Diya’s face crumpled. “She’s a stranger to me. I have no idea what’s going on inside her head.”
“Ah, sweetheart.” I held her tighter against me and considered whether to bring up the one thing that continued to niggle at me—I loved her, no matter what, could go through my entire life staying silent on the topic…but Diya couldn’t. Her head was already a place wounded; she needed to get this poison out. “Baby, why did Shumi say she lied for you?”
Diya went motionless. “That wasn’t on the emergency call tape.”
“I called after she said that.”
Breaking our handclasp, Diya hugged her arms around her knees and stared fixedly out at the waters of the land where she’d been born.
“Before you answer, I want to tell you about Susanne.” I’d mentioned my first love before, but only in passing. Now I told her all of it—including what I’d done at the end. “I killed Suzi W.”
Diya, her face awash in tears, grabbed mine in her hands. “No, no, you didn’t, Tavish. She wanted to go. Youhelpedher.”
Hands on her wrists, I allowed my own tears to fall, the sobs wracking my body as I buried my face against her neck and released all the anguish I’d held inside for years.
The pain of it was unbearable.
And the release a searing exhaustion that took me to the sand, the two of us on our backs, Diya’s head pillowed on my arm as we watched the coconut palm fronds move against the blue, blue sky.
I’d told her about my involvement with Susanne’s death so she’d know that I trusted her to the core—and that she could trust me, but I didn’t push her to answer my question. It had to be her choice.
So we just lay there, and I thought that Susanne would be happy for me.
You’ll make a wonderful husband and father, Tavish. Never ever doubt that. You just need to find the right woman.
I silently told her that I had. I’d found her. To stand at Diya’s side for a lifetime would be the most beautiful thing I could imagine.
“Everyone always blamed me for Ani,” Diya said without warning, “but Ineverhurt Ani.” Her voice rose. “IlovedAni. Ani was my baby. I called her that first—my baby Ani. My parents copied me because they thought it was so cute.”
“I called Kamal,” I said, my mind on the policeman who’d kept a family’s secrets for decades. “While I was in the hospital. With everything that’s happened, I wanted to ask him a question.”
Diya was silent.
“I asked him why he’d been so certain that you were the one who killed Ani, why he didn’t think you’d just been nearby and got hit by the splatter of her blood.”
The man’s voice had been broken when he said, “At first, Shumi took the blame.” A hacking cough followed by “She was always the quiet one, the good one, the one who never got into any trouble. And Diya was the one with blood on her clothes and Ani’s doll in her hands.”
Another cough. “But Shumi was wearing a dark color. Dark brown or black, I can’t remember, and Diya was in a light dress—the blood was so visible, and she had it on her face, too. Shumi…Shumi didn’t.”
He hadn’t verbalized that she must’ve wiped it off, but we both knew that had to be the case.
“I thought Shumi was trying to protect Diya, but maybe, shocked by what she’d done, the poor child was telling the truth.” No life in his tone. “And we showed her that she could get away with the worst evil if she was quiet and didn’t make trouble. Iaskedher if it was really Diya, and was it a fight about the doll, and told her Diya wouldn’t be in any trouble because she was so small. Igaveher the story.”
When the truth was that Shumi was so jealous of sharing Diya’s attention that she’d taken it out on a vulnerable toddler. “Shumi’s the one who told the adults you hurt Ani,” I said now. “It was her. Not you. And not Bobby.” The latter was more conjecture than fact, but it fit.
Diya sat up so she could look down at me, her expression stark and open. “I remembered after Taupo. I don’t know why. I wasn’t pretending after we lost Mum and Dad and Bobby.”
“I believe you, baby,” I said, wondering if it was the scent of fire that had caused the cascade of memory.
“I’ve always wanted babies of my own,” she whispered, “but that morning my parents kept bringing up all my medications. All of it to stop me being crazy when Iwasn’tcrazy!”
Her voice grew louder, but no one would overhear us here on this empty stretch of paradise. Not even Ravi and his family—they’d gone off to Labasa to do the grocery shopping and give their children a day out.
“Theymademe crazy,” Diya whispered. “Always watching, always waiting for me to hurt someone else when I’d never hurt Ani in the first place. That morning, my father started asking about my pills, and if I was staying on top of my regime. Then…Shumi, it was Shumi, asked if I’d talked to you about not having kids. Because of course I didn’t want to risk that with my psychiatric problems.”
“Bitch.”
Diya’s eyes widened. “Yes, she is, isn’t she? She couldn’t even share me with my own children. And once she put it out there, my parents started considering it, and saying how Shumi was right, that with my history, I should remain childless. That a stressor like pregnancy could be dangerous.”
