On the other end of the phone, Ma stays silent.
‘What?’
‘Shanni,’ my mother says, voice as fragile as my resolve. ‘It’s been six months.’
‘Six months won’t bring Sonia back.’
‘Listen to me, Shantal.’
‘Are you back to normal, Ma?’ I snap at her. ‘Tell me you don’t think about Sonia. Tell me you don’t try to text her or go to look for her in the house and realize she’s left.’
More silence.
‘Yes,’ she finally admits. ‘Yes. Of course, I do that. But this, Shantal, this is the chance of a lifetime. And maybe getting out of this place is what youneed.’
I swallow hard. ‘I love Clapham.’
‘I know,’ sighs Ma. ‘I know you love Clapham. I know you two did everything together.’
‘Every decision I made, Ma, I made it with her.’
Sonia and I had dreamed of this for years, an opportunity for me to take my career to a level of leadership. Losing her before I made it to that point was as painful as a knife in my heart, a pain that six months had done nothing to dull.
‘Don’t make yourself suffer. You’ve been …’ I could swear my mother’s words threaten to crack with tears. ‘You’ve been living like this long enough. Go and enjoy your life.’
Ma doesn’t wait for a response. A beep signals to me that she’s hung up.
I throw my phone aside and take the photo of Sonia in its gold frame off my desk. Long black hair, big brown eyes that constantly held a smile, grinning lips outlined in a russet shade she always had on, even if it was only for a supermarket trip. The photographer had caught her mid-laugh. She had the best laugh, and when she smiled, she lit up the room. She was Miss Guyana Great Britain for a year. She was a Bharatanatyam graduate. She was a schoolteacher. You can see it in the picture: she is beautiful, inside and out. Vibrant, gentle, loving. She was full oflife, and yet Ma thinks I can go on with mine as if nothing happened to my brilliant sister’s.
‘I’ve wanted this for years,’ I whisper to her. ‘But it doesn’t mean anything without you.’
I don’t think I can do this without her. My heart will scream at me to turn around the second I reach the airport terminal. But I do what I always do, anyway: I force my mind to believe that maybe Ma is right, and maybe I will be able to pick up the pieces of myself and move forward in this new stage of my life.
Chapter Three
Darien
Isquint at the missive that my PR manager has sent to me. Judging from the all-capsREAD ASAPand the many red exclamation emojis following that subject line, it looks to be worth checking out.
Diana puts down her coffee across from me, quirking an eyebrow at my laptop. ‘What are you looking at?’
‘Revello has that big thing in Calabria or wherever, right? With the track and the development stuff.’
She nods. ‘Only because the team is ancient, though. Like, older than Ferrari. Why?’
‘God, you guys are so old money.’
She shoots me a blank look. ‘What is old money?’
‘Unimportant.’ I scroll further down the email on my laptop with a badly concealed laugh. ‘Apparently Heidelberg finally wants to do the same thing. They’ve got a centre in progress, this says. Absolutely insane. A development track designed especially for their cars …’
‘And?’ demands Diana.
‘This is supposed to open inRioin aweek,’ I say with a disbelieving laugh. ‘No way.’
‘Heidelberg? In Brazil?’ Diana takes a huge swig of coffee from her mug, eyes wide and attention piqued. ‘What? When? Why did they contact you?’
‘I think you’ve had enough of that for today.’ I grab the mug emblazoned with CERTIFIED CAR GUY (a gift from my mother) from her and set it on the counter near the sink. ‘Dude. You’ve been here for no more than a week andalreadyyou’ve cleaned out all our coffee twice.’
