by Sonali Dev
It took some effort to remember how to move her lips. “Do we have confirmation of what it is?” India asked.
Dr. Kumar took their confusion in stride, which India took as the first sign of his competence, despite his misplaced smiling. He explained that with the back pain, exhaustion, and yellowing in the eyes, pancreatic cancer was what he’d checked for first. Fortunately, it wasn’t that, but Tara’s liver enzymes were elevated and based on her fibroscan she had cirrhosis in her liver.
The word dropped like a cold rock in India’s belly, but the doctor didn’t look like he was delivering a tragic diagnosis, so she waited.
“Mrs. Dashwood, do you—”
“Ms.,” Tara interrupted calmly. “It’s Ms. Dashwood.”
“Oh. Of course.” Dr. Kumar blushed and ran a quick hand over his bald head. “I apologize. Your records said you don’t drink and you’ve never done IV drugs. I just want to confirm that you never have.”
“I might have tried some wine once,” Tara said, her voice still utterly calm, the voice she’d used to respond to rude questions about her variously raced children. The quietness of a predator stalking her prey. “But that was more than thirty years ago.”
If Dr. Kumar smiled again, India was leaving. He smiled. “Have you ever visited a third world country?”
“Third world?” Tara said in a tone that made Dr. Kumar look like he was cursing the day he’d decided to skim over his diversity training. “I lived in India for ten years. But as far as I know it’s in the same world we all inhabit.”
To no one’s surprise, the doctor smiled. “That would explain it.”
The three of them leaned forward, waiting for more.
His smile turned just the slightest bit smug. “Did you get a blood transfusion when you were in India?”
Mom was visibly startled at that. For a few moments she said nothing, then she closed her eyes and focused inward, almost sliding into a trance. “I did fall out of a rickshaw when a cow ran into it.”
India and China turned to her, mouths agape. When she opened her eyes they were twinkling, as though the memory were a joy.
“The rickshaw landed on me, but I wasn’t hurt. Well, there was the broken ankle. Then we tried to pull the cow upright because she’d rolled over. She kicked the driver, but she seemed to like me.”
“Mom?” China was the one who prodded.
Dr. Kumar seemed captivated.
“I think the bells on her horns sliced my hand. Then she just sauntered off. Have you ever noticed how well cows handle trauma?”
“Mom, the transfusion?” This time it was India who prodded.
Tara stared off into space, trying to remember. “I think it was the sliced hand. Oh, and the overturned rickshaw also cut my thigh. I don’t remember much more than the cow. But I did wake up in the hospital and there had been a transfusion. I think.” She chuckled, her eyes alight with the memory. A memory of something that might have made her sick thirty years later.
“You said the news wasn’t all bad,” she said finally, coming back to this moment.
“Er, well.” God, please could he stop smiling? “I think you might have hepatitis C, so I want to do the labs for that today and we’ll also need more imaging to confirm the extent of the fibrosis.”
“And what happens after all these tests?” How could their mother sound so calm right now? China looked like she was going to throw up. India reached over and took her hand.
“Let’s not jump ahead of ourselves, but Hep C is treatable now. And cirrhosis is not reversible but a transplant is always an option. Let’s wait to consider our options once we know more.”
A curtain of calm had fallen over Tara’s face. “How much will the treatment cost?” she asked, while her daughters sat there struck speechless. To think India had thought she was bringing her fragile mother here so she could be strong for her.
“Well, why don’t we wait until all the tests are completed before we discuss a treatment plan,” the doctor said.
“Do you have a ballpark?”
Finally India spoke. “It doesn’t matter, Mom. Insurance should cover it.”
Tara’s jaw worked. It wasn’t her way to contradict family in public, but the set of her face told India that she was going to fight this. What was there to fight? No matter what, Mom was getting treated.
India turned to Dr. Kumar. “And we can expect a full recovery?”
The smile he gave her this time was laced with sympathy. “Let’s get the results. It’s a long road. In the meantime, a lot of rest. It would help for someone to stay with her.”
“We live in the same home,” India said, more relieved than ever with the fact that she and China had never moved out. “We’ll take care of her.”
THE DRIVE HOME was barely a mile, but the silence in the car made it seem endless. It wasn’t like either China or Mom to be quiet, but they had barely said a word since they left the doctor’s office and waited with Tara as she made her way through blood draws and scans.
“I hope neither of you fed Chutney,” India said as cheerily as she could. “I fed her this morning.”
China hadn’t been home since yesterday, so she couldn’t have fed her virtually, and Mom had been in bed all day, but the mention of Chutney would snap everyone out of their funk.
“I did, uh-oh,” Mom said, a smile touching her lips. India should’ve known she’d get out of bed to feed their dog, when she forgot to feed herself most days.
“I thought Chutney was on a diet. Aren’t we supposed to cut back how much we feed her?” China spoke finally. “You two are going to cause her to die of obesity if you don’t stop being obsessed with feeding her.”
“We’re not obsessed. A dog has to eat,” Tara said simply.
“I’m gone for a few days and it’s like no one can do anything right.” China pulled the car into a parking spot in front of the studio. “What if she gains even more weight? She can barely move now.” Her tone was too harsh, too filled with guilt to have anything to do with their dog’s obesity.
