by Saumya Dave
And then what happened with Natasha and Anita made her question everything she filled her days with. Every school lunch she packed, every dish she scrubbed, every countertop she wiped—all of it now seemed to mock her. She hates that her insecurity can be this flimsy, this malleable. Just when she thought it was small enough to be tucked away, something like this happens, and she feels it expanding, consuming all of her.
“There’s nothing we can do,” Deepak says. “You have to let this all go.”
Natasha would be thrilled to hear her dad say this. She idolizes Deepak. All three of their kids do in different ways. They don’t have to pick up his socks or cook him elaborate Gujarati meals. Deepak has a habit of making a grand announcement after doing one chore and then disappearing into their library, where he spends hours buried in a psychiatry textbook. He is so brainy. He is so clueless.
“I can’t just let it go,” Bina says. “This is a big deal.”
Deepak squeezes her shoulders. “I know. But you’ll talk it out with Anita on one of your morning walks and we will all move on.”
Bina sighs. Deepak knows about her morning walks and every other part of her day since he’s been home more after scaling down at work. She gets irritated, then feels guilty for being irritated, at the nonstop questions. Do you always drink that many cups of chai every morning? Why do you chop okra on the cutting board and then carrots on the counter? Are you still on the phone? What’s that you’re looking at on Facebook?
In those moments, she tells herself that it’s just ordinary, run-of-the-mill marital tension. It’ll go away soon enough and make space for other things. Marriage allows different emotions to run side by side. Pride and annoyance. Gratitude and frustration.
Friendship does that, too, or at least, that’s what she always thought until now.
“I’m sure Anita hasn’t told anyone about the proposal,” Deepak says, reading her face.
“She definitely hasn’t. And I know she won’t,” Bina agrees. “She’s always run away from talking things out. She’d rather pretend they didn’t happen at all.”
Bina should just scamper across the parking lot and yell it to everyone, the way the Bina of thirty years ago would have. The wedding I’ve been hyping up to all of you isn’t going to happen! Thank you and have a nice day! She pictures the expressions on their faces, the fusion of embarrassment and relief that will build up inside her after the news is out.
“Anyway, I’m fine,” Bina says.
“You’re not and it’s okay,” Deepak says.
Deepak has been able to tell how she is really feeling since the day they met. He came to one of her plays in Bombay and stayed backstage just to speak with her. She immediately noticed his round glasses and the gentleness in his eyes, a combination that made him look inquisitive and curious, like the type of man who stared at a painting and wanted to discuss how it made him feel. His fingers were long and muscular. That night, she’d learn those fingers had helped him play the piano since he was five years old. Years later, Deepak would pass his artistic sensitivity to their son.
They talked until the theater closed and then went to Havmor Ice Cream, where he ordered two large scoops of butterscotch. She stood next to him and watched the way he made the cashier laugh. He carried himself with a sense of confidence that seemed rooted in ease, in being content with who he was, instead of ego like so many of the other slick, rich men who had tried to court her.
An hour later, they sat outside and watched motorcycles and rickshaws putter by as Bombay came alive for the evening. The smell of sugar and the summer air, damp from a recent monsoon, made Bina feel young and full of possibility. Street vendors shouted, “Fresh samosa! Cold soda!” In the high-rise apartments, televisions were turning to the evening news or latest Hindi soap opera. Families started their evening walks. Men wore white cotton tops with work slacks and the women were in jeans or flowing dresses.
Deepak leaned against a cool slab of stone and told Bina he knew she was scared while she performed. I could see it on your face, he said. This was years before her confidence would be taken from her, before she’d promise to make sure her future children never doubted themselves the way she did. Bina had been approached by many men by then (with five marriage proposals!), but none of them had the insight to point out her vulnerability or even care about it in the first place. She could be open with this man. She could be herself. She called her parents that night and told them she’d met her husband.
Ma was waiting for Bina when she got home. She was sitting at the dining table, next to a decorative plate with Queen Elizabeth’s face on it. Both of Bina’s parents loved collecting British royalty memorabilia. Ma’s stern expression seemed to match the queen’s. You’re making the biggest mistake of your life. That man won’t be able to provide you with any of the things you’re used to.
Ma wasn’t wrong about the latter part. One week later, Bina sneaked out of her parents’ gated house in the middle of the night, to where Deepak waited on his motorcycle two streets away. They moved into the first floor of his college friend’s house, where every time Bina had to use the bathroom, she took three flights of rickety stairs to the terrace and hoped that the common toilet was free. She channeled any doubt or frustration into her work, into every role she auditioned for. There were plenty of Bollywood parts where a woman left her family and defied the odds with her husband. A part of Bina relished this overlap between art and life.
But then it happened.
Bina’s parents were sure Deepak would leave her after the first incident. But Deepak was at her bedside every single day. He brought her Havmor ice cream and met with the doctors. When she was discharged, he pushed her to act again, find a new project, a new group of people who wouldn’t hold what had happened against her.
