by Nina Monroe
All morning, Lily and Will have been worrying over her. Making her buttered toast and tea, asking her if she needs anything. Finally, she told them she needed to sleep, persuaded Will to go and catch up on some work at the university and sent Lily off to Bryar’s for a few hours.
As soon as they left the house, she’d reached for her laptop.
There are several windows open on her screen.
She’s been writing e-mails for the last hour.
To the parents of her students in Middlebrook—the few of them who haven’t cancelled her lessons—to say that she’s going to take a break from teaching.
To the head of Lily’s school back in London, to ask if there’s still a place for her.
To the agency that’s renting out their flat in Ealing, to ask if they can give the tenants warning that they’ll need to vacate soon.
To her parents in Dorset, saying that she’d like to talk—that she’s got some news to share.
And when she’d written all those e-mails, she opened a new window and clicked onto the British Airways website.
Eva has weighed up what Yasmin said but it doesn’t change her mind: she wants to go home.
* * *
Yasmin sits on the couch, looking through the big glass doors leading out into the garden. She has opened them wide, wanting to feel the morning air flooding her body. The numbing cold. The newness of another day.
The twins are sleeping in, as though, having told the truth about what happened in the stable, they’re able to rest at last.
She hears a key in the lock and then Ayaan’s footsteps in the hallway. He goes into the kitchen and pours himself a glass of water. He’s been up at the building site since dawn, making sure everything’s on schedule for the big opening this afternoon. Or that’s the reason he’d give, if he were asked. Really, she knows that he needed to get away from her and the twins: he couldn’t bear even looking at them.
He walks into the living room and goes over to close the glass doors and then he turns around and notices her.
“You scared me, Yas—why didn’t you tell me you were in here?”
“I didn’t think you’d want to see me.”
He comes and sits beside her; she feels the couch shifting under his weight.
For a while, they stay silent. Then Ayaan says, “I’ve been thinking. I know that you and the twins didn’t mean to get mixed up in this. If we focus on the opening of the mosque—and on presenting a good face—I think we can move past this—”
“I don’t want to move past this.”
When Hanif and Laila told them what happened, she’d felt Ayaan’s embarrassment. He’d been so sure that his children weren’t involved in the shooting. He’d looked at her, waiting for her to join him in his disappointment. But she wasn’t disappointed. In fact, she was relieved—glad, even—that for once, the twins hadn’t stood apart from the other children; that they’d had the courage to make a mistake.
“You don’t want to move past this? What’s that supposed to mean?” Ayaan says.
“It means I’m not sorry.”
“You’re not sorry?”
“I’m sorry that Astrid and Wynn got hurt. Of course I am. But I’m not sorry that I took the kids to the party. And I’m not sorry that Hanif took the gun off Astrid. He was trying to do the right thing.”
She feels him go quiet beside her.
“I want to make my own decisions. I want to be part of this community on my own terms. I want to get to know America properly. The way things are done here. I’m tired of standing out—”
“You think that being loyal to our heritage is standing out?”
“I think we can each be loyal to our heritage in our own way. The mosque means a lot to you, I understand that—”
“It means a lot to both of us—to our whole family.”
“You’re not listening, Ayaan.”
“Okay then, tell me.”
“I want the time and the freedom to work out who I want to be.” She looks him straight in the eye. “To work out what I believe.”
“What you believe?”
“You’ve known all along—from the moment you met me in New York, you knew that our faith didn’t sit right with me. That I couldn’t follow it, not like you could. Or my parents. That I wanted to find my own answers. But you pretended not to see it. And I pretended, too. Because pretending feels easier—in the short term, anyway. But I can’t do that any more.” She takes a breath. She has to say the next words quickly or she’ll lose her nerve. “I’m not coming to the opening of the mosque this afternoon. I can’t.”
He looks struck. And, for a moment, she feels sorry for him and she wants to take it all back, to save him the hurt. But she can’t do that, not any more. It wouldn’t be fair to him—or their kids. Or to her.
He leans forward and takes her hand. His eyes are wide and vulnerable. She gets a flash of the young man he was when they were at Columbia. She was the one, then, who’d given him the courage to step out into the world.
“I know I’ve been busy,” he says. “That I’ve left you alone too much, that you’ve been carrying the weight of the twins—”
“It’s not that.”
“Well, what is it, then? This—the mosque—it’s our dream—”
“It’s your dream, Ayaan.”
He looks at her, even more wounded than before. And, for the first time in months—maybe in years—she feels a tenderness for him.
“But the mosque was our whole reason for coming here—it’s why I got the visa,” he says.
“It was your reason. But now I need to find my reason for being here. And the children need to find theirs.”
“We’re a Muslim family: the face of the new mosque. I need you there, Yas. You’ve always been so loyal—and now, all of a sudden, you’re turning your back on me—on us? I don’t understand.”
“You can do this on your own. The mosque is beautiful. And you’re right: it’s going to make a huge difference to our community. To how Americans come to understand Islam.”
