I looked at him enquiringly.
‘This job we do, it can be done by anyone – a sculptor, a surgeon, a socialite with a soul – sifting intel you’ve picked up along the way. Tell the story, as you say. Unfortunately, it has too many idiots and too few informed people.’
Andrew was a restless character. Underneath that calm, almost still veneer, he was constantly searching. It was a mind that never slept.
‘The only person I thought of when people started appreciating what I put out there was you.’ He didn’t smile, but that light hadn’t dimmed.
I was studying journalism when we started dating.
Andrew’s eyes darkened, and I felt the full force of his gaze.
I took another generous gulp of his scent and steered the conversation to less tremulous ground. I wanted to just breathe easy.
I wanted to ask why he hadn’t messaged to let me know he was coming. We had exchanged a few messages after I returned; all of them were about how my father was doing.
‘Was Ravi around when Hari Rao spoke to you?’ Easy isn’t my style apparently.
‘Yeah.’
‘Did he say anything?’
‘No. He smiled when I left.’
Andrew would’ve returned the sunny disposition with his peerless steel. I could count on that.
‘Did he say anything about Noelene?’
‘He said I had come with great expectations as I was Noelene’s grandson after all.’
I attempted an eye-roll. The emoji does a way better job.
‘I think he wanted her to abort the child. I feel their issue was my mother.’
I looked up at him. He was looking away into the barely lit lane below us. Vendors were hawking street food on little carts.
After what seemed like an eternity, Andrew turned and faced me. He took a deep breath and put his hand on mine. I opened my hand, turning it upwards, and let his rest on my palm.
‘I’ve been seeing a therapist, baby.’
I felt my brows crease and my jaw drop at the same time. Therapist and baby. It had been a while. ‘Why?’ I asked and then, ‘when?’
‘For a few months now,’ he said.
I was looking at him more closely than I had done all evening. My eyes were on his neck. His face had coloured. Had he gained a couple of kilos?
‘She called it rumination.’
I googled it with my spare hand. Rumination in psychology.A form of perseverative cognition that focuses on negative content, generally past and present, and results in emotional distress.
‘It’s a negative thought process that plays on a loop in the head.’
I nodded. Like the news hour.
‘I became obsessed with my family, or the lack of one, in my case. I wanted to find out about them, every detail. I would dwell on it for months together. I wanted to restore them. I could go days without eating, just thinking about something.’
Yes, he had filled out.
‘I wanted to find them, dot their stories. It was like I wanted to set us Browns or Velus – whoever it is we are – free. For our stories to be out there, too, not hidden in some closet.’
