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She doesn't say anything but closes her eyes and tips her head backwards until it touches the wall of the elevator.
"No, no one died. It just felt like it," she says with her eyes closed. She sucks in a huge gulp of air, as if she is about to put her head underwater and is preparing to be without access to air for a while. The elevator's bright, harsh light lets me see her in stark relief. I can see two lines in-between her eyebrows that look like they've been carved by hours of unpleasant thoughts.
"My dad left when I was a sophomore in high school. He was suspected of a crime, and he disappeared right after it all went down." She pauses and looks up at me. "It was a financial crime."
"Damn. That's intense. What happened to your family? To him?" I ask, forgetting that no questions were allowed. But she doesn’t seem to notice or mind.
"Well, when he left, the FBI was looking for him because they thought he was involved in the fraud that led to his company's collapse. A lot of money disappeared with him, and he'd been their general counsel."
“The FBI?” I ask incredulously.
"He turned himself in six months ago."
I can’t hide my surprise, "Turned himself in? He's back? After how long?"
"Fifteen years," she answers for me.
I let out a long, low whistle.
"Damn. Did you know where he was?" I ask incredulously.
"We had no clue. We thought he'd run off with all that money and left us to pay the piper. Well, except my mother. She never lost faith in him. Even after they showed us surveillance video of him going into the bank and leaving with all that money. It was terrible. My sisters both fell apart, my mother acted like nothing was wrong. I watched all of that and felt responsible for them. Not by choice, but everyone else was losing it and I've sort of always been the calmest. The least worried. So, I held them while they cried. I watched my older sister look for a man to fill the void my dad left as soon as she could. My younger sister, she was such a Daddy’s girl." Her chuckle is dry and humorless. "His leaving did a real number on her. She became so jaded and shut us all out. It was crazy. And my mother," she tsks, "she built this shrine to him. Pictures everywhere. Like he was away on a business trip, or like he'd died and she was waiting for his resurrection. She stopped paying attention to me because she thought I was okay. And when I left for college a couple years after everything fell apart, my younger sister was the only one left to deal with her. I understood it was devastating for her. Her entire world shattered, her future was gone." She says the last statement with so much sadness that I expect her to say something more. But she doesn't.
" Jesus. So, is he in jail?"
"No. He was exonerated. He did leave but not because he'd done anything wrong. He was being blackmailed."
"What? By who?”
"It's such a long story, and I don't even know all the details. So much of it is still unclear. But he's free. He's home, and everyone’s happy to have him back. The years he was gone have been erased. My mother has forgiven him. We all have, I guess. But I wish..." She trails off, and I hear the unshed tears clogging her throat. I feel her shoulders draw up, and she pulls closer to me.
"Wish what?" I press my lips into her hair. It smells like the lilies my mother grows in the summer. I could stay here all night and breathe her in, support the warm weight of her body on mine and talk. I've never been one for a lot of words, but she makes it feel so easy.
"I wish he'd been there. It destroyed us, him being gone. He missed...everything. I missed him. So much. I had to be strong. For everyone. I gave everyone so much. I didn't save any for myself. No one seemed to notice that I fell apart." Her voice breaks, but she's not crying. She lets it out in a slow, stuttering exhale. "But that's life. Right? We're always giving, and before we know it, we're empty and we've filled everyone up."
"Is that what you do?" I ask her.
"You have no idea. I feel hollow," she sags a little as she says it.
"I see you so differently," I say, and she looks up at me with eyes full of plaintive wonder.
"Tell me. I want to know what you see that I can’t even feel."
I wonder how this woman, who is so vibrant, complex, and interesting could feel this way.
"Yes, I’ve caught glimpses of sadness. But, I also see strength, humor, kindness, and intelligence…I see...you."
She rolls her eyes, but there’s a small smile playing on her lips.
"Really. Your expressions say so much. You're not very good at disguising how you're feeling." She gives me a keen, dubious look.
"Really? Hmm." She frowns plaintively. "Maybe it's the alcohol loosening my inhibitions. You’ve seen first-hand how it tends to do that,” she shoots me an embarrassed grimace. “Or maybe...I think maybe it's being here. In Ghana. It's not home, but it feels comfortable."
Or, maybe it's me, I want to say. Instead, I say, "That's how I feel about my family home. I travel a lot, but when I'm there, I feel a connection with the land that's almost like being plugged into a power source." I feel a longing for home right now. For grass and gray skies and cool weather.
"Wow. I don't think I've felt that anywhere," she says, sadness coloring her words, and I feel a pull of sympathy for this woman.
"One day, you'll land somewhere and you'll know," I reassure her. I believe that in my marrow. I know where I belong.
