Chapter 27
Maggie has texted me occasionally over the past week, pictures of her and my father on a hike and at dinner, a selfie of the two of them on the car ride home. Jacob’s received the same ones, our phones often chirping at the same time.
They’re back in the city now. We gave them a few days to settle in, and I used that time to prepare.
I have my interview questions typed and printed, and I picked up a cheap phone tripod from a store down the street, so I’m all set for tonight’s dinner at Maggie’s house.
Jacob and I decide to stagger our entrances, so I arrive a few minutes after him, waiting a couple seconds before knocking.
My father opens the door, blinking under the porch light.
“Neelu!” He steps forward as if he’s going in for a hug, but he stops when he catches sight of the tripod I’m carrying under one arm. “Can I?” he asks, and takes it from me.
“Thanks,” I say.
“Thank you for coming,” he says. “How’s the research going?”
“For the show?” I shrug off my coat, placing it on a hook in the hall.
“Good. It’s all going well.” I didn’t exactly extend my time here for research, but that is the reason I gave my father.
And the time here has been helpful, inspiring.
It’s been a lot more fun doing the prep for next season here, with Jacob, instead of back in L.A. in my apartment alone.
“Neelu’s here?” Maggie’s voice calls.
“Yes. Hi, Maggie.”
She comes out of the next room, her features warm. She greets me with her arms outstretched. “So happy to welcome you home,” she says.
I don’t mention that I’ve been here before, when Jacob and my father and I were looking for her.
“Jacob’s here,” she says. “He’s just putting something in the oven.
I think it’ll take a little bit, so…” She sweeps a hand over her short gray curls, tucking one behind her ear.
“Food first, or do you want to do the interviews first? Is there anything we need to know about it? Or anything we need to prepare?”
“No, no. Nothing like that.” I smile at both of them.
“It’ll be casual,” I say, but my father rocks back on his heels, a touch apprehensive.
“I was thinking I’d ask some questions separately, and then some together, and that’ll be it.
Really, just talking about your story. Have you ever seen those videos of people on the street?
Where they ask people if they’re a couple, and if they are, they tell the story of how they met? ”
My father’s brows furrow. “No,” he says.
Jacob steps out of the kitchen, an oven mitt still on one hand. “It’s like all those couples in When Harry Met Sally,” he tells Maggie, and she smiles.
“Oh, yes. I know what you mean,” she says.
My dad still looks confused, so she explains. “It’s just like Neelu said. All these couples just sit in front of the camera and tell their story.” She glances at me. “Will we be on TV?” she asks.
“Not if you don’t want to be,” I say. “We don’t have a show yet, so there’s no guarantee any of this would ever air. We’re just trying to put something together to show the networks what the show could be like.”
“I’m sure it’ll happen,” she says.
“Oh, I hope so, but—”
“It will,” a deep voice says. I think it’s Jacob—my eyes fly to him first—but the voice came from my right. From my father.
“Jacob just put in the biryani,” my father continues. “So we have a little bit of time before—”
“You made biryani?”
I didn’t know that my father cooked. That week I lived with him, we did takeout, and every time he visited me in California, we went out to eat. He was never in town for long.
“It’s Jacob’s recipe,” my father says, ducking his head a bit.
“But you made it, Uncle.” Jacob sends me a soft smile. “I’ve had it before and it was pretty good, if that’s what you’re worried about. Not as good as mine, but…”
My father lets out a laugh, though it’s a touch uneasy.
“It’s always a treat when you make it,” Maggie says, stepping closer to him. “But you’re right,” she tells my father. “It’ll take some more time.” She turns to me. “I’m ready, if you’d like to start the interview with me? Or should we do the group one first?”
“No, that’s perfect.” I grab the tripod from where it’s been leaning against the wall. “Is there a quiet place where we can do it?”
“Yes. Just in here.”
We go back through the main hallway, crossing into a room with a small couch and a side table.
“He’s a little nervous about all of this,” Maggie says, her voice low. “Your dad.” She smiles gently. “He rarely makes dinner, but he really wanted to tonight. And I think he’s a bit worried about the interview too.”
“Oh.” I stop in the middle of assembling the tripod.
“We don’t—neither of you have to do this.
I’m planning on doing more interviews when I get back.
I don’t have to send anything to my boss this week, but I thought…
I don’t know. You and my dad have a nice story, and it’s been…
Really, it’s what made me start thinking about the show, but you don’t have to if you don’t—”
“No,” Maggie says. She takes a seat on the couch, shaking her head.
“It’s not that. I’m not worried about it at all.
I’m excited to do it.” She cracks a smile, creases forming near her eyes.
“I’m hoping we’ll get to be on TV. I know we wouldn’t be contestants or anything, but if you used any of the footage for the show…
I’d love it. It’s only your dad…I think he’s worried about letting you down.
” She raises a hand. “And I don’t want to get in between the two of you, but if he’s acting a little off, that’s why, and I just… I wanted you to know.”
“Okay.” My chest tightens, and I turn away, taking out my phone and placing it on the stand. “Thank you.”
I continue setting up, but Maggie’s words stay in my mind.
Before, when I’ve thought my father was distant, or off, or just not…present, was he actually worried about that? About letting me down? Because if so, well, it became an ironic sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. The way he acted around me, it did end with me feeling let down. And hurt. And alone.
I open the camera app, switching it to video and lining up the shot.
I don’t know if what Maggie’s said has made me feel any better. It’s more insight into my father, I guess, but everything I’ve heard from him and about him this trip hasn’t mended the way I feel.
My hand shakes as I zoom in, setting the frame.