It happened again one week after Suhani was born. Bina had no idea that giving birth would turn her emotions into tiny tornados, ready to destroy everything in their path. By then, Deepak was in med school and too busy to give Bina the support she needed with the baby. She begged for her parents to take her back, just until she got into a good rhythm. And even though they agreed, it was clear within hours that things between them had permanently shifted.
During that first month postpartum, Bina stayed up every night in her hard, flat childhood bed while beads of milk or sweat trickled down her sore breasts and still-swollen stomach. Ma and Papa didn’t have a full-length mirror so it would be weeks before Bina realized how unrecognizable her body was. Not that she had any mental space to focus on herself. She felt like she was underwater, constantly holding her breath. Every ten minutes, she pressed her hand against Suhani’s tiny chest and made sure it was still rising and falling. When she told Deepak about her nonstop visions of something bad happening to Suhani, he took her to the doctor, who gave her a one-word diagnosis: hormones. There wasn’t enough known about women’s minds after giving birth to really say much else. The doctor wrote down a prescription and slid it toward them facedown, as if it was a secret. Routine and stability are key to helping things get back to normal, he said. I don’t think acting is in your future. In a matter of months, Bina went from working next to the biggest movie stars in India to taking orders from Ma on how to just “get over it,” “pray harder,” and “be stronger.”
On Suhani’s first birthday, Deepak got a call from a classmate who had moved to Georgia and told him there might be a spot in the residency program the following year. They left the day after their visa was finalized. Deepak worked the overnight shift as a cashier at a gas station in Atlanta. It was the only job that gave him the flexibility to study for his boards and later apply for residency at Atlanta Memorial Hospital.
They lived in a family friend’s windowless, mildewed basement during their first five years in Georgia. The adjustment wasn’t difficult for Deepak, who was used to sleeping next to family members on the floor of the cramped bungalow he grew up i
n. Bina did her best to focus on their future. America was there to free them, give them the luxury to build a new life away from any judgment.
But after Deepak started residency and Suhani was enrolled in daycare, the endless days Bina spent alone suffocated her. A neighbor’s son made fun of her accent the first time she tried to say hi. They couldn’t afford cable or even the gasoline required to make a trip to the area’s only Indian grocery store. Her hours went by in a blur of cleaning and cooking and folding and pleasing. She wondered if the problem was really her, if she wouldn’t be accepted anywhere. Acting had been her way to slip into different identities, but here, there was no audience for her work, nobody who cared that she was once on her way to becoming someone. She had to face herself. Her raw, real self.
I’m going to lose it in this country, she told Deepak after one of his weekend call shifts. We have to go back to India even if that means we failed and couldn’t make it here.
They looked up which tickets to Bombay they could afford and lugged their only giant suitcase out from under the bed. The next day, Deepak came home from the hospital and told Bina about Jiten, the only other South Asian doctor he’d met at Atlanta Memorial. They invited Jiten and Anita to their basement apartment, where the four of them ate sautéed chickpeas, rice with yogurt, and lentils. They bonded over their shared love and longing for Bombay as Suhani read her beloved Corduroy book.
Bina was sure that her excitement at being able to converse with someone besides Deepak came on too strong. But Anita showed up the next morning with a Tupperware container full of mamra. They shared the puffed rice and cups of chai on a rickety side table Deepak had found at Goodwill. Anita launched into a slew of complaints about their husbands’ long hours, the lavish life she left behind in Bombay, and the racist landlord who scowled at her every time she got the mail.
Yes! This is the real her! Bina thought as she relished the catharsis that could only come from freely bitching with another woman.
After that morning, they saw each other every day. Their bond reminded Bina of the kind she’d had with girls when she was in school, rooted in circumstance but sustained by a natural, easy chemistry. Suddenly, all the mundane things that filled Bina’s days had a purpose because someone else, someone she cared about, was doing them, too. They both made sure chai was on the table every morning and hot, cumin-spiced food was on the table every night. They both changed bedsheets and ironed dress shirts. They carpooled to the Indian grocery store to pick out the best okra, packages of spices that gleamed like jewels, and Cadbury chocolates. When their husbands worked thirty-six-hour shifts, they spent afternoons at each other’s homes, sharing everything from OshKosh B’gosh baby clothes to recipes for vegetarian dishes to childhood stories about Bombay. They piled tiny plates with stacks of Oreos, wrapped their babies in hand-block-printed shawls from Rajasthan, and watched The Bold and the Beautiful. They picked each other’s families up from the airport. They learned the intricacies of a new country that seemed to oscillate between embracing and rejecting them. They co-planned birthday and anniversary parties with, first, Carvel cakes from the grocery store’s frozen section and, later, tiered cakes from a hole-in-the-wall bakery. They learned to speak English without a Gujarati accent and then came to the realization that speaking with an accent didn’t make them any less American.
Bina sees all that in a blur now, all those moments that created the scaffolding of their relationship. “I just keep wondering where we—I—went wrong. Natasha has taken us on a ride plenty of times, but it’s as though she’s committed to being self-destructive.”
Deepak gives her the same sympathetic look she imagines he gives his patients when they’re in the midst of a crisis. “We have to separate ourselves from what she does. Our kids are adults.”
