My Sweet Girl

by Amanda Jayatissa

  And I had imagined Mohini that night at my apartment. So what was stopping me from imagining Arun’s body too? I had wished him dead, after all.

  The anger I had felt towards Sam deflated like a balloon. I was left with just my rubbery facade now.

  “What are the police saying?” Sam’s voice cut through my thoughts.

  “Well, they can’t really take him seriously as a missing person because he isn’t documented, you know. As far as they’re concerned, he barely existed at all.”

  “Do you think that maybe he did that? That he decided it was time to leave? I have a lot of friends who are undocumented. None of them stay put for very long.”

  “Maybe.”

  We sat in silence again. It felt comfortable, somehow. It was a new feeling. I didn’t hate it.

  My phone beeped. Check in on Ida.

  The fragile sense of comfort evaporated, and something inside me felt heavy again.

  “I better get going. I need to check in on my neighbor.”

  “Ah, I see. Are they okay?”

  I’d already told Sam about Arun. Describing another potentially missing person seemed like too much for one night. Even for my level of crazy.

  “It’s a long story.”

  I truly hoped Ida was okay. I’d just ring the doorbell and check if she got back. Maybe it was all just a mistake. Maybe she was really visiting her sister in San Diego and had just forgotten about our meeting this morning. Why the hell did I always assume the absolute worst?

  “I’ll see you around?”

  “Sure.”

  I stuffed my groceries in the fridge and watched through the kitchen window as Sam pulled away.

  I went out through my backyard and into Ida’s again. Her screen door had been locked so I couldn’t get in. That was probably Gloria. There were no lights turned on inside.

  Goose bumps broke out on my arms, so I went back indoors and pulled on a sweater. Making sure I locked the front door behind me, I let myself out on the sidewalk. The same darkness that I was enjoying from the warmth of Sam’s car suddenly seemed deep and empty. I felt it again. The hardening in the pit of my stomach.

  I glanced down the empty street to make sure I was alone. What if Mr. Williams just parked his car somewhere else and was lying in wait for me in the shadows? Would he do something like that? Corner me somewhere that he knew I’d have no choice but to talk to him?

  Something rustled from across the sidewalk as I walked up Ida’s drive. It was probably the cat again. I peered into the darkness once more, but couldn’t really see anything. The back of my neck prickled.

  The blackened windows of the houses were empty eyes staring out at me. Or was someone actually watching me from the house across the street? A woman’s face—I noticed, with a start.

  She stood at the window as we both surveyed each other, but she stepped away a few moments later. My heart hammered against my ribs. Damn, she really freaked the fuck out of me. What was her problem, anyway?

  I had not thought about the copy of Wuthering Heights that she had left in my mailbox since yesterday. What was she doing with it in the first place? Mom wouldn’t have loaned it to her, would she? It was so special to me. Sure, they’d given me far more expensive presents—I instinctively rubbed my earrings—but I treasured this book. It was the first sign that we belonged together. That bitch across the street had no right to take it.

  I hurried up Ida’s driveway, longing to be indoors again. I rang the doorbell and shivered on her porch, but there weren’t any lights turned on inside, so I knew it was no use. I tried knocking, too, just for luck. Nothing. Of course.

  I should just go home. Go back home and call the police and report Ida missing.

  But how the hell could I report another missing person in less than a week? I know the SFPD already thinks I’m a couple of fries short of a Happy Meal, but even I know that seems shady as fuck.

  I looked across the street again, but no one was watching me this time.

  Maybe I’ll just let myself in. It’s not like Ida would mind me going inside. Hell, I practically lived there when I was a teenager. I’ll just have a little poke around to see if there’s anything else I can learn about her whereabouts.

  Pulling the key out from under the gnome was easy enough. I let myself in, shutting the unforgiving night firmly behind me. I made sure the door was locked before turning on the lights, shuddering at the thought that Mr. Williams could have been in here earlier.

  “Hello?” I called out, more for the reassurance of hearing some noise than anything else. I wasn’t expecting someone to call back. I pushed away the feeling that there was something waiting for me in the shadows and made my way inside.

  “Snowy?” I called out.

  But the house was silent. I guess Gloria had taken him with her.

  The dolls smiled at me from their shelves and tabletops. It was creepier than usual in an empty house.

  My younger self grinned down at me as I wandered around. The picture was taken when I came in third at my eighth-grade spelling bee. I can’t remember Ida coming, but that was probably because I was more focused on Christina Hannigan and her gang sitting at the back like they usually did. They’d poured butter chicken gravy from the local Indian place into my backpack earlier that day, and for once they were right—I did stink of curry. But Ida must have been there. How else could she have the photo of me holding up a ridiculous bronze medal, looking like I’d won gold at the Olympics because I finally wasn’t failing English and it made me fucking euphoric that I eventually did something my parents could be proud of? They’d been so proud, in fact, that they had invited all the kids from my class over for pizza right after the spelling bee. I had spent the rest of the evening hiding from Christina in my own home, and Mom was not happy.

  I didn’t know what the hell I was trying to prove by being here. What the fuck was I even looking for? I was no detective.

