Chapter Twenty-Four
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
Derek
Heliconias. Jae’s sitting across from me at our table, pointing to these brilliant red-and-yellow flowers that hang over a small statue.
They look like a vertical row of flamingos.
I’m amazed at how she remembers all these plant names.
But maybe it’s like knowing that Leo’s brightest star is Regulus.
Maybe it’s like knowing the constellations on her face, the tiny birthmark above her left eyebrow, right at the arch, and a darker mark about two inches away on her left cheekbone.
“What?” she asks, brushing a hand across her face, self-conscious.
I smile. Shake my head. “Nothing.”
A waiter takes our order, and as soon as he leaves, Jae leans in across the table.
“Doesn’t he look like Steve Urkel?” she whispers.
“Who?”
“Jaleel White.”
“No idea what you’re talking about.”
“Family Matters.”
“Nope.”
She leans back, gives me a suspicious look. “The Bernie Mac Show?”
“Who?”
She drops her head onto the table. She groans. Then she looks up and whispers, “The Cosby Show?”
“Can’t blame me for not watching that.”
She sits up. “No, I can. The Huxtables were everything.” She sighs. “Okay, so what have you seen?”
“Black shows? Black Panther. Luke Cage.”
She groans. “Marvel. Okay.”
“Is there some law against enjoying Marvel? Okay, what Indian shows have you seen?”
She cocks her head, looks up at the sky. “Well …”
“I’ll make it easier. Bollywood actors. Go.”
She lights up. “Priyanka Chopra.”
“No crossovers.”
“What’s wrong with crossovers?”
“What’s wrong with Marvel?”
She throws up her hands. “Fine. Okay. If you had to recommend one show, what would it be?”
“To watch with me?” I ask, heart feeling warmer by the second.
She grins. “Sure.”
I look down at the table and peruse my inner catalog of movies, from superhype Dhoom to ubercute Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.
What do I want to watch with her sitting beside me?
A movie where darkness fades into light.
A movie about unexpected encounters and how they can change your life. “Jab We Met,” I answer.
“Jab We Met. What does that mean?”
“When we met.”
“Ah,” she says quietly, and I know she’s thinking about it too. That day I looked up in the mirror and saw her face. Are you okay?
“Sounds like a romance to me,” Jae says, coal-dark eyes blinking. She runs her fingers slowly along her water cup dripping with condensation. Drops roll down and dampen the tablecloth.
“It is,” I say.
Her eyebrows spring up. “Oh. Okay. Maybe … yeah. Okay. Sounds good.”
Something about this makes my heart do a cartwheel.
She looks nervous. I’m making her nervous.
That means … Does Jae actually like me? I look away, trying not to be smug, but wanting to bask in the joy of maybe.
“What would you recommend?” I ask, throwing her a lifesaver, because she’s obviously drowning in nerves.
She sighs in relief and stirs the ice in her cup with her straw. Clink clink clink. “Girlfriends,” she says.
I laugh. “Sounds promising.”
“Don’t be a chauvinist.” She wags a shiny nail at me. “Those aunties are hilarious and fine. I would kill to have Jill Marie Jones’s lips. Kill.”
I shake my head. “I wouldn’t change your lips for anything,” I say. They look soft. A reddish orange tint today. Wet from water or from licking them, I don’t know.
“Okay, okay,” she says in a rush, and I realize I’m staring. She tucks her bottom lip into her mouth, averting her gaze, and it sends my insides swirling and shifting and tightening. What I would do to just … I shake my head, dislodging the thought.
The waiter stands over us and places our dishes on the table. French toast and berry compote, waffles, eggs, perfectly roasted potatoes, and tall glasses of freshly squeezed juice.
And then I don’t know why I say this, except, I shared Dad with her, and it felt good.
It felt like she belonged there in the memories of him.
So I say, “My dad swore up and down that food tastes better with your hands. Something about the heightened sensory experience. Well. He was talking specifically about Indian food, but … whatever.”
Jae’s jaw drops. “My dad said the same thing. Except it had nothing to do with the senses. Just … the magic of the hands, I guess.” She laughs. “I thought it was an African thing.”
I lean back, really look at her, take her in. She fits. We fit. Jae and I both rip off a piece of a waffle. She holds it up.
“Cheers,” she says.
“Cheers.” Our waffles touch and we laugh, then proceed to stuff our faces.