“You are allowed to go out and do things,” Tara said. “This did not happen because you were living instead of babysitting me or because India had to come back and force me to go to the doctor.”
“But I was here. I was the one who should have done it. India shouldn’t have had to come back. And now you’re both trying to kill Chutney with food.” With those words she stormed out of the car and took off down the street.
“China, sweetheart, come back. Chutney is going to be fine,” India called after her.
“Let her go.” Mom leaned on the car. A sight so heartbreaking, India didn’t know what to do with it. She offered Tara her arm. How had the illness progressed so fast? “You know she likes to walk when she can’t handle her feelings.” It was how China had done everything from throwing tantrums to thinking through decisions. If she didn’t get out and walk, she started to act like a caged tigress, and that was no fun for anyone.
India punched in the security code and unlocked the studio. They had left the original turquoise-painted glass-paned door as is during the renovation but added electronic locks. The sign in the door was flipped to CLOSED. India wasn’t teaching a class today. She wasn’t on the schedule for the next two weeks because she was supposed to be in Costa Rica. Tomas—the instructor they had hired last year when they had expanded their schedule to help pay for the renovation—had a class at seven and it was barely four.
As they made their way across the studio to the apartment stairs, the smell of home—floral incense mixed in with the aged-wood scent of an old house no renovation could erase—seeped into India’s lungs. She grounded herself in it.
“It’s just this one lifetime,” Tara said, yanking her out of her peaceful place. “It’s going to start and end when it does. We’re just here to aid it along the best we can while we’re here. Worrying won’t change anything.”
As always, Mom was right, and India refused to transfer her own worry to her.
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At their first footfall on the stairs, the familiar pattering of a four-legged dance began on the upper floor and Chutney’s scrunched-up face appeared at the top. Over the years the dance of excitement had turned more into a slow plodding roll. Chutney could no longer go up or down the stairs, but you could not enter the apartment and feel like it really happened without seeing her face at the top, and smelling her slobbery breath. She was the sound of their tree falling in the forest.
Despite the inducement at the top of the stairs, Tara’s climb was slow and it made a restless determination churn inside India. Mom was going to be all right. One step into the living area with its timber rafters and cozy furnishings, and Tara’s shoulders relaxed.
India pushed her into the couch and tucked a quilt around her. “I’ll make you some tea and then get dinner started. Soup sound good?”
The family room and kitchen were one continuous space and India watched Tara as she put the kettle on.
“Will you burn some of that kashi agarbatti?” Tara asked crossing her legs into the lotus pose.
India grabbed incense sticks from the ceramic jar on the tiled island. Holding them over the stove flame, she waited for the ends to light, then shook out the flames that left embers at the ends of the sticks. Twisted ribbons of smoke wafted up to the ceiling as she poked the sticks into an inlaid wood holder designed to collect the ash drippings. The kitchen filled with earthy scent.
Carefully, she chose vegetables from the fridge and laid them out on the cutting board. It was a good day for soup. Soft light filtered in through the rattan blinds. Barely audible sounds of Tara’s practiced breathing spun around the room as she settled into her meditation, connecting with the only thing that was going to get her through this, her indestructible inner self.
On the surface it was just another day unfolding around them, but underneath it had a strange texture, an arrogance, as though it knew it was different from all the other days they’d spent doing these very things. India thanked the voice that had compelled her to come home and sliced through a carrot. Then like Tara she let her mind slide inward to the place that was strong enough to take on whatever life was getting ready to throw at her.
Chapter Five
It’s okay to admit you’re in pain. We can get you meds.” Rico looked more nervous than Yash had ever seen him look before a public appearance. Or maybe Yash was assigning emotions to Rico, since he couldn’t seem to manage any on his own.
“I don’t need meds.” Maybe it was part of the relentless numbness, but Yash had expected a bullet wound to hurt more.
He stared out at the crowd from behind the stage. The Orpheum was packed to capacity. Everyone was carrying a candle, flameless naturally. Wave upon wave of flickering electronic wicks lit up the darkened auditorium.
“Maybe it’s too soon. You’re looking a little green.” Rico followed Yash’s gaze to the too somber crowd. Yash didn’t think he had ever seen such a large audience be this quiet.
“I feel perfectly normal.” Physically. “That bullet barely made it inside me. It hardly even broke skin. The other one just about grazed my arm.” Someone started singing Imagine and the crowd started swaying with their candles raised up and hummed along. “What is the vigil for? What is all this sympathy for? I’m standing. And Abdul’s not dead either.”
“It’s a vigil against hate crimes, against the gun culture. It’s one of your biggest platform issues. It’s time to get people to see sense.”
“People haven’t seen sense through fifteen hundred school shootings. Now a politician gets shot at and you think it’s going to make a difference?” The NRA had poured another giant cash infusion into Cruz’s campaign the day of the shooting.
Rico threw him the look that everyone in his family had taken to tossing his way all the damn time. A look that told him they weren’t quite certain how much to push him, or even who he was anymore, really.