“So why not be part of it?”
She shakes her head. “I can’t.”
“What about the twins?” he says. “Have you turned them against the mosque too—against me?”
“Of course not. I’d never do that. But I think you should talk to them. Ask them what they want to do.”
“They don’t know what they want. They’re kids. They’re confused. You saw what they just did.”
“Hanif was trying to please you.”
“He shot Astrid Carver to please me?”
“He intervened because he was trying to be brave.”
“And Laila—hiding the evidence, who was she doing that for?”
“For you too, Ayaan. To protect you. To protect us as a family. To protect her brother. She knew how it would look if anyone ever found out that he’d shot Astrid.”
He shakes his head. “So it’s my fault.”
She reaches out and takes his hands. “Remember when you met me, at Columbia?”
“Of course.”
“Do you—I mean, really?”
“Of course I remember. Wasn’t I the one who followed you around, begging you to go out with me—trying to get you away from that football player? From the moment I first saw you, I loved you, Yas.”
“But the person I was back then wasn’t who I am today. That girl was strong and independent. She loved the freedom of being in America. She didn’t go to mosque any more or keep up with her prayers. She didn’t write to her parents. She didn’t wear a salwar kameez.”
“But that was different. We were students—”
“To me, it wasn’t about being a student. It was about becoming who I knew I was meant to be. And then, when we went home, that me disappeared again. And when we came back to America, I really hoped things would be different. That I’d find that young woman again—the one who wasn’t defined by Lahore or Pakistan or Islam or her parents.” She looks right at him. “The woma
n who was happy. The woman you fell in love with.”
“So, since you met me, you’ve been unhappy—is that what you’re saying?”
“No, of course not. We’ve shared times of great happiness: I love you, Ayaan. And having the twins—being a mom—has made me happier than anything I could ever have imagined. But I can’t find her any more: the person I was when I first lived here.” She pauses. “I’ve felt so lost.”
“I know,” he says, gently.
“I kissed Ben Wright.” She takes a breath.
His body stiffens. “What?”
“It’s not what you think. I don’t like him—not like that. And it was just once. I was overwhelmed. He was helping me. I’m the one who kissed him. He was shocked and embarrassed—he didn’t kiss me back. And I didn’t want to kiss him again. It was just that I had to do something to feel like I was alive, like I had some control over what was happening to me.”
He stands up. “So you kissed another man.”
“It didn’t mean anything. He’s a friend, that’s it. And he was so kind. He just reminded me, for a second, of the girl I used to be.”
His eyes are glassy. “No wonder you won’t come to the mosque.”
“It’s not like that, Ayaan.” She stands up and touches his arm. “You’re my husband. We can work this out together,” she says. “You, me the kids—in a way that doesn’t compromise any of us.”
“So, let me get this right: kissing Ben didn’t compromise you but coming to the opening of the mosque this afternoon would?”
“Kissing Ben didn’t mean anything.”
“It means something to me.”
He sits back down, leaving a gap between them that feels like an ocean.
They look out through the glass doors to the garden. The sky is getting lighter. She wants to reach out to him, to let him know that it’s going to be okay, that she’ll do what he says, because that’s what she’s always done. And because it’s easier. But she knows she can’t play that role any more. That everything is different now.
* * *
In the small cabin in the woods, True Bowen sits on the edge of one of the mattresses, next to his three sleeping children.
Wynn is curled up against Skye: True can hear his snuffly-nosed breathing.
He can feel the warmth of his children’s bodies, so close to each other.
He looks down at Phoenix. Even when he’s sleeping, his lips curl up, suggesting mischief. And that was his lot, wasn’t it? That, wherever there was trouble, people traced it back to him. Because he looked the part. Because he liked to skulk in the shadows and hide up in the trees. And because he loved guns—because he was desperate for True to take him hunting.
But it turns out that he was the only kid in the stable that afternoon who didn’t even touch the gun. And then he hid Astrid’s phone to protect her—to protect all the kids.
He leans in toward his son and whispers, “I’m sorry, buddy. I’m sorry.”
Phoenix opens his eyes briefly and looks right at True, but he’s not awake, it’s just a brief intermission in his sleep. He blinks, his brow furrows and then he closes his eyes again.
When Phoenix wakes up, he’ll let him know how proud he is that he made his own decision. And he’ll promise never to doubt him again.
True kisses Phoenix’s forehead then stands up and walks out through the door of the cabin and sits on the steps, under the dark, starlit sky. He looks at the moon, almost full.
I’m going to do better, Cedar, he says. I promise, I’m going to do better.
* * *
In the rectory, Avery stares at the blank piece of paper on which she’d intended to write the speech for the opening of the mosque this afternoon. When Ayaan had invited her to say a few words—to show how different faiths could come together and support each other—she’d jumped at the chance. Avery has dedicated her life to bringing people together, but after everything that’s happened, she doesn’t know what to say.
