Anchali closed her eyes with another deep sigh. When she opened them, she asked, “Do you really want to know? It’s not a nice story,noo.”
“I think we’re past fairy tales,mae.”
She nodded, resigned. She stared at a spot on the wall just past Gift’s shoulder as she started to speak. “When I found out I was pregnant, I wasn’t happy. Park can tell you how distraught I was. I had just started to move up in the ranks. I was good at my job. I loved the excitement of it all. I even contemplated having an abortion and just never telling your father. But he found my paperwork from the doctor and he was so excited.” She gave a bitter laugh, her expression almost nostalgic. “So, I kept it. I told Kendrick. I had no choice. He was my handler. He was pissed. You know how he felt about me.” She looked to Park, who nodded.
“What does that mean?” Gift asked. “How did he feel about you?”
Park made a disgusted sound. “Kendrick had a very one-sided interest in your mother. He made no secret of it.”
“He brought me to work in his Bangkok office until he could find a permanent position for me out of the field. But I didn’t truly understand who Kendrick was until I saw him there in Thailand, a U.S. diplomat with full immunity and no moral compass. He was far worse than we’d ever imagined.” She shakes her head slightly, as if suppressing a shudder. “While I was there, I worked alongside a beautiful, young girl named Sukhon, but everyone called her Petal. It suited her. She had the most beautiful skin.” She reached out and stroked Gift’s cheek. “Like you.”
“Are you saying…”
She didn’t answer directly, instead saying, “We were both pregnant. She was a few weeks ahead of me, though she was doing her best to hide it. She barely had a bump compared to me. I kept her secret. Even though she was married, there was a lot of discrimination against pregnant women. She said she worried if Kendrick knew, she’d lose her job. And her husband had run out on her. She needed that job to take care of the baby.”
Gift chewed on his nail, a slippery feeling settling in his stomach.
“After I’d spent a few months in the office, Kendrick came in one day and told us there was a leak, that someone in our office was selling U.S. secrets to the highest bidder. A few days later, over lunch, Petal confided in me that she suspected it was Kendrick himself. I did my best to put her mind at ease. Kendrick was a pervert and incompetent, but espionage? Treason? I couldn’t wrap my head around it. He wanted to be president one day.”
Gift took Park’s hand, not missing the way his mother’s gaze dipped to stare at their joined fingers for a long moment before seeming to remember herself.
“No matter how much the agency investigated, we couldn’t plug the leak. Then Kendrick brought me into his office one day and said he suspected Petal was the mole. He said he had proof but that he needed to catch her in the act. He wanted my help. He suspected she’d been sneaking into his office at night, accessing his computer. It was supposed to be easy. I just had to wait in Kendrick’s darkened office and, when she arrived, Kendrick would come in and confront her. It was a terrible plan. Ridiculous, really. But it seemed harmless enough.”
“So, what happened?” Park asked.
“There was no chance to confront her. She walked into Kendrick’s office with a gun in her hand and she shot me. By the shock on her face, I assume she expected to find Kendrick. She dropped the gun and ran. Kendrick chased her. I passed out. I woke up six days later to learn that my baby girl was dead, Petal was dead, and the leak had been plugged. I was too grief-stricken to even think about her baby.”
She shook her head, like she was back in that moment, her anguish real. “I was furious with Kendrick. I hated him. I probably would have killed him if I had any strength at all. This stupid plan was the reason my baby was dead. He was the reason I’d never have any more children.” She flicked her gaze to them then away again. “The bullet caused so much damage that they had to remove my uterus and part of my liver. He begged me not to tell anyone about his stupid plan. He said he’d shown the higher ups proof that Petal was the leak and that it was over. I told him death was too good for him and to get out of my room and never come back.” She gave Gift a look that made him feel like crying. “But two days later, he was back and he brought me…you.”
Tears streamed down her face. She got on her knees in front of Gift and held his hands. “You were so small. You had these big ears and this tiny nose…like a mouse. You had ten fingers and ten toes and these big, soft brown eyes. He said you were mine. That they’d saved Petal’s baby but not her and you had nobody who could care for you. He said he’d already arranged everything. There was a birth certificate showing you were ours—mine and your father’s. Kendrick bragged about pulling a lot of strings to get a U.S. birth certificate to Bangkok so quickly. I just had to keep his secret. Holding you, keeping Kendrick’s stupid plan a secret seemed such a small price to pay to have you.”
“But you said you didn’t even want a baby,” Gift whispered, clinging to his mother’s sweaty hands.
She smiled through her tears, shrugging. “I didn’t. At first. But as I got further along, I fell in love with my baby, with the idea of her…or him. When she died, it felt like someone had ripped my lungs from my body. Then they told me I’d never carry a child again. I was inconsolable. Kendrick knew that. He brought you to me to buy my silence. But how could I say no?”
Gift didn’t realize he was crying, too, until his nose started running, causing him to sniffle loudly. He wiped at his cheeks with the back of his hand.
“I told your father everything. I couldn’t do this without him. He wanted to be a father so badly and you were right there. Absolutely perfect. You never cried. You were so quiet we worried something was wrong with you. But you were just…content despite everything you’d been through. Your father named you Kla. Brave. But I just called you Gift. Because that’s what you were. It’s what youare.”
Gift hugged his mother hard, crying buckets for the second time in twenty-four hours. Park rubbed his back but otherwise stayed quiet, like he wanted them to have their moment.
After a while, Gift pulled away and his mother returned to her chair.
“So, why is Kendrick trying to kill me? Killus?” Gift asked.
Her expression turned grim and she glanced at a clock on the wall. “Because you and I are the only people who can prove what really happened to Sukhon.”
“I don’t understand.”
There was a knock on the door just as his mother said, “You will.”
“Who is that?” Park asked sharply, drawing his gun and pointing it at the door. “There’s no way we were followed.”
Anchali shook her head. “Don’t,” she said, pointing to Park’s weapon. “I expected her. No matter what happens, just let me handle this. Okay?”
Her? Park hesitated, then nodded, muscles tense.
To Gift, Anchali said, “Don’t be scared, okay,noo. You’re safe.”
