by Sonali Dev
Ashna started to pace, words failing her. The Padma Shri was one of India’s highest honors for achievement in a field.
“Ashna, your mother is winning the Padma Shri! All my hard work, all my sacrifices. It’s all paying off.” The excited quiver raised Shobi’s pitch a few levels. She was entirely unaware of the fact that she was saying these words to the sum total of all her sacrifices.
This time Ashna cleared her throat. “That’s amazing,” she said, because she wasn’t a colossal enough bitch to be unkind when someone was excited about winning an award only a handful of people won.
“Thanks, beta,” Shobi said, clearly struggling with how her inexplicable daughter could be so underwhelmed by her brilliance.
There was another awkward pause, awkwardness being their default mode. Ashna took herself to the bathroom and turned on the tub faucet. A shower wasn’t going to cut it today.
“Listen, Ashna. I know this isn’t easy for you to understand, but it hasn’t been easy for me either.”
Which part? But Ashna knew the answer to that already.
The part where Shobi had to abandon Ashna to achieve what she was born to achieve. You couldn’t ask a question like that without being reminded of how dispensable you were, and even worse, how selfish you were for feeling sorry for yourself for being dispensed with for the sake of “changing the world.”
Truth was, nothing was ever hard for Shobi. She had been the star of the Indian national women’s cricket team. After retiring from that, she had singlehandedly taken sports advocacy for girls to the remote corners of India, a country that determinedly ignored all sports except men’s cricket.
As if that weren’t enough, she had transformed her sports advocacy into a weapon to change the lives of girls and women across the country by building sports-focused schools for girls. Her network of grassroots female empowerment projects brought together millions of dollars from the world’s greatest philanthropists. She made conscienceless politicians tremble, manipulated corrupt media, and managed to employ hundreds of people who truly cared about her cause in an entirely self-focused world. If anything dared stand in her path, she leveled it like the champion she was. In other words, she was the polar opposite of her daughter in every way possible.
Ashna had been struggling to keep one restaurant afloat for ten years. For the entirety of those years, Shobi had been waiting for her to fail.
“I see that you’re not going to make this easy for me,” Shobi said with the deep regret she used in fund-raising speeches. It was a tone that could guilt people into coughing up every penny they could afford.
“I’m really happy for you,” Ashna repeated in the most upbeat of her collection of upbeat tones. The emptiness that overtook her when she spoke to Shobi didn’t make it easy.
“May I say something? I know you don’t want to hear this.”
Dear God, every single time that line came out of Shobi, she followed it up with something that started a fight.
Please don’t do this today. That sense of barely holding it together that Ashna kept firmly at the edge of her consciousness closed in. Every time Shobi showed up, it pushed its way to the center of her. What kind of dumbass let someone do that to them over and over?
But of course, no one stopped Shobi from doing exactly as Shobi wanted.
“I think you’ve forgotten what it means to be happy.”
Ashna sank down to her knees next to the tub. A stray hair marred the spotless floor. She picked it up and threw it in the garbage.
“Are you going to say anything at all?”
Ashna wanted to, but her words had a way of hiding away when they sensed Shobi’s presence.
“Ashna?” She couldn’t tell if Shobi was reprimanding her or if that was concern in her voice. Not that she had any experience with recognizing concern in Shobi’s voice.
“You’re wrong, Mom. You can only forget something you knew.”
Her mother gasped and Ashna realized that she had said the words out loud.
In the moment that Shobi said nothing, relief and hope rushed through Ashna. She imagined her admission filling Shobi with regret and understanding.
“That’s not fair, Ashna.”
How could Ashna not laugh at that? Of course Shobi would make Ashna’s admission that she had never learned how to be happy about herself.
Ashna knew exactly what Shobi would say next. “Why is it so hard for you to understand your mother?” Bingo. And then . . . “You always understood your baba no matter what he did. No matter how wrong his choices.”
