The Mirrors of Fate (26 page)

But her niece looked far from fine. This girl who stood in front of her looked nothing like the niece she had come to know and love. Her hair might have been beautifully pinned up by a flower clasp allowing falling ringlets; she might have looked the princess in her white, spaghetti-strapped, waist-hugging pretty dress that flowed from the hips down, but none of that helped her desolate and removed face.

This couldn’t have only been about meeting Louie Singh tonight. The child’s complexion looked too dull and lifeless. But what was most alien to Seema’s recollection of her niece was the sickly, unaware look in Maria’s eyes. As much as she saw Maria’s efforts to smile and seem pleasant, nothing could hide the dazed look in her dilated pupils.

“
Maria, what’s the matter with you?” her aunt asked plainly.

“
Nothing I said, Auntie,” Maria replied. “I didn’t know you were here. Come in.”

Maria disappeared into her room before Seema had time to reply. Expecting her to follow, Maria left the door open. Seema entered slowly and looked about the room as Maria took a seat on the sill of one of her windows. Only a small lamp was on, providing faint, dreary yellow light in the bedroom. Only the window Maria sat at was open, and by the looks of the creased curtain, that was where she had been sitting for some time now.

“
So, sweetheart,” Seema began slowly as she sank into Maria’s neatly fixed bed, silently hoping that she’d be able to get back up again, “it’s been a long time since I’ve seen you. How’ve yu been? Yu know how much Ah missed you? Ah love your dress, by the way. Yu look very, very elegant, like a princess. But Ah can’t imagine yu feel like one. Yu always told me how yu dreaded this day ever since...What was it? Fourteen? But you know this is the best thing for yu, so Ah want yu to cheer up. Ah wasn’t here the first time you met yu suitors, but Ah glad to be here now. We have always been able to talk plainly to each other, nuh true? Ah know yu must feel like bashing the wall in. Ah surprised yu not cussing and throwing tings round the room. Yu going be okay with all this?”

“
I’m fine, Aunt Seema,” her niece muttered impassively.

Seema stared at her, not believing what she was seeing. What happened to the girl who looked at her aunt as her only confidante? Why was she so shut out and so distant? Why was there such a depressing air around her? And then she remembered yes, this wasn’t just about the meeting. Something was telling her the mood concerned Maria’s fainting spell earlier on that day, and most of all, the incident with the fake schoolmate who had assaulted her.

“
So, yu mother told me about what happened today at the mall. Why yu think yu fainted?”

That seemed to bring Maria around and make her more alert.

“
I just felt sick, that’s all. I got rest and I’m better now.”

“
Is that so? You coulda fooled me, sweetheart. Yu doh look all together here at all. Is it because of that? Or is it because of that school friend of yours who the police are looking for?”

Maria fully became aware, her eyes brightening. “How do you know about that?”

Smiling, Seema rose from the bed, though not without a groan and considerable shuffling, and went over to Maria. “Your father told me about it, and also how yu teacher got himself in a world of trouble as well.” She sighed and looked out toward the moon hanging like a ball in the sky. “My God, I wonder sometimes what the world coming to when people so young do something so malicious and evil.”

Maria’s gaze lazily scanned the floor. “He’s not as young as he seems.”

“
What yu mean? Talk up. Yu mean he wasn’t young? Iz a big, adult man pretending to be a student?”

Unwilling to think about it again, Maria kept silent. She focused her eyes on a stain on the rug, allowing her mind to depart. Where did it come from? Maybe she should clean it later before Louie came.

“
Maria?”

Maybe there was stain remover in the closet. Should she go get it?

“
Maria!”

“
Yes Auntie,” Maria said slowly in reply to the question already asked. She continued in a slurred, sluggish manner, a result of feeling lightheaded and drunk from overused tear ducts. “
Iz an adult man
. He’s twenty-two years of age. His name is David Chin. He had a sister. A sweet, sweet girl. A sweet, sweet girl. She had a brother. His name was David Chin. Not Alan, but David Chin. Or Chin, David. I know his name now. That’s what counts. I know he had a sister now.” Maria laughed.

