Chapter 6 Rupi
Six
Rupi
What the hell was that?” Simi hisses, shutting the door a little too quietly after the cranky dietitian leaves in a snit.
If it were me, I would have made sure the door hit her ass when I slammed it shut. Alas, I’m laid up in this damn bed because of the idiot Simi calls her boyfriend.
“Why don’t you ask him that?” I hiss back and point at him.
He’s looking at Simi as though he needs her to tell him what to do. What the hell is my sister doing with this rasgulla? He’s a dead ringer for a cheeseball that fell into a bowl of sugar syrup and rolled around in it.
If I weren’t so livid with him, I might have wanted to poke a finger into his squishy middle to see if he squirts syrup in my eye.
Simi raises both arms in exasperation. The gesture is such a throwback to our mother that I almost gasp.
“Why would I ask him anything? You’re the one who just lied.
To someone in my workplace. In front of someone who knows Prem’s family and my boss.
” She presses a hand to her forehead and looks at him.
“My god. Anagha is going to tell everyone, isn’t she? ”
Her rasgulla makes a pathetic sound. “Phones across Hochkinsville have to be lighting up right now.”
They look at each other as though this is some sort of cataclysmic disaster.
Has Simi forgotten where we grew up? If the opinion of neighbors mattered even a little bit, Simi and I would never have survived.
Being shamed and pointed at when we left our home was part of our daily existence.
Who is this woman, and what has she done with my sister?
“What the hell kind of name is Hochkinsville anyway? It sounds like a place where everyone has the same disease,” I say.
“Really?” my sister snaps. “How does the name of this town matter right now?”
“I mean, it needed to be said.”
Rasgulla cracks a smile. Then swallows it back quickly the moment Simi catches sight of it, and returns to gawking at her as though she has all the answers.
“None of what you say ever needs to be said, Rupi. Most certainly not what you said when those women were here. How do you think it’s going to look when the truth comes out?”
Even before she left India, my sister had stopped being as worshipful of me as she’d been when we were younger. But I’m not liking her tone one bit.
“The whole point is to not let the truth come out, isn’t it? Why would I lie if telling the truth were an option? What did you expect me to do, tell them that I’m here illegally and this guy here”—my gaze slices to this Prem—“just threw me under a speeding train?”
“He did nothing of the sort.”
“Hello? Have you not been listening? I begged him not to bring me in here. He made a promise.” I would not have fainted if he hadn’t made that promise.
“He didn’t know, Rupi!”
My god, she’s turned into our mother. Every instance of Abha Naik choosing a man over us burns through my mind.
“But you do! You know I wouldn’t be here unless I had nowhere else to go. Or have you conveniently forgotten your life before you met him? I can remind you since you’re so into telling the truth these days. Or do you think he can’t handle it?”
That shuts her up. If that stupid burrito hadn’t soured my belly into a cesspool, this would’ve done it.
“I love Simi. I don’t care what happened before we met, no matter what she chooses to share with me.” Great, now the rasgulla wants to add his two cents when he knows nothing about anything.
I’m about to tell him to shut up, but Simi cuts me off. “You can say whatever you want in front of him. You already pulled him into your mess.” Her chin is raised, and she’s obviously counting on the fact that I’ll say nothing.
She’s right. I’m the one who taught her the rules of silence. I’m not about to break them myself. I would never say what both of us swore never to say. But what I can say needs to be said.
“Fine. Then here’s the truth. What do you think would have happened if I told them that I have no paperwork because some assholes brought me into the country to work for them for nothing and then took my passport away so I’d be trapped?
I was a captive. For a year.” Until I found a way to free myself.
Or a way had found me. “And I’ve been on the run for the year after that. ”
Simi presses a hand to her mouth. Now she looks sorry. I don’t need her pity.
“And what will your Romeo think if he knew that I begged for your help and you turned me away?”
The blood drains from Simi’s face. “That’s not true.
Why do you always have to alter the way you remember things to suit your needs?
You just showed up here in America one fine day all excited to be here, working for this man.
I told you not to fall for it. I told you how it would end and that I wouldn’t be able to help you when it did.
” Despite the coldness of her tone, she looks like I’ve kicked her in the ribs.
