by Sonya Lalli
With Monica on the phone in the background, Anu cleared the mess of hair away from Imogen’s face. Her face was so white, it was almost blue, and instinctively Anu glanced at the nightstand, her stomach churning when she saw what was on it.
Shaking, Anu pulled Imogen up and let her torso keel forward over the side of the bed. Without hesitating, Anu stuck her pointer finger and middle finger down Imogen’s throat.
Nothing happened, and Anu’s heart wrenched; she was terrified of hurting Imogen. Despite her height, her weight, Imogen felt so frail in Anu’s arms.
How could Anu have been so blind as not to see? Tears streaming from her face, Anu shifted Imogen’s weight more fully on her and tried again.
Come on, Imogen. You can do this.
Anu pushed down and back once more and then felt the reflex and pulled her hand out.
A beat later, Imogen convulsed, vomiting onto the floor.
Monica crouched next to them then, holding Imogen’s head with one hand and the phone with the other.
Imogen vomited again and then one more time after that.
With her hand, Anu wiped the rest of the vomit from Imogen’s mouth and face, and then Monica helped her push Imogen back on the bed. They laid her on her side, supporting her weight behind her with a pillow.
Monica ran to the bathroom to fetch a hot towel, but Anu refused to leave Imogen’s side, brushing stray hair away from her face. She watched the shallow rise and fall of Imogen’s chest and swallowed hard as she remembered their fight. What Imogen had yelled: “You take everything for granted. Everything.”
The words burned into Anu as she squeezed Imogen’s hand, pressed them into her chest.
Imogen was right. Anu had it all, and she took it for granted. She had family and friends who loved and supported her. A career and a safety net and her health.
She had it all and appreciated none of it as much as she should.
Monica returned with a wet cloth. She pressed it to Imogen’s forehead, and just then, they heard the sirens.
chapter thirty-two
You are still here?”
Anu looked up. It was one of the nurses from before, the middle-aged South Asian one who reminded Anu of Lakshmi. She was only a few feet away, and Anu wondered if she had fallen asleep; she hadn’t heard the nurse approach. Anu squinted. Her nametag read “Avneet,” and she had a clipboard tucked beneath her left armpit. Her scrubs were flowery, a cheerful pink standing out against the drabness of the waiting room. Years ago, Anu had worked in this very ward as a nursing student. She wondered if she’d met Avneet before.
“Can I see her?”
Avneet smiled at her, shifting her clipboard to her other armpit. The doctors had gone over this: Anu was not family and therefore not allowed in. Anu glanced at the clock above the nurses’ station. It had been five hours since they arrived and two since Anu had forced Monica to go home.
“It is late. Come back tomorrow.”
“I can wait.”
“You will be waiting a while.”
“But her parents aren’t here yet.”
Avneet pressed her lips together and then glanced back at the nurses’ station, empty now. Anu stood up, tucked her hair behind her ears.
“Please? She’s all alone in there.”
A minute later, Avneet led her to the room and, in a stern tone, warned Anu that she’d be back in five minutes. The rooms running the length of the corridor all had their lights switched off, but she could just make out the vague outlines of all the hospital beds, all occupied.
At the end of the hall, she spotted Imogen’s shape on the bed from the doorway and the shadow of a hand moving. The motion of a wave.
“Hey,” Anu said quietly.
Avneet left them, and Anu sat in the chair by the head of the bed. Imogen was sitting up, the top half of the hospital bed at a relaxed incline. Her makeup had been wiped clean from her face, and there was crust around her lips and eyes. An IV drip was plugged into her left arm. Anu reached for her right hand and squeezed it tight.
“How are you feeling?”
Imogen grinned, limply. “Like death.”
Anu frowned, studying Imogen’s face. Anu wasn’t family, so the doctors and nurses hadn’t told her a thing other than the fact that Imogen was stable. They hadn’t told her what had happened, or confirmed that she’d drunk from the bottle of vodka sitting on her nightstand, and that’s what it was they’d had to pump from her stomach.
