“No girl’s going to be good enough for my beta,” she’d slurred the same night. “My lovely boy, mera pyara Ari.”
“Hi, Diana. Hey, Calvin.” He’d been good to me, too, in his distant way. In my final year of school, he’d even carved out time to talk to me about my future, and where I saw myself in five years, then ten.
Neither one of us could’ve predicted this future.
I glanced down. “Can’t pet you today, Charlie. Got a serious bending-down issue.” The dog nuzzled my moon boot, his distinctive ears less pointed with each day that passed. “How are Mia and Beau?” I’d babysat Diana and Calvin’s now-teenaged children a lifetime ago. A glorious summer full of transitory happiness.
I’d helped Mia put ribbons on her sparkly green trike, shown Beau how to fix a broken toy. The six-year-old boy had attached himself to me for a long time afterward.
Father figure at fifteen.
Because Calvin was too busy, too critical to the flickering lives of strangers. Cardiothoracic surgeons weren’t exactly plentiful on the ground.
“Mia’s just been chosen for a government-backed exchange trip to Beijing next year. Can you believe it?” Diana shook her head. “She’d throw such tantrums when I sent them both to Mandarin classes and look at her now.”
“You must be so proud.” I wasn’t surprised when Diana was the one who answered with an enthusiastic nod. It had always been white-as-snow Diana who’d fought to preserve the children’s ties to their father’s culture.
I’d never been sure if Calvin’s lack of involvement was on purpose or just another casualty of his schedule.
Calvin finally spoke. “It’s good the two can converse with relatives in China.” His English was crisp and precise, without New Zealand’s soft vowels—he’d told me once that he’d studied in England for a number of years.
The sojourn had left a permanent mark.
“And Beau. Still a science whiz?” The kid who’d loved music as a child was following in his father’s medical footsteps.
Still wanting Dr. Calvin Liu to see him.
“Second in his class in biology and chemistry.” Diana beamed, but Calvin’s expression was grim.
Number two wasn’t good enough for him. Ah, Beau. Just another poor little rich kid with an absent parent who held him to impossible standards. I felt a pang. Maybe I’d reach out to the kid again. I might be a self-diagnosed sociopath with a mask for every occasion, but I wasn’t a monster.
“I saw an unfamiliar car by your place,” Diana said. “And Calvin was stuck for ages behind a police roadblock after his night shift, weren’t you, honey?”
“Lost an hour,” Calvin muttered, hands on his hips. “Now I’ll only fit in half my run.”
Going running after a night shift: Pure Calvin.
“They found Mum’s car with her inside,” I said, knowing that, unlike the telegraph of Trixi and Lexi, Diana and Calvin would tell no one.
Calvin went motionless. Diana’s fingers flew to her mouth, her eyes huge. Charlie’s lead fell from her fingers. The elderly dog sat where he was. No dashing off into the bushes for this bulldog. Those days were long behind him.
“Oh my God, Aarav.” Trembling fingers leaving Diana’s mouth to land on my arm as Calvin finally snapped out of his shock to put an arm around her. “Are you all right?”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just said, “I’m still processing.” Dr. Jitrnicka had taught me to use certain phrases to give myself time to respond, so I didn’t rage. Turned out they were also good for giving me time to think up lies.
Diana hugged me, gentle and maternal.
Drawing back when I didn’t really respond, she wiped away a tear and leaned back into Calvin’s embrace. “She loved that car.”
An unspoken question in the words, but I wasn’t ready to tell her the rest. About the bones and the missing money. “You were the only person for whom she allowed dirt into the Jaguar—I remember us driving out to the rose farm to get that special rose for your birthday and how carefully she drove home, not wanting to jostle it.” Family aside, the blooms were Diana’s passion—everyone was welcome to look, but touch one and you’d feel her wrath. “She’d have loved to see how your roses have thrived.”
“I still have that one she got me.” A watery smile, while Calvin rubbed his hand up and down her arm.
“I know—I can see it from my room when it blooms.”
Calvin’s eyes caught mine, and I saw that he wanted to comfort his wife in privacy. Good.
I didn’t want to talk about this any longer. “You’d better finish Charlie’s walk before he starts snoring.”
The dog was settling down into a nap pose.
Diana looked down even as more tears bloomed in her eyes. “Dear Charlie. He’s never let me down. I’ll miss him desperately when it’s time for him to move on.”
“Aarav.” Calvin’s voice. “You know you can always count on us for support. Whether it’s with arrangements or otherwise.”
That was Calvin, too. Practical to the point that it seemed cold and unfeeling, but he’d been the same way when he helped me buy running shoes, and that had been an act of kindness. “Yes, I know. Thank you.”
I moved on as Diana bent to revive the dog and Calvin hunkered down beside her. And when I caught the pained sound of muffled sobs, I didn’t look back.
9
Diana and Calvin’s neighbors, the Dixons, were coming down their drive, showered and dressed and ready for their post-lunch coffee and cake at Lily’s. Seventy-five and seventy-nine and in no hurry to move in to a retirement home, they treated old age like an attempt at hostile takeover.
Adrian did a stop at their place for a personal training session once a week—it might be cynical of me, but I had a feeling that stop was the only one at which Adrian did the job he advertised.
“Hiya, my man Aarav!” Paul Dixon, the older of the two, tipped his jaunty black bowler hat. His blunt-featured face bore a permanent pink cast as a result of hard living during his time as a rock musician. Get close enough and you could see all the fine broken veins.
He’d had two monster hits. Add in a financial genius wife and boom, the man could buy a ten-million-dollar penthouse if he so wished, but he’d chosen the green privacy of the Cul-de-Sac. “How’s the leg?” he asked.
“I should be able to walk only on the boot soon,” I said, more in hope than anything else, because right now, it still hurt like a bitch if I even thought about putting any real weight on it.