Necessary Distractions

"That's terrible," said Kylie. Her intermittent absences from the hospital made sense now. A brutal, painful sense.

"You shouldn't be alone at a time like this. You should be with family."

"I only wish I could be," Fatima said, wiping the remainder of her tears on her headscarf. "But I'm not alone."

Kylie smiled and gently massaged her scalp.

"Thank you for listening. Thank you for being there for me. I needed you."

"Can we do dinner again? We don't need to repeat what we did the last time, but let's not rule it out entirely either."

Fatima looked at her, wetness shimmering in her large green irises. Kylie said it again.

"You shouldn't be alone."

* *

"What's on today's menu?" asked Kylie, putting down her glass.

"Today we have lamb and salmon and a whole lot of unpronounceable French veggies and sauces to add to them."

For once, Kylie had not worn a nineties band on her clothes. It was a svelte red designer dress her Aunt Gwen had basically forced her into. Her shoulders and the top fifth of her back was exposed, showing off the angel's face and the tip of her wings.

"Before you start. There's something I've been meaning to say."

"Go on," Fatima said, checking the ingredients laid out on the kitchen counter.

"What I said earlier... I think you should go meet your parents."

Fatima looked up. Kylie almost regretted saying it, but she steadfastly stood her ground.

"It's a hard time for your family, but it's in this hard time that you need each other the most," she went on. "Your brother is in a coma. Your parents are grieving. You are grieving. You need each other the most right now."

"Thanks for the advice," said Fatima. "But we're not ready yet. Maybe some day in the future. But not now. Not today."

Kylie was not usually confrontational. A fact that Sakura took advantage of far too often. This time, however, she had an unshakeable conviction and was prepared to see it through, no matter how ugly it got.

"It has to be now. Every second you grieve separately hurts you even more."

"Look, I appreciate what you're trying to do here. Really I do. I just don't think you understand everything that is going on between me and them."

"Tell me what I don't understand."

Fatima put the chopping knife down and sighed. She stepped in front of the counter with her hands crossed in front of her chest. Her face wore a look of incredulous disbelief and her tone was icy when she opened her lips.

"Insurance doesn't pay all of the costs. My parents can't hope to pay the rest. You'd think they'd come to their daughter who has a seven figure job on Wall Street, but did they? No. Instead they appealed to the imam at our mosque. He has made it a point that everyone from the community who comes to the mosque pray for Khalid and contribute what they can. Everyone... from the poorest to the richest are chipping in. One of them, an oil executive from Qatar, has pledged to pay whatever it takes until Khalid is well."

She fixed her glare on Kylie and spoke again.

"Does it matter that I can pay for it all? Does it matter that I would do so in a heartbeat? Does it matter that doing so might make me feel the tiniest bit less shitty about myself? No. They can be as polite as they want about it, but they know and I know the real reason. My money is tainted, like every other thing associated with me. It is tainted because I was the one who put Khalid in the hospital in the first place."

Kylie remained rooted to the spot. Her brain was struggling to process the new information. Fatima came over and put her arm around her.

"I'm sorry you had to hear that," she said, kissing Kylie's bare shoulder. "Now let me make it up to you."

"I'm sorry, Fatima, but that is not good enough."

"Excuse me," she replied, taken aback. "Not good enough?"

"Yes," said Kylie, more conviction in her voice than before. "You have hidden from your parents long enough. They need you and you need them, even if you won't admit it. The first meeting will not be pleasant, but it's necessary to get it out of the way so you can deal with Khalid's situation together. Please, Fatima, be the bigger person. Tell them you still love them and you're sorry for what happened."

"Seriously, you want to do this? Now?"

Kylie looked decidedly unfazed. Fatima stared her down for a few minutes, a scowl writ large on her face.

"Good enough. I am so sick of trying to be fucking good enough for everybody. I wasn't good enough for George to leave his wife. I wasn't good enough for my family and friends for them to treat me with any dignity after I broke up. Now I'm not even good enough for you? I've known you for two weeks and you already feel entitled to tell me what I am and am not good enough for?"

For the first time, Kylie took a step back. Her lover's eyes were flashing fire and she pointed an accusing finger straight at her.