How many times could you have the same fight? Baba had stuck with Ashna, always. Well, until he hadn’t, in the end. But Ashna had never known Shobi as anything but a visitor who was either arriving or getting ready to leave.
Shobi had been gone a lot when they lived in Sripore, and then she hadn’t moved to America with them. Just visited. At first Ashna had tried hard to believe the visits weren’t reluctant, but over time, they grew shorter and farther apart, proving how wrong she’d been.
“Anyway, I didn’t call to have that conversation again. I was hoping maybe we could move past all that. Isn’t it time to fix things?”
Wasn’t this just precious? Now that Shobi had achieved the ultimate validation for her work, it was time to start taking stock of collateral damage.
Yes, well, Ashna wasn’t doormat enough for that. Being vulnerable in her mother’s presence was a mistake. She got herself up off the floor. The tub was full. She turned off the water. “There’s nothing to move past. I’m happy for you. And I’m proud of everything you’ve achieved.” There, she’d said what a dutiful daughter would say. “Good luck.”
“Oh, Ashna, maybe someday you’ll mean that. I have changed the lives of thousands. I’ve worked hard for it. It would be nice to have the person I gave birth to acknowledge it.”
“I’m proud of you,” Ashna repeated, trying to reach into that part of her that still remembered how proud she used to be of Shobi. The water was the perfect temperature. She dropped a capful of eucalyptus oil in. The steam rising from it turned intoxicating. She sank down to her knees again and inhaled it.
“I don’t mean repeat the lie. I mean, actually mean it. You have no idea how badly I wish you could see my life. Understand it. See me.”
“Across the thousands of miles you’ve always put between us?”
Instead of another gasp, another pause followed. A potent pause, filled with things Ashna didn’t want to hear, places she didn’t want to go with the woman who had birthed her.
Ashna skimmed a circle on the water’s surface.
“You’re right,” Shobi said, her voice determined. “Let’s fix that.”
Ashna’s hand jostled the water, disturbing the surface, splashing herself. Why hadn’t she just stayed silent? It was the only strategy that worked with Shobi.
“Actually, that’s why I was calling, I just didn’t know how I was going to ask. So I’m glad you brought it up. Why don’t you come to India?”
Ashna took her face close to the water’s surface. The tip of her nose touched the liquid warmth. The weight of her heavy bun skewed to one side of her head.
“Ashna?” Shobi pushed into her silence.
“I can’t do that.” Her whisper reflected off the water, the mint in her breath mixing with the eucalyptus. She picked out the distinct familiar scents and let her mind linger on each.
“Why? This is the perfect time to come home. Share this experience with me. They asked me to choose someone to introduce me at the awards ceremony and, naturally, I want you to be the one to do it. It’s been too long, beta. You haven’t been to Sripore in thirteen years. Come home!”
Sripore was not her home. “Palo Alto is my home,” she said quietly, “and Woodside,” she added to make sure her punch hit home. Woodside was where her aunt and uncle lived. The people who had been more parents to her than Shobi ever would.
The punch landed squarely where Ashna had aimed it and Shobi
’s patience snapped. “You’re being deliberately hurtful again,” she said. “You aren’t a teenager anymore. This anger isn’t going to get you anywhere. It’s not healthy. You’re thirty. It’s not—”
“I am the least angry person I know.” The irony of her hiss did not escape her. “I have a business to run. I’d love to help you, but I just can’t.” She forced herself to regain her calm.
At least Shobi had gotten her age right this time. Shoban Gaikwad Raje had the fabulous distinction of having asked her child “So, what grade are you in?” on multiple occasions.
“Getting away from that place is exactly what you need. I can’t believe your father saddled you with—”
“Curried Dreams is my life,” she hissed again, because the only thing being upbeat would get her was a bath gone cold.
“That’s my point exactly. You need to find a life outside Curried Dreams!” said the woman who lectured all and sundry endlessly about how a woman’s work should be just as important to her as her family. “It’s time for you to break the chains that have been tying you up for years. Reset your priorities.”