Of course, Bina accepted a long time ago that there are parts of her children she won’t have access to. She’s heard them lower their voices to whispers late at night, seen them minimize the windows on their laptop screens, and known they put the private settings on their social media accounts. But Suhani and Anuj always made sense to her. Natasha was always equal parts known and unknown, familiar and terrifying.
“You’re always so easy on her,” Bina says. “And look at where we are now!”
“So you’re blaming me for all this?”
Bina sighs. “I didn’t say that. It’s just that obviously, at some point, we didn’t do what she needed.”
Mothers might have trouble admitting where they’ve gone wrong out loud, but they think about it all the time. Bina returns to a thought that she only visits in her lowest moments: I deserve this. Ma warned her she’d one day have a daughter who failed her, and only then would she know how it all felt. But until now, Bina never really believed disappointment would be their family heirloom.
“Or we did everything, and at the end of the day, she’s her own person,” Deepak says.
“That sounds nice, but you and I both know that everyone blames the mother when things go wrong with a kid.” Bina purses her lips, which are painted with a new bright-pink shade Suhani bought her from Sephora.
“I’m going to give you some space. It’ll be good for you to just not think about this for a little while, okay?” Deepak says in his calmest, most composed psychiatrist voice before he saunters into the parking lot.
I don’t want space or solutions! Bina wants to say. I just want to vent!
As he walks away, she wonders if her irritation at his being home more is less about him and more about her. Maybe it reminds her that she didn’t do enough with her own life.
“Bina! Are you okay?” Kavita, one of her and Anita’s closest friends, approaches her.
Bina forces a smile. “Of course. How are you?” One of the best parts of her acting background is that she can always rearrange her face at a moment’s notice to convey exactly what she needs. Devi once told Bina she could teach a class on just facial expressions.
“Great! Where can I put these?” Kavita motions to the giant tray of naan in her hands. Pockets of butter and garlic are collecting in the folds of the puffy bread.
Bina sees Mira behind Kavita, carrying a large bowlful of gulab jamun. As much as everyone loves the fried doughnuts, Bina wishes that her friends had listened to her when she said to bring healthy food.
“Ah, thank you for bringing this. I have a special table back here for you.” Bina points to a corner away from the temple parking lot. The Indians will all congregate around here anyway. She’s tried, again and again, to promote intermingling between her Indian and non-Indian friends, but it’s useless. Kavita and Mira often switch to speaking in Gujarati so they can chatter without being understood.
Both Kavita’s and Mira’s husbands did their residency at Atlanta Memorial Hospital two years after Deepak and Jiten. Everything about them is entertaining, from the bright-colored saris they always wear to the way they oscillate between talking trash one second and seeming polite and well behaved the next.
“Push our dishes closer together,” Kavita instructs Mira. “I want to put them both on my Instagram.”
“A story or picture post?” Mira asks.
“Obviously, a story,” Kavita says. “They aren’t pretty enough for a permanent post!”
Bina leaves them as they’re discussing the perfect filter. Her friends are obsessed with social media. They’ve mastered how to use filters and recently started incorporating GIFs into their text messages. Kavita is especially quick with sending ones with the perfect responses. Bina overused her favorite GIF, of Oprah cheering in a powerful red suit.
Bina rejoins Kavita and Mira as they’re exchanging the latest complaints about their mothers-in-law. She needs her chai right in front of her, three times a day, like some kind of high-powered executive. And every day is a different health complaint!
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you both about an idea Anita and I have been wor
king on. If you’re both free next month . . .” Bina trails off as she notices Anita emerging from her periphery, as if she appeared on cue.
I miss you, Bina thinks as she takes in Anita’s blue floral wrap dress, the one Bina picked out for her during their last trip to the outlet stores. A large bowl of mango rus is in her hands. Bina feels a stab of sadness as she inhales the aroma of the sweet dish. Anita knows it’s Bina’s favorite thing to have in the summer. It’s no coincidence that she made it today.
To Bina’s surprise, relief washes over her. Maybe Deepak was right. They’ll talk everything out now and things will start to get back to the way they’re supposed to be.
“How are you?” Bina reaches out to hug her best friend. There’s safety and security from just knowing she’s right here, next to her.
But Anita’s entire body stiffens. “Fine. Just fine.” There are prominent lines on her forehead. Her pointy chin is trembling. One of the best things about Anita is that her face always gives her away. From the moment they met, Bina felt that gave her a sense of sincerity.
“No, really,” Bina presses. “Are you okay? We haven’t talked in days.”
Anita’s face tightens. She hates confrontation, while Bina thrives on it, always has.
Before Bina can say anything else, Kavita interrupts them. “Haaaaash, have you seen Sonam’s latest Facebook post?”
“What about it?” Bina asks, hoping Anita will jump in.
“She wrote this very long nonsense about how she believes men ‘need to do more housework’ and how she feels that her future husband better be ready to ‘pull his weight.’ And then she ends it with some research on ‘emotional labor.’ Can you believe that?!”
