For a few minutes, she allowed herself to acknowledge her fatigue. Usually something like hidden notes popping up would tickle her curiosity. She loved puzzles of all kinds. Right now, though, in this place, it felt too heavy a lift. Mostly because Meena hadn’t been searching for this; it had found her, stopped her in her tracks as she was living her life.
She reined in her thoughts. Everything was temporary. She’d learned that from a Buddhist monk in Burma. She’d adopted it as her mantra. When her mind wandered to what had once been, she’d rein it back to the present. For now, she was here, and she had things to do.
Meena added the note to the others she’d collected. She grabbed her shoes, her wallet, and her broken phone. It was going to be an afternoon of errands. As she went to get her jacket from one of the blue chairs, she brushed up against a book on the fireplace mantel and it fell.
Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost. A sliver of white paper peeked out from inside. Meena opened the book and tugged out the note card.
My husband left three days ago. I haven’t gone to look for him. In fact, I wish him well. We did not suit, married only because we had both given in to societal convention. He was constantly seeking happiness. An elusive, subjective, situational concept.
He’s a regular sort of person. I use the present tense because I do not believe he’s dead.
I suppose I could start at the beginning, but to what end? That’s a fun sentence. I could parse it out. It should not make sense, yet it does because the English language is fluid and alive.
Meena flipped over the note card.
Beginning—a noun and an adjective. As a noun, the point at which something begins. You need more, especially if you do not know the word begin. The first part—a rudimentary stage or an early period. It can be an adjective as well—just starting out. Being first.
I imagine it took us months to define this word, annotate it, dissect it in different ways, stare at it until it no longer made sense, became a mere jumble of letters in a certain order.
Meena sat on the couch, reread the note, then glanced around the room. What a curious woman Neha had been. She rubbed the prickles on her arm. The room was chilly, but it was the haunting words of the note that unnerved her.
It wasn’t signed. But as with the others, Meena sensed it had been written by Neha. The handwriting was the same. A very exact penmanship with the words small and precise. She wrote in straight lines even on the unlined paper. The opposite of her chaotic apartment. The stranger had found a way to communicate from beyond the grave. Curiosity crashed like a giant wave over Meena. She needed to know more.
She flipped open her laptop and logged in. She typed “Neha Patel” in the search bar. Close to twenty-four million results. She narrowed the search down to Boston and added the street address. Finally a match. An obituary without a photo. What is with this woman and not having photos? It was a short mention of her death in the Boston Globe.
Neha A. Patel, 65, of Boston, Massachusetts, passed away on April 24 from natural causes. She is survived by her parents, Ambalalbhai Dhirubhai Patel and Chanchalben Ambalalbhai Patel. Harvard graduate. Editor, Merriam-Webster.
That was all. No mention of a husband, even though the note said she’d had one. Meena dug around a little more but couldn’t find anything more than cursory information. She wondered if Love’s Labour’s Lost was a hint or just a convenient place for Neha to hide her note.
Meena added the card to the envelope with the others. As the sun rose higher, the living room filled with light and color, and she turned over the things she knew, searched for threads and meaning.
Surprised by a knock at the door, Meena answered. Three women barreled in without invitation.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Can I help you?” Meena asked.
She recognized two of the three women. They were about the same age, possibly in their fifties, though their skin was flawless in differing shades of brown. Each carried something in her hand: a container, a bouquet of flowers, or a thermos.
The woman she didn’t recognize was in jeans and a sweatshirt with a Boston University logo. Her short hair was layered at the top. The one with the flower arrangement was Tanvi from this morning. She still wore a long velvet dress with several necklaces draped around her neck, but her hair was now in a big bun with a coil of beads holding it together. The one with the thermos was the first woman she’d met, Sabina. Today she was in a long green silk shirt with leggings. She wore her hair in a braid that lay over her right shoulder. She had a small red dot on her forehead between her sharply arched eyebrows.
“Ay, why are you wearing shoes in the house?” Sabina asked. “Where are your slippers?”
“Again . . . can I help you?”
“No,” Tanvi cut her off. “We’re here to welcome you with chai and parathas. And fresh flowers, which will make you feel more at home.” She placed the big arrangement on the console table next to the door.
“Thank you”—Meena hesitated—“but I’m on my way out.”
“To go where?” the woman with the container asked.
Meena pursed her lips. She wasn’t used to answering to anyone. “The airport.”
“Leaving already?” Sabina asked.
“Only to get my suitcase.”
“Why did you leave it there?” the woman with the container said.
Meena sighed and closed the door behind her. They were settling in at the dining table by the front windows, and Meena realized they weren’t going to budge until she answered their questions.
“Take off your shoes and sit.” Tanvi waved her over. “Food and tea will give you energy for your errands.”
Meena knew that in many Asian cultures, shoes in the house were a no-no. She complied and joined them at the table.
“Chai and chitchat,” Tanvi said. “That’s how things are in the Engineer’s House.”
“Who?”
“This house,” Sabina said with obvious pride. “It has been called the Engineer’s House for almost one hundred years, named by the original residents who lived here while they studied at MIT.”
Meena thought back to the index card that had come with the deed to the house. That must be what it referred to.