“Stomach flu.” Diana shuddered. “Let’s not talk about that. It was bad enough to live through it once. But I spent the night in my bedroom and it doesn’t overlook the street. I’ve been wracking my brain trying to think if I saw anything that might help, but the best I can come up with is something from earlier that day.”

When she hesitated, I sat forward. “Diana, my mother is gone. She’s only got us to look out for her now.”

30

Diana sighed. “It was Alice. I saw her and Nina from the upstairs window out front and could swear they were arguing—not shouting, but just . . . Their faces were different from usual, the way they looked at each other, all tight and tense. I wanted to go out there and see what was wrong, but my stomach was already giving me trouble and I didn’t want to throw up on the street. I thought I’d call Nina later and ask.”

Her fingers clenched on the mug, her eyes wet. “I didn’t even know I’d half convinced myself she was out there living the good life until you told me that they’d found her. All this time, I was hoping for that phone call, for a postcard, for something to tell me she was all right.”

“Me too,” I admitted.

“Oh, Aarav.” She reached forward to squeeze my hand. “We loved her, didn’t we? She was so bright and radiant and she never let go of her people.”

“Yes.” It was all I could get out.

Breaking contact, I deliberately took another bite of cake before looking at the wall of photos that surrounded the television. It’d been there as long as I could remember, but the photos had changed. No longer awash with images of a dark-eyed, dark-haired toddler and her preschool-age brother with unexpected hazel eyes, it was now a wall filled with images of Mia and Beau as teenagers. Photos pinned atop photos.

Dramatically gorgeous Sarah with her dancing brown eyes and thick, wavy long hair had once been front and center along with the kids, but her slender form had long been hidden by more recent photos of the family. It made me sad.

The only photo that hadn’t changed was the one on the top left—a faded snapshot of a young Calvin with his parents and older sisters, all of whom he’d lost when he was only fourteen. “I understand, Aarav,” he’d told me a couple of months after my mother’s disappearance. “I know the hole it creates in a person when the people they love leave without warning.”

I’d never asked for the details of the terrible car accident that had taken them from him. I hadn’t needed to know to accept that he did actually get it. He was one of the few people who did. It was why I’d always been able to see beyond Calvin’s outwardly stoic face. He’d built a wall of cold pragmatism around himself in a successful effort to survive.

I should’ve followed his example. Instead, I’d fallen into the bottle.

“Children grow so fast,” Diana said, pulling me out of my alcohol-soaked past. When I looked at her, she had a soft smile on her face. “Nina would’ve been so proud of the man you’ve become.”

Even as I hesitated, my heart suddenly painful, her face grew bright. “Hold on a moment.” Putting down her coffee, she padded out of the room.

I was still staring down into my now-cold drink when she returned almost ten minutes later. “Sorry it took so long, but I knew I had it.” She passed across several photocopied sheets of paper that had been stapled together.

A laugh burst out of me when I saw the title: Energy Vacuum. “Where did you get this?”

“Nina gave it to me after you won that literary prize. She was so proud, she copied off the story for all her friends.”

I’d never known that, but I could still remember my mother’s beaming face at the prize-giving ceremony held in Old Government House. Situated in lush green grounds full of old trees near Auckland’s city center, the ornate building had looked imposing and stuffy to the fourteen-year-old I’d been, but my mother had brushed off my shoulders, straightened my tie, and said, “Don’t ever allow anyone or anything to make you feel less, Aarav. You deserve to be here. You’ll always deserve to be in any place you put yourself.”

I’d still felt like a nerd as I accepted the award, but I’d been a proud nerd.

Afterward, my mother had asked me where I wanted to eat out to celebrate, and I’d chosen fish and chips on Karekare Beach. Distant from the city, with the glittering black sands of the West Coast, and unforgiving waves that had no mercy for the humans who dared dance in its fury.

“She went to a shoe store and bought sandals so she could trek the path to the beach at Karekare, because I wanted to celebrate with a picnic.” Karekare was no easily accessible city beach; the ocean was a thundering secret only visible to those who made the effort to find it. We’d had to make our way through sand dunes on paths that could grow searingly hot under sunlight. The journey required twice as much effort as walking on land.

I could almost feel the strain in my calves, the heat coming off the glittering sand. “The fish and chips were still warm when we got to the beach.” I’d never forget sitting there in my fancy dress pants and bare feet, my tie and jacket discarded in the car, and my shirtsleeves rolled up, with my mother laughing beside me as her salon-set hair flew back in the sea winds. “She was wearing a red dress.” Her favorite color, her lips the same vibrant hue.

“I was with her when she found that dress.” Diana’s voice was soft, entering my memories at a distance. “She was worried about taking the attention off you and was about to choose a simple black sheath, but then she said, “No, I want to celebrate my boy. Red is alive. Red is proud. Red says his ma is in the damn room and over the moon.”

My chest knotted up. “I’m glad.” It came out rough.

My mother had never been a plain-black-dress kind of woman.

Diana and I sat there for another fifteen minutes in easy company. At one point, I indicated a particular photo. “That hasn’t changed. Your rose garden. Always the best on the block.”