Dear God, not chains! Chains were Shobi’s favorite metaphor. “Women in Chains” was the general theme of all her lectures. Once Shobi started on this topic, she’d never stop.
Ashna straightened up. Curried Dreams wasn’t what was tying her up in chains. Shobi was, and she always had with her promises of love that she kept just out of reach. Always. For Ashna’s whole life the woman had wielded those chains with ruthlessness.
Finally, in this moment, it hit Ashna why. It had been so Ashna would be here, waiting, when Shobi was finally ready to fix that neglected part of her life. Because Shobi had always set her priorities exactly the way she wanted them.
“You’re right,” Ashna said. “I do need to break the chains. Which is exactly why I’m not coming to India.”
“That makes no sense, Ashna. You’re stuck, don’t you see? You’ve been doing the same thing for—”
“I have a new job, Mom.”
No! Why on earth had she said that? Ashna wanted to wring Trisha’s and China’s combined necks for shoving stupid ideas in her head.
“You’re moving on from Curried Dreams?” The almost gleeful hope in Shobi’s voice strummed every one of Ashna’s overstretched nerves.
Baba’s been dead for twelve years, she wanted to scream. You can stop fighting with him now. “No, I’m not. But I’m going to be on a competitive cooking show as a pro chef.” Her voice sounded strong and clear for the first time since she’d heard Shobi’s hello. She leaned in and met her own eyes in the mirror.
“Reality TV? You?” The voice on the phone stretched between skepticism and outright disbelief.
Shobi’s favorite metaphorical chains stretched at the links around Ashna. “Yes. If I win I can pay down the debt on Curried Dreams. And no, I’m never giving up on it.”
The frustrated sound Shobi made was so delicious that for one lovely second Ashna didn’t care about anything else. “You are so Bram’s daughter. He was a great expert at cutting off his nose to spite his face.”
“Being Baba’s daughter is something I’m proud of.”
“Don’t I know it? But there’s no wisdom in ruining your life to stick it to me, child. Being punitive will get you nowhere.”
So, the gloves were off now. Their conversation arriving at its inevitable destination.
“Hard as it is to imagine, not every decision I make is motivated by you.”
“I know. It’s motivated by the guilt your father dumped on your head before leaving.”
Leaving. How clean she made death sound. Shobi had left. Baba had died.
“Thanks for that. I have to go.” She disconnected the call, finally doing what she should have done the moment she started to lose control of the conversation, long before letting her bath go cold. Then she pulled the plug and watched the water drain away.
Chapter Three
Rico Silva watched as giant sprinklers dropped down from the absurdly high ceiling and rained water on the mud pit, where bikini-clad women wrestled with a bunch of his mates. There was nothing quite like a bachelor party to strike terror in any sane—or sober—person’s heart for the future of humankind. Across the room at the giant bar, Josh—wearing horns of some sort—watched a woman—wearing the most minimalist of sequined pasties and thongs—take a shot from between his knees. Needless to say, Josh was in his underwear, which made how much he was enjoying this evident to all present.
Rico threw a look around the room to make sure no one had their cameras out. This was the Hold, Vegas’s most elite and secret club, and the lighting used a special wavelength that made taking photographs impossible. Even so, for every technology invented to protect privacy, there was a countertechnology invented to violate it. It was the world they lived in. You didn’t have to be a Premier League football player to know this, but if you were, you knew it well. Not that any of these knobs remembered their names right now, let alone the lessons they had learned. Most were young enough to still believe themselves invincible after enough whiskey recklessly mixed with every other kind of alcohol.
Del was on top of the bar and about to grab a rope dangling from the ceiling to take a Tarzan-style swing across the room. Fortunately, the season was over and they didn’t have to get back on the pitch for training for a few more weeks.
