The Mirrors of Fate (25 page)

Maria left the stack of clothes she was folding and turned to leave. The girl chuckled. Maria turned back to look at her, wondering what had caused the spur-of-the-moment laugh. When Maria saw the girl, her heart turned over. Tiffany’s eyes were glassy with tears, her lips quivering, and she stared up at the ceiling with a look of longing but a complacent, at-ease smile on her lips.

“
You know, I always pretended like it never bothered me much. But in the darkness of my room, I would always cry about it. I’m sorry, I know I don’t know you well enough to talk about this, but you must be able to imagine how I must feel. It’s not often you find someone you care about so much.”

Maria did know. To watch such emotion pour out from the girl, for a person Maria had hated for the last few days, left Maria feeling strange. What was the real David like that Tiffany would be reacting like this over him? The David she knew had only a deep hatred for her. But with this girl...

“
Hey there,” Maria said, “don’t cry. Isn’t there some relative of his you can go see? Just in case you ever want to keep a connection with him though he’s gone?”

Tiffany shook her head. “I didn’t know his extended family. Only those I knew died.” Her voice cracked more and more. “But one hung on, you know? But it was so hard I couldn’t even see...I couldn’t even see...” The tears came profusely now. “The one survivor that I couldn’t even see...”

The one survivor?

“
But I thought you said everyone died in the crash.”

“
I didn’t say that,” the girl sniffled. “I said they all died, not that they all died
in
the car crash. David’s sister. She was the only one the police saved. Oh God, she was a sweet thing. She spent so much time at the White Crest hospital.”

Something, Maria didn’t know what, moved her to ask, “What was his sister’s name?”

“
Maria, come on!” her mother shouted impatiently again.

“
What was the girl’s name?” Maria urged. “Tell me, quickly.”

The girl started smiling to herself in remembrance. “Such a sweet little thing. She eventually died though. Three or four months before the first anniversary of his death. Emma was her name. Emma Chin.”

Maria felt darkness close in on all sides of her. The scent of a rose passed under her nostrils, from memory. “Emma...

Emma
Chin
?...David is that little girl’s...”

“
Yes. David Chin. Emma Chin. Why do you look so sick?”

———
Why did you desert her when she needed you the most?

* * * * *

CHAPTER NINE

Night’s arrival was accompanied by a visit from Seema—the easily excitable, the superbly high strung, and the unfailingly optimistic sister of Rupak Jaghai. Her spirit, along with her stout, bouncy composition filled the Jaghai household on that night to assist with the cooking, the setting of the table, and the last minute efforts of cleaning the house. All were attempts to accommodate the coming of Louie Singh and his parents.

Whenever Seema came to visit, which was not often of late since she moved away from White Crest City, Susan became a giggling, less uptight and less overwrought woman...much to the dismay and exasperation of her husband. All the while they prepared the house by polishing the mahogany furniture, vacuuming the carpets and dusting the porcelain figurines in the living room, Rupak sat back in his favorite leather armchair and did work of a more analytical and philosophical nature. He sat and fretted about how this meeting would turn out. The last one was more than unsuccessful when Louie went home with a bruised cheek and an obviously bruised ego. He could not afford to have this day ruined, especially with Louie’s parents being present for the night.

“
But where’s mi niece? How come she doh mek any appearance to see her favorite aunt?” Seema asked while dusting a vase alongside her sister-in-law.

“
I’m afraid she’s not feeling well,” Susan told her. “I had to practically force her to start getting ready.”

Seema sighed. “She still doh want to go through with this. That po’ girl. Ah always warned you this day would come! You should have raised her more strictly in the proper customs from she was a likkle girl. But did you li—”

“
But did you listen to me? Nooooo!
” Rupak finished in mocking falsetto. “Listen Seema, you came over to help, not to give your two cents about how I raise my child. From the time she came under this roof, we’ve all forced into her head how a proper lady is supposed to act and behave. It’s not like she came to us from when she was a baby. If that had been the case then maybe we could have fixed her from early, but at six, what can you really do with a child who has already lived a certain way and become accustomed to other things? She was a damn spoilt little girl, stubborn and rude, and she is the same today. If she ever remembered what her parents were like she’d probably be worse than this.”

“
But you nuh even know her parents!”

“
I didn’t need to know them. All I knew was that they were lousy and incapable of bringing up such a beautiful little girl like that. And look how she turned out now, even with them gone.”

Seema looked in amazement at her younger brother. “Wha’ kinda words is dat to say ’bout your daughter? She is such a nice girl. At least to me.”

Susan wiped sweat from her brow. “That’s because she likes you. You’re so soft with her and make us look like the bad guys.”

Seema kissed her teeth. “Don’t blame mi fi yu problems. Is the
two of you
always gangin’ up pon di po’ girl like she a criminal. No wonder she always a cuss unu wid pere bad word!”

He grimaced at the persistent sound of his sister’s speech which had gotten more coarse, raw and vulgar since the last visit. Moving back to Jamaica had most definitely taken its toll on her civility. She had taken to their patois, a thing he always rejected when growing up. Now she used it inter-changeably, daring to blend good English with that vulgar noise.

He always knew one day he would regret giving her the money to travel away from the United States and live somewhere else when her husband passed away. He was paying for his generosity now by having to put up with this rough, colorful—and to put it undeservingly—
language
. He thanked God every day that when he adopted Maria down there he cleaned away any young trace of that tongue.

“
Speak properly, Seema,” he said. “You’re giving me a headache.”

Seema looked at him with a defiant stare. “I am speaking
properly
, thank you very much.”

