“Ammi, it can’t hurt to have some pain medication.” Hena set her purse on the table and kneeled so they were face-to-face. “Just so you can feel a little better, that’s all.”
“For the one hundredth time, those medicines put me straight to sleep.” Her eyes watered. When she spoke again, her words were barely above a whisper. “I—I want to be here. I’m sick of all these medications.”
The plaintive way she spoke, her head bowed, broke Hena’s heart. This was the same woman who would roughly march her out of the house barefoot under the cover of night when her father was in one of his dangerous moods. Hena remembered being yanked from sleep, her mother cradling Lulu in her arms and pressing a finger to her lips as the threeof them slipped out the bedroom window. They sidestepped snake holes and ducked past dangling black widows before she tucked them into the overgrown shed in the back of their property until the storm passed.
“The Percocet is less heavy-duty. It’ll take the edge off,” Gita reassured her. “You’ll have at least thirty minutes before it makes you drowsy, and you’ll be able to actually enjoy yourself. Please, Frida.”
“I can grab the medicine,” Hena offered.
Her mother didn’t reply, but she didn’t say no, which was as close to a yes as they’d probably get. Gita handed Hena a key card and reminded her to grab her mother’s special filtered water.
Lucinda was by the front desk chatting with the dark-haired “Mr. Jack-of-all-trades” when Hena walked past the lobby. Their voices drifted over to her.
“…absolutely messed up. I can’t believe it,” Hena heard the man say.
“They tried to tell me it was a misunderstanding.” Lucinda leaned closer to him. “I call bullshit.”
“Let me tell you—” The man looked over. Seeing Hena, he abruptly cut off.
“Hena.” Color rose to Lucinda’s cheeks. “We were being loud, weren’t we?”
“You’re fine,” Hena reassured her.
The man grabbed a set of keys hanging from the back wall. He nodded to Lucinda. “I’ll handle that for you.”
“You’re a lifesaver,” Lucinda told him, before turning to Hena. “Are you finding everything okay?”
“Yes,” Hena said. “I’m just grabbing something from my mother’s suite.”
“Fantastic. Let me know if you need anything at all.”
Hena hesitated. She could ask Lucinda another time. Her mother needed her medication. But the lobby was empty, this would only take a second, and her question—it was burning inside her.
“Lulu said you worked for my father,” Hena said.
At this, Lucinda broke into a smile. “I did. He was a wonderful man, wasn’t he?”
Wonderful? Hena blinked. Lucinda seemed utterly sincere.
There was nothing inherently wrong with the sentiment. He had been wonderful to many people. Most people. This many years out, he had practically reached sainthood for some. But if Lucinda worked for him at the Miramar location—where the shadowy parts of his work resided—then surely she had known him better than most.
“Lulu said you did his bookkeeping,” Hena said.
“That was my role. Officially, I mean. He said it would look good on my résumé. Honestly, I did a bit of everything,” Lucinda replied. “You know how your dad was.”
That’s the problem,thought Hena.I do.
“What do you mean by ‘a bit of everything’?” Hena asked.
“Whatever needed doing.” She shrugged. “I handled a lot of the paperwork for the side business. Sorting it. Delivering it. Reminding people when they were behind on payments. Your father believed in me. Not many men like him in the world. You were lucky.”
Lucky. The word settled in Hena like a stone.
She remembered her father’s funeral. Thousands had attended—community members, friends, colleagues, business leaders. So many heartbroken people.
But if they had loved her father, it was because they hadn’t truly known him. Over the years, she’d met those who did—who knew the truth beneath her father’s charm. They never spoke a word to her, but their expressions belied their fear. Was Lucinda one of the rare few to have been shielded fromit?
A streak of lightning flashed across the glass wall in the background—sharp and sudden. Hena winced. Her mother needed her pain medicine. She was overdue. Hena had turned to leave when—
