Chapter 4: Part 3

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"I'm not sure if you recognize me. Your mother and I were very close."

That woman from within the crowd had found Theoline later in the afternoon. They stood by the entrance to the crematorium watching the distant horizon begin pull open like a silver curtain drawn aside to display the masterpiece of woven cerulean and sapphire hues. The parking lot became a shifting sand of cars seeking the exit as the bereaved made their peace. Only a trickle of the most familial peers remained with her father as he concluded things with the crematorium managers inside.

Theoline straightened from her lean against the brick wall of the building, "Dr. Kulkarni, right? I remember seeing you in photographs around the house from when I was little."

Her words caught the older woman unawares as she let out a staggered laugh, "Truly?"

Theoline nodded. Her mother, who had never known siblings, often spoke fondly of Zoya Kulkarni and the antics they would pull in their youth.

"That's a remarkable memory you have, Theo." Zoya hesitated, caught in the half motion of what Theoline guessed was the prelude to a hug. Theoline held her breath and picked up the uncertain offer with a warm embrace. Theoline stood a few inches taller than the slender woman so all she could see were a mop of short black curls. Still, she could feel Zoya deflate from an initial stiffness of formality.

They found a bench along one side of the structure between two pillars of green hedge. Zoya drummed her fingers against her lap, fidgeting slightly. Theoline forced the question out, trying not to notice her own chest quaking with each thunderous heartbeat.

"Did you see her, I mean, before she... near the end?"

"Oh yes, I visited a few days before the accident." Zoya smiled but it was visibly tenuous, "Would you rather I give my formal opinion or hear what I want to tell you?"

"I don't know." Theoline said, letting the sense of ease soak to her bones, she found the unprocessed, raw honesty akin to a power source and she drank it in generously.

"In that case," Zoya turned a sympathetic eye to Theoline and raised both brows hopefully, "I may just resign to say that I am relieved she has left the pain behind, but if anyone would tell me that I could have even the smallest piece of a quiet moment with her again, I would be climbing that mountain, I'd swim those tidal waves, I would..." Zoya dabbed at her face clumsily with a lime green cloth then returned it to her purse. "But there is no hand that can catch time itself."

Theoline murmured her thanks just as she noticed something bright peek out from within the confines of Zoya's handbag, which seemed to free the woman out of that luring reminiscence most people lose themselves into on days like this.

"Let's test that prodigious memory, no?" Zoya cracked a genuine smile, "When you were as tall as my knee and both those knees hadn't begun to misbehave as they do now, Holly and I used to take you all around Boston proper, yes?"

Theoline's brow furrowed, pleased for the excuse to change topics, "We may be pushing our luck here. That was with you?"

"Indeed, it was, and after just one fateful trip to Chinatown, my goodness, no other place would satisfy that wanderlust more."

Theoline reached out in a slight grasping motion as she picked through her past. A slow boil of excitement began to rise as pictures and sounds formed with sudden readiness. Clamoring voices, the smell of seafood and pork, parades with firecrackers and percussive music mingling with sweet treats and the slightest echo of stickiness they'd leave on her fingers.

"No fucking way." Theoline breathed. She froze and glanced at the woman who also fell silent. Zoya glared at Theoline. Her posture, set back into its now familiar legendary rigidness, looked like it would crumble a cinderblock if their integrity were placed in contest.

Then, a single eyebrow raised, "No fucking way, indeed." and the grating pressure of her scorn broke like a dam against a boisterous reverberating laugh.

"We're not dusty old sophists, dear Theo." Zoya rocked her head side to side, teasing Theoline’s ribs with a playful elbow, "It's highly likely, in fact, that whatever colorful elocution you may have manifested had come from hanging around me and your mother. Sweet gods, Sebastian would rake us over the coals whenever he was called in by your elementary school!"

Zoya broke once more into riotous giggling, and she wasn't alone. Theoline sighed, her chest shaking with mirth, "I can't believe I had forgotten..."

"Recalling the past is tricky business." Zoya said, mimicking Theoline’s earlier grasping at the air before them. She made a slow fist as if finally catching something. "It was an integral belief held by one particular group of indigenous natives that you store the present moments within vaults, one for each of your senses. In a fashion, it was taught that you can step back through those same doors into the places where memories live. All you need is the right key. I made sure to pick up such key that, in theory, should work for the both of us."

Zoya winked, "Our little mischievous trio often spent most the time, lingering around a small park by the Chinatown gate entrance. I think it was around then that I learned to pick up on your suspicious intentions."

"Oh?" Theoline grinned. "You wouldn't fault a child for having a sweet tooth, would you?"

"You clever little devil," Zoya shook her head, "So, all that time I would sneak us off to Hing Shing, I was merely the accomplice." She rummaged into her bag once more, "Well what else were we to do? Holly's work calls were damn time consuming. But I digress! Now these natives, I mentioned, had such a strong value for past experiences, they would actually gift a whole assortment of things to one another for the purpose of sharing in the reminiscence of memories they had made together."