Page 86 of The Matchmaker

I rush toward my aunt’s bedroom. Khala is indeed in bed. A black boot encases her right foot and runs up to her knee. I hurry to her side.

“Nura.” She turns off the television. Her eyes light up. The joy is so clear on her face it makes me ache.

“How did this happen?”

“This?” she chuckles. “It looks far more serious than it is. I tripped walking to the kitchen last night. Wish it was a more dramatic story. I thought it was a sprained ankle, but turns out it’s a light fracture. I will be back to normal in no time.”

“You should have told me right away.”

Though we both know why she didn’t. She’s downplaying her pain. Her frustration. Because this is her way. To try to make the path easier for me. To ensure the motherless girl who showed up unexpectedly at her doorstep all those years agodoesn’t have to take on any more heartaches than she’s already endured. This is all she’s ever tried to do—make things easier for me. Raising her young niece had never been in the plan. She was an empty nester at last, her daughter grown and off to college, when I arrived. But she’d never made me feel like a burden. She only showed me love.

“Nina is making a big fuss, but I am all right. Really,” she insists. “Tell me, though, how areyou?”

“I’m…” I want to tell her I’m okay. The need to say it is overwhelming. But—Khala was at my bedside when the cops questioned me. She more than handled it. She didn’t fall apart. And what affects me affects them too. I need to let my family know what’s happening. Even if I’d feel better if they didn’t. No more secrets.

“Things aren’t great,” I tell her.

The door creaks. Nina pokes her head in.

“Mom, I’m going to head to the—Oh.” She pauses when she sees me. “Nura. Hey. I’ll leave you two to talk.”

“Stay,” I tell her. “There’s news I need to tell you both.”

She sits at the edge of Khala’s bed. They watch me expectantly.

With a deep breath I dive in. I tell them everything. I hold nothing back. When I finish, they watch me with haunted expressions.

“I’ve got round-the-clock security,” I tell them. “Fiona’s outside right now. I’m safe. But I’m going to look into getting coverage for all of you, just in case.”

Khala still doesn’t speak. Maybe honesty was not warranted in this instance. If her stress levels shoot up—

“It sounds as though you are doing everything right,” Khala says. “You have security cameras at home as well as the office.Your team is monitoring everything. Let’s pray we find the person behind this as soon as possible.”

“Ameen,” says Nina.

I look into Khala’s warm eyes. I think of the words she said to me as a child when I was lost in my grief:Be present. Be here. Be with me.I squeeze her hands. All those years ago, she was teaching me how to savor this temporary time with her. It hits me as though anew: I am going to lose her. Whether through her degenerative condition or the passage of time. No matter how much I want to, there are some things I can’t fix. But while she’s here, I’ll try to not only be thereforher, but be with her too. And maybe, at least for now, she can handle more than I’ve given her credit for. Secrets never strengthen, they only calcify.

When I step back into the foyer, Nina follows me.

“When will she get out of the boot?” I ask her.

“She can’t bear any weight on it for at least eight weeks,” she says. “Then there’s some fun physical therapy to follow.”

“I wish I’d known.”

“It was a long morning at the ER, there was nothing you could’ve done, but you’re right, I should have told you right away. I just didn’t want you to think I was expecting you to drop everything. You have every right to be angry after everything that happened.”

“Nina.” I quell my familiar frustration. “I want you to expect things from me. I would drop everything for her because I want to. She’s your mother, but she’s also important to me. Yes, I know I was upset, but that doesn’t change that we’re family.”

“I know,” she says. “You’re right.”

“She really fell right here in the house?”

“Tripped over the rug on her way to get water,” Nina says. “Iwas asleep, and she didn’t even call out. I found her in the morning. She’s got a spiral fibula fracture. The bone is broken in three different spots.”

Lightly fractured. Right.“We should get her one of those buttons you can press if you’re in danger.”

“The ‘help, I’ve fallen and can’t get up’ thing?” She grins. “I think she’d rather fall and stay on the floor.”

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