“I’m going to the library,” she says. Nobody will argue with that, because education is king in their family. “Dad, call me if anything changes.”
On the street, she walks until her head starts to clear.
She feels bad about leaving Abdi, though she knows her parents will watch him closely. She’s not sure what she thought about the detectives. DI Clemo was quite nice, but Sofia’s not immune to the fear that many in her community have, that the police will judge them and suspect them because they’re Somali. If you listened to the boys talk at school, it seemed that none of the white boys were ever stopped and searched by the police, but it happens to the Somali boys a lot in their neighborhood. It makes them feel targeted and vulnerable, and sometimes angry, too.
Sofia is feeling increasingly afraid that Abdi will be discriminated against if he doesn’t speak up, and maybe even if he does.
She wonders what she can do for him and thinks it might be helpful if she went to get his stuff from the Sadlers’ house so he has it when he starts to feel better. The thought gives her some energy and a welcome sense of purpose.
Two bus rides later she’s in Clifton Village, walking up Noah’s street and thinking about how long it has been since she was last here. She knows the Sadlers will probably be at the hospital, but she hopes their housekeeper will be at the house.
She rings the bell and the door opens almost immediately. Alvard, the housekeeper, is just as Sofia remembers her: a small, anxious-looking woman with short dark hair, sharp dark eyes, and a deeply creased forehead. Whenever Sofia sees Alvard, she remembers the time Alvard pressed a napkin full of warm cookies into her hands and told Sofia that what she most missed about Armenia was her mother’s peach orchard.
“Nobody’s here,” Alvard says. “They’re at the hospital. They told me I can go home, but I want to straighten up the house for them.”
“Is it okay if I pick up Abdi’s things?”
Alvard shows her into the hallway and asks, “How’s Abdi? Is he all right?” and Sofia finds herself losing the composure she’s been fighting to maintain.
“No. Not really,” she says into Alvard’s shoulder. Sofia hates to cry. When new mothers cry at work she finds it beautiful and right, but when she cries she feels ugly and weak.
Alvard holds her gently in the overheated hallway of the Sadlers’ home. As she gets control of her emotions, Sofia tunes into the deep, slow ticking of a grandfather clock and thinks what a sad sort of sound it makes.
“We’ll get Abdi’s things,” Alvard says. “Come.”
Sofia pauses instinctively before following her up the stairs, because she’s never been farther than the hallway in this house. The hallway was where she used to wait for Abdi after he’d been to play here. She would will him to hurry up because either their dad was waiting outside in his taxi or they would have a bus to catch. Fiona Sadler would stand at the bottom of the stairs, shouting up, and then showing Sofia a tight smile, neither of them knowing what to say to the other.
“Come!” says Alvard from the top of the stairs, and Sofia begins to climb, putting her hand on the gracious banister rail for the first time ever, her fingertips feeling the heft of it and the shine on it.
Noah’s bedroom is on the top floor of the house, and Sofia’s impressed. It’s a huge space, flooded with light from two skylights, as well as a casement window that has a view out across Clifton and toward Leigh Woods. Noah has a double bed to himself and there are shelves of books and mementos around the room, as well as a TV and a computer gaming setup. It’s the kind of kid’s bedroom that Sofia has only ever seen in movies.
Alvard bustles over to a single put-up bed and Sofia recognizes Abdi’s bag lying beside it on the floor, half-open, looking like he’s just slung it there, which would be typical of him. His nightwear has been dropped on the bed.
As Sofia packs up Abdi’s things, Alvard rifles through the stuff on Noah’s desk.
“Some of this might be Abdi’s,” she says.
Sofia is momentarily distracted by the sight, through a partially closed cupboard door, of a ton of medical paraphernalia. There’s a bucket for sharps, packets of syringes, dressings, flushing fluids, gloves, and an oxygen tank. She sees these things every day when she does her hospital placements, but the sight of them tucked into the corner of this perfect bedroom reminds her of the fact that sits at the center of Noah’s life, which is that he has often been close to death. Sofia can’t help wondering if he has ever been as close as he is today, and the thought makes her shudder.
“Sofia?” Alvard prompts.
She apologizes. She hopes she hasn’t appeared mawkish, staring so obviously.
Alvard hands her an iPad.
“That’s not Abdi’s,” Sofia says.
“I don’t think it’s Noah’s.”
“Oh!”
Sofia takes the iPad from her and turns it over. There’s a school sticker on the back. Abdi must have it on loan. She puts it in his bag.
“We’ll check downstairs, too,” Alvard says, and Sofia trots behind her as they go down. She knows Alvard wouldn’t have let her in if it wasn’t okay, but even so, she can’t help feeling as if she’s snooping behind the Sadlers’ backs, and prays that they won’t come home suddenly.
On the first floor of the house Alvard opens a door into a room that’s spacious but cozy, and leads Sofia in. It’s definitely a man’s room. There’s a battered leather couch, a pair of running shoes discarded in front of it, a huge TV, and a signed cricket bat in a case on the wall. A large modern desk faces the window. It’s very different from the Buckingham Palace style of decor that’s going on in the hallway and in the other formal rooms of the house that Sofia has glimpsed through doorways.
“It’s worth checking in here,” Alvard says. “Noah likes to come in here and use his dad’s desk.”
“That’s fine.” Sofia’s desperate to get away now. This space feels like even more of a Sadler inner sanctum than Noah’s room. It’s as she’s turning around to leave that she sees the folder.
It would never have caught her attention if it hadn’t been so boldly labeled. The word Hartisheik leaps out at her. She moves closer so that she can examine it.