My Last Love Story

by Falguni Kothari

  Sarvar would drive down to Carmel every weekend to keep me from becoming an island unto myself. I didn’t quit my daytime vigil at the hospital, but on weekends, with Sarvar, I learned how to chill again.

  Ba’s funeral became the talk of the community. The entire world, it seemed, had shown up at her wake—or what the Gujaratis called the oothamnu. Following it, for thirteen days, hordes of people came to the mansion to pay their respects and mourn with the family.

  Hindus cremated their dead and scattered the ashes over a body of holy water or a place dear to the departed one. We Parsis were a bit more macabre with our death customs. We simply dropped the body into the dakhma, the Tower of Silence—which, ironically, was a waterless well dug deep into the ground of the cemetery—and let vultures swoop down and devour the dead. Something to do with the cycle of life, a convoluted form of the ashes-to-ashes and dust-to-dust theme, I believed.

  “I think I prefer cremation myself,” I told my brother one December evening as I lounged in bed, encouraging Tickles the Zygote to take root in my womb. I was meant to relax for twenty-four hours, but I was playing it safe, and it was nigh coming on thirty-six now.

  Sarvar had been with Nirvaan all day these three days, giving me the peace of mind I needed to get pregnant.

  “Unnecessarily morbid, Sissy,” he said, arranging an X-massy scarf around his neck before pulling a knit cap over his head.

  He was driving back to San Jose tonight for Zeus’s holiday party. I was sad to see him go, but I guessed not everyone enjoyed being a recluse.

  “Well, under the circumstances, can you blame me?” I was surrounded by death and disease. Only the life growing in my womb—please, Khodai, let it have taken root—kept me from floating away like a ghostly waif into the beyond. I needed Tickles to anchor me to this world.

  Sarvar turned from the mirror in my bathroom. “Will you be okay?”

  “Yes. I promise I won’t jump into the car and drive to the hospital as soon as you leave. I talked with Beatrice, and Nirvaan is already down for the night. I’ll wait until tomorrow to bounce in—well, not bounce, but you know what I mean. Go to your party. Have fun. Have a shot of tequila for me. Besides”—I picked up my Kindle and waved it at him—“I have my sexy new book boyfriend to keep me company—a tall redheaded highlander in a kilt, no less.”

  Loneliness didn’t bother me. And this was a good kind of alone. My in-laws were in India to scatter Ba’s ashes over the plot of land Bapuji had married her for, as per her wishes, and weren’t due back for another couple of weeks. Ba had been an Indian citizen, and there were formalities to be completed, a charity to be set up in her name. I hoped to give them some good news on their return.

  Smiling, I ran a hand over my stomach, wondering if Tickles liked being inside me. No, I wasn’t alone anymore.

  “I’d feel better if you came with me,” my brother reiterated.

  I groaned. “Quit treating me like an invalid, and get going.”

  Sarvar kissed my forehead and my nose, which he possessed a twin of, and then he stood around, looking reluctant again. I literally pushed him out the door then. Shaking my head and grinning, I locked up behind him.

  Not fifteen minutes later, the doorbell rang, and I rolled my eyes, feeling both cherished and irritated at the same time.

  “You just can’t help hovering, can you?” I scolded, opening the door.

  I’d expected Sarvar, so I was beyond flabbergasted to find Zayaan on my stoop.

  What is he doing here?

  A zillion emotions, beginning with shock, saturated the entirety of my being with the force of a typhoon. I grabbed the door for support and hoped I wouldn’t get washed away, like so much debris. I wished for Nirvaan then. I yearned for the bright sunlit strength of my husband’s love to keep me from drowning into the depths of the past.

  Zayaan couldn’t know about the baby. Sarvar had promised he wouldn’t tell.

  “You look terrible.” I released the door and walked into the living room. I didn’t want to do or say anything I’d regret even though regret between Zayaan and me was as inevitable as Nirvaan’s passing.

  I wasn’t surprised by the visit itself. I’d expected him to come back to see Nirvaan. Of course, I had. Plus, his things were still here—some of his clothes, his papers, his nifty work gadgets. And I knew he’d return when he heard about the baby. Zayaan would be Tickles’s godfather. I’d made peace with that promise, too. The timing of this visit surprised me though. Wasn’t his sister’s wedding next week? I wondered if his mother knew where he was.