“
Stop it, Maria!”

But Maria kept laughing.

“
Stop it, you’re scaring me! What’s wrong with you? Yu hear what yu saying? Yu not making any sense.”

“
No. I’m finally making sense.” She smothered her face in her hand. “Finally I’m making sense!”

Aunt Seema shuffled quickly to the door and closed it quietly. Lowering her big frame to kneel at Maria’s feet, she moved herself into the path of her gaze, forcing Maria to look at her. “Maria, how do you know all of this?” She spoke clearly and plainly. “Are you sure of what you are saying? How do you know all this information about this man?”

Maria looked into the eyes of her aunt, then at her plucked eyebrows, her pudgy cheeks, double chin—hadn’t she ever considered losing weight? Maria smiled.

“
Maria, stop all that and focus!”

“
Auntie, I’m so exhausted. I hate all this. I hate life so much right now.”

“
Don’t smile when you say that,” her aunt said uneasily. “Answer my questions. How do you know so much about this guy? Why yu never tell the police what yu knew? Your father told me you were hiding stuff but I couldn’t believe him. My niece not so stupid to withhold information from police and her family.”

“
Auntie,” Maria began, leaning over into her face. “This is none of their business. It never was to begin with. David Chin does not like me. I had to figure that out for myself. I was supposed to figure out
why
for myself from the beginning. He is always one step ahead. The police can’t catch him.”

The woman veered her head back. “Of course he can be caught! Any criminal can be caught if God plays any part in it. Why yu think for a second anything else?”

David’s name wasn’t in the living registry...

“
Maria?”

...because he was already marked among the deceased.

“
Damn it Maria, focus on
me
!”

But she only trembled. “Aunt Seema, have you ever hurt someone so bad you don’t want to remember? That your mind blocked out memories because it’s more convenient that way?”

“
I...I don’t think I have. But who are you talking about?”

Tears began to build in her eyes. “About a little girl...I don’t know how and why but...It’s my fault. I deserted her when she needed me the most. And now David wants to, oh God, all I know is this has to do with Emma. He hates me because of Emma.”

Aunt Seema could only watch helplessly as the tears soaked Maria’s eyelashes and streamed down her cheeks.

“
Come on, Maria.” Aunt Seema took Maria by the shoulders and directed her to the bathroom. With the door closed, her aunt held her hair back for her while she washed her face.

“
Whatever’s going on in your mind now will have to be put aside,” her aunt told her. “You can’t let this other situation defeat you. Your father will crucify you if you act up again tonight like last time.”

Maria knew she was right. If she messed up this night again for her father, they both knew maintaining a peaceful existence under the same roof would be impossible. But how could she peacefully reject Louie without starting a war with her father?

After a few minutes of washing her face with ice cold water, Aunt Seema seemed satisfied after she took a good look into her eyes.

“
Now dry your face. You listen to me Maria Jaghai, forget about this David person. Focus, yu here me? Tonight, just try and be a likkle happy. Okay?”

Maria nodded her head sadly. They returned to her bedroom.

“
I’m sorry.”

“
Sorry for what, chile? Don’t worry about anything.”

Don’t worry about anything?
Could she? Maria didn’t know. Indeed, what was she sorry for? Maybe she was sorry for what was happening now; sorry for saying too much and probably confusing the hell out of her aunt she had not seen for so long; sorry for what she had done or not done for someone in her past; sorry for everything because she knew somehow her predicament was her own fault. And she was sorry for Mr. Lohan too, whom after his second trip to the hospital after getting beaten unconscious in the diner bathroom, she had not seen or gone to visit. She never wanted him to get too involved with her mess.

