by Sonya Lalli
What did he have planned for her, on their Friday night out on the town? Dinner and a movie? A weekend away somewhere—shacked up in some hotel room in Whistler or near the beach on Pender Island?
She grabbed her purse, her hand still throbbing from the punch that afternoon, and flung open the car door. She was happy to see Kanika a day early but wished she wasn’t making it easier for him to move on. All she wanted to do was go home and ice her hand on a carton of Ben & Jerry’s in front of the TV.
Gathering her strength, Anu climbed the porch steps and knocked on the front door. Her stomach tightened when Neil appeared on the other side of the door. She’d barely seen him since Monica’s wedding—halfhearted waves from across the driveway or through the car window. In her head, she’d imagined he’d fallen apart even more without her—red-eyed and disheveled—but in real life, he looked exactly the same.
If possible, he looked even better than she remembered.
“Hey,” he said, “come in.”
She nodded and followed him to the kitchen. They sat down at the table, the one she used to eat at several times per week when they were dating, and he gestured toward his cup of coffee.
“Want one?”
She shook her head, surprised by how civil he was acting. The last time they had spoken, he could barely stand to be in the same room with her.
“Kanika’s downstairs with Mom. They’ll be up in a minute.”
“Do you want me to wait in the car?”
“No, it’s fine.”
He had been so angry with her for dating Ryan, but now he was with someone else and so it was “fine.” Except that she was now single, and even though she didn’t want to get back together, she wished Neil was, too.
They sat in silence for a while, and Anu glanced around the room. It was spotless, as if Priya had all the time in the world to cook and clean and dote on her son and granddaughter. Even before she stopped working, when Priya worked full-time at Auntie Jayani’s Indian Bridal Shop on Main Street, the house was spotless. Anu had never quite figured out how she managed to do it all as a single mom. Her husband had passed away when Neil was only a baby—some sort of cancer, Neil told her once. He’d been vague on the details.
“So how’ve you been?” Neil asked.
She looked back at him. His eyes were trained on the floor, his shoulders tense and hunched against the back of the chair.
She wasn’t sure how to answer the question. “Fine, thanks. You?”
“Fine.”
This . . . silence. The awkwardness. It felt worse than when he had been desperate to get back together, even when he had hated her.
“Hey.” His voice was tentative as he sat forward in the chair. “Can I ask you something?”
Her heart lurched.
“Are you fighting with your parents or something?”
“Oh.” She shrugged. “I guess you’ve been speaking to them.”
He nodded. “They call a lot when Kanu is here. Other times, just to chat with Mom.”
Annoyed, she reached for his coffee cup and downed the coffee. It was lukewarm, milky, just how he liked it, and if he was startled by this intimate action of sharing a cup, it didn’t show on his face. “So you really need me to take her tonight, then?”
He looked at her strangely. “Your parents are worried about you. . . .”
She wondered if he was worried about her, too.
“They said you don’t take their calls anymore.”
She didn’t answer, furiously biting at her bottom lip. “I’ve been really busy. That’s it.”
“I figured. That’s what I told them this morning when they called a few hours ago. I mean, you and Ryan—”
“You told my parents about Ryan?”
He pressed his lips together, and her heart dropped into her stomach.
“I thought they knew, Anush.”
She wasn’t even dating Ryan anymore, and Neil had fucking told them?
“I swear, Anush. I thought they knew.”
“Like hell you did!”
“I did, all right? You’re a grown-up. I didn’t think you had to lie about these things.”
Of course she had to lie, and she couldn’t even fathom what her parents must now think, knowing she had been dating—sleeping—with somebody else while still technically married to Neil. What horrible, sexist insults would Lakshmi want to say to Anu about her running off with a new guy instead of fixing her marriage? And her father—sensible and stoic. Now he wouldn’t be able to look his daughter in the eye.
She glanced at Neil and couldn’t tell whether he looked smug or sad. Her face beamed hot, and so she took a deep breath to calm herself down. Three counts in. Three counts out. Afterward she was still angry, but not quite as much as before. She leaned against the wall, letting her fingers fall to graze its grainy surface.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I really am.”
She nodded stiffly. Her parents knew about Ryan.
This was a fact she could not change, and now, like the fucking grown-up she was supposed to be, she needed to deal with it.
“Do not apologize to her,” Priya said, startling them both as she walked into the kitchen. How long had she been standing around the corner?
“Somebody needed to tell them, and I did not have the heart,” she said, switching to Punjabi. “Poor Lakshmi. I hope this news isn’t too hard on her. . . .”
In moments like these, it was hard to believe that Priya used to love her, used to wrap her arms around Anu’s waist, and, in Punjabi, tell her that she’d become the daughter she never had.
And Anu had thought of her like a mother, in a way, maybe always would. The morning after the wedding was the first time she had called Priya “Mom”—and Neil did the same with her parents. She didn’t recognize the Priya standing before her, berating her, chastising her, but she supposed Priya didn’t recognize Anu, either.
Priya continued lashing out at Anu—about her lifestyle, her decision to “break up a happy family.” Anu looked at Neil, pleading, but whatever he was feeling didn’t show on his face. Even now it was overwhelming, each time it hit her that Neil was never on her side. Neil would always choose his mother, pick his relationship with her over their marriage.
She loved Priya. She had been more than happy to have her nestled right next to them in their happy little life. It was not like she wanted him to choose. But he did anyway.
“Auntie, perhaps your next daughter-in-law won’t be so disappointing to you,” Anu said softly, almost regretting it the moment the words left her lips.