  “You could’ve let me know you were coming.” I sat down on the sofa before my legs gave away beneath me.

  The door whispered shut. Without a word or explanation, Zayaan walked across the living room to stand in front of the patio doors, which remained closed at all times now.

  I didn’t go out onto the deck. I couldn’t yet. It held too many ghosts. But I’d watch the sun rise and fall through the glass every day.

  Right now, the sleeping water and the sickle moon made an interesting backdrop, and I focused on it rather than Zayaan’s confusing reappearance in Carmel. I wasn’t prepared for this visit. I’d thought I had more time to sort things out in my head. I needed more time.

  “I’m surprised you cleared immigration,” I remarked, half in jest, half in terror. Dear God, I totally, positively wasn’t prepared to deal with him right now.

  Scruffy and dangerous, he gave the impression of a bomb about to go off. His hair was overlong and curled over his nape, and he had a full thick beard on his face. He mustn’t have shaved in days. His jeans and sweater were limp, and the scarf around his neck seemed more like a hangman’s noose than protective gear. In short, he looked like his brother.

  The good part? I didn’t panic. I was calm. I wouldn’t let the writhing snakes anywhere near Tickles’s home in my womb.

  “Are you hungry? There’s plenty of food in the fridge,” I said when I got tired of measuring the width of Zayaan’s shoulders.

  He turned around, shaking his head. His eyes fell on the game controls on the coffee table. All four were labeled—N, S, Z, and G for guest. I hadn’t flinched at his appearance, but Zayaan did.

  “I ate with Nirvaan when I stopped by the hospital from the airport.”

  Of course, he had. Nirvaan would always come between us. He’d always come first.

  “He looks better,” Zayaan said starkly.

  I nodded in agreement.

  Nirvaan’s eyes would follow movement about the hospital room sometimes. I liked to believe they fixed on me more than Beatrice or Sarvar or any of the hospital staff. His doctors agreed that if there were no more setbacks, I could bring him home in a month.

  “Why did you push me away?”

  My skin pebbled into gooseflesh, as if I were standing on the beach on this cold winter night, even though I sat close to a raging fire. I closed my eyes against the naked anguish on Zayaan’s face. Like the painting, Shattered Dreams.

  I didn’t want to have this conversation tonight. I couldn’t be tense tonight. Why had he come tonight of all nights?

  “What are you hiding?” A bite of rage colored his voice.

  I opened my eyes to gauge his meaning. What did he think I was hiding? Who had he been talking to? A million likely scenarios ballooned in my head. I’d never believe his mother had fessed up her sins. She wasn’t the star of this show. Nothing was making sense tonight.

  “Surin said we should talk…come clean with each other. What did he mean by it?”

  “My brother Surin? When did you speak to him?” I asked, my shock palpable now. Why, that meddlesome, too-big-for-his-britches fart!

  “I went to Surat for Ba. I couldn’t make it to the LA funeral, so I…” His throat convulsed—on a curse or a sob, I couldn’t tell. “I met Surin there. He invited me over for dinner.”

  As if that explained anything. “So, you had dinner with my brother and then you came here. But what about your siste
r’s wedding? Isn’t it next—”

  “Fuck the wedding!” he shouted into my face.

  I flinched then, which seemed to enrage him even more. He went electric, fairly sparking lightning bolts. I sat up straight.

  “Fuck you, Simeen. Fuck you for destroying my life. For not waiting. For letting me think…God. You don’t know what I’ve thought all these years. Fuck you for not trusting what we had.”

  His chest heaved up and down. So did mine. Our breaths were coming in bursts, as if we’d climbed a huge mountain up to the summit where the air was thin and our fall certain.

  Suddenly, Nirvaan wasn’t the only link between us. Zayaan and I had a history quite separate from Nirvaan—a history that, in my most fanciful moments, I’d traced back to Persia. A history I’d ripped to shreds the night I was raped.

  Zayaan was right. I hadn’t trusted him. More tellingly, I hadn’t trusted my love for him. I hadn’t believed that our love was strong enough to survive the horror of what I’d suffered at the hands of his brother and his mother. And I’d pushed him away. For his sake and mine, I’d run away.

