Chapter Twenty-Nine Revelations and Retreats #2
Eventually our shell-shocked waiter comes to the table with extra napkins to ask if we need assistance. Mom lets go of me, and Nani goes back to her seat. Somehow Mom’s able to reassure the waiter that we’re fine, just having an emotional tea.
When the waiter leaves, Mom sighs, wiping her eyes. “I’ve never thought you ruined my life, Meera. Okay? Ever. I’ve had some hard times, but you have always been worth it. I just… I think I expected too much of you. I had you so young. I had no idea what I was doing.” She sighs. “I still don’t.”
I blink. “I think this is proof that we are cursed,” I say. “Maybe it’s not ruining our lives, but we can’t be in happy relationships.”
Nani shakes her head, setting her teacup down with a little more force than I expected. “We’re not cursed!” she says loudly. People turn to us again. I wonder if we’re going to be removed from the country club. “There is no curse.”
I raise my brows. “Nani, there is a curse. Going back four generations, remember? We’re all destined to make the wrong choices in love.” Like Nani marrying my grandfather. Mom getting pregnant by the sperm donor. Me and Gabe. Heck, me and Noah, too. We’re destined to be unhappy.
Nani shakes her head again. “No, Meera. You’re the one who said it! That believing in the curse means believing we don’t deserve love, that we don’t deserve to be happy. And I refuse to believe that the women in this family don’t deserve to be happy.”
I frown. “Did I say that?”
“Yes!” Nani says, excited. “My grandmother was cursed by a witch doctor after she pointed a gun at the man she was going to marry. Did you ever wonder why she didn’t just call off the wedding?
Because she was just a girl. She didn’t have the power to do that.
The gun was her only option, and she was still forced to marry the man.
I did the math. She would have been fifteen. ”
My eyes widen. I didn’t know she was forced to marry him. And I thought my mother was tough on me.
“Even my own mother,” Nani continues. “My father died of alcohol poisoning, and yet everyone blamed her and the curse instead of my father for drinking himself to death. And me…” She smiles sadly.
“I didn’t want to marry your grandfather.
I was in love with someone else. But everyone said I only loved Rodrick because of the curse; though maybe it also had something to do with the fact that Rodrick wasn’t Indian or Muslim and my family didn’t like that.
And then when I married your grandfather and his temper came out, I was told that was also because of the curse. ”
“Wait,” I say. “Is Rodrick the clown?”
Nani nods and this time her smile is fond. “He’s a teacher and a children’s author now. He’s dedicated his life to making children happy.”
Mom gives Nani a questioning look. “You still talk to him?”
“I reconnected with him and his wife on Facebook. She’s his illustrator.”
“Okay, but what about Mom and me?” I ask. “Look how disastrous our first relationships turned out.”
Mom throws her head back and laughs. “Your father was not my first relationship.”
My eyes widen. “Mom!”
“Meera, we’re not cursed,” Nani says. “We’re just… not perfect. We’re human.”
We’re all quiet for a while, sitting in the truth of that. I remember what Noah said when I told him about my family curse. He said we were using it as a crutch, because it’s easier to blame a curse instead of ourselves.
“We should all do family therapy together,” Mom says. “Sadie’s mom said it was a game changer for her family. We have to rebuild our relationship without any of these unrealistic expectations.”
Nani smiles. “Absolutely. We’ve made mistakes, but we’ve blamed the curse instead of taking responsibility for our own actions and decisions. Everyone in this family who has blamed the curse for something a man did has failed us.” She looks at Mom. “Like I failed you.”
Mom takes Nani’s hand again before turning to smile sadly at me. “And I failed you too, Meera. I’m sorry. We didn’t give you space to make mistakes. We expected too much from you, and that wasn’t fair.”
I shake my head and take hold of Mom’s other hand.
“And I… I failed you too, Mom. I should have trusted you. Yeah, I didn’t understand why you were being so harsh, but I’ve been terrible to you this summer.
I lied so many times. I was so wrapped up in myself and my own stuff.
I should have talked to you. I’m sorry.”
Mom smiles and squeezes my hand. “You’re just a kid, Meera. I’m supposed to be the mature one.”
“The three of us need to spend some quality time together,” Nani says. “Just us. I took the rest of the week off work. Neelam, do you think you can take a few days off from your golf lessons and volunteering and show your mother and daughter around Cherrybridge?”
Mom smiles. “I think it’s a great idea. But not here.
I think Meera and I could use a break from Cherrybridge.
I’m sure I can find us a spot at a spa or resort in the area for a few days.
What do you say, Meera? You want to get pampered and spoiled with your mother and grandmother so we can recover from this damn curse? ”
I thought I was going back to Toronto today. I told Keeley and Adanna I would be there. We made all these plans. But looking around the table, at my family, the strongest women I know, I’m weirdly okay with letting my plans go. Toronto can wait.
Because Mom and Nani are so right. We need to heal. We’ve gone our whole lives believing we were cursed, and we deserve to get spoiled for a few days, and more than anything else, we need to talk and listen to each other.
When we get home, I text my Toronto friends to say I had a change of plans and won’t be in Toronto today after all but will have a lot to tell them when I do get there in a few days.
Then I finally start putting everything from my room into my two suitcases.
It’s strange. I still want to go back to the city, but also I’m glad I came here.
I’m never going to forget my weeks in Cherrybridge.
When I’m taking my dresses out of my closet, I find the big paper bag full of Crash on Jupiter T-shirts.
Which of course reminds me of Noah again.
Which makes me cry again. Part of me is still not one hundred percent sure that there’s no curse.
I mean, things went so cosmically bad with Noah that it’s hard to believe it wasn’t because of a cruel twist of fate.
But it also went bad because I lied to my family so many times.
Because I encouraged him to lie too. And because I sent that song of his to Keeley without asking him first. I didn’t do those things because I was cursed.
I did them because I was so wrapped up in myself that I didn’t see how they could affect other people.
Things imploded because I was being selfish, which was bound to happen even without jealous Kaitlyn and her racist father.
I dig through the bag of T-shirts and find one in my size, as a souvenir of my four weeks in Cherrybridge. I take the bag with the rest of the T-shirts downstairs to Jason’s office. He’s working at city hall today, so I leave the bag on his desk and write a note:
Found these in a thrift store. I thought you might want to keep a memory of your teenage angst days, in case there is any of that guy still left in you.
The first-ever vacation that the three generations of Noorani women (or, technically, two Nooranis and one LeClair) take together is…
okay. Complicated, because of everything that’s going on in our lives.
Nani is still in a fantastic mood—giddy about leaving her husband—but Mom’s obviously feeling the opposite about her marriage ending.
Not to mention, the life she’s always known is being turned upside down.
She might be happy that her mother is leaving her father, but it’s still a massive change.