And what about the pills?
Anu had seen the parademics take note of Imogen’s antidepressants laying about the nightstand, counting them. It could have been an accident. But it could have not been an accident. The thought of either possibility made Anu’s body quake with fear.
“I’m sorry,” Imogen said. Shadows danced across Imogen’s face as her head leaned farther back on the pillow. “That was a bad joke.”
“Don’t be sorry. I’m the one who should be sorry.” Anu paused, wiping a tear from her face. “I should have been there for you.”
“I didn’t exactly let you, Anusha.” She adjusted her neck on the pillow. “Blaming yourself for this would be so typical of you.” Imogen smiled weakly. “Only children. You guys always need to be the center of attention, don’t you?”
Anu laughed. “Aren’t you an only child?”
Imogen shrugged, smiling sleepily, as if she might disappear at any moment into a dream. She let go of Anu’s hand and reached for a glass of water beside the bed. Anu helped her, Imogen’s hand shaking as she brought the plastic cup to her lips.
“Thank you,” Imogen said. Such a mild exertion, yet she sounded exhausted. “For finding me.”
“Thank you for calling me back.”
Imogen laughed. “Took my time, didn’t I?”
There were tears in Anu’s eyes, and she wiped them away. There was a million things Anu wanted to say, questions she wanted to ask, but there would be time for all that later. Right now, all she could do was be Imogen’s friend. Be there for her in whatever ways she was allowed.
“Better late than never.”
* * *
• • •
Kunal had left Anu a note on the kitchen table.
I made quiche. It is in the fridge. I will be insulted if you do not try it.
Anu smiled and then quietly heated up the quiche in the microwave. Kunal must have gone to bed early that night and not seen Anu’s panicked texts from the hospital.
Anu pressed CANCEL on the microwave before the noisy timer went off, and then she took her plate to the kitchen table. While eating, she flicked open her laptop, and her Facebook home page appeared; she must have left it open that morning.
Had it been only that morning that she, Jenny, and Monica had been fixing up the studio? She glanced at the microwave clock. It was four twenty-three a.m. She supposed it had been yesterday morning, and this morning—in just over five hours—would be her open house.
When she moved her finger on the mouse pad, Facebook automatically refreshed, and a meme with several baby pandas appeared, posted by Lakshmi only five minutes earlier.
Anu smiled and liked the photo. Why had Anu always been so hard on her for posting enthusiastically on Facebook? For mixing metaphors? For throwing herself so completely into her life?
She remembered Imogen’s mother, rushing into the hospital room, in hysterics, trailed by her father, sobbing as he clutched onto his daughter and wife. Just thinking about it, Anu could feel herself breaking down, breaking open.
Lakshmi was there for her. Even in London, she was there for her. Why had Anu pushed her away? Why had Anu been so fucking petty?
“Beti?” Lakshmi answered her video call on the first ring. She was in bed, the lamp casting a spooky glow over half her face. “Why are you awake at this hour?”
“I saw your meme,” Anu sa
id, “on Facebook.”
Lakshmi shifted on the bed, an uncomfortable look on her face. Did she, too, realize this was the first time they’d spoken alone in months, maybe nearly a year?
“I never thanked you for the garland you sent,” Anu said, wiping her wet nose with a tissue. “It’s been hanging in the studio doorway this whole time.”
Lakshmi gave her a small smile.
“It’ll be hanging there today.”
“I am sorry I cannot be at your big open house,” Lakshmi said, “although your father has promised to let me attend by FaceTime.”
“It’s OK. I’ll show you around when you’re home for Kanu’s birthday.”
“Hah.” Lakshmi nodded her head from side to side, a mannerism that meant both yes and no yet neither. “That will be nice.”
The distance between them was palpable, their relationship stiff. Yes, Anu had taken her mother—taken everything—for granted, but what about Lakshmi?
Lakshmi had wanted to protect Anu from the world so badly, but she never realized that she couldn’t, that she shouldn’t, because how else was Anu to grow up? How else was Anu to learn to pick herself up when she fell?
