“stop playing games.”
I read the message twice.
Then I deleted it from the screen without replying.
Not because I wasn’t afraid.
I was so afraid that my legs were shaking underneath the linen pants Matthew chose for the trip, as if even my clothes had to obey him.
I walked toward the taxi stand with my purse clutched tight against my chest.
Behind me, the airport kept breathing with its noise of suitcases, announcements, and goodbyes, but I felt as if every loudspeaker was pronouncing my name.
“Helena Barbosa, return to your son.”
Nobody said that.
But my head did.
My phone started vibrating nonstop.
Matthew was calling.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
I didn’t answer.
I got into the first taxi I found.
“Where to, ma’am?”
I opened my mouth.
I didn’t know.
My house in Brooklyn wasn’t mine anymore, according to Matthew.
He said it was “in the process of being sold” and that was why I had to go to France while he finished everything.
But Lily had written:
“look for the black square.”
The house.
The crossed-out window.
The dark square.
“Brooklyn,” I said. “Park Slope, near Seventh Avenue.”
The driver looked at me through the rearview mirror.
“It is going to rain.”
I looked at the gray sky over New York.
“Then drive fast.”
On the way, Matthew left messages.
“Mom, this is ridiculous.”
“I am going to call security.”
“Lily is crying because of you.”
That was the one that almost made me turn back.
Lily.
My baby girl.
My eight-year-old granddaughter, with her crooked braids and her colored pencils, had risked something to put that paper in my hand.
I couldn’t fail her.
I called my lifelong neighbor, Nancy, from next door.
She answered with the voice of an interrupted nap.
“Helena, weren’t you on your way to Paris?”
“Nancy, I need you to look at my house from your window. Is anyone there?”
There was silence.
Then I heard a window blind move.
“There is a black car outside. And two men at your gate.”
The back of my neck went cold.
“Matthew?”
“No. It is not him. They are taking out boxes.”
I closed my eyes.
The house in Brooklyn.
The house where Anthony and I lived for thirty-seven years.