“
Don’t come into my house with all that jabbering, unintelligible dialect,” he said firmly.

Seema marched over and stood like a boulder over him. “It is not a dialect, Rupak Jaghai. It’s called Jamaican
patois
and it’s a language. It’s only unintelligent and uneducated people like you who think it’s some sort of slang!”

He swallowed the knot in his throat and quickly alleviated the situation by waving his hand absently in the air to dismiss her. “Fine fine, but just tone it down, Seema. Singh and his parents will soon be here.”

“
Then nuh bada focus on me but on your daughter who’s not present.”

“
She’ll soon be down. Like I said, she’s ill,” Susan said.

“
I don’t believe that!” Rupak interjected boldly, his voice so grating and abrasive both women stopped what they were doing to look at him. “She was hoping to worm her way out of today,” he went on, nodding his head to himself, certain he was right. “She was faking that whole dramatic display at the store.”

“
What dramatic display?” Seema looked at her sister-in-law.

“
She fainted while we were out shopping today,” his wife explained.

“
Fainted? How dat happen?”

“
I don’t know,” she said slowly. “I was calling, calling, calling her to finish trying on her clothes, but she kept talking to this young clerk. I went up to her—mad let me tell you—ready to drag her my way, but she turned around all of a sudden. The look on her face was...It’s the first time I’ve ever seen her face white and pale. She looked sick.”

“
What? So why yu neva carry her to hospital?”

“
When we have Singh coming in today?” Rupak interrupted. “Use your head, woman.”

“
At first I thought she really could be faking it,” his wife continued mindlessly, so taken in by her recollection she was completely unaware her husband or sister-in-law had spoken. “But I’m not so sure again if she was pretending. You should have seen the look on her face. That’s what convinced me. She looked shocked, as if someone had just been killed. After that, she fainted right there in the store. Luckily Montgomery was able to catch her. He was our bodyguard for the day, by the way.”

Seema did not need an explanation for the necessity of them hiring a bodyguard. She was already well-informed by them about what had been transpiring in the case of this dangerous, impostor student threatening Maria’s safety. The only person Seema hadn’t gotten any accounts about the situation from was Maria herself, but maybe none of them in the room would either if Maria continued to keep mum about all the details.

“
I still think she’s faking it,” he said resolutely. “That girl has been trouble since the day she was born. Let’s not forget the time she ran away and almost—”

“
Yes honey we know,” his wife stopped him suddenly and gave him a pleading look. She never wanted to talk about the dangerous incident that had frightened her those years ago.

A serious silence enveloped them all for a short time before she began speaking to Seema again.

“
Anyway, even Montgomery would agree with me,” Susan continued. “Montgomery told me when he put her in bed, he was too worried to leave the room because of the things he heard her saying in her sleep.”

“
What kind of things?” Seema asked.

Rupak listened keenly, for it was yet another thing he had not heard about.

“
She was mumbling some nonsense. He said she kept repeating the name ‘Emma’ over and over. Then she kept going on with, ‘I’m sorry,’ ‘I’m sorry.’ Ugh, I don’t know. I wasn’t there to hear any of it.”

Another silence arose. A thick air, mysterious and almost ominous manifested in the room. Seema shuddered.

“
Whoo, stop it Janet. See? Look pon di goosebumps yu gimme. Enough now. Listen, Ah know Ah can go up there and cheer her up nonetheless. You bet me?”

Rupak laughed arrogantly. “Ha! I welcome you to try. I don’t even think
you
can talk sense into that girl, especially on a day like this.”

Seema’s indomitable will took over. The look on her face told them both she was damn willing and determined to try and prove her brother wrong.

“
Well, we’ll just see about that!” was her loud reply to his challenge. “
I
bet I can get her smiling again.”

He and his wife looked at each other skeptically as the large woman left the living room and trudged her way up the staircase.

Breathing more heavily than she would have liked, Seema found Maria’s door quickly in the upstairs hallway, having been to it many times before she moved away. She fought the urge to instantly barge in unannounced as she usually did. Her arrival this time would need some sensitivity.

She listened at the door for a minute. There seemed to be no movement inside. Her large, soft knuckles tapped gently on the door.

“
Maria? Sweetheart?”

There was no response.

“
Maria? You there? It’s Aunt Seema. Can Ah come in?”

Still she heard nothing.

“
Maria? Yu really plan on locking me outta yu room? Come nuh chile, open the door.”

She waited and nothing happened. The question of wrestling with the doorknob and banging unceremoniously crossed the woman’s mind, but as quickly as the thought had come, the lock made a click sound.

The door slowly swung open. Seema smiled and tightly embraced the figure that barely had time to step out into full sight. The fit in the doorway was tight, but Seema somehow found a way to squeeze her large frame in along with the body she so enthusiastically enfolded.

“
Sweetheart! Yu know how much Ah missed yu?!” She laughed joyfully. “How have you been, baby?”

She was still embracing Maria and waiting for the returned affection she was accustomed to from her niece whenever they saw each other. But it did not come as quickly as she had thought. In fact, it did not come at all. Seema’s relentless hug was met with the faintest, weakest embraces of conviviality. Maria’s hands barely reached up, and when they did, a distant brush on the back was all she received. The impersonal reaction had Seema letting go and taking an offended step back.

“
What kind of dry hug dat?”

Her words preceded a dull, emotionless delay from Maria. “Sorry Auntie.”

“
Girl.” She took hold of Maria’s shoulders. “Why yu look suh? Yu know iz not a funeral yu goin’, right?”

“
I know Auntie. I’m fine.”