The ambulance doors slammed shut, and the sirens came alive. Tasha sat beside me on the bench seat, her knuckles white against the metal edge. The inside smelled like antiseptic and adrenaline. One EMT crouched beside Auntie Mariam, calling out vitals in a clipped voice, while the other adjusted the oxygen flow.
"Blood pressure's dropping again," one said.
I couldn't stop staring at her face, pale and slack, nothing like the sharp, calculating woman who had just stood over us hours ago in her silk robe. Now she was just… fragile. Mortal.
Tasha's eyes stayed locked on her aunt, but her expression didn't soften. Her shoulders were squared, her chin trembling in a way that had nothing to do with fear.
"She's not going to die," I whispered, more for myself than her.
Her gaze flickered to me. "You don't know that."
"No," I said, "but you're not the kind of person who'd want her to."
She didn't answer. She just looked back at Mariam. The hospital swallowed us whole the moment we arrived. Bright lights, the snap of gloves, the grind of wheels on tile. A nurse rattled off information into a phone while the EMTs disappeared behind swinging doors with Mariam.
We were left standing in the hallway, suddenly useless. I could still feel the ghost of her pulse under my fingers. Tasha was the first to move. She turned and walked toward a row of plastic chairs against the wall, sitting without looking at me. Her hands folded neatly in her lap, but her nails dug into her palms hard enough to leave marks.
I sat beside her. "She's going to get the best care they can give."
"That's not what I'm thinking about," she said.
Her voice was steady, but there was something behind it, something sharp and breaking at the same time.
"I'm thinking about how, if she dies tonight, I'll never hear her admit it. She'll take the truth to the grave and let everyone think I was the ungrateful niece who turned on her."
"You have the letters, the will and the reports. You have the truth."
"That's paper," she said, finally looking at me. Her eyes were wet but unblinking. "People don't believe paper. They believe stories. And she's been telling hers for years."
I wanted to say something, that would make that weight on her shoulders lighter. But the words wouldn't come.
A doctor approached, clipboard in hand, wearing the same neutral mask I'd seen too many times.
"She's stable for now," he said. "Still unconscious. We've moved her to ICU for monitoring."
Tasha nodded once, almost mechanically. "Can I see her?"
He hesitated. "One at a time. And… it would help to know your relation."
"I'm her niece," she said flatly.
The doctor studied her for a moment, then nodded toward the elevator.
I watched her walk away, her steps stiff, her shoulders squared like she was walking into a courtroom instead of a hospital room. I stayed in the waiting area, listening to the hum of vending machines and the low murmur of strangers' grief.
Minutes stretched. I didn't realize I'd been gripping my knees until my fingers ached.
When she returned, her face was unreadable. She sat beside me, staring at the floor.
"She's hooked up to so many machines," she said quietly. "It's like they've built a wall of wires around her. I don't even know if she can hear me."
"She can," I said. "Even if she doesn't want to."
We sat in silence for a while. Somewhere down the hall, a code was called over the intercom, the words clinical but heavy. Tasha broke the silence first. "When she wakes up, I'm going to tell her I found everything. That I know. I want to see her face when she realizes she can't lie to me anymore." Her voice didn't waver, but I saw the way her hands trembled in her lap. And I knew this wasn't just about revenge. It was about taking back the years stolen from her.
We stayed in the waiting area long after the corridors emptied of visitors. The vending machines became the only light in the room, their glass fronts reflecting our faces in fragments. Tasha sat with her knees drawn up, her chin resting on them. She didn't cry. She just stared straight ahead like she was holding her breath for hours at a time.
Around midnight, a pair of uniformed officers appeared at the front desk. One of them spoke to the nurse, glanced toward us, then started walking over.
"Kerif Mboya?" the taller one asked.
I stood, feeling my pulse climb. "Yeah."
"I'm Officer Weller, this is Officer Haines. We're following up on a medical emergency report from earlier tonight." His tone was careful, not accusing, but clipped enough to remind me it was official business. "We need to get your account of what happened."
I told them everything. From the argument in the bedroom to Mariam collapsing by the doorframe. How I'd called for an ambulance, done CPR, waited until the EMTs took over. They asked the same questions in different ways, listening for cracks. I gave them none.
Tasha stayed silent, her eyes fixed on a spot on the floor until one of the officers asked for her statement.
"I didn't touch her," she said quietly. "We argued. She yelled. And then… she went down."
They wrote it all down. No nods of understanding. No reassurance. Just the scratch of pen on paper before they left.
The room felt heavier when they were gone.
"You did nothing wrong," I said.
She finally looked at me. "It doesn't matter. If she wakes up and says otherwise, who do you think they'll believe? The Miriam matriarch or her niece who just uncovered every reason to hate her?"
I didn't answer. Because I already knew.
By two in the morning, the nurse at the desk told us Mariam's vitals had improved but she was still unconscious. ICU was keeping her overnight for observation.
"She's lucky," the nurse added.
Tasha's mouth twitched, but she didn't say lucky for who.
We camped out in the waiting area, the chairs too hard and the air too cold. Tasha lay curled up beside me, her head resting lightly against my shoulder. I could feel the tension in her body. Even in sleep, she didn't fully let go.
At some point, I pulled the thin hospital blanket over her, careful not to wake her. But her eyes opened anyway.
"You should sleep," I whispered.
"So should you," she whispered back.
We sat like that in the muted light until she spoke again, her voice barely above the hum of the vending machine.
"When she's stable, I'm leaving."
I turned to her. "Leaving the hospital?"
"Leaving here," she said. "This country, this house. All of it." Her gaze was steady, her face pale but certain. "I'm going to New York. To find my mother."
The words hung between us like a match over dry grass.
"I have her last known address from the letters," she continued. "If she's still at St. Jude, I'll find her there. If she's not… I'll keep looking until I do."
I wanted to tell her how dangerous that sounded. How impossible it might be. But the fire in her voice was the same one that had kept her alive this long.
"I can't stay here," she said. "Not after everything I know now. Every day I spend in that house is another day she wins."
I reached over and took her hand. "Then you're not going alone."
She looked at me, really looked at me, like she was measuring the weight of my words. Then she nodded once.
"Okay," she said.
And just like that, it was decided. Between the sterile walls of a hospital waiting room at three in the morning, with the city asleep outside and Mariam's machines humming somewhere above us, Tasha's next chapter began.
We didn't talk about money, or travel, or the risk. We just sat there holding on to the only thing that hadn't been stolen yet, the choice to leave.