“It’s an opportunity. It’s not how you wanted to get here, but that shooter practically handed you this election.” Rico had grown up in Rio de Janeiro and lived in London for the past decade, and his accent tended to go all over the place with the enunciating and lilting when he was upset.
“That shooter, who you think has handed me the election, might have taken a little girl’s father from her before she was old enough to know him. She’ll have no memory of him if he dies. All she’ll know is that her father died because some damn politician made some damn fanatic angry enough to shoot at him.”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.” Rico gave Yash one of his coach-before-a-game looks. “You did not cause this. But you can make something good come out of it.”
The man may be a recently retired soccer star, but Yash wasn’t a nervous rookie in need of a pep talk. “Of course I caused it. I don’t look like these people. I don’t pray like them. From the first time I announced that I might have hopes of doing this, of running this great state, I was warned this was going to happen.”
When the news of his candidacy first came out, someone had put a dead squirrel in his car with a note that said people who tried to step out of their lane ended up as roadkill. It was one of those letters that had been pasted together from magazine cuttings.
“Do you know how many threats I’ve received? How many creatively phrased messages telling me to go back to where I came from? More than I’ve bothered to count.”
“And you decided to fight them. To make sure that people stop seeing the color of our skin when they see us. To prove that elections should be won for what we believe and how hard we’re willing to work, not because of how we look or how relatable we are.”
Yash backed away from the wings, then spun around and returned to the green room, Rico close behind him. “What if that’s not possible? What if it was just hubris, me thinking I could do any of that? What if more people get hurt?” As a young boy Yash had exhausted everyone’s patience with his questions. There had been so much he wanted to know that it used to fill him up and make him feel like he would burst if he didn’t find out.
That wasn’t how he felt now. These weren’t questions. Even if he was phrasing them as such, they felt like answers. In fact, he knew for sure that none of what Rico had just said was possible. That knowledge felt so absolute inside him that he couldn’t imagine how he’d believed it until now.
Once, while hiking in Yosemite, he’d wandered off a trail and gotten lost. The disorientation had felt like this, like he hadn’t just lost his way, but like the path he’d been on had disappeared, like it had never existed in the first place.
Was it hot in here? He loosened his tie. A black one—Nisha had put it on him when she had picked him up this morning.
The black tie was a protest against the shooting. A statement of support for Abdul. Both he and Rico were wearing black bands around their arms. The sea of people filling the stadium were wearing black bands. Yash pulled off his tie. The breath in his lungs had grown thick and hot, fire trapped inside him building into a backdraft. He wiped his face against his sleeve. It came away damp. He was covered in sweat.
Someone called his name. It had to be Rico. But his vision wasn’t doing what vision was supposed to do.
“I can’t breathe.” That’s what he tried to say, but it wouldn’t come out. Or it probably did, because suddenly there were several people in the room. Nisha, Ashna, his mother. Naturally, everyone had insisted on being here for his first event after the shooting.
Finally Trisha hurried in. They were all dissolving around the place like an oil painting left out in a heat wave. Someone pushed him into a chair and shoved a paper bag in his face.
Great, he was hyperventilating into a paper bag. Like a nervous boy. Something sharply cold hit the back of his neck, jolting him. Someone was pressing ice against his neck.
“Yash, beta? It’s okay. We’re here.” Words his mother had always said to him anytime he needed support. Even if it was just her, she always said, “We’re here,” her attempt
at reinforcing the support she was providing by multiplying it.
“What happened?” he asked, when he could finally speak. What the hell had that been? “Did I have a heart attack? Did the bullet move something that damaged my heart?”
“Your heart is fine,” Trisha said, “but we should get an EKG to make sure.” She was squatting in front of him and asked him to walk her through what he’d experienced.
He told her how it had felt like leaving his body or maybe like having his body leave him.
“I suspect you had a panic attack,” she said, pulling his eyelids apart and staring into his eyes.
Ashna was squatting next to Trisha, worry pinching her forehead. “That’s what it looked like. I had them for years.” She took his hand and stroked it. “You’re going to be okay. It just doesn’t feel that way right now.”
Damn straight. “I feel fine now,” he said, lying. Nothing felt fine. He couldn’t seem to remember what the hell fine felt like.
“Are you sure?” Nisha asked, far too gently. “Do you think you can go onstage? Those people have been waiting for hours to hear you speak.”
And there it was again. His heart started to thud in his chest cavity like a stampede of rogue elephants. His mouth felt like he had gulped down his tongue and left behind a vacuum he couldn’t swallow around. It wasn’t exactly emotions, but at least it was something.
“He can’t. We’re going to have to cancel,” Trisha said, staring into his eyes again.
“I’ll go speak to them,” Rico said, giving Yash’s good arm another squeeze. “You’re going to be okay, mate.”
“What will you tell them?” Yash asked.
Nisha’s phone beeped and she looked at it. “I think we have something we can give them. Abdul’s blood pressure is falling. It’s not looking good. We should head to the hospital.”
HAVING YOUR FAMILY talk about you like you weren’t in the room was never fun.
“My son have a panic attack? How is that even possible?” their father asked Trisha.