Priya stopped short, resting her hands on her wide hips. “Beta, what is she talking about?”
Silence, and then a beat later, Neil said, “I don’t know, Ma.”
Anu stared at the ground, at a single speck of dust on the floor as the guilt set in. She shouldn’t have said anything. It was so petty and unlike her, so why had she said it?
“Neil,” Priya barked, back to English now, “what is the meaning?”
“Mom, can we talk about this later?”
“Are you seeing a woman? I knew it. And you didn’t tell me? Is this is where you are so late in the evenings?”
“Tit for tat, hey, Anush?”
Anu felt ashamed, red in the face, and she was about to apologize when Neil snapped at her. “Jesus, you’re immature.”
She froze, setting her hands on the counter, the right one still throbbing. “Immature?” Anu stood up straight as he stared down at her, waiting for her to hit back—and she could.
She could be mean. Neil was the one who used to leave the front door wide open in the middle of winter, who would forget to pick up his daughter from day care unless Anu stapled a reminder to his goddamn hand. Neil was the reason she kept putting off having another baby; a husband like him was like having a second child
!
She could lash out. Right now she could reignite how much he had hurt her and blame him for everything, cut away at the thin thread left hanging between them.
She opened her mouth, but the fight was gone.
Right now she didn’t feel angry or sad or betrayed. It was all gone. There was nothing left. This life—she didn’t want it anymore.
Neil could have it.
“You’re right,” Anu said quietly after a moment passed. “I’m immature and irresponsible, and I think I’m going to go.”
He was still staring at her, more gently now, hands on his hips. If she passed him by on the sidewalk like a stranger, she’d still think he was handsome. She would always find him handsome.
“Sure.” He nodded, eyes searching her face. “I’ll go get her bag.”
“No, don’t bother.”
“Why?”
“Because I am going. Alone.”
Another pause. “So you’ll back for her tomorrow?”
She was about to say yes, but then she didn’t. She shook her head.
It hung in the air, a dull silence you could have hacked through with a knife.
“I need to go away for a while,” she said, coming up with a plan as the words came out of her mouth. “I’m going to go travel around Europe for a few weeks. And . . . finally take that yoga course.”
“Are you serious? You’re going now?”
“Well, not right now.” She checked her watch. “Tomorrow, maybe. Isn’t there a direct flight every evening? I’ll take it tomorrow.”
Neil looked at her as if he couldn’t quite believe what she was saying, and she was not sure she believed it, either. But the words were out, and they made sense, didn’t they? This was what she was too afraid to admit to herself.
She didn’t have to be a grown-up and tow around the heavy, hurtful baggage that came with it.
She thought she could start over by leaving Neil, finding a new guy—but maybe it was more than that. Maybe the truth was, she needed to start over with herself. A clean slate. Go back to the beginning, to the life she could have had to begin with.
Neil turned to look at Priya. It was more shock on his face, on her face, than anything else. Anu could no longer make sense of whether she hoped they would try to stop her.
“You’re leaving her?” he whispered.
“Don’t say that. I’m coming right back. I just need some time—”
“For what. For Ryan?”
Of course he’d assume the only thing of importance that demanded time and energy was either her daughter or the man in her life. Because wasn’t that the woman she had always been? The domestic goddess. The attentive woman. The daughter-in-law to be desired.
But that wasn’t her. This wasn’t all she could be. She wanted more. She could be more.
She didn’t answer Neil’s question. Let him think what he wanted, that Anu was still dating that cheating bastard Ryan and leaving her daughter behind for him. She didn’t care what Neil thought anymore.
Anu reached for her purse hanging on the back of Priya’s chair, tugging at it, but it got caught behind her shoulder. “Auntie?”
Priya looked up, her eyes moist, and for a split second, Anu wondered if she was making a mistake. But wouldn’t it be easier on Priya if Anu wasn’t part of her family at all? “Auntie, I need my purse.”
Kanika was downstairs, finishing the same Disney movie they’d watched a thousand times before. It was near the end, the scene where Moana and Maui are battling Te Kā. The scene used to scare Kanika. It wasn’t so long ago that she would bury her face in Anu’s chest, whimpering as Anu stroked her hair until it was safe to come out.
Anu sat down on the couch, curled the end of Kanika’s left pigtail. “Mommy has to go,” she whispered.
Kanika was distracted. Her eyes were glued to the screen as the green monster arced and threw waves at Moana.
“Did you hear me, sweetie?” She choked on her words as Kanika nodded, pressed her clammy hands around Anu’s neck.
She needed to go, and one day her daughter would understand, wouldn’t she?
“I love you,” she whispered, wrapping Kanika tight in her arms. She soaked in the familiar scent of her daughter’s hair. “You’re going to stay with Daddy a bit longer this time, OK, baby?”
Kanika nodded, but she was focused on the TV. She didn’t understand, and maybe she never would.
Maybe Anu wouldn’t, either, but still she got up and walked to the stairs. With one more look back at her baby girl, she left.
chapter fifteen
SARA: Hey . . . just checking in. The holiday concert is coming up quickly and I was thinking the kids should probably rehearse in front of the set at least once.
ANUSHA: Hi, Sara. I’m really sorry to do this to you but I’m actually going to be out of town. I hope one of the other parents can step in and finish off the set? It’s nearly done—the materials for the snowflakes are in the bottom cupboard.
SARA: Oh! OK, no worries. We’ll figure something out. Have a great trip! And Merry Christmas!
SARA: Sorry! I mean happy holidays.