At the end of the day, he wasn’t there when I needed him, and it pricks at me, a burr under my skin.
And I don’t know how to fix that.
“We’ll start with something easy,” I say. I pull a chair over, placing it across from the couch, a setup reminiscent of the many contestant interviews I’ve conducted over the years.
I ask for her name, where she was born, and her favorite flavor of ice cream. I do a couple more of my standard warm-ups until I see her posture loosen and she’s a little more at ease.
And slowly, I pull her story out of her, a natural flow of conversation as she tells me about her first love, how he left, how she raised her son alone. How she never thought she’d find love again until she met my father.
“My son met him first,” she says. “And it wasn’t love at first sight.
He and my son were both going through chemo.
Romance wasn’t even on our minds. All we thought about was survival.
And Ajit was quiet. James was the one to pull him out of his shell.
He had a way of doing that. And it was…little things.
The way Ajit didn’t leave any of us after he got better.
The way he kept coming to James’s appointments.
He didn’t say much, but he’d bring snacks.
There’s a magazine I love, and every time there was a new edition, he’d bring me a copy so I had something to read while I sat in the waiting room. ”
She tilts her head. “The first time I fell in love, it was like being struck by lightning, but this was…gradual. Less intense, but also less painful. And there’s something to the fact that we’d both tried this before.
Tried and failed. We’d made mistakes, and we’d changed, and we talked about all of it.
Things we wish we had done differently, things we’d do differently now if we had the chance. ”
I nod, encouraging her to continue, even as a lump forms in my throat.
What would my father have done differently? I suppose that’s something I can ask him when I speak with him next.
Maggie tells me about their first date and the proposal, and she doesn’t skip over the bumps in the road. The time they took a break because she was scared, the reason she ran from the wedding, and how they came back together, how she’s excited for the future now.
“Is that all right?” she asks. “I know I talked for a while, but—”
“Yes,” I tell her. “It was perfect.”
I get up and pause the recording. And Maggie smiles, giving me a quick hug and telling me that she’ll send my father in next.
I shuffle through my notes, jotting down an additional question or two to ask, and then my father enters.
There’s a faint sheen on his forehead. I try to smile, to make him comfortable, but inside, I’m on edge. Just as nervous. And even after my standard introduction questions, the ones that have been tried and tested, designed to make anyone talk, there’s still an air of discomfort.
“This is a little awkward,” I say. “Right?”
And my father starts. He opens his mouth, clearly about to lie, but I stop him, raising my hand.
“It’s fine,” I say. I get up and switch off the recording. “Maybe we should just talk first.”
He’s quiet for a beat, and then he nods. “Yes,” he says. “I’ve been wanting to—I didn’t know if you’d want to, but after we talked in the car, I didn’t know how to say…”
He trails off, but I don’t rush to fill in the silence. I let him take his time.
“What you said about me being an absent father…you were right. I didn’t come see you enough.
I didn’t call enough. I didn’t know how to be there for you when I was all the way over here, and that guilt…
it ate at me. Paralyzed me. And I thought you were probably better off with your mother.
That you were happy over there. I always…
I seemed to make everything worse. I didn’t want to, but I did. ”
He pulls on his sleeve, looking down, not meeting my eyes until I begin speaking.
“I was happy with Mom,” I say. “But that didn’t mean…” I swallow, my throat constricting. “I needed my father too.”
“I know,” he says, his voice breaking. “I know that now. But I didn’t…
Sometimes I don’t know what I was thinking then.
I don’t understand how I could’ve stayed here.
How I didn’t try harder to move. To be closer to you.
” He pauses. “I don’t know if you remember, but when you had appendicitis, when you were ten, your mom called me, and she patched me through to the doctors there.
Everything was fine, they kept me updated, but I was so angry at myself.
For not being there. Your mother handled everything, and your recovery was great, and she agreed for the first time to let you visit here, but when you came that summer…
it was too late. All that time I spent apart from you, I’d ruined things.
Even if I moved then, if I tried to find work in California, I realized I’d never be able to repair it, never be able to fix what I’d done. ”
He wipes a hand over his eyes, and it’s only then that I recognize I’m on the verge of tears too, my nose starting to run.
“I can’t change anything now, I can’t make up for all of that time, but I didn’t know…
I didn’t know what the distance would be like.
It’s not an excuse, I could have tried harder even though I was all the way over here, but if I could go back…
I only thought about finding work, and it was hard then, especially in L.A.
, but I could have kept looking. I could have looked wider.
I tried to come for the big things, but I know I missed seeing you place second in the spelling bee, and so many birthday parties, and your appendix surgery, and I don’t…
Looking back, I don’t understand how I could’ve missed those things.
How anything could’ve been more important. ”
I open my mouth, wanting to say something, but it’s hard. It’s hard hearing him say all these things that I’ve thought about too, that I’ve held against him for all these years.
Though I didn’t realize he was holding it against himself too.
“Dad.” I get up, and I take a seat beside him on the couch.
He’s hunched over a bit, and I can feel it, the shame radiating off him.
Before, in the car, when he told me he had regrets, I didn’t fully believe him.
I looked at what he’d found with Maggie and Jacob and thought he’d found a family, created one of his own, even though he wasn’t able to create one with me, but now…
I place a hand on his back, and I feel a shudder go through him. My vision blurs, tears beginning to fall.
“It’s all right,” I tell him, my voice shaky. I pat his back, the gesture turning into a stilted, strange sort of one-armed side hug, but he reciprocates it, and it’s messy, and a little odd, but it’s a step. One that’s been long overdue. One I can try to reciprocate too.