8. Meena
8
Meena
The next day, by the time she got up, Owen had left for work. They hadn’t spoken afterwards. When she had come out of the bathroom, he was already asleep in their bed.
She sent him a text, reminding him that they were going to her parents for dinner. He texted back a simple Okay.
It’s over , she started typing on her phone. Last night she and Owen had reached a point from which there was no return. But as she saw the words on the screen, it seemed so final, and she felt a tug in the pit of her stomach. What would life without Owen look like? Would he move back to the UK? She couldn’t tell her family about another failure. And would he fight her for custody? Could she deal with not seeing Sasha every day? The thought made her sick. Sasha was her reason. She was why she got up every day and why she put up with so much crap. There was no way she would let go of her. No way she wouldn’t see her every day.
She deleted the words and didn’t send another text.
The rest of the day went by in a haze, the sex from the previous night hanging heavy on her mind. It had been the opposite of making love. He had been cold and removed, almost as if he could have been fucking anyone, not the woman he was married to. Or perhaps that had been the appeal for him. Perhaps he wanted to imagine her as a stranger? A one-night stand in an alley after a drunken night at the pub? It hadn’t felt like he was role-playing. He’d seemed to fuck with a sort of disdain, as if he was telling her that he cared very little for her.
Or maybe, she tried to justify to herself, she was reading too much into one night of bad sex.
She went through the motions of the day. She made a triple batch of her chickpea salad, baked some healthy chocolate brownies (made with black beans) and then for the hell of it rolled up some fresh Vietnamese spring rolls using rice paper for the dinner that night. She hoped her parents and Asma would appreciate how health conscious she was being for her father. She was smiling brightly when she picked Sasha up from school. Her daughter would never know the turmoil between her parents.
‘You look happy,’ Sasha said as she got in the car.
How simple it was to fool children, Meena thought.
‘I was just looking forward to seeing my most favourite person again,’ Meena replied cheerfully.
‘Mum.’ Sasha rolled her eyes and did up her seatbelt.
‘You know how much I love you, right?’ Meena said.
‘Yeah, of course,’ Sasha replied, while looking out the window.
At home Meena made Sasha her favourite after-school snack, a blueberry smoothie, and then got their outfits together for the evening. She thought they could both wear their traditional shalwar kameez, to show that they still retained a connection to their roots, and if nothing else to show her parents she hadn’t completely forgotten about her culture.
Sasha twirled around in front of Meena after she put on hers and Meena did the same.
‘You look pretty, Mum,’ Sasha said. This was a nice change. She wasn’t doing her usual eye-rolling.
‘So do you!’ Meena said, quietly glad that she was once again seeing the daughter she remembered before she became a tween. Meena optimistically wondered if Sasha was now moving past that phase.
She spread a light dusting of eyeshadow on Sasha’s eyelids and dotted her lips with some lip gloss. Her daughter smiled brightly. Their mood was buoyant as they got in the car, but then she got a text from Owen and felt her stomach sink.
Gonna be late. Maybe half hour or so.
She wasn’t surprised. Part of her expected he wouldn’t turn up at all.
As she parked in the driveway of her parents’ place she took a few deep breaths, readying herself for the evening ahead.
‘You okay, Mum?’ Sasha asked.
‘Of course, I’m always okay, aren’t I?’ Meena replied.
Sasha shrugged and they unbuckled their seatbelts, but neither of them got out of their seats. Meena sat staring out the windscreen. Meanwhile, Sasha looked back at her mum.
Meena reached over and grabbed Sasha’s hand. She squeezed it and Sasha didn’t remove it from her mother’s grip.
‘You know I love you, right?’ Meena asked, looking at her daughter intently.
‘Why’d you keep saying that? It’s freaking me out,’ Sasha said.
‘Geez, can’t a mum tell her daughter she loves her?’
‘Yeah, but you don’t have to make a big deal out of it!’
By now Sasha had freed her hand from her mother’s and was getting out of the car.
The smell of food frying hit Meena as soon as she entered her parents’ place. She’d barely rung the doorbell when the door opened and her mother was standing before her.
The first thing Meena noticed was how her mother looked thinner. Her cheeks were hollow and her frame almost looked frail. She had stopped dyeing her hair, so her once black locks were now streaked all over with grey.
‘Assalaamu alaykum, Ammy,’ she said as her mother grabbed her in a hug before turning her attention to Sasha.
Already Meena began to feel the guilt swirling in her stomach.
‘Are you eating okay, Ammy?’ Meena asked as her mother walked towards the kitchen while she and Sasha followed.
‘Of course! I eat whatever I like. You know that,’ her mother swiftly said as they entered the kitchen. There Asma stood in front of a deep fryer, frying batches of samosas.
‘Won’t the samosas tempt Dad?’ Meena asked.
‘Well, hello to you too, Meena,’ Asma said. She wiped her hands on her apron and came over to give Meena a quick hug. ‘Oh my, Sasha, I think you’re taller than when I last saw you! I heard you’re quite a gymnast.’
‘I’m better at dance,’ Sasha said quickly.
‘Jazz, right? I saw a video your mum posted on Instagram.’
Sasha scowled at her mother.