Providentially, Kylie's phone started ringing. Without breaking eye contact, she answered the call.

"Is that someone else letting me know how I am not good enough for them?"

"No," said Kylie. "It's my Dad."

A moment of silence hung in the air between them as Fatima drank in the meaning of the call she had so disdainfully described.

"My grandmother just lost the only man she has loved in seventy years," she said quietly. It took a monumental amount of effort on her part not to burst into tears.

"If it's all the same with you, I'm going to go be with her now."

* *

"How're you holding up?"

Kylie looked up to see Gwen standing beside her. There were a few cracks in her mascara where a teardrop had slid down her face.

"I was just with Aunt Fran," she said. "I mean... what do you even tell her? I held her and cried and she had to console me."

"Me too," Kylie admitted. "This is so messed up. We're supposed to be comforting her, not the other way around."

"I wanted to tell you something in private..." Gwen said, lowering her voice. "Please take care of your Dad as well. He's trying to be strong for everyone, but I know my cousin. I know how close he was to his father. He'll try to hide it with his stoic demeanour, but it will be taking a toll on him as well."

Kylie nodded, glancing over to see her father talking to some people.

"Did Uncle Henry tell you about the time he was stationed in Egypt during the coup of 81?"

"He might have," she said. "Although if you believe the version he told me, he probably saved everyone."

"Probably not everyone, but there was a family in Cairo who were helping him with his story. They went from citizens to dissenters to traitors overnight. They would have been killed had they spent one more day in the city. Do you know what he did?"

"Smuggled them out of the country?"

"First in the back of a truck transporting dates, then in a car he had arranged and finally in a boat across the Suez Canal. He did not stop until they were in Israel. A few years later, he successfully got them asylum in the US."

"That certainly sounds like J Henry."

Gwen pointed to the end of the hallway where an elderly Jewish couple of Middle Eastern origin stood, flanked by their four grown children.

"J Fucking Henry," sighed Gwen. "He touched more lives than any of us will ever know. He will be missed now that he's no more."

"He's playing God's piano now."

Gwen smiled and enveloped Kylie in a deep hug. They held each other tightly, neither willing to let go.

"Times like this...," she began. "It really makes you count your blessings your last name is Strand. Can you imagine any of us going through this alone? We'd fall apart."

Stuart's wife and children were with Fran now. He waited outside the door, not wearing a broad smile for the first time that Kylie had seen.

* *

The black Ducati sped past the relatively sparse traffic outside the city limits. Fatima wore no helmet. She had spent the best part of three hours getting sozzled at a West Village bar and ranting to bartenders and fellow patrons -- anyone who would listen.

A maelstrom of thoughts roiled inside her. She replayed the conversation with Kylie over and over again in her mind. Why did Kylie have to touch a nerve? Why did she have to be so obstinate? Who was she to lecture her about whether she kept ties with her family?

No one. Absolutely no one.

Yet, the moment she sat on her bed and saw the message on her phone was indelibly seared into Fatima's memory. She replayed that moment over and over again vividly.

The bike picked up speed. Her hair billowed in the wind and streamed behind her. Her eyes narrowed to squints at the high speed, but she kept going. Past the Port Imperial terminal to Jersey.

She kept going until she felt drops of rain fall on her face. She parked on the shore and watched a ferry leave the pier. The ferry blared its horn, scattering birds and a few small boats from its path. Fatima screamed into the open water. She screamed. Again. She screamed to be heard, but her screams were lost in the unremitting blare of the horn.

It was no use.

The rain had picked up to moderate intensity now. A thin sleet of water washed over her face and splashed on the road. She turned around and got ready to head to her apartment.

Maybe she would crash on her way back. It would certainly hurt less.

* *

The sky was the colour of an old television set turned to a dead channel. An unseasonal shower raged over Manhattan, pounding the island with torrents of rain.

Fatima sat at her table and watched on with a glass in hand. Her parents would have disapproved, but what was the point anyway? She still prayed, more out of habit than anything else. None of it mattered. None of it would make a difference to Khalid in the hospital bed.

She swirled the glass, watching the ochre liquid reach the rim before pulling back. Again and again it came to the brink of spilling out before she tilted it in the opposite direction.

