by Sonali Dev
“Why do you think that is?” He must’ve been silent for a long time, because she looked a little lost when he spoke. “Why do you think she stopped speaking to you after we met?”
She tucked a short spike of hair that fell over her cheek behind her ear and he wondered for the umpteenth time why he had chosen to believe her. Her face had looked so young a few moments ago. Now lines of worry strained it as if his question had aged her in the span of minutes.
“I don’t know. Maybe she’s said all she needs to say. Maybe this is what she needed, for us to take care of things.” Her eyes were fully hard now. They could have belonged to anyone, even a stranger off the street, and he knew what she was going to say next. “We need to find the evidence.”
“You said it’s in something I wouldn’t throw away.”
Hell if that didn’t leave things wide open. With Jen everything had been special. That was the problem with being two people who took themselves too seriously. All they owned was meaningful. They hadn’t had time to be frivolous. To collect the mundane things other couples spent lifetimes gathering. With them, every little cup in their kitchen, every piece of clothing they wore, it had a story behind it. Every conversation, every moment, it had meant something.
He rubbed his thumb on his ring. The cool roll of metal skidded across his skin, in time with his heartbeat.
“Are all her things here? In this house?”
“I’m not sure. Ria and Vic packed and shipped everything.” Just the thought of their life together in boxes made him implode back into himself.
“They must’ve been really close to Jen for you to let them touch her things.”
Let them? He hadn’t even thought about it. Vic had saved his ass and done it for him. If anyone had the right to her stuff it was Vic and Ria. “They were like this.” He crossed his fingers the way you did when you were praying for luck. “Ria and she were like sisters. Vic walked her down the aisle at our wedding. Aie and Baba—Didn’t she ever talk about them?”
With nothing more than a quick widening of her carefully distant eyes, she shook her head. “Barely. She mostly talked only about you.”
The ring spun beneath his thumb. “She loved our family.” And his family had loved her.
They had been through hell these past two years too. He hadn’t spent a moment thinking about them. He thought about his mother’s face when he had left the dinner table last night without touching the food. His parents had lost two children, not one.
“At dinner . . .” He squeezed his temples and met her placid, knowing eyes. “Food . . . I can’t taste it.”
Her eyes didn’t flinch. “I know.”
How? How do you know? But the words stuck in his throat.
“It goes away.” She cleared her throat as though her words too were stuck, but unlike him she was strong enough to push past it. The delicate tendons in her neck stood out in deference to her strength. “You just have to take one bite. Then another. And it comes back. Your body . . . it will ease up on the reactions. But you have to help it. You have to force yourself to put it in your mouth, force yourself to taste it.”
Whatever it was she was remembering, it darkened her eyes, turning those huge irises almost opaque. If pain had a color, that flat caramel was it. “And the way your mother cooks, it won’t take much. Really.”
He had been such a selfish bastard. “I pulled you away before you finished dinner last night. You must be hungry.”
Maybe that’s why she couldn’t sleep, Einstein.
He stood and didn’t bother to put his hand out. He knew she wouldn’t take it. He took her arm and pulled her up. “Let’s get something to eat.”
“Really? Now? But won’t we disturb everyone?”
He had a vision of Aie in her kitchen. “You know what? I’m willing to bet money on something. I’ll bet my mother has left food out for us.”
They tiptoed down the stairs and stopped short as they entered the kitchen.
Nikhil had never felt so small in his life.
Two plates filled with food sat on the dining table covered in plastic wrap. Two small serving bowls, also covered with wrap, sat in the middle of the table.
Nikhil could see his mother filling the plates for them, moving through the spotless, lived-in kitchen that embodied everything his childhood had been, her movements purposeful and so very familiar, warmth rose in his heart.
He unwrapped the plates. Rice, rotis, vegetables, and lentils were arranged in neat mounds. He unwrapped the bowls, chicken curry in one and sweet kheer in the other. She hadn’t served the chicken because she didn’t know if Jess ate meat.
Nikhil stole a glance at Jess. She looked as if someone had pulled her into a hug too tight and she couldn’t breathe.
He picked up a plate, heated it in the microwave, and set it in front of her. She sat down. No words.
He heated the second plate for himself, then sat down across the table from her.
You have to force yourself to put it in your mouth, force yourself to taste it.
She was eating, her entire focus on the food, an almost desperate hunger in her chewing. He broke off a piece of roti, scooped up some vegetables, and put it in his mouth. He closed his eyes, forcing himself to taste the flavors Aie had worked so hard and so long to perfect. Recognition tapped at his taste buds. The slightest little nudges. His usual gag reflex threatened, but he pushed it back.
For the first time in two years, he ate. Really ate.
It wasn’t until all the food was gone that he realized his face was wet with tears.
21
The bastard held a gun to my belly today. He doesn’t even know there’s a baby in there and he threatened it. And the terror was so bad I considered walking away from everything, considered letting him get away with it all. How can Nikhil want to bring a baby into this shithole we call a world?