But there was no falling for Indian girls, not good Indian girls. Girls like Anu let themselves be guided, graciously, from moment to moment, milestone to milestone. They stayed indoors, and their boots were never muddy. Their hands were always clean.
Good girls listened to their mothers.
But Anu hadn’t wanted to listen to anyone. She got tired of listening. Yet, still Anu wanted Lakshmi’s approval, and so she pretended. She pretended to be her mother’s good Indian girl, the lies piling higher and higher, small ones and large alike, until this wall emerged between them.
A wall Anu needed to knock down.
“Mom, I’m sorry.” She noted the feebleness in her own voice and cleared her throat. “I’m sorry about our fight in London.”
“I’m sorry, too, Anu.”
She studied Lakshmi’s face on the screen, was tempted to reach out and touch it. “I should never have lied to you.” Anu took a deep breath, sucking on the air. “I want us to be honest with each other from now on, OK? Even . . . even if it means I disappoint you.”
“Beti . . . ,” Lakshmi chided. She wrinkled her nose, a smile breaking open on her face. “My daughter is successful nurse. She is . . . entrepreneur. She is a wonderful mother and friend and daughter—” Lakshmi stopped. Paused. “She is many things, unlimited things, and I am very, very proud of her.”
Maybe times had changed. They could keep changing. Maybe, from now on, she and Lakshmi could change together.
Anu brought another forkful of quiche to her lips. “I’m proud of you, too, Mom.”
“Hah?”
Anu smiled, swallowed her food. “I said I’m proud of you, too. I really, really am.”
“Did your father make dinner? Is it good?” Lakshmi threw Anu a suspicious glance. “He has been bragging about this quiche all day.”
“Yeah, it’s all right.”
“Your father spends few months running the household in England, and suddenly he thinks he is next Anthony Bourdain.”
“Wasn’t he American?”
“Uh-ho,” Lakshmi snapped, her eyes smiling. “You know my point!”
Anu took another bite. Chewing it, she caught sight of a textbook open on the bed next to Lakshmi. The words were blurred, but she could just make out lines of neon yellow and orange highlighted here and there.
Anu couldn’t think of a single time that she’d video-chatted with Lakshmi and a textbook hadn’t been in the frame, that Lakshmi hadn’t ended the call by saying, “Back to the books!” or to Kunal, “Now off to study, my lovey-dovey!” Feeling ashamed, she realized that not once had she asked her mother about her master’s program. Not once had she taken an interest in Lakshmi’s life outside Anu.
“What are you studying today?” Anu pointed at the screen. “What’s that textbook?”
Lakshmi squirmed in excitement, sitting up in the bed. “It is heaping mouthful. Are you prepared?”
Anu nodded.
“Gender, sex-uality, and women studies.” Lakshmi lowered her voice slightly. “And do you know, next term I am taking module that studies the Kama Sutra? I will be top of the class, nah?”
“Mom, that’s disgusting. . . .”
“Because I am a Hindu. Uh-ho.”
“Oh, is that what you meant?”
“You young people. You think we are so old. What can we possibly know about the art of making the love? I have been enjoying sex much longer than you, beti!”
Anu choked on her food. “Mom!”
“Maybe Vātsyāyana did not write Kama Sutra. I think women truly know these things much better naturally, nah? None of this quick-quick testosterone business. You know, I had to teach your father everything, Anu. Everything. After our wedding, the first time he saw me undress, it was like he was trying to roll chapati with m—”
“I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Kya? You asked me about my studies, nah? You said we should be honest!”
Anu swallowed the bile in her throat. “That I did.” She laughed. “So, I suppose, thank you for that.”
“Can you imagine this honesty business with my ma, Anu? If she was alive, what would she have to say about such filth?”
“Maybe Nani would have surprised you,” Anu said. “Maybe she would have told you all about her sex life.”