A blackout had left her in darkness and only the occasional flash of lightning illuminated her apartment in brilliant white.

She heard a knock on her door. A persistent, relentless knock. Curiously, she put her glass down and opened the door to see a woman, doubled over with exhaustion and dripping wet from the rain.

"Kylie, what-"

Kylie put her hand up to stop her even as she fought to catch her breath.

"Do you have any idea..." she squeezed out between pants. "... how hard it is to climb thirty seven flights of stairs?"

"I'm sorry. I guess the generator might be knocked out temporarily."

Kylie stood upright, leaning against the door frame for support. It had taken her three days since their last meeting to find herself back at the same door.

Fatima was about to speak when she was cut off by Kylie's hand.

"Not now."

Before any words could come out of Fatima's lips, Kylie pressed her own lips to them and pushed her inside.

* *

"Looks like the rain has stopped."

Fatima would just have to take Kylie's word for it. She was currently on her side, facing away from the balcony. Her head rested on her inner thigh. She looked down to see Kylie's head similarly nestled against the crook of her knee and her eyes gazing into the distance.

At some point in the previous few hours, they had moved off the bed to the carpet which was not nearly as forgiving as a thousand thread-count sheet. In reality, they were too wrapped up in the manoeuvring needed to kiss each other's pussy lips to care.

After having simultaneously given and received more orgasms than either thought was possible, they lay there -- head to thighs, thighs to head, fingers intertwined and each of them drenched in a mixture of sweat and cum from both of them.

Kylie made the first effort to disentangle herself from the smorgasbord of limbs and lay beside Fatima. She smiled and tucked a sweaty lock of hair off her face and behind her ear. They sat up and leaned back against the side of the bed.

"Can I say I'm sorry now?" Fatima asked, taking out a Juul from her bedside drawer.

"You don't need to."

"I do. I was completely out of line earlier."

"Your brother is in a coma. You haven't spoken to your parents in months," Kylie said, kissing the back of her palm. "You are allowed to be completely out of line. That doesn't mean I'll quit you. I won't. I can't. I don't know how to."

"How are you holding up?" Fatima asked. "How is your family doing?"

"Not well," admitted Kylie, taking a couple of hits of Fatima's Juul.

"What happened?"

"Grandma passed away too," she said, trying hard to keep herself composed.

"I'm so sorry to hear that."

"We spent the whole day trying to comfort her. Only we were the ones who needed comforting. She didn't cry, didn't even show any grief, just consoled us. All throughout the day. That night she went to bed and passed away in her sleep. The prospect of waking up to a world with no J Henry was more than she could take."

Fatima listened in rapt attention.

"The whole time we tried to comfort her, she did not so much as shed a tear. Not one of us understood how much she was hurting. We were there with her, but she was all alone."

"That sounds horrible."

"No one should grieve alone," said Kylie. "Not you, not me, not her. I lost two people who I love dearly in the space of one day, but I had people all around me I could talk to about it. My cousin, Joe, told me of how Grandma baked cookies for him when he came back drenched in sweat from playing stickball. My Aunt Gwen told me about the time they were there for her when no one else was. They don't really go away as long as we talk about them. It makes it hurt less."

Kylie leaned over and kissed her, tasting the whiskey and flavoured nicotine off her lips. Her hand found her bare back and traced a long lazy ellipse all the way from her neck to the base of her spine. Her tender ministrations elicited a low moan of pleasure.

"That's all I want for you, Fatima. That you don't grieve alone for your brother. Until it is your family, it will have to be me."

Fatima stifled a sob. She put a hand over her mouth and one grasped her chest.

"Will you tell me more about Khalid?" said Kylie as they stared out into the distance outside her balcony.

* *

The dull grey of the rain soaked evening gave way to night. Kylie and Stuart sat on the rooftop of the hotel where he was staying and surveyed the glittering metropolis unfurled in front of them as it eventually gave way to the sea.

"I still can't believe he's gone, Kylie. I know I was supposed to be ready for it, but still.."

"You're wrong, Stu," said Kylie, "He'll be missed, but he's not gone. He was more than flesh and bone -- he was the laughter at the family Thanksgiving dinner and the wise voice if you needed advice. Grandpa, Dad, Uncle, Friend -- there's too much of him to die with a slip in the bathroom"

"He taught us the importance of the Strand family name."

