Meena ducked into the bedroom to change into jeans and a black sweater and sat at the vanity to put on her makeup. It’s not a date, she needed to remind herself. It was dinner out. With a friend on a random Tuesday night in early December. There was no occasion or anything remotely special. Her head and heart were already jumbled; she didn’t need to add Sam into the mix. He was being a good friend. That meant more to her than anything else.
She added dark-red lipstick to finish off her look and unknotted her hair from its bun. It was nice to have the full use of both hands again, especially to manage her hair. She’d put it up wet, and it fell around her in waves. She fluffed it a little, smacked her lips to seal the color, and grabbed her cross-body purse.
“For the record,” Meena said, “I’ve never been to Thailand.”
Across the table Sam put his hand on his heart and feigned shock.
“There are a lot of places I haven’t traveled to,” Meena added. “I keep a list of places I want to see just to see them.”
“Like where?”
“Nebraska.” It was the first place that came to her mind.
Sam laughed. Then stopped. “You’re serious.”
“I just have this generalized image of cornfields and big blond farmers. And the only city that’s ever mentioned, Omaha. I want to see what it’s really like.”
“It’s not that hard,” Sam said. “I’m sure it’s easier to get there than Mongolia.”
Meena chewed on the tangy green papaya salad she’d ordered along with three other things. She was ravenous, and the food was better than not bad. “It’s not level of difficulty. I’ve gone everywhere for work. And I have yet to get an assignment there.”
Sam put a spring roll on her side dish before helping himself to one from the shared plate. “You never go anywhere for the sake of it?”
Meena shook her head. “I travel when I can get paid to do so.”
“And what do you do with the money?”
“Pay bills, replace equipment, buy expensive lipstick.”
“I am definitely a fan of the lipstick.”
His eyes twinkled. Or was it the way the muted light hit his face as he talked? Meena glanced away from his lips. He was flirting, and she didn’t want to encourage him, but she liked it. Too much. She changed the subject. “I found another note.”
“That’s why you were sitting on the kitchen floor.”
“She told me her ashes should be buried under the big tree in the backyard,” Meena said.
“Yeah,” he said. “I was the one who took care of it.”
Meena nodded. “I was baking a pie when I found it.”
“What kind?”
“Apple,” Meena said. “Tanvi brought me a dozen Granny Smiths from the farmers market on Sunday. That’s not the point. I want to know more about her, Sam. Not as a replacement for my parents, but to understand who I came from. Do I resemble her in any way? Am I like her? I know she liked to be alone, and so do I.”
“You’re not like Neha.”
“Really?” Meena frowned. “I can be cranky.”
“So can I,” Sam said. “All of us can be certain ways at different times.”
Meena didn’t know how to voice it, this desire to find a connection with someone she’d never known.
Sam leaned in over the table. Reached for her hand only to stop at touching the tips of her fingers. “I tried to tell you on Saturday but didn’t get the chance.”
Meena put down her fork.
His voice dropped lower, to a whisper. “Neha wasn’t your birth mother.”
Meena stilled. The synapses in her brain zapped around. Made it difficult to think. She took a breath. Then another. And calmed. She put her hand over his. “I understand. You were friends and you can’t see this side of her. Maybe you’re upset that she kept this a secret from you.”
“That’s not it,” Sam said. “She probably had secrets. This isn’t one of them.”
“How do you know?” She believed Neha. Needed to believe her. Wanted this connection to the house, to a legacy. She wanted to belong somewhere. No, not just somewhere, but in the Engineer’s House. “I have the notes.”
“Does she say it explicitly?”
“She . . .” Meena mentally ran through the clues. “I’ll show them to you. Let’s go back. I’ve been through them over and over again. She defined my name. Then there’s the apartment. She left it to me, the next generation.” Meena called over their waitress and asked her to wrap up their food. “I know her. I can feel it. I wouldn’t just believe something like this. She wanted me to find out.”
The server brought empty containers. Silently they packed up. Sam had to be wrong. Or he wasn’t convinced. Had she misread the notes? No. She’d been so hesitant to admit the possibility when she’d arrived. And she wasn’t impulsive, not by a long shot.
He paid their bill as Meena wrapped her scarf around her neck and buttoned up her coat. She walked out of the restaurant and took long strides back to the apartment. Once Sam read the notes, he would see that Neha wasn’t a stranger. Neha was the answer to a question she’d stopped asking. Neha was an anchor.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Meena chewed on the loose cuticle of her thumb as she watched Sam go through each note, from index cards to fronts of fortunes from cookies. They were scattered on Neha’s scuffed coffee table. She sat on the floor opposite him with Wally, who’d been freed from his crate after their silent walk back to the Engineer’s House.
Meena knew she was a good journalist. She didn’t jump to conclusions. She’d kept her mind open, allowed the story to unfold instead of forcing it together. The threads were all there, the inheritance, the messages Neha had written specifically for her. Meena stroked Wally’s fur as he chewed on a toy that might have once been a raccoon.
“Well?” She ran out of patience.
He dropped the note in his hand on top of the others and removed his black-framed glasses. “I can see why you may think—”
She cut him off. “It’s not an assumption. It’s a conclusion.”
“She doesn’t explicitly make that claim.”
“Why is this so hard for you to believe? Is it me? You don’t want me to be here, like Sabina?” Meena heard the hitch in her voice and cleared her throat.
He reached for her. She shifted away from his touch.
“There are more notes,” Meena argued. “They pop up all the time. So far the pieces fit.”