This. This particular face is responsible for ruining my life. I’ve always done everything I could to keep her from looking like this: lost, heartbroken, terrified. To hell with that.
“You’re so right,” I say. “You did tell me that I should not have come to America. Thank you! Such wise advice. You escaped. You got a fresh start, but I should have stayed there, stuck for eternity.” Paying for your mistakes. I hate that I can’t make myself say that part.
“That’s not what I meant.” But there’s no conviction in her voice. Tears fill her eyes and trickle down her cheeks. Tears have always sat on her lash line, ready to spill over. She hasn’t changed one bit.
Prem puts his arm around her. “It’s okay,” he says.
“How the hell would you know what’s okay and what isn’t?” I say.
He gapes at me like he has no idea what to do. From everything I’ve seen thus far, that seems to be his entire personality.
“Don’t talk to him like that,” Simi says on a giant sniff, but she can’t inject any force into it.
Another look passes between them. “I’ll wait outside. Call if you need help.”
Is he suggesting I would hurt Simi? I can’t believe she doesn’t correct him. I’m where I am because not hurting Simi was more important to me than not hurting myself. Obviously the same can’t be said for his precious Simi.
She squeezes his hand, and they let go an inch at a time, as if in slow motion. He’s leaving for the corridor, not going off to war, for shit’s sake. How can I not scoff?
Simi turns on me, tired eyes narrowed. “You’re being incredibly cruel right now.”
“I’m the one being cruel? Are you not seeing me lying here? It isn’t cruelty, it’s self-preservation. It’s a concept we’re both quite familiar with.”
Simi squeezes her temples. She looks like she has a million things to say, but she’s weighing each one to come up with the exact right thing to make all of this, and me, go away quickly.
“Ask me what you want to ask me, Simi.”
“And what do you think that is?”
“Why I’m here.”
“Tell me, then.”
“Because I thought when it came down to it, I had you. But I was wrong.”
She looks like I’ve slapped her. “Of course you have me. But I have a life to protect now, Rupi. You have to respect that.”
It’s my turn to feel like she’s slapped me.
“Really? Do tell me about protecting things, little sister.” I feel heartsick.
“Why don’t you teach me what that’s like: fighting for yourself.
Because I was so damn tied up, protecting my little sister, that I never got to build a life to protect.
Maybe while you’re at it also teach me how to walk away and let someone else take care of everything for you. ”
Simi pales. Her eyes—eyes that I once watched like a compass to gauge my own success and failure—fill with guilt, but she shoves it all away. “You were the one who insisted I leave India. You practically pushed me out. You said you wanted to live and you couldn’t until you had me out of your hair.”
It’s funny how complicated sacrifice is.
I might be a poster child for mixed-up intentions, but I’m not stupid.
I know exactly what I’ve done for my sister, no matter what it cost me, no matter how much she hated it.
I know that she wouldn’t be where she is without my sacrificing everything.
And here she is, remembering it all backward.
“Now who’s altering the way she remembers things to suit her needs? Do you really believe I took the fall for you because I wanted you out of my hair?”
She balks to hear me say the words, but it’s the truth. When I made the choice, I didn’t hesitate for even a moment. Clearly, sacrificing myself was a duty I took on so wholly that I never let Simi learn what it meant. Simi obviously only cares about Simi.
“I don’t believe I have to say this, but I did what I did to make it easy for you to leave. Because you’ve never done a hard thing in your life.”
That hits hard, too, but I can also see her defensiveness rise like armor. “And now that I have the things you wanted for me . . . safety, a better life . . . you want to take them away?”
“No, I don’t. I want you to have that forever.
How can you question that? But don’t I also deserve some safety, a semblance of a life, too?
” I have never, before this moment, thought about it this way.
What have I ever done but fight and claw for everything?
Why don’t I deserve what Simi has? What Tina has.
What Ron and Matthew and the whole wide world have. Dignity. Ease. Safety.
“If you really want those things, your choices have to reflect that, Rupi.” She says it quietly, as though she’s imparting some deep insight.
Well, isn’t that precious?
“You’re right. I should have picked different choices from the array of choices life presented me with.
” I press a finger to my temple and make a thinking sound when what I want is to break into hysterical laughter.
“Just to satisfy my curiosity, can you name one choice—real choice—that would suggest I want my life to be like this?”