"True," Kylie replied. "The name is more than what you fill into an account opening form. It's a promise to show up for each other and to ride out any storm together."

"Damn straight," he agreed and they clinked their glasses of Scotch.

"I wish we could have given J Henry one last Thanksgiving family reunion."

"So many memories from those reunions."

"Remember the time Joe smuggled Grandpa's whiskey and cigars down the dumbwaiter all the way to the old basement. Joe, Mandy, Marie, Don, Caroline, you and me finished them off and just as we were about to leave the basement, we saw Grandpa at the door."

"Do you think he knew?"

"Of course he knew, Stu," Kylie said. "We reeked of booze and cigar smoke. He let us go anyway."

Stuart rested his head on her shoulder and put an arm around her to pull her close.

"I miss him so much, Kylie."

She ruffled his hair as she felt a few drops of wetness.

"After the funeral, you'll fly back to Tokyo, me back to Boston and everyone else to where they live. We'll only ever be together to mourn someone else."

"What if we could make it so that is not the case?"

"I don't follow," her cousin replied quizzically.

"This year. Thanksgiving. One last Strand reunion. I know that it's not feasible to do it every year, but how about one last time. As a tribute to J Fucking Henry."

"Where?" asked Stuart. "The estate is no longer there and the gardens are a fucking golf course now."

"It was never about a building, Stu. That's where we stayed, but it was never about it. It was about our Dads opening up a bottle of bourbon on the porch as they watched the sunset. It was about you and Caroline taking your game of hide and seek too far every time. It was about Gwen scandalising us with adult magazines on the down low. It was about Grandpa carving the turkey at dinner. The building was never the reunion, Stu, we were. All of us made that gathering what it was."

"But then where would we have it?"

"Gwen knows a guy who owns a chain of resorts all over the East Coast. Corporate retreats, destination weddings -- that sort of thing. He'd be willing to let us rent out an entire resort of his in Point Lookout for a song."

"Rent out an entire resort for two weeks? Are you serious?"

"I don't see why not if enough people contribute."

Stuart looked out at the view in front of him. The distant sound of traffic and sirens had merged into a low background hum. Tiny red tail lights combined to a river of bright red snaking up Haring Street.

"Tell me more," he said.

"I haven't thought all of it out yet, but I want to be like how it used to be. Just one more time. I want your kids to play with Caroline's kids. I want us to talk and drink all night until the sun rises."

"I'd like that too," he admitted.

They sat in contemplative silence for a few minutes before Stuart spoke up again.

"Would you say it's too late to mess with Caroline's hair again?"

"Remember she's a doctor now, so she can probably do a lot worse as payback."

* *

"One large hazelnut and matcha cream latte."

"Make that two."

Fatima turned around to see Kylie sitting at the booth behind her. Her Van Halen tee shirt was almost too much to ignore.

"I'm going to pretend you're not wearing that."

"Fuck you. I liked them."

"Can I apologise properly now? I'm still ashamed about how I treated you that day."

"Not needed," Kylie shrugged off. "I make it a point not to judge people by their worst moments. Besides, the coffee is an excellent bribe."

Fatima came over and put down both cups. Her headscarf colour of choice was jade green. A bright, lively green that brought out her eyes and contrasted with her black dress.

"As it turns out, I'll be sticking around a bit longer than expected. The funeral is planned for next week. Grandpa had already taken a two person plot. The headstone is going to be in marble."

Fatima held her hand and smiled.

"I called up a few people who had worked under Grandpa. They're now spread all over the country -- liberal news outlets and conservative news outlets. They can not agree on anything... except that Mr Strand was the best boss that they ever worked under. They plan to hold a memorial service where they talk about him. You will not believe how many of them are flying in on short notice to pay their respects."

"Can I come too? I didn't know your grandfather, but I would like to hear what they say."

"Of course you can."

They took a sip of their coffee each.

"I went home yesterday."

Kylie looked up.

"I took your advice and went home yesterday. I told my parents that we would no longer be avoiding each other at the hospital."

"How did it go?"

"There was a lot of cursing and yelling -- both in Farsi and Arabic, but words were used for the first time in months."