that. I need to tell him. “Mia Grace, why is your silly mama crying?” It must be the time of day. The sun is lowering in the west, casting the world in bronze and filling me with a longing I can’t explain. “Let’s go rejoin the party, sweet baby.”

  Maybe I shouldn’t have viewed the party from above, because now I feel smaller, surrounded, like I’m swallowed up by it. Suddenly, I’m so exhausted I can barely stand, and everything looks oddly faded—unreal somehow. Adam runs up to me and I hoist him to my other hip. It’s not too early to start their bedtime routine. Surely they’re as tired as I am from all the activity today. Where’s Jalal? I need to let him know we’re making our escape.

  Escape?

  “Give us those babies, Renee.”

  Someone’s shouting. Someone’s pulling at the kids. I hold on tight and turn away. “No!” Why are they doing this? “They’re mine. They’re mine.” I have to get to the door …

  “Renee?”

  “You’re scaring them,” I scream at the woman and then whisper to the kids, “Shhh. It’s okay. Don’t cry.” I try to hold them tighter, but now more hands are pulling at them. “No! Don’t take them. You can’t—” Someone grabs my shoulders and turns me around.

  “Renee. Stop this.”

  “Jalal?” He’s so far away and then I blink and he’s right in front of me and he’s lifting Adam from my arms and handing him to Korush and Jennie takes Mia Grace from me because I’m so tired now so tired and I have to let them go and “I don’t … I don’t know …”

  “Take her in the house, Jalal,” Jennie says and then, “Here, Nasrin, take the baby.”

  Jalal puts his arm around my shoulders and we turn toward the house and my legs weigh a ton and I can’t really feel my feet on the ground … floating we are floating … Adam cries out for me and I falter but Jalal whispers “No” in my ear and then he flies far away saying “Mama’s all right, Adam.”

  No I don’t think I am and it’s getting so dark …

  I open my eyes. Jalal is sitting on the bed at my side, holding my hand, and Jennie hovers behind him. Neither says anything; they just look at me. Why am I lying here? Their faces show confusion equal to mine. And they’re scared.

  Then my mind gasps and everything rushes back to me. Oh my god. Why did that happen? “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Jalal.” He shakes his head and kisses my forehead. He’s silent because he’s trying not to cry. Jennie smiles at me, an obvious effort. I try to sit up. “I’m okay. This is silly.”

  Jalal moves to give me room to sit beside him, but he stops me when I try to stand. “You had … some kind of shock,” he says.

  “Yeah, I guess I really made a scene, huh?” I try to laugh it off. They don’t join in.

  Jennie pushes the pillows out of the way and squeezes in on the other side of me. “Do you know what happened, honey?”

  “Well, uh … I just got confused for a minute.” I force another laugh. “My mind was somewhere else.” Because Jennie glances at Jalal, I turn to him.

  He clears his throat and swallows hard.

  “I’m okay,” I tell him.

  He nods and lifts my hand to his lips.

  “We both thought you’d had some counseling,” Jennie says. “I know you told me that, and Jalal says you told him the same thing.”

  “I did have some, not a lot, after Becky died.”

  “What do you mean by ‘not a lot’?”

  “Like six or seven sessions of grief counseling. It was free at the family services center.”

  Jalal clears his throat again. “But that was just to help you deal with Becky’s suicide?” he asks. “You never had any counseling to help you with … with any of the other trauma from your childhood?”

  “Well … no.”

  “Fuck,” Jalal says. “I should have known that.” He stands and starts to pace.

  “Don’t blame yourself, Jalal,” Jennie says. “None of us realized.”

  “Hey, guys, really it’s no big deal. I’m fine. I got over that a long time ago.” I gesture toward the windows. “That was just some freak thing, some kind of flashback. I hardly ever think about that day anymore.”

  I’m lying and I still don’t feel normal, but I stand and almost make it to the bedroom door before Jalal grabs my arm to stop me. “It’s time for the kids to have their bath,” I tell him.

  “Someone else can do that in a while. Then you can feed Mia Grace and tuck them in. We need to talk now.” He takes me by the shoulders and backs me up to sit on the bed again. Then he goes back to pacing.

  “Really, Jalal, I’m okay.”

  “The hell you are! You just had a fucking psychotic break.”

  Jennie gasps. “Jalal. What’s the matter with you?”

  “I’m sorry,�
� I tell him. “I won’t do it again.”