—Dr. Jen Joshi
It was the strangest feeling, sleeping in Nikhil’s bed. Especially since it involved going up a ladder. It was every little boy’s dream bed. Her Joy would’ve been so excited he wouldn’t even have been able to fall asleep. She stared up at the clouds painted on the ceiling above her. What kind of people had lives so orderly their home was like a Karan Johar movie set?
No surprise that he had asked her to switch rooms with him last night. Who could stand to have memories this warm turn to pain?
Her phone vibrated. She pulled it to her ear.
“Mamma?”
She rolled onto her side and pressed the phone to her ear. “Joyboy. I called earlier. You were sleeping.”
“Sorry, Mamma. I was dreaming about you.”
“Really? That’s crazy because I was just dreaming about you too.”
“What happened in yours?”
“You first, babu.”
“I dreamed,” he said, sniffing, “that you were home.”
“You know what? I don’t think that was just a dream. I was sleeping too just before I called, and guess what I was doing in my dream?”
There was a delighted gasp. “What, Mamma?”
“I was with you.”
Another gasp. So much wonder in the sound. She could see his face. Eyes wide, delighted. All that trust.
“I was holding you close. Pulling you against my heart.”
“And I was holding your ear.”
“Of course.” She smiled deep in her heart. What was it with Joy and her ears? As a baby, he hadn’t been able to fall asleep without his chubby little hand clutching her ear. She pushed her hair behind her ear and rubbed the outer rim, where the sensation of his fingers was imprinted.
“And my leg was thrown over your tummy.”
She wanted that leg over her tummy so badly, her chest hurt.
“Mamma will be home soon, babu. Can you be good just a little bit longer?”
He was silent but she knew he had nodded.
“And I promise I’ll come see you in my dreams, so look for me, okay?”
There was
such an ache in her chest when she turned the phone off, she didn’t know what to do with it. She wanted to dance until her heart felt nothing more than her heartbeat. Until her calves cramped. But somehow the bright boyish room didn’t seem the right place to break into a solo, spinning and spinning until the world became bearable. She needed to get out of the room. Needed, in fact, to get out of this house entirely. This ache would not stop until she was back home with her baby pressed against her chest.
She sat up and looked down at the wall full of books, the TV the size of a theater, and photos in wide, matted frames covering every wall. She went down the ladder and peered at a picture of three kids who had to be Ria Parkar, Vikram, and Nikhil sitting on the branch of a tree, their feet dangling over a river, their eyes sparkling with laughter. Vikram and Nikhil sat on either side of Ria, who was completely unaware of the bunny ears they were holding up behind her. Vikram had no shirt on, and even as an adolescent he was as self-possessed as a model. Ria was as long-limbed and beautiful as ever in shorts over a swimsuit. But it was Nikhil’s smile that filled up the picture. Two deep dimples digging into cheeks so huge they almost ate up his eyes. Huge teeth covered in braces. His swim shirt rolled up beneath a round belly that popped out from under it.
Nic had been a chubby child? She could never have guessed from the way he looked now. Something about that picture with two models of perfect beauty flanking him made her heart hurt. His child’s face was so stoic it was as though he were determined to be happy, to be more than he thought he was. It reminded her so much of Joy, she pressed a hand into her heart to stop the ache. The rest of the pictures were just as happy, a sun-soaked childhood for a child who knew exactly how blessed he was.
Then there were his pictures with Jen. Not artistic black-and-white portraits like the childhood ones, but snapshots that froze moments in the middle of living. In these pictures, Nikhil looked like a National Geographic photographer. At once rugged and intellectual, stubbly cheeked and touched by the wind and the sun. With a backpack and cargo shorts and unkempt spiky hair. Those kind, intelligent eyes, so hopeful, so complete, even when he was pulling some sort of silly face. Then there was a picture of his wedding, where he looked like exactly the Nikhil he was born to be.
“Hi,” he said behind her and she turned.
Tortured eyes met hers. “Did you sleep?”
She nodded. No point in asking him if he had. She could see the answer on his face.
His eyes hitched on his wedding picture. Someone should have removed at least that one.
“Aie would have removed them if we hadn’t surprised her.” He sniffed the air. “Do you smell that? She’s cooking breakfast. Do you like pohey? We should go now if you want some before Vic siphons off the entire thing. That guy can eat unearthly amounts of food.”
“From what I’ve seen, your aie will make sure there’s enough for you.”
“For us,” he said and held out his hand.
It had been so long since anyone had filled a plate of food for her she had forgotten what it felt like. Before her aama got sick she had done it every day, stood over her shoulder and spooned the dal and vegetables and rice onto her plate. After Aama got sick, it’s how she had known if Aama was having a good day. If she came home from school and found a plate filled for her on the desk in their room she knew Aama had been able to get out of bed. Then a time had come when it had been Jess’s turn to hide food away so Aama had some, to force her to take another bite, just one more bite so she could have her for a little while longer.
After Aama, no one had ever filled a plate for her or cared if she ate. Until last night.
Nikhil had popped the plate into the microwave and placed it in front of her with such ease. Now here he was holding out his hand to her with such ease.
Then again, maybe it wasn’t easy, maybe it took all his courage to do it.
She wasn’t brave enough to take his hand. “I need to get cleaned up. You go on.”
