The gate agent raises an eyebrow when I buy a ticket for the next flight to Portland without so much as a carry-on bag. It probably doesn’t help that I’m still dressed in my tuxedo from the wedding, although only the wrinkled pants and stained shirt are left, I realize. My uselessly expensive suit jacket disappeared somewhere.
Probably the hospital waiting room, if I had to guess.
The agent’s gaze rests on the loosened bowtie hanging around my neck for a beat too long, but she still sells me the ticket. And she doesn’t alert the TSA, because I make it through security without any problems.
The wait isn’t long until boarding, but I spend the next hour pacing up and down past the same gift shop. If I actually stop to think about what I’m doing, then I might realize what a bad idea this is.
Zaya and I will never have a future if we can’t come to terms with the past.
Which is why I’m going to find her piece of shit mother.
I’m the first one on the plane, having paid three times the normal rate for a first class ticket so I could jump off as soon as we landed without waiting for the rest of the herd.
Why is it that people only seem to remember they have luggage in the overhead bin when the aisle clears in front of them?
The stewardess offers me a beverage before takeoff, but I wave her away, practically vibrating in my seat. A businessman in a tailored suit sits in the seat next to me. He tries to strike up a conversation, but my glare is enough to shut him up.
If I open my mouth again, it will only be a scream of rage and frustration that comes out.
I’ve never been to Portland, not that I plan to see any of it. This isn’t a pleasure trip, after all. But it’s only after the plane lands, as I walk out of the airport and end up under overcast skies even grayer than my mood, that it really hits home for me what I’m doing.
I don’t expect Zaya to thank me for this, definitely not at first and maybe not ever. But it needs to be done. Without knowing what drove her mother to do what she did, Zaya will always wonder if she is walking down the same path toward inevitable destruction. That question — why? — will continue to hang over everything until we get an answer.
We both need to know why.
I plug the address I got from the PI into my phone. The five-minute wait for my Uber feels like at least that many hours. I practically sprint out from under the awning to get to the car. The sky opens as I step out onto the curb, drenching me in the time it takes to climb into the backseat.
The driver raises an eyebrow in the rearview mirror as I wring out the bottom of my shirt with a curse.
“Bad night?”
“Year, maybe. Just drive.” I pretend to find something very interesting on the lock screen of my phone so he won’t speak to me again. “I’ll tip you the cost of the ride if you can beat the estimated arrival time by at least ten minutes.”
The driver peels out without another word.
I expected the neighborhood to be a shithole, but we drive onto a street that makes the crappier parts of the Gulch look palatial. Rows of boarded up houses, empty storefronts, and broke down vehicles line either side of the broken pavement. The driver slows down to maneuver around potholes deep enough to double as in-ground pools.
“You want me to wait?” the driver asks as I climb out of the car, sounding like he wants to do precisely the opposite.
I wave him away impatiently. Concerns for my own safety aren’t exactly at the forefront of my mind at the moment. Zaya might even be better off if I get shot by some random lowlife and left bleeding to death in the street. Our marriage is legal, and at this point she stands to inherit everything if I kick the bucket.
My destination is the only house on the block that still appears occupied. There is a rusted out tricycle on the front lawn next to a deflated kiddie pool. I have to bang on the door after it becomes obvious the bell is nonfunctional.
I hear noises on the other side, the scrabble of bare feet across hardwood and the shriek of a baby that is quickly hushed.
My heart sinks. If Zaya’s mother ran off to start a new family, it might be better not to have found her at all. The last thing I want to do is cause her even more pain on top of everything else.
Before I can decide whether to stay or to walk away and pretend that this impromptu trip never happened, the door swings open.
A woman stands in the doorway with a baby on her hip. Another child, slightly older, peers at me from between her legs.
Something is immediately off. It’s been almost a decade since I last saw her, but I still remember Zaya’s mother. This woman is about half a foot shorter. The blonde hair would be an easy thing to change, but not the color of her skin.
Zaya’s mother is white. This woman definitely is not. I’d say Phillippino if I had to take a wild guess.
“You’re not Julia Milbourne.”
Thirty-Nine
Vin must have the charm of a demon, because every nurse on the staff seems to be complicit with his attempts to visit me.
The one who brings me my afternoon meds sounds gently chiding. “That poor boy hasn’t left the waiting room all day. Don’t you think you should at least let him visit, so you can tell him in person to piss off?”
I close my mouth on a recommendation that she do something similar. It isn’t her fault that Vin is really good at pretending not to be an asshole,
