The sun is hot on her face. She closes her eyes, and her lids burn orange. All around her, people talk and horns sound and a bird scolds, while inside her is a realization that this, after everything she’s said to him, is the hardest to admit. Because she will see Delan again. He is planning on coming back; their story will continue. But with Lailan, there was an ending.
“The girl,” he says, taking her arm and nodding her forward, toward their building.
The broad steps narrow before her. The sidewalk specked with something that shines. She slows. It’s the end of their talk but will be the beginning of everyone else’s, just from watching them enter the office together. Colleagues back from lunch, in truth, but it will be told a million other ways. “I left her,” she says again.
“Like I said. Witnessing and walking away. Lotta guilt there.”
“But I didn’t just witness.”
He holds the door open for her. “No. You didn’t. And I’m sorry about that.” Already he’s been spotted; one of his secretaries rushes to him with a manila envelope. He holds up a hand, demanding a moment. “Like I said, even if you didn’t have talent, I was gonna talk to you. But when I saw that you did—it was just more reason to keep you going. So that’s why. Just wanted to get you off your island.”
CHAPTER 16
June 7, 1979
A moonlit heat. Olivia and Rebecca are on the porch in shorts and tank tops, their feet on the railing. Gin and tonics are on a melt and asphalt scorches into the night—one of those days that simply won’t curl off in temperature, like a straight line of fever. Sweat snakes down Olivia’s throat and “My Sharona” stutters from next door.
“He’s coming back,” Rebecca says. “That’s why you didn’t say it.”
Then more music. The ominous blare of horns and throbbing bass of Van Halen’s “Runnin’ with the Devil,” pounding from a gold-colored Firebird that’s paused before their house. The driver leans forward to meet their eyes, his head practically upon the steering wheel, and smoke twists from the open window.
“I didn’t say it because I was trying to force fate’s hand. Like not saying goodbye would make him come back. Force him to come back to say it. Like something unfinished must be finished.” Though of course she should’ve known this not to be true. She tries to think of Soran’s last words, and still she cannot hear them.
“Dream on!” Rebecca yells, waving the driver away. “This is how they meet girls? Move! No one cares! Christ. You might be right. Maybe it’s true. The unfinished can’t be finished. And he is unfinished. He owes for the mortgage.” She smiles. “Pretty sure Mason will make him come back, even if he has to go to Kurdistan to collect.”
“Maybe we can leave Mason there in exchange.” Olivia offers a smile to show she can still joke, that her life isn’t strictly woven of sadness. Though she’s not joking, she realizes.
“He’s going through something too,” Rebecca says. “With Delan gone. I think he always felt like the third wheel when you were together. Ever since you guys became lovey-dovey—he’s just worried Delan doesn’t need him.”
Love. She no longer knows if holding back was right. Sometimes she would do anything to have told him she loves him. For him to know, for certain. And to hear his voice say those words. Other times, she knows it was held back wisely, as if they needed that one moment to still remain. Something else left unfinished that demanded another day. “I don’t care what Mason’s going through.”
Mason has thrown two parties since she’s been back, and he acts as though nothing is amiss while his friends watch the door, expecting Delan to appear. The last time Olivia went downstairs to lower the music, she got stuck talking to a man who went on about his Houston Oilers and then beat his chest as he made promises for their coming year. She heard the sound, the pounding, the thuds upon a heart, and remembered the women who beat their chests as they wailed and had to turn away, to lean into the wall and fight to stay present and where she was. But then she thought of Lailan. Watching from her room as Gaziza’s voice soared into the air, seeing the man who’d loved her and cared for her lifeless on the ground below. Soran. Lailan. A tactile memory—Olivia could almost feel a little hand within her own.
But it’s not about Mason, Olivia reminds herself. What she’s going through is a result of loss. His loss, her loss, his loss. “He’s not back and I still didn’t say goodbye. It was stupid.”
“You had your reasons.”
“My reason was I couldn’t handle saying it.”
Rebecca takes this with a nod. “I’m sorry.”
Since Olivia’s return, Rebecca has stayed home with her, telling her boyfriend she needs space. This may or may not be the case, but Olivia doesn’t care because the truth is she needs her, Rebecca with her fierce manner and sisterly protection.
“That book,” Rebecca suddenly says. “With all his phone numbers. Can you find it? In his room? Call and say hi. Connect, even for a second.”
His room. Shoes, tossed by the closet. A hairbrush left on his nightstand. Last moves, last choices. Both pillows still held an indent. She’d stared at the one on the left, his side, seeing his face against the white.
“I found it. Half is written in Kurdish. I would have no idea who I was calling even if I could read the numbers. And I don’t speak the language. And the calls to his family are tapped. I say the wrong thing, I could make it worse.”
Rebecca takes a long pull of her gin and tonic. “Good points. You’ve brought a new level to relationship issues. I’m not
