Page 10 of The Matchmaker

“A monster?” Lilah’s eyes widen.

“Yep. A ginormous snake that stretches for miles and miles!”

Lilah squeals. Nina acts like I haven’t spoken at all. She opens a cabinet and pulls out cocoa powder. Grabs the teaspoons from the drawer by the sink. She’s been here four months at this point, but it still surprises me when I see her riffling through the kitchen. Like it’s her house or something.It is her house,I remind myself.This is her mother’s home.

“Are you all caught up with client intakes?” Khala asks. “The last time we spoke, you had mentioned quite the surge in applications.”

“Wedding season is definitely causing a bigger spike than usual. I’m racing to catch up,” I tell her. “I had five back-to-back appointments today.”

“Someone needs to get better with those boundaries,” Nina mutters under her breath.

She’s baiting me. She knows there are no weekends or holidays in a job like mine. A job that pays the mortgage for thishouse, the water and electricity bills, and sends Lilah to Bishop Academy for a cool $2,300 a month. I don’t see her complaining about any of that, do I?

Nina is currently on an “indefinite break” from her job as a curator at the Portland Museum of Modern Art to take care of Khala. A job she didn’t need to leave, as I’d told her numerous times. Before she unceremoniously arrived, I’d started moving Khala’s things over to my place. Some of her agency-related boxes stuffed with old notebooks, confidential documents, and the dated tape recorder she used to dictate notes are still wedged in my hallway closet. Then Nina stepped in and that was that. Now she’s the one with the final say. She chooses the doctors. Decides which medicine is preferable and which physical therapist is best. I’ve learned it does not matter that this woman raised us both. At the end of the day, Nina is the daughter. I’m just the niece.

I grab the dusty crystal glasses from the top shelf of the cabinet. Flipping on the faucet, I rinse each one before patting them dry.Why is Nina even bothering to make me a cake, anyway?Her feelings about me are written all over her face. I tuck a strand of dark hair behind my ear. Even if she eggs me on, I’m not going to snipe back. We’ve had enough skirmishes to last a lifetime.

“Notthoseglasses, Billi. I meant the gold-rimmed ones behind them.” Khala lifts and examines one of the drying stems.

Billi.My chest tightens at the nickname. My mother’s nickname. My mother, who has been dead for over twenty years. Nina stops mixing the cake. Lilah looks up from her perch.

“I—I’m not Billi,” I manage to say.

“Of course,Bilqis,” she replies, smiling. “You are far too old for silly nicknames, aren’t you? But no matter how old you get, you remain my little sister. Don’t you forget it.”

“Well—”

Before I can figure out what to say next, Khala gasps. Clasps a hand to her mouth.

“Nura. Oh, my sweet Nura.” Her eyes fill with tears. “I am so sorry.”

I rush to reassure her. Slipups happen. I try to keep my voice neutral and calm. To not show her how unmoored I suddenly feel. It’s not as though she chose to forget me. Her memory lapses are minor enough—this one came and went in a matter of seconds, didn’t it? But it’s still a hard thing to witness. This shift in someone you love who’d once stood before you as sturdy and unshakable as a mountain, slowly coming undone.

Shakily, she sits at the kitchen table. I hand her a glass of water. She takes a sip. “Your mother is never far from my mind.” Her gaze meets mine. “Look at you—you’re the very image of her. On your birthdays, I think of her a bit more, I suppose. She would have been so proud of you.”

I pull out the correct crystal glasses. I’m not about to contradict her, but I’m not so sure of how proud my mother would really be. I don’t have as many memories as I’d like of her. Her almond-shaped eyes and oval face have faded to hazy outlines with the passage of time, so I cling to the few memories I do have, including the one conversation I can still recount word for word.

When my mother was tucking me into bed a few days after my seventh birthday, I’d asked her why we never visited Atlanta. My father had died of an aneurysm while my mother was pregnant with me. Khala and Nina were our only living relatives, and I hadn’t seen them since I was two.

“Your khala and I…we don’t see eye to eye on most things,” she said, patting my arm. “It’s better to keep our distance.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Honey, you’re too young for all the details.”

When I insisted on knowing more, she simply said, “Honey, she’s so busy with her work, I doubt she would even have time for us if we visited. Her job completely consumes her. It’s not healthy.”

“She’d make time for us,” I told her. “Can’t we at least try? I want to see her. I want to see Nina.”

My mother’s expression softened. She leaned down and kissed my forehead.

“Let me think about it,” she finally said.

Neither of us knew that in two weeks’ time an atmospheric river would descend upon the Bay Area, causing her car to careen over a cliff on a wet and windy night. Suddenly, I was yanked from our one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco’s Mission District and placed in a sprawling six-bedroom home set on half an acre in Atlanta, Georgia. Suddenly, Khala became my legal guardian and life as I’d known it was over. I look down at my silver bracelets. Mymother’sbracelets. Etched with flowers, they’re worn with time, but they’re all I have left of her.

“Mom has a two o’clock this Tuesday with the neurologist,” Nina says, pulling me back to the present. “Can you take her, or maybe arrange for someone to take her? It overlaps with Lilah’s pickup time.”

“I can take her.” Lowering my voice, I ask, “Did you ask Dr. Pang about the clinical trial at the last visit?”

---