engineer （noun）
1 a.: a designer or builder of engines
b.: a person who is trained in or follows as a profession a branch of engineering
c.: a person who carries through an enterprise by skillful or artful contrivance
engineer （verb）
2 a.: to contrive or plan out usually with more or less subtle skill and craft
b.: to guide the course of
“And what is this?” Meena held it up to the lawyer.
“It was part of the packet to be turned over to you along with the keys.” Sandhya tapped a manicured nail on the stack in front of Meena. “As soon as you sign the paperwork, you can take possession.”
Meena skimmed the few paragraphs she could understand and glossed over the legalese.
“To review the terms . . .”
“I have to wait out the full year—well, six months now—before I can sell it,” Meena cut off the lawyer.
“And it can only be sold to one of the other four owners of the building,” Sandhya said. “No outside buyers.”
Meena resisted the urge to take her long hair out of its messy bun and braid the edges. A habit her mom had never approved of. Hannah Dave, the only mother who counted. She stared out the large windows. The sky was thick with clouds. Leaf-diving sky, her dad had called it. They’d go out in the backyard and rake the fallen leaves into heaping piles. Then Meena would take a running start and jump in, belly-first. This was why she’d avoided the state of Massachusetts since she’d left it right after high school. Too many memories.
“What if I don’t want it?” Not that Meena was reckless. An apartment in the historic area of Back Bay wasn’t something she could turn down when she supported herself as a freelance photojournalist.
“Do you not?” The lawyer knew Meena’s hesitation was a bluff.
Meena resisted the urge to sigh. “I don’t actually have to live there.” Her life wasn’t suited to permanence. “I have a flight out in a few hours.”
Sandhya looked at Meena as if none of this was her problem. “The keys are in this envelope along with the building passcode. The utilities, including Wi-Fi, have been paid for until April, then you can decide what you want to do next.”
Meena picked up the pen. “Needs must.” She murmured her mother’s favorite phrase and signed where the plastic tabs indicated.
Sandhya gathered the papers, gave Meena the duplicates, and stood to signal the end of the meeting.
“What if no one in the building offers to buy?”
“Then you keep it until they do,” Sandhya said. “The apartment is in a condominium, so you will be responsible for maintenance, utilities, and expenses even if you don’t live there.”
Meena shoved her copies of the paperwork into a large yellow envelope along with the keys and the index card and nodded to the lawyer before lifting her heavy backpack onto one shoulder. She walked out of the building into the bustling area of Downtown Crossing and headed toward Boston Common. While the city was familiar from childhood school trips, she still needed the map on her phone to guide her to the address.
It was barely ten in the morning, and Back Bay was about a twenty-minute walk. She would check it out, assess the condition of the place, and figure out her next steps. If she couldn’t do anything with it for six months, she’d let it sit. Staying here wasn’t an option. She was in between assignments, which meant scheduling editor meetings in New York to line up more gigs. More importantly, this state was her past, and Meena didn’t look back. Ever.
She didn’t know Neha Patel, but people didn’t leave strangers gifts this large. There was a connection here, and she’d be foolish not to consider the likeliest reason for the apartment falling into her hands. Hannah Dave had been Meena’s mother in every sense but the biological. This inheritance, the weight of it, with specific conditions, felt as if someone were easing their guilt in the afterlife.