Forgetting all that for now, Maria made final adjustments to her make-up. Truly she wanted to stall as long as she could. Going downstairs meant a solemn finality. A sealed fate of her life. She wanted to lock the room door and hide under the bed, but it wasn’t an option. She needed to keep her head firmly on her shoulders despite how much it teetered and tottered.

Was that the doorbell she just heard?

Aunt Seema’s demeanor changed. “Looks like yu company reach. Not much time to gather back your composure, sweetheart.”

“
Aunt Seema, I’m telling you this from now. I don’t like him and I’m not going to be nice to him. I don’t give a damn if his parents are here or not. I will slap him again if I want.”

“
No chile.” Aunt Seema took Maria’s hands in hers. “Yu be nice, you hear me? Listen to me, as much as your father will never a day in his life tell you this, this is not just about him being stubborn and unfair. This is a great day for him. He will be very proud once he sees you with the right man he has chosen for you. You may be adopted, but that doh mean yu not his daughter. Don’t embarrass him, please. As much as I know my stubborn baby brother doesn’t deserve it, you need to be the bigger person. Yu feel seh I never disagree with this whole arranged marriage business when I was your age? I thought the same way about it as you do. Foolishness. But luckily I ended up with someone I got along with, and we were happy until the day he died. Give Singh another chance, all right? I haven’t met him yet but from what your father tells me he favors the man very much. Plus he has experience—he’s been married before.”

“
It doesn’t make him a good man. He already put his hand up my skirt.”

“
What? Are you kidding me? Do your parents know?”

“
Even if I told them, they wouldn’t believe me.” She grimaced, guilt at her capriciousness climbing her scalp. “If I hadn’t treated one of the guys like a piece of dead lumber and cursed at the other one, then maybe they would’ve questioned the slap. I should’ve handled the first time better. All I did was look ‘unruly.’ The only one who really deserved anything was Louie. They’d never believe the truth now.”

“
All right, all right. Doh worry about that now. It will be okay and—oh! And, just let me tell you, if he tries that perverted stuff again with yu, I’ll personally slam his face in for yu.”

That brought a smile to Maria’s face, as lackluster as it might have been. Obviously believing she had done enough, Aunt Seema returned by herself downstairs to the kitchen where she would remain doing dinner preparations. Maria eventually left her bedroom.

So, this was it. The promise of a married life with a man she didn’t know. That was the clear picture. Flowered and prettied up though, it was the promise of an economically smooth life with a man who had the wealth to take care of her and her children. With his experience from his past marriage, technically he would do the
correct
things. This was something most girls would dream of, wasn’t it? Maria was not certain she could commit to Aunt Seema’s request to be good, but for Aunt Seema’s sake only, she would make a menial effort.

Maria eventually stood unseen in the hallway’s end right by the staircase. Two minutes had passed, three, four, and six, and she still hadn’t made her planned descent yet. She heard the voices by the front door.

Just breathe
, she told herself.
Didn’t you say before you wouldn’t marry anybody? So smile then. Look pretty. Just say thank you but no thank you, I have no desire to marry anyone. Simple enough
.

Maria heard the voice of a woman ask where the “daughter of the household” was. That was her cue.

Not vocally announcing her presence, Maria slowly walked down the stairs. There they were. Her own mother looked like a cheesy hostess as she greeted them. Louie, tall and handsomely dressed in a black, distinguished suit and red tie, was the first one to notice Maria’s entrance, and he looked elated. She did not change her expression to accommodate his delight, nor did she return a smile of her own. Instead she observed the woman eagerly giving her mother a hug.

Louie’s mother was very short and stout and no more than five feet tall. Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun, revealing a protruding forehead and large eyes behind her glasses. Upon first glance she looked demure and docile, but that was contrasted by the bright, loud colors of a red, purple and blue silk sari.

Maria stopped on the stairs and allowed them to finish their hearty introductions. Louie got their attention by saying grandly that the “princess” had finally arrived. Her mother and Louie’s mother turned their heads.