My Last Love Story

by Falguni Kothari

  “Nirvaan moved his hand? Why haven’t you told us?” gasped Nisha from behind me.

  Crap. She’d snuck up on us.

  I tensed up. My first instinct was to take the backseat again, let Zayaan explain it to her, to everyone. But I owed it to my in-laws to tell them myself. I sat them down, even Nisha and Ba, and told them everything. Just as I’d feared, it became a big deal—which it was—but the hope reflected on their faces curdled my belly.

  Khodai, please don’t let me be wrong, I prayed over and over, all day long. I couldn’t be mistaken about this, for their sake. And Nirvaan’s…and mine.

  I wasn’t wrong, but I hadn’t been right either.

  It had been an involuntary movement, which wasn’t nothing, as any movement exhibited by a comatose patient was considered a good sign by doctors. They said Nirvaan was in a deep coma right now. He was a three on the Glasgow Coma Scale. But he was showing signs of improvement.

  The only obstacle was the tumor, which would kill him if left untreated. One team of doctors suggested we cut it out to save his life, as repeated radiation would be worse for him in the long run. The other team explained, if we cut out that much of his brain, he might remain in a comatose state or shift into a vegetative state, which might eventually improve to a semi-functional state with therapy, medications, and luck. Or might not.

  Nirvaan had disdained both those options. His living will was proof of it. But if there were a chance, the slightest chance of him waking up, then none of us was going to squander it.

  Zayaan deliberated over the options with the whole family, with the doctors, and sometimes alone. I didn’t offer an opinion or judgment. I didn’t wish to confuse him, and I’d done my part. My husband had freed me from this responsibility, and I refused to feel guilty for wallowing in it. Zayaan and my in-laws sought second, third, fourth opinions. There was talk of moving Nirvaan to a big city hospital, but it came to naught. I kept silent through it all. I trusted Zayaan to do the right thing by us, as much as Nirvaan had. As much as my in-laws were putting their trust in him.

  Some days, Zayaan would ask me what Nirvaan would have wanted, what he’d have wished us to do. I kept silent then, too. What could I say? That we shouldn’t do everything in our power to save him? That we should let him die like he’d wanted—with grace and dignity? I wasn’t that brave.

  Besides, Zayaan knew Nirvaan’s heart better than anyone else.

  Nirvaan had been in a coma for six weeks when we finally decided to go ahead with the surgery. The dissipated friends and relatives began to flock the waiting room again. People began arriving from out of the country. Zayaan’s mother came, offering solace to my in-laws and a shoulder to her son. I kept out of her way.

  The surgery went well. The bomb inside Nirvaan’s brain was defused. The day he opened his eyes, we all cried—not in joy or relief, but in remorse. Nirvaan had opened his eyes, but he recognized no one. He’d opened his eyes to oblivion.

  The doctors explained that it was normal. Nirvaan exhibited adequate lower-brain function, which regulated his breathing, heart rate, and sleep cycle without external aid. He exhibited some upper-brain-stem function, which allowed him to open and shut his eyes. After a few months of therapy, he’d also manage to make sounds.

  “Not speak, mind you,” Dr. Unger warned.

  That would take years, if ever. Nirvaan would be in the hospital for another few months or until he could walk on his own. He could go home then—under strict care and vigilance, of course.

  “He’ll need to be fed, bathed, walked, washed, and supervised at all times, just like a baby.”

  It was official. Through the noblesse oblige of the healthy, we’d made Nirvaan into the very thing he’d dreaded the most—a vegetable.

  Grief was an ocean inside me. Some days, it would well up in my body like high tide, crashing against my self-possession, pouring out of my eyes and mouth and nose in salty rivers. Other days, it would lap at my insides—quiet, familiar, soothing, a little condescending.

  He isn’t dead, my conscience reminded me, so quit behaving like a widow.

  Was it selfish of me and callous to think Nirvaan would be better off dead? To think that, now, I was stuck with his care forever while the rest of the family got on with their lives?

  Maybe. But I did think it. And it was true.

  Everyone left within a week of Nirvaan’s awakening. The world hadn’t stopped spinning while he was ill. There were things to do, businesses to run, bills to pay, and families to think of.

