Page 60 of His Toy

“Thank you,” I said.

***

After a while, we found a deli and got sandwiches, eating them at the park. There was bright green grass in every direction, too perfect to be natural. Blue and green sail shades and a small splash pad stood dry. I glanced over a sign stating that the park had been renovated only a few years ago. Everything about this place was familiar, yet foreign.

I had finally found my parents, the quest I had been on for longer than I could remember, and I had more questions than answers. Did Zaid ever feel that way? Would he feel that way when he finally got his revenge?

“Do you ever visit Zayda?” I asked. I shoved a mouthful of sandwich in my mouth. It was risky to ask, but I knew he had meant for me to find those pictures. And since he had opened up to me last night, there was a chance that he might actually answer.

“Sometimes,” he said.

“Her grave?” He nodded. He crinkled the sandwich wrapper in his palm.

“Who was she?”

“My mother.” He stared off into the distance. So he had lost his mother like I had lost mine. “I know what it feels like to lose your parents.”

Parents? Did that mean his father was gone too? “What happened to your father?”

“That piece of shit doesn’t matter,” Zaid said, his voice suddenly harsh. That reaction came out of nowhere. “It was only us. My mother and me.”

With the way Zaid frequently disappeared, I knew this was an opportunity I had to use. I had to ask questions. “What happened to her?” I asked. He didn’t move, so I added, “What happened with Eric?”

“She died for him,” he said. He turned sharply towards me, shadows swirling in his eyes, the darkness surfacing. “Her death was an escape.”

I stared at him, the narrowed eyes, trying to process what this meant. An escape from what? Then I realized one thing: Zaid blamed himself for his mother’s death.

“He killed her, you know,” Zaid said. “I failed her. I won’t stop until he’s in the ground.”

Eric had taken the life from her body, but in Zaid’s mind, it was his fault. And there was only one way to make it right. His shoulders relaxed, acknowledging the confusion on my face.

No wonder he never opened up until now.

“When did this happen?”

“Twenty years ago.”

He would have been ten years old. How can someone carry that much guilt for that long?

“Where was your father? Couldn’t he have helped?” I asked.

“I never had a father.”

I wished that I could take away Zaid’s pain. I couldn’t imagine carrying the pain, the guilt, the suffering for years and years.

Zaid’s phone vibrated in his pocket. Instead of excusing himself like he usually did, he answered it.

“Yes?” he said. “Absolutely not. Non-negotiable.” He paused. “Well, I don’t fucking care how, convince him that it’s not an option.” He glanced at me, then turned back to the phone. “I understand. But I cannot leave her alone with him.”

He stowed the phone in his pocket.

“Grant?” I asked. Zaid nodded. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” he said. That was a lie, and we both knew it. “Nothing I want to talk about right now.”

At least that wasn’t a lie. I wasn’t going to press it. But there was one question on my mind before I let the topic go. I thought over that night at Eric’s penthouse, the formal greeting.

“Eric doesn’t know who you are, does he?” I asked. “He doesn’t remember Zayda.”