  Call the police.

  That was Nina in my head. I don’t even have control over my own fucking imaginary voices.

  I knew I should call the police, no matter how sketch it would seem for me to be reporting a second disappearance. I didn’t have to speak to that waste-of-space, human ham Officer Keller, who clearly thought I was a nut bag. Maybe I could call a different department. The station here wouldn’t be the same as the one in the city, obviously. Maybe they wouldn’t make the connection.

  I took out my phone to google the number, but I set it down again. I just wanted to make sure there was nothing I was missing first.

  I wondered if I could find a number for Ida’s sister. That way I could just check if she’d really gone to San Diego and confirm that all my paranoia was for nothing. That I was here working my drunken ass into a panic while she was happily gossiping away and overspraying her shiny, grey helmet head somewhere else.

  I looked around the kitchen for a number or a phone book, but there was nothing. The counter was organized, the dishwasher and the sink emptied, and all Ida’s mail was neatly stacked on the table. The little white card with Mr. Williams’s name on it wasn’t there either. I wondered if Gloria had moved it or tidied up. It’s not like I paid much attention to anything when I was here earlier.

  I moved to the little vintage writing desk Ida had tucked into the corner of the living room. There was nothing on the table itself, but I knew there was a hidden drawer underneath. Ida was old. She probably wrote down everyone’s phone numbers in a notebook or diary or something.

  The drawer was mostly empty. No notebook.

  Just a folder. I pulled it out. It had Evans printed on the cover.

  What the—?

  I flipped it open and leafed through. Financial statements, deeds to property, a few sealed envelopes.

  My parents’ names were on most of them. Did they give her all of this for safekeeping before they le
ft on their trip? It wasn’t the craziest idea. I knew they trusted Ida, and it wasn’t like I was on the best of terms with them before they left. It still felt like a fucking punch to the gut. They would trust anyone else rather than me.

  Something Ida had said in her voice mail came back to me, and I pulled out my phone, hitting 1 to enter my mailbox.

  Hello, dear. Glad you are back home and hope you are settling in. Just wanted to check in with you. Let me know if tomorrow at ten a.m. is a good time for you to come over? There’s someone I’d like you to meet. As you know, we do have a few things to chat about. Anyway, I’ll see you at ten tomorrow at my place. This is Ida, by the way.

  What did she want to chat to me about?

  I know . . . Arun’s jeer rang in my head. How the hell was this happening?

  I was suddenly really thirsty. I wondered if Ida had anything strong around here. She usually chugged down sherry like it was grape juice, so there was a good chance.

  It didn’t take me long before I found a bottle tucked away behind a box of oatmeal. Thank god. I poured a healthy two fingers into a teacup and gulped it down. It tasted like cough syrup, but it would do. I topped up the teacup again. Ida had random notes and pictures stuck to her fridge, I noticed, while waiting for the sherry to take some of this edge off.

  There was a grocery list—eggs, bread, tomato soup, butter, laundry detergent, toilet paper. There was a picture of my parents, probably a year or so ago. It was covered by a laundry receipt, so I nudged the magnet out of the way. They were both holding oversized wineglasses and were a little pink in the face. I think this was from when they drove up to Napa to celebrate Dad’s birthday. They had asked me to come at first, but they changed their minds when they remembered I shouldn’t be around all the wine tasting that was bound to happen. Pictures of Snowy. Lots of pictures of Snowy. The newspaper clipping that came out a few weeks before they left detailing Mom’s charity work with the same picture that hung in our house. I turned away from the fridge. Why the fuck were you so obsessed with us, Ida?

  I thought back to the lacquered wisp of a woman. The way she would comb and braid my long hair, even though Mom always asked her not to. Always one braid, never two. The way her fingers deftly tugged and pulled, like little spiders, as she hummed to herself. The way those same spotted fingers played with her expensive necklaces when she was tired. I remembered my favorite one—a large emerald, surrounded by a row of dazzling diamonds. She let me try it on sometimes, and the weight of it around my neck always felt like a noose. And now she was gone. Why did I even care? I was just being sentimental since I moved back home, that was all.

  I suddenly couldn’t take it anymore. All this not knowing was driving me up the wall. The folder with my name on it. Ida randomly disappearing. The locked downstairs bathroom. Grabbing the letter opener I saw in Ida’s desk drawer, I made my way over to the bathroom door. I was going to get an answer for something today. I didn’t care what.

  I jammed the letter opener between the door and the lock. It didn’t quite work, I mean, I’m not Harriet the goddamned Spy. I wrenched it in again, shaking hard.

  Damn it.

  I tried the doorknob.

  To my surprise it swung open—slamming against the bathroom wall and bouncing back at me. I felt slightly off balance as I peered inside.

  Did I manage to unlock it, or was it not locked in the first place? I should have really tried the knob again before I decided to jam a letter opener in there.

  The small bathroom, the same as the one at my parents’, was empty. It was clean and smelled of the same nauseating potpourri and disinfectant as the rest of the house. The seat of the toilet and its cover were missing, but the same lacy towels and carpets were still in there. Not a remodel per se, but maybe Ida just didn’t want people using the toilet without a seat.