He was gone so quickly she wasn’t sure if it was relief or disappointment that flooded through her.
* * *
“It’s out of the question,” Nikhil heard Ria say as he came down the stairs. “You have to talk to the aunties. I’m really not doing it.”
Aie was about to respond when he entered the kitchen. Her mouth snapped shut and she gaped at him as if he had caught her going through his stuff. God knows he was familiar enough with that look.
“Morning,” he said, ignoring the guilt on her face.
Vic yanked his arms from around Ria. He had been standing behind her with his arms wrapped around her, his palms splayed on her belly, his chin resting on the top of her head. A pose Nikhil had seen the two of them in a million times, minus the hands on pregnant belly, of course. Now here Vic was, pulling his hands off his wife as if it were some sort of sin to touch her.
Before Vic’s arms slid off, Nikhil caught his thumb stroking the bump. Caressing his baby. The memory of the tautness of Jen’s barely swollen belly tingled on his fingers.
“Coffee?” Vic said and turned to the coffeemaker without waiting for an answer.
“Morning, beta.” Aie tried to smile at him, but there was so much sadness in her face it just came out a worried frown. “Did you slee—”
“I slept.” He met her eyes, lying. “The food was delicious. Thank you.”
For a moment she looked like she was going to cry, but then she was her stoic self again. “Your friend has good manners.” She placed both hands on his cheeks, pulled him to her, and dropped a kiss on his forehead, her fingers tight with the restraint of not doing more. “The dishes were all washed and put away.”
“Oh, and I couldn’t have been the one who cleaned up?”
Great, so that’s what it took to get them to break into chuckles.
“Really? I can clean up when I want to. I am not that much of a pig.”
More chuckles.
“Of course you’re not a pig.” This from his pregnant cousin, who had always been the master of the eye roll. She didn’t disappoint. “Pigs are actually quite clean,” she said with all the sincerity of a bossy sister.
He narrowed his eyes at her and everyone relaxed a little bit.
“It’s a myth that they dirty their surroundings,” Vic added, sliding the coffee cup across the island to Nikhil.
Ria intercepted the cup and took a quick sip. “It’s just one sip.” She threw a warning glare at Vic. “Don’t you dare start.”
“Why don’t you just drink an entire cup?”
“Because I want only one sip, Viky, and one sip is not going to hurt the . . . It’s not going to hurt anyone.”
“When I was pregnant, we had no idea we weren’t supposed to drink caffeine. I drank my chai every day,” his mother said.
“And look what happened,” both Ria and Vic said together and then grinned as if they had achieved Laurel and Hardy’s perfect comic timing.
The grins lasted for precisely two seconds.
“It’s okay to smile in my presence, you know,” he wanted to say. Instead he took his cup to the dining table. “Baba’s at work already?” He turned away from Ria’s and Vic’s guilty faces and faced his aie.
“Of course.” She brought a plate of spiced flaky rice to the table and set it in front of him. “Did you want to wait for your friend for breakfast?” She nudged the plate of rice toward him.
“She’ll be down soon.”
All three of them were studying him. He put a spoonful of the fluffy rice in his mouth, and instead of answering the questions in their eyes he turned to Vic and said, “I need to get to Jen’s stuff.”
Vic froze.
His mother slumped against a chair.
Ria clutched her stomach.
Nikhil ignored the stricken faces of the women he loved so much and kept his focus on Vic. “The things you had shipped from Mumbai. Are they here?”
Vic allowed the muscle in his jaw one twitch. “Some are here in the basement. I started to mov
e them to your apartment, but then I wasn’t sure what you wanted to do so I stopped.”
Nikhil took another bite of the spicy yellow rice flakes dotted with fresh green peas. Take one bite. Then another. “Thanks. Jess and I were going to go through the stuff in the basement today.”
Another chorus of indrawn breaths.
Ria and his mother both opened their mouths, then shut them again and looked at each other. A silent message passed between them. Except it wasn’t silent at all.
“Say what you want to say,” he almost said. But he couldn’t bring himself to say it because he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear what they were thinking.
“Anything specific you’re looking to find?” his mother asked over her cup of tea. Another gesture so familiar, he hated it. And loved it. This was her nonchalant pose, her nonchalant tone. When she was dying of curiosity but didn’t want to put him on guard. So have you asked anyone to the homecoming dance? Do you feel ready for the test?
Always no to the first one. Always yes to the second.
The spoon shook in his hand. He put it down. Oh, I’m just going to be looking for the thing she killed herself for. How did you tell your mother something like that?
“Are you planning to get rid of things?” she pushed, surprising him.
“Of course not.”
“If you want, we can take care of it,” Vic interjected.
“No. I got it.”
“Do you need help? I can—” Vic said again.
“I said no.” It came out much harsher than Nikhil had intended. “Thanks. Seriously, I got it, Vic,” he said much more calmly.
Ria looked like Nikhil had slapped Vikram. It pissed him off so bad he gripped the table to keep from pushing the chair back and leaving the kitchen. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d experienced the all-too-familiar feeling of being left out of their tight little circle of two. It had been the bane of his childhood. Although, until this moment, he’d never admitted it to anyone, not even to himself.
