THE SPACE BESIDE ME
The blue light faded, and the boy pressed his palm over Nadia’s hand.
“Mommy, wake up.”
I pulled my phone from my jacket and called 911. My fingers slipped on the screen before I got the numbers right. I gave the dispatcher the hotel address, then knelt beside Nadia again.
“She’s breathing,” I said. “She’s unconscious.”
My mother stepped toward me. “Lachlan, give me the phone.”
The dispatcher asked me to keep Nadia still and tell her if her breathing changed. I turned away from my mother and repeated the instructions aloud, loud enough for the boy to hear.
“You’re doing all right,” I told him, though his small hand was shaking against Nadia’s. “Can you tell me your name?”
“Theo.”
“I’m Lachlan.”
“I know.” He looked at my face, then down at his mother. “She showed me.”
My mother made a sharp sound. “Don’t start that here.”
A woman in a dark green dress moved out from behind the champagne tower. I recognized her as Mrs. Alvarez, the manager of the apartment building where Nadia used to live. Her glass was still in her hand. She set it on the table so hard that champagne sloshed over the rim.
“Theo,” she said, crouching on his other side. “I told you to stay with me.”
“You said you were going to get her.”
“I was.” Mrs. Alvarez looked up at me. “The server wouldn’t let me through the doors. I went to find the boy when I saw what happened.”
My mother pointed toward the entrance. “You brought him in here?”
“I brought him to the hotel. Nadia asked me to wait with him while she spoke to Lachlan.”
“She brought a child to a wedding reception,” my mother said, addressing the people behind me. “After everything I told you.”
Mrs. Alvarez stood. “You told me not to let her near him.”
“That is not what I—”
“You came to my building last month.” Mrs. Alvarez’s voice rose above the dispatcher’s questions in my ear. “You said she’d heard about the will and would use that child to get money from your family.”
Several guests lowered their glasses. One of them, my cousin Peter, put his down altogether.
My mother kept her eyes on Mrs. Alvarez. “We can discuss this somewhere private.”
“No. You discussed it in my lobby, with my tenant standing right there.”
The dispatcher asked if Nadia was moving. I bent close enough to see her chest rise.
“Still breathing,” I said. “No, she hasn’t woken up.”
Mrs. Alvarez reached for the phone on the carpet, then stopped. “Her sister’s been calling. Nadia gave me the passcode in the car in case Theo needed anything.”
My mother stepped forward. “You have no right to go through that.”
Mrs. Alvarez turned the phone over. The screen was cracked at one corner, and a notification filled it: three missed calls from someone named Mira. Beneath them was a text.
Did you find him? Theo’s been asking all morning.
Mrs. Alvarez showed me the screen. My mother reached for it, but I took the phone before she could.
“Call her sister,” the dispatcher said when I described it. “Tell her where they’re going once the ambulance arrives.”
I handed the phone back to Mrs. Alvarez. She unlocked it and made the call. Mira answered on the first ring, her voice so loud I could hear her from where I knelt.
“There’s been an accident,” Mrs. Alvarez told her. “Nadia’s breathing. An ambulance is coming.”
Theo leaned against Nadia’s arm. I wanted to lift him away from the wet carpet, but he had twisted his fingers into her sleeve.
“Mira wants to talk to you,” Mrs. Alvarez said.
I took Nadia’s phone while keeping mine pressed to my other ear.
“What happened?” Mira asked.
“My mother swung an ice bucket at her. Nadia’s unconscious.”
For a moment, all I could hear was a car engine.
“I’m ten minutes away,” Mira said. “Is Theo with you?”
“He’s beside her.”
“Don’t let Bernadette take him.”
My mother’s head snapped toward me. I moved farther away from her, though the dispatcher had told me to stay close enough to watch Nadia breathe.
“Why would she?” I asked.
“Because Nadia told her this morning she was bringing him to meet you. Your mother said if Nadia showed up, she’d have security throw her out.”
My mother held out her hand. “Give me that phone. Mira and I have never spoken.”
“You left a message,” Mira said through the speaker, as if she could hear her. “On Nadia’s phone. Tell him to listen to it.”
I looked at my mother. She dropped her hand.
Mrs. Alvarez took Nadia’s phone and tapped through to the voicemail. My mother said, “That’s enough,” but Mrs. Alvarez turned up the volume.
“Stay away from the hotel,” my mother’s recorded voice said. “Whatever you think you’re entitled to, you won’t get it by making a scene at my son’s wedding. If you bring that boy, you’ll regret it.”
The message ended with a click. A guest near the doorway whispered, “Oh, my God.”
My mother drew herself up. “I was protecting my son.”
“From what?” I asked.
“She knew your grandfather had died. She knew the will was being read next week.”
Mrs. Alvarez shook her head. “Nadia asked me yesterday why everyone was suddenly talking about a will. She hadn’t known there was one.”
“She told you that,” my mother said.
“She showed me the invitation you sent her.” Mrs. Alvarez looked at me. “Your mother wrote that the family wouldn’t be blackmailed over an inheritance. Nadia thought she’d sent it to the wrong person.”
My mother’s mouth tightened. “It was not an invitation.”
“No,” Mrs. Alvarez said. “It was a warning on very expensive stationery.”
The dispatcher told me the ambulance was outside. I asked Peter to meet the crew at the doors. He hesitated until I said his name again, then hurried across the room.
