“Hi, Sabina,” Sam greeted her. “Welcome back.”
Meena tilted her head. “Were you away?”
“I was visiting a cousin in New Jersey,” Sabina said. “Meena, I’d like to speak with you.”
“OK.”
“In private.”
Meena sat up. “It’s fine. Sam knows everything.”
The look of surprise on Sabina’s face was a small pleasure.
“I guess you didn’t want to keep it between us,” Sabina said.
“Auntie, I knew before,” Sam clarified. “Neha told me. A part of it.”
“You chose to fill her in. Chose Neha’s side.” Sabina turned to Sam, betrayal and hurt visible on her face.
For the first time, Meena could see age on Sabina’s face. Her usually flawless skin was pale, and there were more lines around her lips.
“It wasn’t Sam,” Meena said. “Neha left me notes.” She gave Sabina a short summary of Neha’s bread crumb trail. “We didn’t know about you until last week, when you admitted it.”
“We?”
“I trust Sam,” Meena said. “As I wrote declining the offer, I won’t ever speak of this again. I will keep your secret, but I’m not selling. I’m not leaving.”
Sabina visibly stiffened. “It doesn’t matter that I don’t want you here?”
That hurt. Meena had softened her heart to make room for others: Sam, Zoe, Tanvi, Wally . . . that made her vulnerable too. Hannah had taught her how to hold her own, and Meena could handle it. And whatever else came her way.
“Sam, tell her how it is,” Sabina pleaded. “If this is revealed, it will ruin me, this place, everything we’ve built here.”
“How so?” Meena asked. “I did write in my note that while I’m biologically your eldest, I’m not going to make claims on anything. I want to keep what I have, build on it. That’s enough.”
“Then what?” Sabina asked. “You’ll pass it down to your children? Continue the legacy?”
Meena stood. “If I have any, yes. Because whether you want me or not, I have the same birthright as you. More, considering both my biological parents have claim. You don’t have to like it, but it’s true.”
“It was a mistake,” Sabina said. “You were never supposed to find me, come back.”
Sam stood and put his hand on Meena’s back.
“I didn’t choose this.” Anger rose in Meena. “I wasn’t looking. I never wanted to find you. I didn’t think about you. Even when I lost my parents, I never thought, Hey, I still have a birth mother out there somewhere. Never. You didn’t exist to me. This was all Neha’s doing.”
“So then go,” Sabina said. “I am nothing to you, and you are no one to me. You can walk away with almost three million dollars and get on with your life.”
Meena hunched her shoulders and crossed her arms to protect herself. “You made a choice. When you were seventeen. I’m making one now. I will live with yours, and you can live with mine. We can be enemies or acquaintances, it’s up to you. I’m not going anywhere.”
Sabina looked up, lowered her arms, and made herself tall. “I see.” She turned to leave.
Meena knew she should let her go; she owed Sabina nothing, should want nothing from her. “The thing is,” Meena said, “I was sixteen years old for a very long time.”
Sabina stopped.
“Even in my twenties,” Meena continued, “I was older, I knew more about the world, how to navigate, move through, make a living. Inside I was still this young girl, frozen in time, by one event. I learned how to cope, to fake maturity, but the fear I carried with me, that was the fear of a little girl who’d lost everything. This place, not just the people in it but the history of this place, the one you are the curator for, gave me something, a past that hadn’t disintegrated into ashes. By coming here, by choosing to stay here, I finally let that sixteen-year-old girl grow. I hope you find a way to do the same.”