  Eventually, only my mother-in-law, Zayaan, his mother, and I remained by Nirvaan’s side. They’d moved him into his own room with his own twenty-four-hour nurse. Beatrice was a wonder, and miracle of miracles, she’d be coming home with us as Nirvaan’s live-in nurse.

  The Carmel beach house had undergone a major renovation during the months Nirvaan was in the hospital. It was fitted with ramps for wheelchair access and an invalid shower, expanded to fit a couple of more bedrooms than it had originally boasted. I didn’t know how my father-in-law had finessed the purchase from its previous owner, but I guessed he’d paid an arm and a leg for it.

  Had I mentioned lately what a blessing money was? If I hadn’t, I’d been remiss.

  That we could gut the house and make it habitable for Nirvaan or afford a twenty-four-hour caregiver or do a million other things to improve his quality of life made the guilt of what I’d done a little easier to bear. I might balk at the thought of taking care of Nirvaan—living with this strange new Nirvaan—but with Beatrice by my side, I knew I could do it. I had to do it. After all, if I hadn’t felt him move, things might’ve worked out differently.

  I didn’t know why I’d decided to stay on in Carmel-by-the-Sea and not move to LA and in with my in-laws. I just knew I wanted to be alone with my husband, cocooned and trapped in our miniature snow-globe world.

  I didn’t know what Zayaan was going to do now that things were settled and I had Beatrice. I hoped he’d go back to London soon. I’d made sure he wouldn’t come home with us. A few times when Nirvaan’s aunts had lorded over the waiting area, I’d whispered a ghost of a scandal into their ears.

  “Are you coming home, Zai?” I’d ask aloud in their hearing.

  To the gossip queens, the question had taken on a vulgar cadence. They’d stared at us, and they hadn’t stopped staring since.

  Imagining what they whispered behind our backs had become my pastime.

  “Haw. Look at the chit. Husband in a coma, and she’s worried about Zayaan’s dinner.”

  “Best friend, shmest friend. Lord knows what goes on in that house when no one’s looking.”

  After that, Zayaan had made sure he was never home at the same time I was.

  The very next day, I got my answer with regard to Zayaan. He would be leaving for London with his mother within the week.

  “Sana’s wedding is next month, and I need him there. There’s so much still to be done,” Zayaan’s mother explained to my mother-in-law.

  “Of course, Gulzar, he needs to be there for his sister. Zayaan beta, don’t worry about anything. Nirvaan is doing well, and Simeen and I are here. Your poor mother can’t do this alone. Your family needs you. Weddings are a lot of work, beta,” said my mother-in-law.

  What else was she supposed to say?

  Zayaan argued that he could fly there the week of the wedding and fly back right after, but both mothers were adamant.

  “Life must go on,” my mother-in-law said to him.

  And there was no need for everyone to sit around in the hospital.

  He glared at them. Then, he glared at me, but I refused to give my opinion or save him. This was not my fight. And I didn’t want him here. Finally, frustrated, he said he’d think about it.

  There was a life truth that I’d come to realize all on my own. That the vices we abhorred in people we hated became virtues in the ones we loved.

  Feroza Batliwala had been a possessive mother. She’d judged and found lacking
a good chunk of my brothers’ and my friends. She’d always had a thing or two to say about Surin’s and Sarvar’s girlfriends, and I was positive she would have had issues with Nirvaan and Zayaan, too. No one had been good enough for her beautiful and clever babies.

  Gulzar Begum was no different. But the difference between her and my mother was, my mother wouldn’t have allowed an atrocity to occur in her home.

  Somehow, I found myself alone with Gulzar Begum inside Nirvaan’s room that afternoon. I would’ve walked away, but I didn’t want to leave Nirvaan alone with the witch.

  “Are you happy now?” she began without preamble, confirming my suspicion that she’d planned for us to be alone all along.

  Happy? She thought my husband in such a state made me happy?

  I sat at the foot of Nirvaan’s bed, massaging his feet, like the physiotherapist had shown me to do to strengthen circulation. I cursed Beatrice for taking her tea break at this very hour.

