Quiet in Her Bones by Singh, Nalini (mobi reader .txt) 📕

I let the assumption go, at the same time slapping myself for my stupid suspicions. Shanti was about as innocent and guileless as it was possible for a grown woman to be. The way I’d begun to look at ­her … with every hour that passed, I saw Dr. Binchy’s concerns ever more clearly.

My stomach clenched.

I was glad Shanti kept up a happy patter as we exited the car and headed toward the hospital building. Since Elei had already given her the ward and room number, we went straight to the elevators.

59

The antiseptic smell that lingers in hospitals, intermingled with the scents of old medications and soft food, it made me grimace. I’d felt so fucking helpless when I’d woken inside walls just like these with no memory of how I’d gotten there.

“This is it.” Shanti pointed to the closed door of a private room with a number seven above the door. No name inside the door label, probably a security precaution while Cora had been at large.

A nurse walked by, her scrubs wrinkled and her stride lagging, but she dug up a smile. “I just saw Alice. She’s awake.”

“Thank you.” Shanti knocked, then cracked open the door. “Alice?” A whisper.

It was Elei who came out from behind the curtain that hung around the bed. “Shanti!”

I slipped around the two women as they hugged and murmured to one another. Alice’s face was badly bruised and puffy, but she managed a half smile when I came around the curtain. “Aarav.” Her voice was clearer than I’d expected, given her extensive wounds.

Noting that the more comfortable armchair had been claimed by Elei, I sat on one of the hard plastic visitor chairs. “Good to see you conscious. What do the doctors say?”

“This fractured arm”—­she lifted her left arm as much as ­possible—­“heavy facial and upper body bruising, plus three broken ribs are the worst of the damage. I was lucky.” Her smile faded. “Strange to say that while I’m lying in hospital, my face black and blue, but that’s how I feel. As if this is my chance to do things right for me and for my baby girl.”

A stirring of the curtain before I could ask after Manaia, Shanti and Elei coming to join us.

More smiles, some conversation, before Alice said, “Mum, why don’t you and Shanti go get a cup of coffee and catch up?”

When Elei hesitated, Alice added something in Samoan. I picked up my name.

Giving me a pat on the shoulder, her mother and Shanti left arm in arm.

Alice looked at me. “I should’ve done it long ago, when your mother first gave me the chance. I should’ve left Cora and gone to a place where she couldn’t hurt any of us.”

“The argument you had with my mother before she vanished, did it have to do with Cora?”

“Nina told me she’d arranged for Cora to be beaten.” Alice swallowed. “I was so scared that Cora would find out and take it out on me. Then when Nina ­disappeared …” Her eyes held mine. “I should’ve told you, but I convinced myself that Cora had nothing to do with it. And she’d stopped the abusive behavior. I told myself that being a victim had opened her eyes.”

“Elei said Cora relapsed before they found my mother.” I had to be certain on this point.

“Yes. She thinks I’m having an affair with Adrian.”

Clearly I wasn’t able to control my expression, because she said, “You too?” A kind of a ­sob-­laugh. “Yes, I flirt with him, but otherwise, it’s all hard work. I loved Cora. That’s why I didn’t leave her after she beat me the first ­time—­she was so heartbroken by it and promised to do better and I loved her so much that I believed her.”

She inhaled on a hitch of breath. “I thought we were doing okay. We even went to counseling, and then she kept up solo sessions with the ­therapist. But it turned out she was just holding her rage inside all this time.”

“Is there anything else you know about what might’ve happened to my mother?”

Alice shook her head. “She was such a good friend to me and I’ve ­always regretted that the last words I said to her were angry. Nina helped me. She would’ve helped Diana, too, if she’d had the chance.”

The entire world went silent. “With reaching Sarah? Diana’s sister?”

“What? Oh, no.” Alice gestured toward the bottle of water on the ­bedside table. It had a straw poking out the top.

She took a couple of deep draws after I held it to her lips. “Thank you.”

“You were saying, about Diana.”

“You know I used to work at the same private hospital as Calvin, right? Back at the start of my career, before I specialized in the ER.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“I was in a different department, but gossip travels. Anyway, I started hearing that he had a thing with one of the other doctors. Didn’t really pay much attention because that type of gossip is always going around, and Calvin’s such a straight ­arrow—­but then I saw them kissing.”

So, Trixi and Lexi hadn’t been blowing smoke up my ass. “You told Diana?”

“I was torn. I mean, she loves Calvin so much and the other doctor was married, too, with little kids. I didn’t want to destroy Diana’s marriage because of a short affair.” She raised her unbroken arm to wipe the tears off her face. “I asked Nina what I should do.”

I couldn’t predict what my mother’s answer might’ve been. She’d known her own husband was cheating and had stayed in the marriage out of a mix of spite and who knew what other toxic emotion. “What did she say?”

“She got really quiet, then said, ‘Diana’s happy. Let’s not throw a grenade into her marriage if it’s just a fling.’ I got the impression she was really sad, because Diana was the one we both used to tease for having the perfect husband.”

“So you never told Diana?”

“No,