  Jennie says, “You have nothing to be sorry about, honey. Right, Jalal?”

  “No. Oh no, this is not your fault, Renee.” He drops to his knees in front of me and hugs me. “I love you. I am … just shaken.”

  Jennie lays a hand on Jalal’s shoulder. “Why don’t you see about the babies’ bath?”

  “Oh. Yes, all right,” he says to her. “Be right back,” he says to me.

  As soon as he leaves the room, Jennie pulls me close. I lay my head on her shoulder, and she strokes my hair. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask enough questions, honey. I assumed, and so did Jalal, that you’d had more counseling. We didn’t understand why you were so worried about Adam and Mia Grace being out of your sight. We never dreamed it was because of …” There’s a hitch in her breathing and then she’s silent. I let myself rest into her. I let her rock me. I let her be my mother. After a while, she sniffs and says, “I’m so sorry.”

  Jalal is back, turning on a light against the growing darkness. We’ve been up here longer than I realized. “What will everyone think? We left the party. It was such a nice day and I ruined it.”

  “They are family,” he says. “They understand.”

  “But you should go downstairs with them.”

  “Kristen and Brittany went to the movies with the guys, my parents and Eduardo are downstairs, and the others went home. Aza and Goli are in the nursery waiting for us. Are you ready?” He offers me a hand up.

  I hug and kiss Jennie and whisper, “I love you.”

  Jalal wants me to go to bed after the kids fall asleep, but I decide to go downstairs. I’d rather get this all talked out tonight. We take the back stairs into the kitchen because I know that’s where everyone will be. I’m right. They’re in conversation around the table until we walk in. All talk and movement stops for a moment, and then everyone unfreezes at once. Korush and Eduardo shift chairs around to make room for two more, Nasrin puts the kettle on to boil again, Jennie starts another pot of coffee, and Goli and Aza search for desserts. This is the way with family.

  We make small talk until we’re all settled at the table with a cup and a plate. “I know what happened wasn’t my fault,” I say, “but I’m sorry the party ended the way it did.” They murmur polite protests and I wave them away. “You all know that my mother lost custody of me and my brothers and sisters. I was fifteen. But I—and I don’t know if you’ll understand this—but I was more than their older sister. Especially for the two youngest, the girls, I was more like their real mother. I tried to tell the CPS people that. The night they took them away, I tried to make them understand, but …” Jalal hands me a napkin, and I wipe my eyes and blow my nose. “Anyway, I don’t know why, but today I had a flashback to that evening. I know it probably freaked you all out, and I’m sorry about that.”

  “I can imagine how horrible that experience must have been for you,” Goli says.

  “And you were never reunited?” Eduardo asks, though I know Jennie must have told him all the details.

  Jalal speaks for me. “They sent her out here to her father, so she assumes her siblings went to live with their fathers too.”

  “All these years you have carried that pain in your heart,” Korush says. I’m surprised by the tears in his eyes.

  “She will get help with that now, Baba.”

  “What she needs is to know what happened to them.”

  Jalal looks from his father to me. I look at Korush. “What if I learn the worst?”

  “What if you learn the best?” Korush says. “Either way, you must know or you will not heal.”

  Nine

  Jalal’s in the pool teaching Adam to swim without his floaties. I’m sitting in the shade with Mia Grace, watching them and waiting for the lunch the other women are preparing. All morning, everyone has acted like nothing bizarre happened yesterday, which only makes me feel more like a freak, like I’m too fragile to bear the weight of reality. If I get one more pat on the hand from Jennie or Nasrin, or one more hug from Eduardo or Korush, I might start screaming. I don’t think Goli and Aza have looked me in the eye once today. I can almost hear the eggshells crunching under their feet. It’s a relief when Jason, Ryan, and Chase, dressed only in swim trunks, stumble out to the patio. They’re followed soon by Kristen who regularly sleeps in and then shocks herself fully awake by jumping into the pool.

  Ten minutes later, Eduardo and Korush exit the house and seat themselves at one of the tables which means food is on its way. “Lunch,” I call out to the swimmers as the women begin the parade of dishes from the kitchen.

  Kristen surfaces close to me. “Hey, Renee, got your demons back on the leash today?”

  A collective gasp is followed only by the sound of water dripping off the guys standing at the edge of the pool. I laugh and give her a big mental hug. “Thank you for asking, Kristen. Yes, I think they’re secured.”

