Epilogue
AFTER NEETU’S RESPLENDENT wedding, Simran’s sister moves back to Kelowna. Temporarily, anyway—her new job in Vancouver starts in the fall. In the meantime, she’s living with a friend ten minutes away. And Simran’s spent more time with her in a month than she has in ten years.
“I’m starting to think we’re screwed on the apartments front,” Kiran says one mid-August day, while they’re on her childhood bed scrolling through Vancouver rental listings. “Maybe Neetu and Gurjeevan will let us live in their backyard.”
Simran smiles. She’s officially transferring to UBC Vancouver in January—a semester late because of her delayed acceptance, but at least she’s going. “I’m sure they’d at least give us the garage.”
Despite her joke, though, she does feel sort of anxious flipping through the rental prices. In some ways, it would’ve been easier to stay in Kelowna. Or at least less expensive.
“Dr. Chen told me how hard it is to get tenure as a professor,” Simran admits aloud. “Now I’m afraid I’m going to finish school with a bunch of degrees but no job. Maybe everyone was right and I should’ve done the MCAT.”
Kiran grabs a pillow and starts beating her over the head with it. “The MCAT? You’re having a moment of weakness! Be strong! We’ll get through this!”
Simran laughs, at least for a second. “Ow! You’re hitting my glasses!” She shoves her off.
Kiran watches Simran adjust her frames. “You never did tell me what happened to your old ones.”
Simran pauses. Without warning, dark memories rise to the surface. The rough wooden desk against her cheek. The cold metal of a gun. The crunch of glass under boots.
You’re sitting on Kiran’s bed, she reminds herself. Her mattress is soft. The blankets are warm. You hear birds outside, not gunshots.
The memories ebb slowly. She exhales. She hasn’t heard from the Lions since she left Manny Khullar’s mansion.
Life has returned to normal. It’s a relief, but also.
..it sometimes feels like she lost something.
A thing she only had at the expense of every other part of her life, yes, but one that kept her afloat when she desperately needed it. “I fell.”
“Stop being so clumsy, then.” Kiran swings her legs off the bed. “I need a break from apartment hunting. Let’s pick this up tomorrow.” She opens the window.
“You’re not going through the front door?”
“And deal with Mom’s death glares? No thanks. I don’t know how you handle it.” She swings her leg over the windowsill. “Huh, weird.”
“What?”
“There’s a toothpick lodged in the shingle.”
“Very weird,” Simran agrees. “See you.”
Once Kiran’s gone, Simran heads downstairs, because she too has plans today. Her father’s in the living room reading the newspaper. She’s about to say hello, but he puts a finger to his lips and nods toward the kitchen.
Simran peers cautiously through the doorway. Her mom’s at the counter with the laptop, scrolling through a website.
Curiosity has Simran creeping forward. It’s a site for a medical office assistant program. She stops in her tracks. Her mom hasn’t done more than odd jobs in decades. Why this, why now?
Simran steps on a loose floorboard, and at the faint squeak, her mother instantly slams the laptop shut.
She doesn’t say anything, of course. Simran knew what she was giving up, the day of their fight, but a part of her hoped somehow they’d bridge the gap.
Weeks later, she’s starting to see that won’t happen.
But Simran still cannot see her mother as the bad guy. Not when she understands her so well now. Not when she almost became her.
“You should apply,” Simran says quietly. “I think you might enjoy it.”
Her mother speaks then. It’s so surprising Simran jumps. “Enjoy? That has nothing to do with it. I would do it to make us money, to be productive. I probably won’t. It would be too much time away from home.”
She says this very fast, and Simran wonders if she’s embarrassed. “Not everything has to be about the family. You could...do something just for yourself, too.”
She thinks her mom might scoff, but instead she stares into space.
It’s clearly still an incomprehensible concept to her.
Might always be. That’s the ironic thing: It’s only because of her mom’s sacrifices that Simran can afford to do things for herself, to take risks, to do some things out of love rather than logic.
That is the better life her parents made for her.
But they’ve spent so long in survival mode they can no longer see it.
Simran exits the kitchen as quietly as she came, leaving her mother to her dreams.
Toor Uncle’s workshop is loud when Simran enters, her footsteps drowned out by mechanical whirring and pistons.
Toor Uncle waves at her from a car with the hood popped open. “Birdie, it’s good to see you.” She returns his hug. “Your mother’s bike is over here. Finally fixed. Only took us months!”
He cackles, pointing. Her mother’s bike is leaned against the wall, now pristine. Simran bends to examine it. “Uncle ji, you did too much.” He’s added a basket, a bottle cage, and a fresh coat of paint over the rust. Grey, with sunflower yellow accents. The artistry is impressive.
“Nonsense. We’re family, aren’t we?”
She smiles. In many ways, losing her golden-girl status has been a blessing.
She no longer has to force politeness with people she doesn’t like, because they don’t talk to her anymore.
But the people she always genuinely loved have found it in themselves to forgive her.
To understand her. And...to try to understand someone she cares very much about.
Toor Uncle points to a corner obscured by machinery. “He’s in the back.”
“Thank you again for letting him work here.”