  “You need to tell him that you’re fine. He has a lot of things to take care of back home,” she said, unconcerned that I hadn’t replied or that I wasn’t even looking at her.

  And I was right. Zayaan’s “I’ll think about it” had been too ambiguous an answer for her. I also understood her insecurity. Her precious son had looked at me for guidance instead of agreeing with his beloved ummi. Oh, she must be seething with hatred for me inside.

  Did it make me a horrible person to be dancing with glee inside?

  “His sister needs him. Don’t you see?”

  The woman was persistent, wasn’t she?

  “He’ll be there for Sana. Sofia, too. Zayaan knows his responsibilities,” I said so she’d leave. And if he dared forget, Ummi Dearest would remind him, surely.

  “He used to know his responsibilities before he came here. Now, I see he can’t even take care of his own self. He’s lost weight. He looks sick. This is not good for him. Don’t you see?”

  I heard desperation in her words and hated the twinge of sympathy in my gut. In another universe, I would’ve empathized with this mother whose only son, the only support raft she had left in the world, seemed to be drifting away from the shore she was standing on.

  “Let him go. Don’t you have any compassion in your heart? You have a husband. Take care of him. Be happy in that. What more do you need?”

  I lifted my eyes from my husband’s unresponsive face, staring daggers at Gulzar Begum.

  What more do I need? Had she really said that to me? How about a whole husband? How about my virginity back that your devil spawn had taken from me? How about my self-esteem, my pride, my parents?

  I could’ve told her that she needn’t pitch a fit because Zayaan and I were done. I could’ve eased her agony and assured her that her son was hers and hers alone.

  I didn’t.

  She was right. I wasn’t a compassionate woman.

  Not with her.

  But Gulzar Begum had never learned to retreat while ahead. “Maybe I should tell him about Rizvaan and you. Maybe then he’ll know what kind of person you are.”

  I stared at her jowly face for one second too long. “Be my guest. Let’s see which one of us he despises the most then,” I said calmly. Then, I turned back to massaging Nirvaan’s feet, dismissing the nasty woman and her empty threats.

  When the day came, I didn’t say good-bye to Zayaan. I made my mother-in-law wish him and his mother a safe journey back to London because I was afraid if I saw him, I’d ask him to stay. And that was about as generous as I could be with that family.

  Sorrow and loss touched everyone. They came at the unlikeliest of moments, robbing us of breath and speech, our souls even. But it was in such moments that we faced our true character. It was in these moments that we manufactured our best courage.

  Ba died before we brought Nirvaan home from the hospital.

  She died with grace and dignity. She went to sleep one night and never woke up. If Khodai would grant me one wish, I’d wish such a death for all the people I loved.

  I’d miss her. Of course, I’d miss her, but I was tapped out of tears and had nothing left to drum up for her. I was past my grief, past anger, past helplessness. I was blessedly numb. And knowing Ba, she’d have tut-tutted anyone who’d lament a life long and well lived.

  If a ninety-eight-year-old dosi isn’t meant to die, who on earth is? I imagined her saying.

  As soon as we received the news, I drove my mother-in-law to the closest airport to catch the next flight out to LA. I didn’t attend Ba’s funeral. I wouldn’t leave Nirvaan. I didn’t want to even if we had Beatrice. And I told my mother-in-law not to hurry back.

  “We’ll be fine. He’ll be in the hospital for another month. And there’s Beatrice.”

  “I know he’ll be fine,” said Kiran Desai, giving me a watery smile.

  She’d aged in these last months. Lines of fatigue and worry crowded around her mouth and eyes. Even my father-in-law, who hadn’t had a single gray hair on his head, had a line of them sprouting along his temple and sideburns. Time was catching up with all of us.

  “It’s not only him I worry about, beta.”

  She meant me. Another hot poker of guilt stabbed me in the stomach, letting me know I wasn’t completely numb after all.

  “Don’t worry about me, please. Nirvaan and Ba both believed I was strong. And I am, you know.” I crossed my fingers, hoping I hadn’t jinxed myself.