  I sat on the side of the tub and took a few more sips of sherry. The porcelain was cold and felt like a relief. I don’t know what the fuck was going on with me. I was setting the cup down when it slipped and some sherry splashed on the tile. The puddle of bright amber liquid that swelled on the clean floor reminded me of the way Arun’s blood pooled on the kitchen table.

  Fuck.

  I got down on my knees to wipe it up, moving the rug under the sink out of the way so it wouldn’t get stained.

  I heard a clatter.

  A black rectangle had skidded over the tile.

  What the hell? Was that a cell phone?

  I picked it up.

  Yep, definitely an older smartphone.

  My hands trembled a little as I tried to turn it on.

  The battery and charger icon lit up on the screen for a second, indicating it was dead.

  My heart was starting to race.

  Was this Ida’s phone? Why the fuck was it lying forgotten on the floor of her bathroom if she was visiting her sister in San Diego?

  This wasn’t right.

  I reached for the cup of sherry and took another chug.

  I had to call the police. Fuck. I’d left my phone in the kitchen.

  I was just stumbling out of the bathroom when I saw her again, just outside the living room window. Mohini walked by the front of the house, her black hair trailing down her back. Her white dress glowing in the moonlight.

  I struggled to breathe.

  I wanted to lock myself in the bathroom and never come out.

  But there was a part of me that needed to see her too.

  To see her again so I know I’m not hallucinating.

  That I hadn’t imagined her the other day.

  That she had found me.

  After all these years, she had found me.

  My legs felt like they were unable to support my weight as I inched my way closer to the window. I was shaking. But I was transfixed.

  It felt like a hundred years and a millisecond rolled into one. I was ten feet away. Then six. Then two. And then I was at the window, my nose almost touching it, my breath fogging up the glass.

  The street was dark and empty.

  And then she was in front of me again. Staring in. Her face inches away from mine, separated by the glass. Her eyes looking straight into mine.

  I screamed and shuffled backwards.

  I thought I was going to faint.

  Except it wasn’t Mohini. It was the woman from across the street.

  She was wearing the same white robe that I mistook for a dress, and her hair was loose across her face like always.

  We just stood there for god knows how long. And then she turned and scurried back into her house.

  “Hey! Hey!” I darted to the door and called after her.

  But she was gone.

  I grabbed my phone off the kitchen counter and made sure I still had Ida’s phone with me before I locked up and got the hell out of there.

  I could barely put the keys under the gnome, I was trembling so hard.

  What the fuck was she doing?

  Why the hell wouldn’t she leave me alone?

  28

  RATMALANA, SRI LANKA

  THE PASSPORT OFFICE WAS the most crowded building I had ever been to. People packed themselves into tight lines, pressing up against someone in front of them. They definitely didn’t have a teacher like Miss Chandra growing up or they would surely have been punished. Maybe they thought cramming themselves together would make the line move faster. It didn’t. It took us nearly the whole day to apply for my passport, and I wouldn’t even get it till next week. But the angry-looking man behind the counter told Miss Chandra that she wouldn’t need to bring me to pick it up because I was a child.

  “Hari, hari. Eelangata?” Okay, okay. Next? He waved us to the side before Miss Chandra could even pick up the slip of paper.

  “Hari, hari. Eelangata,” I practiced, imitating his rushed way of speaking. People in Colombo offices spoke diff
erently than we did in the orphanage. Of course, it would be even more different in America. I managed to watch some American news channels on TV. The way they spoke English was so different from the way Miss Sarah spoke it. The words were longer somehow, and more stretched out. They rolled their r sounds and pronounced their t’s like d’s.

  “More at four thirty,” the blond woman said.

  “Morr ad fourr thirrdy,” I repeated. I must practice so Mr. and Mrs. Evans would understand me easily.

  I wanted to show Lihini my American accent, but I stopped myself. She still didn’t seem completely okay. I found her sneaking off to the storeroom the other day.

  “What are you doing?” I asked. That was our thing. I’d never done it alone. I didn’t think she would either.

  “I had to check something,” she said. That was all. She had to check something? And she wouldn’t tell me what. She’d never been like this before.

  Then I found her sitting in a corner of the playroom with Maya and the other girls, whispering to them about Mohini again. Maya seemed to be enjoying it, and was saying that she knew the home had been haunted all along, but the others seemed scared out of their minds. It was no wonder that one of the younger girls wet the bed that night.

  I tried not to let my frustration with Lihini show. She was just trying to get attention because I was leaving. I knew that. But she really should be more responsible.

  “What?” she asked me, her arms crossed over her chest when I lifted the crying girl out of bed and rocked her gently.

  “Nothing.” I bounced the toddler on my chest. “She’s just had a nightmare, that’s all.”

  “Or maybe she saw Mohini,” Maya cried out from her bunk. If I could have reached up there and slapped her, I would have.

  “Stop it, you’re scaring the little ones.”

  “Don’t you see? It’s the curse! She’s after us!” Lihini’s eyes were wide and glassy, but I didn’t care.