  Apparently, my response is the signal for everything to return to normal because now everyone is smiling and chatting as they fill their plates. I’m debating whether I should have the lamb or chicken kebab when the doorbell sounds. Aza jumps up to answer it and I pray it’s Paul she’s expecting. No such luck. Diane’s voice soon dampens my hunger.

  “I don’t want to interrupt your lunch,” she says to no one specific as she steps onto the patio, “but I need to talk to Jalal about something.”

  Of course she does. Not that she couldn’t have talked to him about it yesterday or the day before or tomorrow or next week, because she seems to find an excuse to be here nearly every damned day. I’d hoped that after Aza started dating Paul, she wouldn’t have time for Diane, but Paul travels on business so often there’s still room for her to be a constant bitch in my life.

  Diane pulls my nearly naked husband aside to simper and smile only inches from him. I’m not the only one watching this display. Jennie hands Adam a strawberry and whispers in his ear. A second later, he slips off her lap, walks over to Jalal, and reaches to be picked up, so they can share bites. My smile matches Jennie’s.

  Then Goli calls out, “Jalal, continue that conversation after you eat.” But I’m not sure she said that because she’s watching my back until she moves over one seat, winks at me, and says, “Diane, come sit by Aza.”

  For the first time in my life, I’m surrounded by people who watch out for me.

  Jalal smiles at me across the patio. Without warning, a sob escapes and I rise and turn away with Mia Grace in my arms, hoping that everyone will think I’m only going inside to change her diaper.

  So. I went to the doctor and, when tests showed I’m anemic and deficient in a dozen other things, he loaded me up with supplements. Jalal read me the riot act on that one, since he’s always after me about skipping meals. And Judith referred me to her therapist—“the best in town”—but after three sessions with him, each one less useful, in my opinion, I called it quits. In the last two weeks, I’ve learned more on my own by reading about dealing with trauma. I think just acknowledging the reason behind my fear of separation from Adam and Mia Grace is the major step toward my healing. I’m embarrassed that I reached that point so dramatically—that’s repression for you. At least Adam and Mia Grace are too young to remember the day their mother went completely loco.

  Despite the therapist’s caution to move slowly, Jalal and I are taking Korush’s advice. We’ve hired a private investigator to find Brandon, Nicole, and Amber. Today, we’re filling out the online forms. “We don’t have to send Nathan the actual photos, do we?” I ask Jalal.

  “No. Scans will do.” He hands me his phone. “Call Jason and remind him to get your lock box.”

  I text him instead. The guys asked last night if they could use our house in Bahía for the day. When Kristen found out, she invited herself and Brittany, so before they left this morning I told them where to find my photo box in the garage.

  Jason responds, First thing in the car, Uncle J. Spending the night.

  “He’s
already put it in the car,” I say, “but they’re not coming back from Bahía until tomorrow.”

  Jalal grabs the phone and hits dial. He skips a greeting. “Jason, you guys can do what you want, but those girls are not sleeping in my house with the three of you.” As he listens, he shakes his head as though Jason can see him. “Give me a break. Your Aunt Aza would kill me for allowing it. No. Jason, do not put—” He sighs. “Hello, Kristen.”

  Jalal listens to her plea. “And you cleared this with your mother?” He smiles. “Just as I thought. Your Aunt Renee and I will drive over and take you all out to dinner, after which you and Brittany will ride home with us.” He shakes his head again. “No, they can stay. Yes, it is fair. See you at seven.”

  “Wow,” I say. “That was a glimpse of the future.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You being the strict disciplinarian with Mia Grace.”

  “Not even close,” he says. “In the first place, I would never allow Mia Grace to drive to the coast for a day with a boy.”

  I’ll let him keep that fantasy, for now. He has no idea what he’ll be dealing with when she’s a teen. He’ll know every trick Adam tries to play, but despite his considerable knowledge of women, Mia Grace will spin him like a top. It’s my job to do my best to raise her right and intervene when she strays from that.

  Today my job is to face the past. “I don’t see what good those old photos are anyway,” I tell him. “Kids change drastically in eleven years.

  “Are you in any of them?”

  “Some. Why?”

  “I bet I could recognize you in them.”

  “Well, probably so, in the ones where I’m older, but Amber was only two and Nicole was four. Brandon was ten, so maybe they can see some resemblance to him now, but—”

  “Can it hurt to include the photos? We need to do everything we can to find them.”

  “Okay. You’re right.”

  I’m afraid we won’t find them. Then again, I’m afraid we will.