  “I know you are, but that’s not what I meant,” she said as I pulled into the airport.

  I parked the Jeep in the lot and rolled my mother-in-law’s bag into the terminal for her. It didn’t take us five minutes to check in. The flight was not full, but the airport was small enough to feel full even though there weren’t many passengers in the afternoon. I bought us two cups of coffee, and we sat side by side on the plastic chairs of the terminal until her flight boarded.

  My mother-in-law blew into her coffee cup, which I’d left lidless to cool fast. “Eight years ago, I didn’t take the news of your engagement too kindly. I thought it was a mistake for the two of you to marry.” She gave me a sideways glance, much like her son used to.

  My heart squeezed tight, and I willed it to stop aching. He’d looked so stunned when I’d proposed to him. He’d been happy, nervous, confused. He’d argued I should wait for Zayaan to fly down from London, wait until all three of us were together again before I made any decisions. I’d refused to wait, and I’d given Nirvaan no choice but to answer me that day.

  “Because I wasn’t Hindu?” I guessed tentatively.

  Community standing meant a lot to my in-laws, and as a rule, Gujarati Hindus tended to marry within their community—or at the very least, into similar belief systems. Nirvaan’s friends had openly expressed shock and envy that he’d married a Parsi woman without his parents going ballistic.

  “That was one reason. Another was, you were too young. Nirvaan was a foolish young man. A flibbertigibbet. Brash. Insensitive. I didn’t think he was ready to settle down. Ready to focus on one person or be a husband. But there wasn’t only one person, was there?”

  I choked on my coffee, and my mother-in-law obligingly thumped my back. “Sorry?”

  “You forget, beta, I’ve seen the three of you grow up. I know you love my son, and he loves you, but you feel something for Zayaan, too. And I don’t know what it is between those two boys, but it’s more than friendship.” Suddenly earnest, she twisted her compact body toward me. “I don’t know what happened between you and Zayaan, but if you think it’s us…that we won’t approve…that’s not true. Nirvaan would want you to be happy…both of you. We do, too, beta.”

  “What…what do you mean?” I stuttered, aghast by what I was hearing.

  “Twenty-eight years ago, I didn’t trust my feelings, and I let your father-in-law convince me if we had enough money, all our troubles would end. I left my children in the care of others. I didn’t see them again for eleven years, and by then, they were not my children anymore. I will regret leaving
them for the rest of my life. What I’m saying is, relationships matter, beta. All relationships. But the special ones matter the most. Don’t live in regret, Simeen. It’s not worth it.”

  The conversation floored me.

  After we hugged good-bye and cried buckets, she boarded the flight, and her plane took off. I sat in the car, watching it fade into the clouds. I was still shocked. I couldn’t believe what she’d said. I didn’t know if I could live without regret in this life, but the fact that my mother-in-law cared for me like my own mother had was enough to make me weep.

  I was surrounded by brave people, had been all my life. I realized then that I could be no less. I couldn’t insult them by being less. I’d been afraid for an eternity, not truly living life but just waiting for death to happen. I’d always considered myself an unlucky person, Khodai’s least favorite human, but now, I thought—no, now, I knew I was the luckiest person in the world. Lucky to have known my parents and Ba and Mukhi Saheb, lucky to know the Desai clan, my brothers, and, yes, even Nisha. But most of all, I’d been so very, very lucky to have known and loved Nirvaan.

  Suddenly determined, I blew my nose and strapped on my seat belt. Setting the gear to D, I drove back to the hospital via the fertility clinic. I wasn’t going to be scared of this thing called love anymore, no matter its risks.

  I was going to have Nirvaan’s baby.

  Life once again became a triangle between the hospital, the beach house, and the clinic.

  My IVF cycle was shorter this time. I didn’t have to ovulate and retrieve eggs or even wait for my oocytes to be fertilized. My frozen zygotes were ready to be inserted into me as soon as my womb was ready for gestation.

  I was put on the daily dose of progesterone again, and I steeled up and shot myself in the upper thigh daily. It was infinitely more painful in the thigh muscle, and my skin bruised, as if I had gangrene, but I persevered with loads of ice and gritted teeth.