“Don’t listen to your sister,” Mama said. “What does she know about the world? The boys fool around with the American girls. But when it’s time to get married, they straighten up and look for a nice Arab Muslim girl.”
Baba looked slightly more concerned when I asked his opinion. “Some of those boys, they stay with their girlfriends even after they get married.”
Mama tsked. “Ali isn’t like that. You can tell he’shanoon.”
My mother wasn’t easily swayed by people. If she thought Ali was kind and compassionate, it was easier for me to believe that he was. Besides, I wanted to believe in him.
I wanted to believe in us.
Chapter Eight
Now
Carol Darius did not exist.
At least not online. Lulu and I checked into our hotel and quickly settled on our double beds to do searches on our laptops. I googled Carol’s name along with Durham. And then her name alone. Using every spelling combination I could think of, I searched her name and Ali’s together.
There was no trace of Carol Darius in North Carolina. There was a Carol Darius in Cape Town, but I doubted she could be the Carol I was looking for. Another hit turned out to be an Irish singer who had died two years earlier. There were a couple of US-based Carol Dariuses in the Midwest, but they were in their late sixties. None of the other hits made any sense.
“How do we find someone if they have no online footprint?” I said as much to myself as I did to Lulu. There were no phone books, no other paper trails I could think to follow. “I’m so used to online searching for everything that I don’t even remember how to look anything up in real life.”
“Don’t get mad at me,” Lulu said haltingly, “but what was the name of that girl Ali was dating when he met you?”
“Lizzie Martins. Of course, my mind immediately went there too.” I’d googled Lizzie Martins now and again over the years. Shehad a Facebook account that she stopped updating years ago. There was nothing on it, except some quotes about being true to yourself and signs of toxic people. There was no photo of her.
“Do you know what she looks like?”
“I made Ali show me her picture back then.” It was stamped in my memory. Blond. Pale-blue eyes. Beautiful in the way that all young people are beautiful but don’t realize that until they are old. Mostly, Lizzie Martins was a regular-looking girl. She and Ali were pictured in outdoor gear, the Shenandoah Valley behind them. I wasn’t the only woman Ali took hiking.
We were both quiet as we worked on our laptops trying to track down the elusive Miss Darius. I called the city and county, trying to see if there was a way to find the deed to the house. Lulu called the utility companies. We both came up empty.
“There’s no deed to the house on file,” I said after getting off the phone.
Lulu looked up from her screen. “Who has the deed, then?”
“The county Register of Deeds office says they don’t have to be filed.”
Lulu made a face. “That doesn’t seem to be very efficient.”
“When I get back home, I need to go through all of Ali’s papers.” I had initially planned to delay that task indefinitely. Looking through Ali’s things would stir up lots of emotions, and I had more than enough of those at the moment. “Maybe the deed is somewhere in the house.”
The following morning, we went back out to Cozy Glenn. Again, no one was home. Tired and feeling defeated, I slid into a wood porch chair with white cushions that turned out to be very comfortable. It wasn’t a cheap set. “How much do you think they paid for this furniture?”
“So we’re doing this?” Lulu asked. “We’re sitting on her porch like we own the place?”
“Don’t we? I mean, don’tI? Ali paid the mortgage. I’m his widow.”
Lulu slipped into the seat opposite me. “If this is your house, why hasn’t anyone told you? Ali died weeks ago.”
“That’s the latest in a long list of good questions we have no answer for.”
“Did he have a will?”
I shook my head. “He didn’t think it was necessary. Everything was in both our names. If one of us died, the other would get it.” On Ali’s last birthday, once he turned forty-eight and it sunk in that he was pushing fifty, he started thinking about wills and trusts, but he hadn’t gotten around to doing anything about it.
“There has to be a simple way to figure out who pays taxes on the house.” She started searching on her phone. While my sister tapped away on her device, I let my gaze wander, taking in the white-painted wooden porch floor and flowers beyond in the garden, the sweet scent of hydrangeas filling the softly humid air. I thought about the fluffy chair cushions coddling me.
Had Ali sat on this porch? In this very seat? Had he felt this comfortable? Ali was frugal. The kids and I teased him about it all the time. He would never have agreed to purchase outdoor furniture this nice. At least, he would have complained if I tried to buy it. Maybe there were different rules for Carol Darius.
