“Takeout.”
“I am making a big lasagna today,” Sabina stated. “I will drop some off.”
“Thank you.”
Meena looked through her shots as she went back in. It was nice to simply shoot, not on assignment, but for herself—to feed her creativity and curiosity. She’d been going from gig to gig for so long, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d picked up her camera just because. She rolled her neck and shoulders. This week was helping her shake off some of the wear she’d put on her bones this past decade.
She shuffled through the notebooks on Neha’s desk. Maybe there would be another note. She pulled open the drawer and riffled around. In the back she felt something stiff and tugged it out. A card in an envelope. It was sealed with red wax, with NP imprinted in the center. She opened it and pulled out the card.
history （noun）
1: a branch of knowledge that records and explains past events 2 a.: events that form the subject matter of history b.: events of the past
c.: one that is finished or done heritage （noun）
1: something transmitted by or acquired from a predecessor Meena scanned the words. Neha had been a dictionary editor, so the definition could be for her work. Except Meena’s gut told her it could also be a message. These words didn’t seem to be random choices or the product of a stream of consciousness. She put the note back in the envelope and placed it with the others. Each added something, as with a series of clues. Meena wondered if they were for her.
CHAPTER SIX
The mid-October day was warm and sunny as Meena walked toward Back Bay from Kenmore Square. Her meeting with a broker had gone better than expected, and Clifton Warney was confident the place would be rented within a week of being on the market. He was eager to see it, but Meena needed a few days to clear out some of Neha’s things.
As she crossed to the center path of Commonwealth Avenue, the street grew quieter. The large tree-lined mall was bursting with autumn colors. Leaves in shades of amber, gold, and brown clung desperately to the drying branches, delaying their inevitable fall to the ground. She navigated around tourists who stopped to take photos of various statues. The Boston Women’s Memorial seemed to be the most popular, with mothers and daughters posing next to the three bronze sculptures.
It was something her father would have done, made Meena and Hannah stand there as he took endless shots with his 35 millimeter. He’d loved his camera, had shown Meena how to use it when she’d been a curious eight-year-old. She’d received her very own for her fifteenth birthday. She’d had it for a little over a year before the explosion took it, along with all their family photographs. Meena rubbed her knuckles against her chest to ease the tightening.
Heritage. She didn’t have one. Not in the genetic sense. She was who her parents had raised her to be. Sunday Mass, PB&Js in her brown-bag lunch. Books where the parents looked like hers, but she didn’t resemble the children. She wouldn’t let it be important. She’d been loved. That was the only thing that mattered.
You and I, Meena, are dreamers, her father would say.
And I’m here to make sure you can do, her mother would add. Dreams do not put food on the table.
Meena pushed away the memory to focus on the practical things like getting the apartment ready for renters. She also wanted to pull apart the significance of the note card she’d found that morning, this one in the bottom of a trinket box.
The women of this building are in charge, the husbands superfluous. The husbands married into the history of EH but did not have the same care or responsibilities. The running and keeping of EH is for the women directly descended from the original engineers.
Meena let her thoughts percolate as she walked away from Commonwealth Avenue and onto Newbury Street. Just a block over, the street changed significantly, shoppers laden with bags browsing the lunch menus of the numerous cafés along their way. The shop windows showcased mannequins in sportswear, evening gowns, and everything in between. Each low-rise building was neatly packed, snug against the next, with stores on the top two floors, a restaurant in the basement.