  He didn’t know of the rape. I was sure of it. My brothers wouldn’t tell him without my consent. Nirvaan, by his own admission, hadn’t told him. And Gulzar Begum didn’t have the guts to tell her son the truth. But I had to tell him. I knew that, too.

  Zayaan closed the distance between us in two strides. He grabbed my shoulders and pulled me to my feet, shaking me. I recoiled. I couldn’t help it. He was being too rough, and I struggled to break free.

  “Damn you for fighting me. Damn you for bringing religion between us. For leaving me when I needed you the most.”

  He yanked me close and put his mouth on mine. His tongue plunged in—hot, abrasive, unbelievably erotic. His arms banded around me, squeezing me hard, and I whimpered. My body was ultra sensitive tonight. He ripped his mouth off of mine and backed up so fast that I was left hanging on to a phantom kiss. His face was as white as the moon behind him.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…fuck. I don’t know what came over me. Bloody hell. Simeen, don’t look at me like that. I know you don’t want me. That you find me crude and needy and…just not good enough.” He stepped farther and farther away. “I shouldn’t have come. I’m sorry,” he said. Then, he spun on his heel and stormed off. He was out the door in seconds.

  I was frozen in place. I was shocked, elated, cold, hot, relieved, and devastated—all at once.

  How long would I let Rizvaan rule my life, my choices? How long would I blame Zayaan for his brother’s sin? He wasn’t responsible for my rape any more than I was responsible for Nirvaan’s cancer. Wasn’t it time I stopped punishing us both?

  I raced after him, shouting, “I do want you!”

  Zayaan stopped on the steps and turned around. But he didn’t climb back up. He was waiting…allowing me time to come to my senses, to reject him again.

  “I never said that you’re not good enough. And I want you so much that I tremble with it. You make me crazy with wanting you.” I held my arms out to him. “Make me tremble, Zai. Make me forget everything but the little world we’d once made for the two of us.” God, I wanted to touch him. I wanted him to touch me so badly. I was through with denying myself this man.

  I’d shocked him. It colored his face, sparkled his eyes. He hadn’t expected me to go after him, to say what I’d said. He’d expected another lie.

  I laughed when he leaped up the porch steps and hugged me tight. For a long time, we just stood there, wrapped in each other’s arms. My face pressed to his chest, I sobbed.

  When I quieted, he picked me up, as if I were a fragile and precious thing, one of his ancient scrolls of Persian poetry, and he strode into the house, into my bedroom. It didn’t escape me that he’d first taken a step in the direction of his own room, but then he’d stopped and deliberately turned toward mine…and Nirvaan’s.

  There were so many things I had to say to him, to ask of him, but I didn’t know where to begin. And, honestly, I didn’t want to talk or think right now. I only wanted to feel.

  He placed me on the bed I’d shared with my husband, never taking his eyes off me. His hopes and desires, guilt and self-loathing, were naked on his face, and for the first time in a dozen years, I allowed myself to drown in the feelings he evoked in me.

  If Nirvaan were here, he’d have made the love-was-a-dish-best-served-naked comment. He and my father were right. There should be no lies, no secrets, not even clothes between lovers.

  I started with my clothes. “Get naked, Zai.”

  His eyes flared with heat at my command. I kneeled on the bed and pulled my granny nightgown over my head. I wasn’t wearing a bra, and I left my white cotton panties on—for now.

  Zayaan shucked off his shoes and socks. He slowly unwound his scarf and threw it aside. He flicked open the buttons on his jeans, every flick deliberate, devastating, delicious. The tease. His hands toyed with the hem of his sweater until I raised my eyes to his face.

  “We need to talk,” he said.

  “We will. But I want to make love to you first.” Before I tell you the truth, and you walk out on me.

  The heat in his eyes turned into a conflagration as they journeyed over my nearly naked body. An answering blaze crackled through my belly when his eyes touched the blue-black spots on the outer curve of my upper thigh where I’d injected myself, and then they backtracked over my swollen belly to my ripe pink-tipped breasts and to my flaming face.

  “You’re doing the IVF again.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes.” I sat back on my haunches, or I’d have fallen over. My knees were shaking so hard. I placed a hand over my belly. “I had the embryo transfer yesterday morning.”

