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“It’s just the onion, Mom.” I diced it and moved on to a celery stalk. And on to my agenda. “Mom…can I ask you a couple of questions?”
“Sure.”
“Did you let Tanya’s father know about the accident?”
“She begged me not to tell him but, of course, I tried to contact him. My email to him bounced back and the phone number I have wasn’t in service.”
Weird.
“Honey, remind me to get his new contact info from Tanya because he needs to pay the tuition for Coldwater. Someone from administration called me and let me know.”
I found that interesting too. Her father hadn’t paid the $45,000, or any part of it? Unless you were a scholarship student like my bestie, Jordan, Coldwater had a no-tolerance policy for late payments. Ha! Maybe she’d get kicked out, though I knew my parents would never let that happen and would likely front the money, expecting to be paid back.
Finished with cutting the celery into quarter-inch pieces, I reached for another stalk. “Have you ever seen a photo of her father?”
Her eyes on the potato she was peeling, my mom shook her head. “No, but then again, I’ve never asked.”
“Don’t you think it’s strange that she doesn’t have a photo of him in her room? At least one?”
My mom shrugged. “Maybe she didn’t want to lug one in her suitcase. And keeps one on her phone. I do know she misses him terribly, especially since he travels all the time.”
“Did you ever send her photos of our family?”
“Not directly to her but a few to the exchange student agency a while back.”
The exchange student agency! A mental palm slap. Why hadn’t Will and I thought about that earlier?
“Mom, you must have all the forms you filled out.” Jackpot! “Plus Tanya’s personal info, including her passport number, student visa, and home address.”
“Did.”
“What do you mean?”
“The weirdest thing is that file mysteriously disappeared from my desktop. I can’t even find it in my trash. Or remember the name of it.”
Two things: Either my mom had OD’d on Xanax and wine, or Tanya had managed to delete it. My hunch was Tanya. Her computer skills were proving to be extraordinary. It wouldn’t surprise me if she was a hacker.
“Did you send any photos of Anabel?” I continued.
At the mention of my sister’s name, my mother took a swig of her wine. “Not a single one. Tanya didn’t even know about your sister.”
My mind spun. Then, where did she get all those photos? Off Facebook? Instagram? My sister’s social media accounts were disabled, so I couldn’t check them. But maybe Tanya knew how to get into them.
“Do you have Tanya’s passport?” Kind of a non sequitur, but my mom didn’t seem to mind me bombarding her with questions.
“No. I think it’s in her room.”
Think again.
“I should tell her to keep it in her backpack at all times in case she has another accident or emergency. The only form of identification she had with her was a school ID, but that’s not enough.”
“What about her student visa? Wasn’t she in possession of that?”
“I guess not.”
My guess: I bet she didn’t have one.
The stalk of celery cut up, I moved on to a parsnip. “You should at least make a copy of her passport and keep it with ours. You know, in case she ever loses it.”
