Once We Were Starlight

“And what about Zakai?” I asked. “What will his surname be?”

Cody Rutland paused, glancing at Zakai. “For now, he’ll have to choose one. We’ll have paperwork drawn up with that name. A passport, etcetera. We’ve rescued others who we’ve done the same for. It’s not always possible that lineage can be traced. I wish it was. Often we’re left with nothing. But let’s consider it a clean slate.” Cody Rutland offered what I supposed was meant to be an encouraging smile.

A clean slate. The phrase reminded me of the way Ahmad had once taught us lessons in the layer of sand in the courtyard and then brushed them away. But even with the wide sweep of a palm frond, edges had often remained, and the miniscule grains of sand that had once formed part of a whole and now existed solely on their own.

“Choose one?” Zakai asked. “From where?”

“From anywhere.” He nodded over to the TV we’d only tried once, to the magazines on the table near the window. “I can print out some common American names for you too if you’d like.”

American. “So my uncle has agreed to take Zakai in too?”

“Well,” Cody Rutland said. “That’s the next thing I wanted to talk to you about.” He paused. “Your uncle has declined to take Zakai in, but,” he said, holding up his hands, “I pulled some strings to get Zakai into a group home for men in New York City.”

“A group home? What is that?” I asked. Zakai was strangely silent.

“It’s . . . well, perhaps it’s like how you lived in Sundara. Where you lived with people you weren’t related to, but became friends. Of course, there won’t be anyone like Haziq Hadid there. It’s only a twenty-minute subway ride to Braxton Grant’s apartment where you will be living, Karys.”

“I haven’t agreed to that,” I asserted.

Cody Rutland sighed, glancing at Zakai. “Well, I hope you will now that you know Zakai can be very near to you.”

“A group home for men,” Zakai repeated warily.

Cody Rutland nodded. “Yes. They typically house men who are recovering from drug or alcohol addiction. But they assist with both recovery and education, job skills. It will be a stable place for you to live while you get on your feet,” Cody said. “I haven’t mentioned that I’m from New York City myself. I’m not there very often as I travel so much for my work, but I’m very familiar with the area and it’s one of the safer ones. The people who run the group home will house you and can help with your ongoing transition.”

Ongoing transition. I looked at Zakai who was still rubbing the back of his hair, his expression faraway as though he was picturing this home for men that Cody Rutland described. Zakai finally looked like himself again, the swelling gone and only the pale-yellow vestiges of the bruising left. His stitches had dissolved, leaving nothing but very faint pink lines in their wake, growing less noticeable by the day. I took comfort in the familiarity of his features, and that simply looking at him wasn’t a reminder of the terrible beating he’d endured. Zakai’s gaze met mine. “Will you go, Karys?” he asked. “If I come with you?”

I watched him for a moment, wondering at the bleak look still present in his eyes. New York City. Across an ocean. America. On the other side of the globe that Cody Rutland had brought me, the one that sat on the dresser near our bed. The one that made my throat grow tight and my head pound, the one I used my finger to spin and spin, the blue and the green turning as fast as my mind. To an uncle I neither knew nor trusted. But if not there, where? “If I’m with you,” I said. “I’ll go anywhere.”

Zakai’s lips tipped, but the grim look remained in his eyes. He turned his head toward Cody Rutland. “Then I agree. To the group home. To New York City. I agree.” He glanced at the table in front of me where a magazine lay. The picture of men’s undergarments, similar to ones Cody Rutland had brought to Zakai, could be seen on the back. “Klein,” he said, shrugging. “I choose that as a surname.”

Cody Rutland nodded, offering Zakai a smile. “Good enough,” he said.

I reached for Zakai and he came to sit beside me. “What happens to people when they die in this place?” I asked.

Cody Rutland’s forehead wrinkled. “Uh . . . they’re buried in a cemetery, generally.”

“Do you have Haziq’s bodyguards in jail too?”

He nodded, his expression still set in confusion. “Two,” he said. “One was killed the night we rescued you.”

I looked out the window, perhaps in the direction of Sundara, perhaps not, I had no sense of direction if I’d ever had one at all. “They dropped Bertha somewhere. They can tell you where her body is. Is it possible to . . . find her and give her a proper burial? Bertha told me of her mother who was buried in the ground in a prayer shawl. Bertha should have the same.”