  His throat convulsed. “You could be pregnant.” Another statement.

  “Yes,” I said with hope and dreams beaming out of every part of me.

  Would he stay, or would he go now?

  He sat on the bed, facing me, his striptease forgotten. I wasn’t half a foot away from him, but suddenly, I felt as if a great gulf had opened up between us. He’d brought me into Nirvaan’s bedroom. Wasn’t he okay with the rest, too?

  “Is this a problem?” I asked quietly.

  It was one thing to be an honorary uncle to your best friend’s child. It was another to be…what? Exactly what was I asking him to be? A father? A stepfather? A godfather? An uncle? None of the above? No wonder he looked dazed.

  I reached for him, to reassure him, and his arms came to rest on my hips at the same time.

  “I won’t let it be a problem,” he swore, bringing his mouth down on mine.

  Elation robbed my breath, and I moaned into his mouth. He was so warm. I couldn’t get enough of kissing him, touching him, needing him. I was burning, and he willingly fanned the flames.

  He pushed me back against the pillows and rolled on top of me. The glorious full weight of him settled on me for a second before he raised himself, planting a hand on either side of my head. I arched into his kiss. He nipped my lips, sucked on my tongue, licked my mouth, as if it were candy. I was still nearly naked, and he was still fully clothed. I tried to balance the equation.

  I pulled his sweater up, shoving at his shoulders to get it off. He wouldn’t let me, and when I whined against his mouth, he bit my lower lip.

  “Patience,” he murmured.

  He kissed my throat, the ridge of my shoulder blade, making me forget what I was about. I forgot my own name. He got me drunk on soft, soft, feather-like kisses. The quick tiny darts of his tongue and teeth on my skin drove me crazy. A fingertip stroked against my panties, teasing me to the edge faster than I’d ever experienced before, only to ease off when I strained against his hand. He nuzzled my nipple with his nose and beard to calm me when I couldn’t take it anymore, only to make me wild again with his hot, hot mouth.

  I shivered as he pressed my breasts together and sucked one and then the other, over and over. Moaned when he ground his pelvis into mine. B
egged for more, more, more than just his hands and mouth on me.

  “Stop torturing me, Nirvaan,” I gasped without thinking.

  Once, I’d read on some Agony Aunt column that accidentally addressing your current lover by your ex’s name was common and natural. It had to do with habit and how into you were with the new guy. As in, it was a good thing. I’d slotted the column as a big pot of hocus-pocus—until now.

  We both froze when I said Nirvaan’s name. I was extremely conscious of my hand inside Zayaan’s jeans, curved along the shape of his bum. My first instinct was to snatch it back and push him away. Zayaan’s hand trembled with indecision on my breast.

  “Don’t, Sims…” He sighed, his breath painting a hot blush across my chest.

  I’d kept my husband out of this bed, deliberately out of my mind, once I stripped off my nightgown. I didn’t know why I’d thought it might work when Zayaan had never stayed out of the bed I shared with Nirvaan.

  I loved two men. I should be used to mental threesomes by now.

  “Don’t, what?” I asked.

  If he said, Don’t say Nirvaan’s name, I’d ask him to leave. Didn’t he understand Nirvaan was a part of us?

  “Don’t hide from me…not your thoughts, your desires, your fears. Don’t hide anything,” he requested in earnest.

  Tension drained out of me. I put my face against the curve of his shoulder and began to laugh. After a second or two, Zayaan joined in. When we finally got ourselves under control, he raised himself on an elbow, still grinning. I slapped a hand on his chest when he leaned in for a kiss.

  “One more thing,” I said.

  He quirked a rakish eyebrow.

  “Quit going all Nirvaan on me.”

  He raised his other eyebrow as high as its rakish twin. I wanted to laugh again, but what I had to say was too important to be taken in jest.

  “He’s the one with the slick bedroom moves. Not you. At least, you never used to have those. What I’m saying is, just be yourself. I…I’ve missed your intensity…I’ve missed you.”

  Still, he took his time to jog up the pace. He lit candles about the room and switched off the lights. He revived his striptease and wouldn’t let me do anything but lie back on the bed and enjoy the show.