The phone in my pocket buzzes. And buzzes. And buzzes. I shun the pretense and lick my fingers—we’re eating with our hands, why use a napkin?—and then pull out my phone with “Sorry, one sec,” to Jae.
help come home
I’m confused for a moment, like I’m high in a plane and looking down, and not deciphering the splotches of color, the miniatures below. Then my heart beats faster as I start to understand. I push my chair back from the table, like I need this distance between Jae and Mom.
Mom what happened?
I stare at the phone, waiting for a response. Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
I stand up, let my eyes flick to Jae’s concerned face as I excuse myself, hurry past the pink flamingos—heliconias—and stand over the wooden bridge in front of the alligator’s mouth. I call Mom’s number and it rings till it goes to voicemail.
Did Peter finally snap?
I text her again, but nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
I sigh, defeated. My gut is being wrung out like a shirt holding seawater.
She fits. Jae fits. But only in some parallel universe where I’m allowed to hold on to happiness, where it’s not wrung out of me by tight fists. It’s not my universe, and it’s not today.
“What’s going on?” Jae asks when I get back to our table. My face must be glowing red hot from embarrassment and I can hardly look at her.
“I’m sorry. I really have to go. I’ll pay the bill, don’t worry.”
“No, that doesn’t matter. What—”
“Do you have a ride home?”
I finally meet her eyes, silent black moons.
“Jae, do you have a ride home?”
She nods.
I nod.
And then I’m gone.
When I told Mom I was meeting Jae at the Sundy House, she got that crazy look in her eyes and clapped her hands and said, “Torticas de morón!” which are Cuban sugar cookies she learned how to bake from Mrs. Montero.
And I said, “It doesn’t make sense to take food to brunch.
I’ll give them to her later.” She shooed me away like a gnat and started pulling out ingredients I didn’t even know we had.
I tried to ignore her sudden change in mood, tried not to think about what it meant that she seemed so happy, because today wasn’t about her.
“Is this a date?” she asked. “You haven’t brought a girlfriend around since Valeria.”
“That doesn’t count. That was middle school.”
“Exactly! Are you gonna let me meet this girl?”
“No way. I’d rather get alien probed.”
“What does that even mean?”
I didn’t get very far in my explanation before she sent me a death glare. “De-rek.”
But now, when I open the front door, Mom’s in the kitchen, doubled over, grasping the counter. The tray of cookies sits inside the open oven door. She looks up at me, and everything in her face says she’s scared.
I hurry to close the oven and feel the heat hit my face.
I pat her back and her shirt is drenched with sweat.
I lean over her and put my hands on her shoulders and feel their rise and fall as she struggles for air.
“You’re okay, Mom. You’re hyperventilating.
Just breathe slow.” I pause. “Is it Peter?”
Her hand shakes as she brings it up to her head and I know she’s dizzy.
I put my arm around her shoulders and lead her to the orange sofa in the living room. The curtains are parted slightly and I can see our neighbor Mr. Hall standing on his back porch surveying his lawn.
Mom makes a choking sound. “It’s a heart attack this time, I promise. I can’t breathe.”
The first time Mom had a panic attack, we were both sure she was dying.
I called an ambulance. But then it happened again.
And again. And again. When the nurses asked how often she drank alcohol, she said, “Not a drop since my husband died.” And when they asked her what medications she was on, she stumbled through an incoherent explanation full of onlys.
Only when she needed them. Only a few. Only when the pain was too much to handle.
“It’s a panic attack.” I try to keep the irritation out of my voice.
“It’s a feedback loop, that’s all. You get stressed and start hyperventilating, then you feel dizzy and your heart starts pounding like crazy.
You start to panic, and then you panic because you’re panicking.
Just breathe easy. In—one, two, three, four.
Out—one, two, three, four, five, six. Come on.
You gotta do it with me.” I brush a bright strand of hair away from her forehead.
It takes a few minutes, but soon she’s breathing in rhythm and her hand stops shaking.
She drops her head back against the sofa and looks up at the ceiling.
A small tear flows down toward her ear. She wipes the sleeve of her shirt across her nose, which has started to run, and across the sweat on her forehead.
“I’ll never get over it,” she says.
I don’t have to ask what she means. It’s Dad not being here.
It’s him sleeping beneath an ordinary headstone with an ordinary inscription.
IN LOVING MEMORY OF ASHWIN PATEL. BELOVED HUSBAND AND FATHER.
I think about the rows of carefully plotted tombstones in the cemetery.