She looks, again, at the wedding photo of her parents sitting on her bedside table. Mum wearing her Marine uniform. Dad in his clergy collar. They made a funny pair. A beautiful, funny pair.
And then she shifts her gaze to the gun safe she’d had installed to house the pistol her mom had always carried around with her as a Marine. She puts in the code, opens the door and pulls it out.
Growing up, Avery had never talked to her parents about guns; they were just part of her life. Her mom believed it was her duty to keep people safe and, in her world, that meant being armed. But in the end, no one had kept her parents safe, had they? No one had been able to stop their car from driving over a roadside bomb in Afghanistan when Avery was sixteen years old.
If there’s one thing Avery regrets, more than anything, about her parents not being around in her adult years, it’s the missed conversations. Talking to them about what they believed and why, about the choices they made—about who they were, as adults. And that, in all these years, she hasn’t been able to come to them for advice. When things were hard. When, like now, the world stopped making sense.
Sometimes, she finds herself praying to them rather than to God. But all the prayer in the world has never filled the gap they left.
What would they think of her now?
It was her job to take care of them and she put them in danger.
She hadn’t taken Priscilla’s arguments seriously. Because she’d been raised to believe that there was no contradiction between living with firearms and being good parents—good people. And the Wrights were good people, weren’t they?
Ben, in particular, reminded Avery of her mother: his unwavering sense of duty; his love of his country; his determination to keep those he loved—and the wider community—safe. And he, too, was a godly man. One of the godliest she’d ever met. Sometimes, she felt that his faith was stronger than her own.
Avery’s mother—and Ben—proved that it was possible to be an American who upheld the Constitution, who believed in the Second Amendment, and still be a person of great faith.
But Abi and Cal were vulnerable, she’d known that from the start. And the fact that she hadn’t even questioned that she was doing it, that was the worst part. She’d been too proud—too sure of her own convictions—to see it.
When her parents had died, she’d been carted from one foster home to another until she was considered an adult and could take care of herself. She wanted better for the kids she fostered. She’d hoped to adopt Abi and Cal. To look after them long after they were considered adults in the eyes of the law.
Maybe I don’t deserve to have them, she thinks. Maybe I’m not cut out to be a mom.
She looks back at the photo and searches her parents’ faces, longing to find some answers.
And then she thinks about what her mom would always say when she was a little girl, struggling through a problem. You can work this out, Avery, I know you can.
And then her father’s voice comes in to join her mother’s: Why don’t you ask the Lord, my love? He’s always listening.
Self-reliance and reliance on God. Another contradiction that she’d been brought up with. But isn’t it the contradictions that tell the truth, in the end?
Yes, maybe that was what had come from everything that had happened in the past week: that life is lived in the tension between two opposing truths.
She puts the pistol back in the safe and picks up her pen.
* * *
In the stable, Kaitlin brushes down the side of Lucy’s long gray neck. She’s been in here since 6 a.m., trying to avoid Ben.
Ever since Lieutenant Mesenberg called round to say that she was closing the investigation, he’s been so happy—as though now, everything is going to slot back to being how it always was.
She leans her head against Lucy. “What am I going to do?” she whispers.
She feels the warmth of Lucy’s body; her blood pumping through the vein that runs down her neck.
“Katie?” She hears Ben opening the door t
o the stable. “Are you in here?”
And then he’s standing in front of her, wearing his border patrol uniform, his pistol shining in its holster.
Her stomach churns.
“You’re going back to work already?” she says.
“Just for a few hours—to catch up on what I’ve missed.” He’s smiling, his back straight, his head held high. He needs this, she thinks. His job. To feel like he’s making a difference.
He comes over and kisses her. She doesn’t pull away but she doesn’t kiss him back either. Not that he seems to notice. He’s too happy. Too sure that everything is okay again.
“I’ll be back for the mosque opening,” he says. “We can go together.”
She draws away from him and goes back to brushing Lucy. “You think that’s a good idea?” she says, not looking at him.
“Of course. We need to support the Sayeds. We need to come together as a community. To show that this hasn’t changed who we are or what we do.”
He really believes it, she thinks. That they can just switch back to how things were and pretend this week never happened.
“Katie?”
When she doesn’t answer, he touches her shoulder. “Is it still bothering you—that Priscilla didn’t want to talk?” he asks. “You know, it’ll take her a while to come around.”
“Her daughter was shot, Ben. I don’t think she’s going to come around anytime soon.”
He kisses her forehead. “It’s been a heck of week. We’re all tired. We need to give each other time.”
She has to tell him that it’s not about being tired or about having more time. But she can’t. Because he looks so happy. Because he believes that they’re okay. That the twenty years they’ve been together matter more than one incident in their stable six days ago.
He checks that the top button of his shirt is done up, that his belt is looped right. He glides his hand over his holster. She’s watched him doing it a million times. Making sure that the outer man mirrors the neat, ordered, dependable man he is on the inside.