personal identities went up in smoke. I can’t imagine what it must have been like. Overnight, you’re not Indian anymore; you’re Pakistani. You’re split apart from family and friends. Torn from your home, forced to leave a part of yourself behind with nothing to hold on to but fading memories.
My mind wanders from my nani to Leila. Maybe what saves them is us—the people who are alive to hear the stories and pass them on. To give them weight and power in the retelling. In the not forgetting. That’s why we need to find Leila’s story and tell the world, so that she can live again. She was probably never going to have a happily ever after, but maybe there’s a way to give her a better ending than the one she got. Dumas was right to tell his son to find the treasure; we have to preserve our families’ stories, because history is all we are.
“Just up the hill.” Alexandre’s voice pulls me out of my meditation. As we scamper up a small incline, my phone dings once, alerting me to a text. Then twice more. I yank the phone out of my pocket and see Zaid’s number flash across my screen. I draw the phone to my chest. Alexandre scrunches up his eyebrows at me in a question. I raise a finger. He steps away and turns his back to me, pretending to be inordinately interested in the foliage on a nearby shrub.
I take a breath and turn to my phone.
Zaid: I’m sorry.
Zaid: You were right. We can’t bury the past.
Zaid: I love you. I hope you find what you’re looking for.
I walk over to a small stone bench set into an alcove of small bushes. Tears sting my eyes. I try to focus on my breaths, making them slow and deliberate. I’ve been waiting forever to hear those words from Zaid. To believe that I meant more to him than the awfulness of the past few weeks. That I had a place in his heart. And these texts break me a little. I know it’s not him being jealous or his FOMO. It’s the end. It’s the goodbye. He’s leaving me with a piece of himself that he could never give me when we were together.
I allow myself a moment. Consider whether I should text back. But I feel too raw to respond now. And truly, what else is there to say?
I stand up, slipping the phone into my back pocket. I leave a piece of my heart on that bench and take a step forward.
Alexandre meets me in the middle of the path. “You okay?”
I nod my head yes. Then shake it no.
Endings are hard. Even when you see them coming. Closed doors you sometimes have to seal forever with a small part of your heart inside. A part you can never give to anyone else. Love doesn’t come with a warning label. Not like anyone would listen, anyway.
I guess human beings are mostly optimists, otherwise we’d always be alone.
I wish Zaid and I could have had a proper goodbye. Something more than a text. Something more tangible. But one thing Leila has taught me is that we don’t always get the ending we want. Or deserve.
Alexandre and I walk in silence until we reach the crest of a small hill. I stop and gasp when I see the building in front of me. It’s even more a jewel box confection than its mate.
“Voilà, le Chateau d’If,” Alexandre announces.
A tiny pink neo-Gothic castle—it’s like a child’s palace brought to life. It has its own moat and is set into tall trees surrounded by shrubs. We walk across the narrow stone bridge to get to the door of Dumas’s rose-pink stucco study. Facing the building, there’s a single turret to the left and a small stone balcony on the second floor. Floral and geometric stone carvings cover the fa?ade, and the eaves are decorated with brown wood cut in curves like the edges of lace. I hurry toward the steps but stop short. Nestled into the side of the stairs is a little alcove for a dog and his house. A sculpted dog keeps watch over