There’s a wooden table in the middle of the room that’s covered in a floral cotton tablecloth. On closer inspection, I see that the flowers are unmistakably violets.
“Tea?” a woman asks, and my head lifts sharply. Her back is to me, and she is busy brewing tea at the counter, having taken the kettle off the stove. I hadn’t even heard her come into the kitchen.
“Who are you?” I ask softly.
“A question with a question is not an answer, Sai.”
“Do I know you?” How does she know my name? She’s a little shorter than me, black hair with streaks of grey are plaited and resting on her back. She wears a blue cotton dress with a cardigan over it, despite the heat.
“You gonna have tea or not?” There are two options, she could be genuinely offering me tea to be courteous, in which case declining would be considered rude. The alternative is that she wants to poison me in which case I should decline. I could say no on account of the weather. “Do you always overthink the simplest things? Sit down, Sai.”
Now that I can do. “Are you-?”
“If you’re going to say Angel, please don’t. Just call me Kate.”
“Hi, Kate.” She finally turns and takes a seat opposite me. When I lay eyes on her, I stand, my chair falling behind me.
“Sit down, Sai.” She’s beautiful, an older, cheerier version of Kennedy. There is no mistaking that this is her mother. They have the same eyes, the same smile. “Yes, I’m her mom.”
“How is this possible? You live in England.”
“I’m going to answer all your questions, but first tea.” She hands me a cup I hadn’t even realized that she had in her hands. I lift my chair and sit back down, my head feeling like it’s about to explode. Did Kennedy know who I was? Did she know about the curse before we met?
“I do live in London, but I used to commute a lot here when Kennedy was younger. When she started getting older, I had other people do what I was supposed to do. Before you say anything, I am going to get into that.” She raises a hand. “When went off to college I got to be here a lot more.” She smiles.
“I met your mother when my mother, Anna, worked as her nanny. We weren’t like your family, lower down the ranks financially, so when my mother got an opportunity as an English nanny, she grabbed it. My dad took care of my sister and I back home, in London, and when my mom could, she’d come home for the holidays, or we’d travel here. Salina wasn’t like the rest of the wealthy, pretentious girls she was forced to hang around with, and we became friends.” Kate smiles fondly at the memory.
“When Salina fell pregnant with you, she hired my sister, Avery, as her midwife. Avery was a nurse back in London, but obviously an opportunity to earn double her salary was irresistible. I was visiting Avery then, that was where I met, Aydin, Kennedy’s dad. It was at one of those fancy parties your father used to throw.”
“You don’t mean Aydin Tekin, Amy’s uncle?”
“One and the same.” She smiles, but there is a hint of sadness behind her eyes.
“I’m sorry about what happened to him. You hear about those things growing up.”
“Anyway, I’ve always had what my mom called a gift. I never took it seriously, well, not until later in my life. But I was there, on the dock, the night your mother died.” I clench my fists on the table. “The tea helps.” she tells me, nodding at the mug in front of me.
“That was the night she methim.”
“Him?” I frown. She seems to get lost in her thoughts for a moment. “Your mother was afraid, to give birth to you. Your father wasn’t happy about it.”
“Yeah, nothing new there. Look, lady, no disrespect but is there a reason I’m here? You don’t have to tell me my father hates my guts, I already know that. I do want to know who my mother met at the dock that night and why, though.”
“You need to understand that the people working in homes, they’re the ones with the real intel. My sister had that. The walls have ears, as they say.”
I stand and start to pace. I hate when people beat around the bush.
“I know you’re impatient.” she tells me. “But all of this will make sense, I can promise you that. But you have to trust me.”
I run my hands through my hair then take a seat at the table again. “What do you want me to do?”
18
Kate
21 years ago
“Avery,you can’t seriously think that her husband would do something to harm the child.” I can’t keep the annoyance out of my voice. My sister has been wringing her hands in her lap for the last hour as she relays what she overheard her boss and his friend talk about.