The mountains of granite that keep the bodies down.
Rows and rows of birth dates and last days. Flowers that smell like the living.
How could we ever get over it when there are days like this?
When I have the smallest glimpse of happiness and she tramples on it?
I try to keep my voice neutral, try to keep the anger out.
Try not to think about Jae sitting there, wounded, as I walked out on her.
Anytime I try to pull away, Mom sucks me back into her orbit, and I don’t know how to get out, how to let her deal with the damage she’s done.
I comfort her, I lie for her, I pick up the pieces of her broken glass, hoping that tomorrow, she’ll put the vase back together.
Tomorrow, we’ll have something beautiful again. But it never happens.
“I think you need help,” I say, as gently as I can. “I think you should see someone. Gina said there’s an emotional and psychological component to addiction. She said you need coping skills to help with losing Dad. I think you should see someone.”
Her green eyes are dull and uninterested. “Tell Gina to mind her own business.”
“Mom—”
“Don’t.” She gives me a warning look and pushes herself off the couch.
I notice again how thin she is, the smallest version of Mom I’ve ever seen.
She hurries out of the living room and there’s the rattling sound of a pill bottle being emptied out.
I know she’s standing at the bathroom mirror, counting them, worried there won’t be enough.
I follow her to the bathroom, where she’s sipping tap water from her hand. The hair at her nape is matted.
“You’re running out of pills a lot faster,” I say. “You’re changing doctors—”
“Dr. Dao had no idea what she was doing.”
“I know. She didn’t know anything. Dr. Shetty didn’t know anything. Dr. Burke didn’t know anything. The only person who knows something is you.”
“Okay.” Mom holds up a hand and turns around. “You’re not going to talk to me like that. Not in my own house.” She shuffles to her bedroom and I follow.
“I don’t want to fight with you, Mom. But please. Get some help.”
“You get some help,” she snaps. “You think your delinquent behavior helps me in any way? Breaking into a teacher’s house. Supergluing lockers shut. Oh! Condoms. Yes. Condoms on the flagpole. That’s beautiful. You’re a stellar example of a responsible son. Exactly what I need in my life right now.”
The truth in her words hits me, and I’m silent.
She looks at me, eyebrows raised, keen green eyes. She almost whispers when she says, “If you’re not making my life better, Derek, then I don’t even know why you’re here. Your dad should be the one who’s here.”
“What?” I’ve had the thought a million times. Dad should be here. But that’s not what she’s saying. My eyes sting.
She’s violently opening and closing her dresser drawers, scraping her fingers along the cracks, feeling through each and every pocket of her clothes.
“All you remember about that accident is that your father died. You don’t seem to remember me flying through the windshield and having three back surgeries.
And now I have to deal with you and everyone else calling me an addict. ”
I catch the glimmer of light on her wedding band and suddenly wish I could crawl into a corner and cry. I try not to hear the words again, repeating in my mind. I don’t even know why you’re here. Your dad should be the one who’s here. I don’t even know why you’re here.
I put my hand up to my chest. No knife. But I feel it.
“You think this is a good life?” I ask her, my voice shaking. “You don’t care about anything anymore, you don’t care about me!” Something brief, like shame, flashes in her eyes, and I seize it. “Look, there’s that rehab center. It’s not far. I’ll go with you. I’ll take you right now.”
“I don’t need help. I need doctors to do their job.”
“Mom, no doctor in their right mind would give you more meds. You’re not happy without them. You need more and more. We can fix this, but you have to want help.”
“Well, I don’t want it,” she says slowly, shaking her head, exasperated. Like I’m the problem. Like her life would just be better if I disappeared. Your dad should be the one who’s here.
She stands quiet, lips in a thin line, an old painting of a sunrise behind her like a nimbus. Then she grabs her purse from the water-stained nightstand and pushes me aside as she leaves the room. “I’ve had enough,” she says.
Just then, the smoke alarm screams, sending my heart racing.
I run into the kitchen and fight to open the rusty old window. The cream curtains flutter like smoke as fresh air wafts in. I open the oven and pull out the black disks of sugar cookies and slam the oven door shut. The pan clatters on the stovetop.
Every blink sends a trail of fresh tears down my cheeks, and I swipe at them desperately. They keep falling, like the hurt doesn’t want to stay inside—there’s no room left.
I hear Mom hurry past me, turn to see her rush out the door.
And I can’t move. I can’t move my feet.