The Other Hand

and Sarah, and you must tell nobody about me. I am asking you to save me. I am asking you to save my life.”
    Lawrence tried to pull his hand away but I held on to it. I put my forehead against his arm.
    “Please,” I said. “We can be friends. We can save each other.”
    “Oh god,” he said quietly, “I wish you hadn’t told me any of this.”
    “You made me tell you, Lawrence. I am sorry. I know what I am asking you. I know it will hurt you to keep the truth from Sarah. It is like asking you to cut off a finger for me.”
    Lawrence pulled his hand out from under my hands. Then he took his hand away completely. I sat at the table with my eyes closed and I felt the skin of my forehead itching where it had rested on his arm. It was quiet in the kitchen, and I waited. I do not know how long I waited for. I waited till my tears were dry and the terror inside me was all gone and the only thing left was a quiet, dull misery that made my head and my eyeballs ache. There was no thought in my head, then. I was just waiting.
    And then I felt Lawrence’s hands on my cheeks. He cupped my face in his hands. I did not know if I was supposed to push his hands away or to place my hands upon his. We stayed like that for a little while and Lawrence’s hands trembled on my cheeks. He turned my face up toward his, so I had to look into his eyes.
    “I wish I could just make you disappear,” he said. “But I’m nobody. I’m just a civil servant. I won’t tell the police about you. Not if you keep quiet. But if you tell anyone, ever, about Sarah and me, or if you tell anyone, ever, about what happened with Andrew, I will have you on a plane to Nigeria, I swear. It will be the last thing I do before my life falls apart.”
    I breathed out one long, deep breath.
    “I understand,” I whispered.
    Sarah’s voice came from upstairs. “Who said you could watch TV, Batman?”
    Lawrence took his hands away from my face and he went to make more tea. Sarah came into the kitchen. She was yawning, and her eyes were screwed up against the sunlight. Charlie came with her, holding her hand.
    “I might as well tell you two grown-ups the rules,” said Sarah, “since you’re both new around here. Superheroes, especially Dark Knights, are not allowed to watch television before they’ve eaten their breakfast. Are they, Batman?”
    Charlie grinned at her and shook his head.
    “Right,” said Sarah. “Bat flakes or bat toast?”
    “Bat toast,” said Charlie.
    Sarah went to the toaster and put two slices of bread into it. Lawrence and I, we both just watched her. Sarah turned around.
    “Is everything all right in here?” she said. She looked at me. “Have you been crying?”
    “It is nothing,” I said. “I always cry in the morning.”
    Sarah frowned at Lawrence. “I hope you’ve been looking after her.”
    “Of course,” said Lawrence. “Little Bee and I have been getting to know one another.”
    Sarah nodded. “Good,” she said. “Because we really have to make this work. You both know that, don’t you?”
    She looked at each of us and then she yawned again, and she stretched her arms. “Fresh start,” she said.
    I looked at Lawrence and Lawrence looked at me.
    “Now,” said Sarah. “I’m going to take Charlie to nursery and then we can start to track down Little Bee’s papers. We’ll find you a solicitor first. I know a good one that we sometimes use on the magazine.”
    Sarah smiled, and she went over to Lawrence.
    “And as for you,” she said, “I’m going to find a little time to thank you for coming all the way to Birmingham.”
    She put her hand up to Lawrence’s face, but then I think she remembered that Charlie was in the room and so she just brushed her hand against his shoulder instead. I went into the next room to watch the television news with the sound turned off.
    The news announcer looked so much like my sister. My heart was overflowing with things to say. But in your country, you cannot talk back to the news.

eight

    I REMEMBER THE EXACT day when England became me, when its contours cleaved to the curves of my own body, when its inclinations became my own. As a girl, on a bike ride through the Surrey lanes, pedaling in my cotton dress through the hot fields blushing with poppies, freewheeling down a sudden dip into a cool wooded sanctum where a stream ran beneath the flint-and-brick bridge. Coming to a stop, the brakes squealing from the work of plucking one still moment out of time.