Page 118 of The Last Letter of Rachel Ellsworth

“Hotel Bonne,” he said.

She looked up. “Really?”

“It’ll be a substantial ride, but tell him you’ll tip very well.”

She dropped the pin, and tucked her water bottle in the pocket of her backpack. Every single cell in her body wanted to go back with them. This seemed like a scary trip to take on her own.

But honestly, she had a phone. She had a plan. The book needed this interview, and she was the one who could do it.

She thought of her children on Thanksgiving day, aghast that she’d travel to India, and then their “intervention” to get her to stay home. She thought of the joy she’d found this last month, doing what she wanted.

Mariah keened, her face in her hands.

“Get her to the hotel. I’ll be fine. See you in a couple of hours.” She helped Mariah to her feet, and on impulse, hugged her. “You’re gonna be okay, honey, I promise.”

Mariah clung to her. “I’m so scared.”

“I know. But you’re going to be okay. I promise, all right?”

Tears wet her neck, and Mariah’s fingers were tight on her shoulders. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh, honey,” Veronica said, lifting her head. “You have nothing to be sorry for.” She brushed hair out of her face, pulling strands away from her wet cheeks. “Henry’s got you, all right, and I’ll go get the rest of the story from Zoish.”

“Okay. Okay.” She swung back toward Henry. He raised a hand and flagged a rickshaw. Veronica took a breath, looked at her phone, and set out to find the bookstore.

Chapter Fifty-Six

It really was quite hot, Veronica thought as she followed the directions on her phone. Her back was sweating against her backpack, even though she’d taken almost everything out. The trek led into a busy stretch of businesses, and all at once, she was in the middle of the city again, with a donkey pulling a wagon and a BMW with darkened windows driving by, and, not what she expected in this landscape. A motorcycle whizzed by, startling her, and she stepped back and—

A hand came out of nowhere, grabbing her arm so hard that Veronica was knocked sideways. Before she could gain her footing, she was on the ground. Two people—three?—tore her backpack off her shoulders. Her elbow smashed into the ground, and she felt her blouse rip along the seam of the shoulder.

She fought to hold on to the bag. Someone shoved her, and she banged her head on the corner of a building. She saw stars for a minute, and smelled something rank, not just trash, but rot and urine and some unidentifiable miasma she couldn’t identify. She tried to hold on to the strap, but they flipped her over, yanked it off, and by the time she swung back to her rear end, they were gone, disappeared in the crowd.

Shaken, she felt wet on her face and wiped it off, finding it bloody, from her lip maybe. She didn’t dare lick it. Her hands were black fromthe grime on the street, and her stomach gave warning. A monkey skittered down a drainpipe to stare at her, his hand out.

Before she barfed, an old woman in a blue sari knelt beside her, offering a dry cloth. She mimed wiping her face.

“Shukran,” she whispered, and winced at the Arabic. She should have spoken in the Urdu she’d practiced, but couldn’t remember the difference in her distress.

But the woman just waited as Veronica wiped her mouth, her face, and it came away disgusting and bloody. Her hands shook. She didn’t know whether to offer the cloth back or just hold it.

The woman had red powder in the part of her hair and a bindi between her eyes. Her hands were gnarled, her wrists lined with bangles. She patted her chest and pointed to Veronica, who looked down to see that she’d lost a button in the fall and her bra was showing. She pulled the edges together and buttoned the one above, and it held together. The woman gave a little shake of her head, satisfied; then, before Veronica could get to her feet, she was gone.

She stood there a moment, trying to get her bearings. People passed by; some gave her a curious look, but many did not. Maybe they thought she was drunk. Or maybe they just couldn’t spare much energy for every person in distress they saw in a given day. The monkey sat on a wall, staring at her with his strangely serious-looking face. “You couldn’t have bitten their ears or something?” she asked.

He only cocked his head.

The backpack hadn’t held a lot of value. A jacket, her fancy water bottle, some cash, and her driver’s license. The passport was back at the hotel. She wasn’t really hurt, just shaken. With a sigh, she reached into her back pocket for her phone.

And that, too, was gone.

She wanted to cry. She wanted to bury her face and howl in embarrassment and shame and fear. How would she get home? She had some cash in her front pocket, maybe enough to get a taxi, but sherealized she quite fiercely didn’t want to give up. The monkey chattered, as if agreeing. She smoothed her hair and her blouse and looked around.

Where had she been going? Arabian Sea Books. It didn’t seem like it had been that far. Maybe from the bookstore, she could call Henry.

Except she didn’t know his number, did she? Or Mariah’s, or anyone else’s. Who memorized numbers? Standing in the shade, frozen, she tried to figure out how to proceed.

The faces of her children, doubting her ability to make the trip, rose in her imagination. She squared her shoulders and headed in the direction she’d been going. You always remembered more than you thought you did, as she’d always told her children. Trust your instincts.