Lakshmi made a face, and Anu burst out laughing again, and when the tears started streaming down her face, they refused to stop. It was hard to breathe, because of how much she missed Lakshmi in that moment.
“Beti.” Lakshmi tutted at her, soothing her. “No crying. I will see you in less than one week. We are OK, nah? Mothers and daughters should fight.” Laughing, she said, “And now we have made up for lost time.”
“It’s not just that.” Anu shook her head, overwhelmed, as she pictured Imogen’s mother hurrying to her side. The images rushed in, bending and blurring. Marianne’s moist palm, pressing that pill into Anu’s hand. Theo’s mouth. The hole in the studio wall.
Paula.
She looked up from the laptop, to Kanika’s empty seat, and tried to imagine Kanika in her place, Anu at Lakshmi’s age. No matter what Kanika did, no matter how disappointing it might feel, wouldn’t Anu want to know? Even if she were far away, even if she couldn’t really help with any of it, wouldn’t Anu want to hear about it?
She would, and so for the first time, starting from the beginning, she told Lakshmi everything.
chapter thirty-three
NEIL: Hey, Anush . . . I ran into your dad at Costco this morning and he told me about what happened to your friend. I’m sorry to hear that. . . . You’ll let me know if there’s anything I can do? Otherwise I’ll see you at 1 for the family class. Kanu is DEFCON 5 excited. . . .
She managed three hours of sleep after her long talk with Lakshmi, and later Kunal, who overheard their conversation from the basement and came upstairs to join them. Yet that morning, she woke up feeling rested and calm, calmer still after Imogen texted her to say that she’d been released from the hospital and that her parents were taking her home.
Anu hopped in the shower, threw on a bit of makeup, and arrived at the studio a full hour before she needed to be there. Everything was already in place, and so she wandered from room to room soaking it all in.
This was hers. With a lot of help, she had made something new and was about to put it on offer to the world. Would anyone show up? Would people care?
Or would they laugh at her, marvel at the ridiculousness of a single mother kicking off a new business on a lark?
The luxury of the moment startled her: that she had the ability, even the audacity, to worry about something that so few had the privilege to think about. Imoge
n had been right before: Anu had nothing to lose but her ego. If the business floundered, she’d find herself in debt that eventually she’d be able to work her way out of.
She’d still have her family, her friends. A livelihood of her own. Anu palmed each piece of new equipment as she passed it, let her fingers glide against the surface of the mural Jenny had painted in the foyer—as if they were pieces of a life, and each touch was a recognition of what she had.
And a vow that she would never fail to appreciate it again.
Jenny and Monica arrived early, Monica groggy but pretending not to be. Anu hugged them each in turn, and she decided right then to treat the three of them to a group trip to Seattle as a thank-you for all their help that year. Before Kanika was born, the three of them used to go to Seattle annually for a weekend away. They would wine and dine and get drunk by the water—having the time of their lives talking to no one but themselves.
Why had she stopped going? Why had she insisted they go without her, even though Neil said he could manage things without her? Anu shook her head, now unable to comprehend the decision. This year would be different. She would save and find a way. She would set the time and money aside, and she would make time to be there for her friends.
When the open house started, they kept the front door open, a cool early-spring breeze freshening up the crowded foyer. Jenny, Monica, and Tom manned the coffee machine outside, designed to lure in the foot traffic, while the new teacher Radhika taught a beginner vinyasa class in the practice room. Kunal was there, entertaining the back row with his overzealous positions, along with walk-ins, colleagues from the clinic, friends and acquaintances from school she didn’t think would come.
Anu let out a sigh of relief when the first class ended. So far, so good. It was all going according to plan. More and more visitors were arriving every few minutes, and even a local reporter turned up to attend Greta’s mindfulness session. Just as Anu returned from the back office with another stack of brochures, she saw Neil, Kanika, and Priya through the window. Jenny said something to make Priya—who seemed much stronger than only a few weeks earlier—laugh and just then Kanika looked over and saw Anu. She squealed, and Anu raced through the door toward them.