“Anyone with your recommendation is welcome in my shop.” He pats her shoulder. “Besides, he does good work.”
Simran finds Rajan in the corner at a workbench, a drawing rolled out in front of him. He whips off his safety glasses when he sees her.
“Dude, your timing is amazing.”
She peers at his drawing. It’s the plans for a cabinet, the dimensions scrawled on each line. The perspective is immaculate. “Why’s that?”
“Because I need a break. I can’t believe I got all the way to carpentry school, and they put me in math class all over again.”
Simran traces a finger over the arched top of the cabinet. His instructors can’t possibly be requiring a design this ambitious. “Make this all right angles instead, and you’ll have less geometry to figure out.”
“That would look boring as hell.”
“Ah. I see.”
Rajan gives her a side-eye. “Point taken, Sahiba. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
She blinks innocently. “Want to take a break? I need help putting my mom’s bike in my truck.”
“Grunt work?” He rolls the drawing up haphazardly. “That, I can do.”
The sound of machinery fades as they walk behind the building, to the grassy lot where Simran’s parked. Rajan lays the bike into the truck bed. In the sunlight, the paint job looks even nicer. Too nice. Toor Uncle doesn’t seem the type to add these embellishments. Didn’t he say he was busy?
It hits her. “You painted her bike, didn’t you?”
Rajan shrugs from atop the truck bed. “Think she’ll like it?”
Simran knows exactly what her mom will say. What a waste of paint. I didn’t need the bottle cage. The seat was already perfectly functional! “Absolutely. Why yellow?”
He flicks the front wheel. It spins, stirring the loose sand in her truck bed from the sandbags. “It was my mom’s favourite. The colour of sunshine, she always said. Even when she was sick, she’d sit on our porch and watch the sun rise and set.”
His voice is soft by the end.
“I wish I’d met her,” Simran says.
A fleeting trace of a smile. “Trust me, she knew who you were. She chewed me out for being a douchebag to you once.”
“And look at you now. She’d be proud.”
He lies down next to the bike, resting his head on a sandbag. “There were times,” he says, “that was all I wanted. For her to be proud of me.”
“And now?”
“I just want to be proud of myself.”
She has no words for how proud she is of him for that, so she crawls into the cab on top of him and kisses him.
“Cheesy as shit, isn’t it?” he says when they pull apart. “But it’s true. I’m practicing being a better person. Maybe one day I’ll even be able to step into the gurdwara without bursting into flames.”
She laughs. “Rajan, you know Sikhism isn’t about that kind of stuff.”
He’s grinning, too. “Yeah, fine. I’ll come someday.” He nods to the shop. “Uncle ji’s always raving about your singing. Makes a guy curious.”
He’s never heard her sing. How has he never heard her sing? It’s such a significant part of her, and suddenly, all she wants to do is share it with him. “In that case.”
She sits up and, before he can ask what she means, begins to hum.
Rajan stills. She keeps humming, though, for several lines before opening her mouth.
She chooses a shabad anyone with a Sikh background would know, written by the tenth Guru when he had just lost his sons in battle and was separated from his people.
It’s an expression of grief, a love poem, and a spiritual declaration all in one, and that’s why she likes it.
There is no guilt to be felt here for being human.
There’s just the sand digging into her knees, the wind stirring her hair, the sun warming her skin, and the boy beneath her, all of which are, if Sikh philosophy is to be believed, ultimately the same thing.
When the last note fades, he’s silent. “Well?” she asks.
“I understand now,” Rajan says. “Why people believe in God.”
She rolls her eyes and gets off him, although from the way he watches her, she’s not entirely sure he’s joking. “It sounds better with instruments accompanying, if you ever do want to come to the gurdwara.”
“And have people shit-talk you even more? No thanks.”
“I don’t care.”
“Do they? Talk shit about you?” He keeps his voice light.
“Not to my face.” Her voice is equally light as she settles next to him, cross-legged. “But TJ told me an auntie asked her mom if it was true if I was dating a gangbanger.”
“Fucking ridiculous,” Rajan says. “I’m the one dating a gangbanger. Want me to pop their tires?”
“I have no idea who this person is, Rajan.”
“And? That doesn’t sound like a no, Sahiba.” He sits up and tucks her close, his arm spanning under her ribs. Rubs his nose against the soft shell of her ear. “You know I’ll do it.”
Simran leans into him and closes her eyes, not caring if anyone sees. Her father’s words still ring true—life’s too short to waste a single moment with the people she loves. Of which there are many. It’s almost funny to think that not long ago, she was certain she’d be left alone in the world.
That is, of course, still possible. But less likely, she thinks, if she stops pushing everyone away. Her cousin, her sister, her father, her friends, Rajan...she’s slowly learning how to let them in. The rest isn’t up to her.
And that, honestly, gives her a bit of peace.
Her eyes open. “What about that cabinet drawing is giving you trouble, anyway?”
Rajan smacks a kiss behind her ear before releasing her. “Don’t say I told you so, but those arched doors are beating my ass. I’ve cut the wrong-size pieces twice now.” He digs into his pocket with an air of defeat. “I think it has to do with the arc radius, but I can’t figure out what.”
Simran smiles and extends her hand. “Give me a pen.”