Well, not them, exactly. Rico was never getting back on the pitch. The torn iliotibial band and shattered kneecap had made sure his career was good and over. Not that he could complain. At eighteen he’d moved Sunderland from the relegation zone back up to the Premier League, kicking off the kind of career he could never have imagined in his wildest dreams. He’d won the World Cup and the Champions League, and been purchased by Manchester United for a record sum. At thirty, he’d had a run he was more than a little proud of.
The part he wasn’t proud of was how badly he was handling the pain. His knee hurt as though the screws and plates substituting for bones and tissue were made of solidified acid. As always, the pain sharpened when he thought about it.
He had read somewhere that human nerves blocked out chronic pain after a while, but the sensation of pain returned when you were reminded of it, like when you heard someone else talk about theirs. It was as though the knowledge of another person’s pain reminded the nerves of what they were trying to forget.
Rico was here to tell all skeptics that the theory was indeed accurate. He adjusted his leg on the booth couch. The body-armor-style brace itched like the depths of hell and he couldn’t wait to get it off in a few days.
“What’s got you all grumpy?” Zia, his best mate and the groom—which made him the man of the hour—slid into the booth Rico was hogging all to himself. Not that the other guys had any interest in leaving the dance floor, or the mud pit, or the bar with the Tarzan vines hanging over it.
“Nothing. Just jealous that I can’t join the guys in making such perfect arses of themselves.” Much as Rico detested the brace, he was grateful for it today. He was in no mood to get out there and prove how much of a party animal he was. Not that he wasn’t perfectly adept at that. As a Carioca born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, knowing how to have a good time—while preserving his dignity—was in his blood.
Zee knew he was joking, but he still looked at Rico in that way good friends looked at you when you were off your game: one part concern, the other part impatient hope that your affliction would pass fast. Zee looked ready to bodily shake off this ridiculous blue mood that had been clinging to Rico recently.
“Thanks for being here.” He thumped Rico’s shoulder and threw a wince at his leg, which was more than the rest of them dared to do. Their other teammates avoided the topic of the surgeries and the sight of Rico’s knee as though torn connective tissue that ended your career were contagious.
Rico shrugged. A brace and crutches wouldn’t keep him from his best mate’s bachelor party. For a few moments, the two of them took in their te
ammates acting like this was their very last opportunity to hold on to the stupidity of their youth.
“Tell me again why you let Del plan this?” Zee asked. “Wasn’t it your bloody job as my best mate?”
“I was in the hospital, remember? And Del and Josh thought it was the perfect excuse to take over. I don’t think any of the guys were stoked about catching Hamilton in New York to celebrate you losing your bachelorhood.”
Zee laughed. “That actually sounds fecking brilliant. Except Tanya would kill me if I went without her, even though she’s seen it four times.”
As always, that fuzzy I just took a hit of something potent look crossed Zia’s eyes when he talked about Tanya. It was well deserved, of course. Tanya was possibly the best woman Rico had ever met. Steady and badass and madly warm and nurturing.
“How the hell did I get so lucky?” Zee said.
“I don’t know, mate. How did you?”
“I guess we caught each other young and watched each other grow, eh? Luckiest break of my life.” Tanya and Zee had been college sweethearts.
“By that definition, it’s pretty much too late for the rest of us.” Rico took a sip of his club soda, wishing for something stronger, but his meds didn’t mix with alcohol.
For all his reputation for being a rule breaker on the pitch, Rico was, in fact, never stupid about which rules he broke. His father hadn’t had a chance to teach him much, but the one thing he had taught Rico was that you couldn’t win if you got thrown out for committing fouls. Staying in the game was a requirement for winning.
“Does that mean there’s no chance of you and Myra getting back together, then?” Zee asked, running his hand through his blond-highlighted hair, his very obvious worry tell.
“That would be hard given that she just got engaged to her new boyfriend. Apparently, he wasn’t emotionally unavailable.” To her credit, Myra had tried not to break up with Rico before the spate of surgeries started almost a year ago. But he hadn’t wanted her nursing him through sickness if she was done with him in health.
