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From the other room, I heard some soft notes played on the piano. I followed them to find El-Mudad seated there, his fingers dancing over the keys as he played an impossibly complicated tune from memory.
“What is that?” I asked, leaning against the instrument. It was the newest-looking thing I’d seen in the apartment so far. It might end up being the only furniture I touched the whole time we were there. Could I sleep on it?
“It’s a piano.” El-Mudad glanced up at me and flashed a grin.
“No, smart-ass. What you’re playing.” I hadn’t even known he could play, but then again, he’d had the money for that kind of education.
“Piano sonata number three. ‘Andante amoroso’. By Mozart.” He somehow managed to shrug and lean to reach other notes at the same time. “I thought it appropriate.”
“Why isn’t this place a museum?” I mused. “There’s so much history.”
“Consider how old Venice is,” he said. “If they turned every building that had history into a museum, there would be nowhere to sleep.”
“Fair enough.” I went silent for a little while just to listen to him play. When the piece ended, I clapped. “I didn’t realize you could play.”
“I have many secrets,” he said archly. “Do you have a piano at the house?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Olivia practices on it. Maybe you could give her some pointers.”
“I’d be happy to. I taught Amal and Rashida how to play when they were very young. They outpaced my ability to teach them, though.” The pride in his voice when he spoke of his daughters filled me with a warmth that was almost unbearable. My father had never spoken of me that way. He’d probably never spoken of me at all.
Maybe that was why I had gravitated toward Neil and El-Mudad. Because I recognized some spark of goodness in them that I could rely on. They were good fathers, and therefore, to my mind, worthy of trusting with my heart. And maybe that could appear creepy or borderline-incestuous to someone on the outside, but it made perfect sense to me.
“You could teach me,” I suggested. “I never had the chance to learn.”
“Neil said that you grew up in very different circumstances than us.” El-Mudad tilted his head. “He said when the two of your visited your mother’s house—“
“It was awful and gave him claustrophobia?” I said with a self-deprecating laugh.
But El-Mudad was serious. “He said it was clear how much your family loved you. And how much your mother regretted not being able to give you what you deserved.”
Neil had said something nice about my mother? “Really? Because usually he just talks about how annoying she is.”
“Yes, he does talk about that, too,” El-Mudad admitted sheepishly. “But he knows that she has a good heart. And that you take up most of it.”
My gaze bounced from the high ceilings and evenly spaced crystal chandeliers to the hand-painted silk wall coverings. “I thought it would get easier, eventually. The being rich thing. I thought I would get used to it.”
“It hasn’t?” he asked, folding the lid carefully over the keys.
“It’s gotten harder. I look at the way the world is...well, the way my country is. I’m American, we think of ourselves as the world.” Maybe if I changed that about myself, the rest of the world wouldn’t seem like another planet to me. “But I look at what’s happening, and how much people are hurting. And how much I have. I’m starting to hate myself a little.”
“Why hate yourself? You didn’t cause those people’s problems,” El-Mudad said, spouting the same rationale I’d heard from Neil time and again. Because neither of them had ever been poor, they couldn’t possibly understand the impact their wealth had on the world.
It’s not just theirs, I reminded myself. You’re a rich a-hole now, too.
“Maybe not directly,” I protested gently. “But having billions and billions of dollars, money that we’ll never be able to withdraw from a bank, let alone spend...it doesn’t solve any problems, either.”
“Neil solves problems. He built the foundation and the shelter. And it’s helping people, isn’t it?”
He had a point there. But it didn’t help everyone. Could anyone actually help everyone?
“Would it make you happier to start your own charity?” he asked. “Or give to another?”
“Flint still needs clean water,” I mused, then felt immediately ashamed. That was my home state and I’d sat by and done nothing to help. “People need so much.”
“People will always be in need,” El-Mudad reminded me. “And unless something really terrible happens and Neil and I both lose our fortunes, you’ll always be in a position to help.”
“You guys wouldn’t mind if I spent a lot of money on stuff like that?” I chewed my lip. “Because it would be a lot of money.”
“I can’t speak for Neil, but you’re welcome to spend as much of my money as you’d like,” he promised.