‘Uh-oh, I think you need to get Sasha’s permission before you post another one,’ Asma said to Meena before quickly turning her attention back to Sasha. ‘Anyway, the kids are with Nana in the living room if you want to go see them? Rohan is showing him the small robotic device he coded. I tell you, I think one day he’ll be creating our overlords.’ She laughed at that and Meena looked away, embarrassed for her. Asma’s need to crow about her children was very desi of her, Meena thought, but also cringey.
Sasha quickly left the adults to it and Asma turned her attention back to the samosas.
‘Well, I cooked, like you asked,’ Meena said as she pulled out Tupperware containers of salad, rice paper rolls and the healthy brownies.
Asma turned around and scanned the container. ‘Not sure you’ve done a lot of cooking there. Most of it seems to have been assembling chopped vegetables.’
‘Asma ...’ their mother said, her tone one of warning.
‘Are you serious? I wanted to make healthy foods for Dad. The last thing he should be eating is deep-fried samosas, for god’s sake.’
‘There’s not just samosas, you know. I brought keema and potato curry and I’ll roll out the parathas later.’ Asma settled another batch of samosas into the fryer with a definitive thud.
Meena scoffed. ‘For a doctor you sure don’t seem to have any idea what to feed a heart patient.’
‘Well, if you’d been there, you’d know that after a cardiac bypass, patients often complain of having a metallic taste in their mouth, which was what Dad was having. He basically stopped eating, which is why we’ve tried to cook him some of his favourite foods along with healthy ones.’
‘I was there! In spirit at least—’
‘When? You mean the five-minute phone calls you made once a day?’
‘Girls!’ their mum said louder. ‘You both should know it falls to me to look after your father for most of the time, what with you both so busy with your lives.’
Ah yes, no visit to her parental home would be complete without the heapings of guilt included, Meena thought. But she didn’t say anything.
Asma turned back to the fryer and found the batch of samosas had burnt. ‘Thanks a lot! You jinxed my samosas.’
‘They’re fine, just a dark brown. I like them like that anyway,’ their mother said, ushering Asma to the side and rescuing the samosas out of the fryer.
Asma allowed herself to be moved. She looked at Meena. ‘Do you want me to assemble the rolls on a platter?’ Her tone was conciliatory. Meena nodded.
Half an hour later the doorbell was ringing. Meena thought for a second that it was Owen but then heard Asma’s children excitedly call out, ‘Dad!’
Osman was morphing into a silver fox, Meena noticed. She imagined how all day he would have patients or their family members commenting on this, not to mention the nurses, who she was sure would flirt outrageously with him. But the way he walked into the kitchen and wrapped his arms around his wife’s waist, in a manner that was both respectful because his in-laws were there but also conveyed how much affection he felt for Asma, Meena knew he would rebuff any workplace flirting attempts. He even gave Asma a kiss on the lips when he thought no one was looking, and it was so sweet and endearing all at once Meena had to swallow hard to push down the envy burning in her chest.
‘Get a room,’ she said, to which Osman replied, ‘Maybe we will.’ Asma blushed. Meena had to admit that made the whole situation even more adorable.
An hour later, the kids were complaining that they were hungry.
‘Owen will be here soon,’ Meena said as she looked at her phone again. Her previous ten messages to him had gone unanswered.
‘Maybe we’ll let the kids start on the food and the adults can wait for Owen,’ Asma suggested.
‘Your father needs to eat, though, otherwise his blood sugars get low,’ their mother said.
‘Let’s just eat,’ Meena said. ‘Owen’s probably been held back at work.’
‘I mean, Osman’s a literal heart surgeon but he managed to make it,’ Asma said, under her breath. Everyone ignored the stinging comment.
They had almost finished eating when the doorbell rang. Meena knew it was Owen even before her mother answered the door. He burst into the dining room in a spirited mood, the alcohol from his breath filling the air as Meena braced herself. Asma, seeming to sense Meena’s discomfort, got up and started to pile food onto a plate.
‘Hey everyone!’ Owen said, louder than was necessary, going over to kiss Sasha on the forehead. She grimaced and pulled away. Meena was surprised at her reaction. Usually Sasha acted like a daddy’s girl.
‘You all started without me!’
‘Everything’s still warm. Come eat,’ Asma said, laying the plate down on the table. ‘Kids, if you’re finished you can go to the living room.’ The kids didn’t need to be asked twice.
‘Ah, at least someone still thinks about me,’ Owen said, looking at the plate Asma had prepared for him. He pulled Asma into a tight hug, which she relented into, before he sat down to eat.
‘Your wife’s been trying to get hold of you,’ she said, sitting back down at the table.
‘Has she?’ Owen asked, oblivious to the discomfort in the room. Meena’s shoulders sank. As usual, she was the failure. Asma sat there brightly with her surgeon husband and wonderful children, and here she was with a drunk husband and a child who was increasingly embarrassed by her parents.
‘Yes, she has been, Owen. You should check your phone once in a while,’ Asma said firmly. Maybe Meena had misjudged her. Owen ignored the comment and continued to demolish the food on his plate.
‘How you doing, mate? You feeling better?’ Owen asked his father-in-law, as he stuffed a whole samosa into his mouth.
‘Better now that you’re all here,’ Meena’s father said. When she looked over at him she noticed how her father didn’t seem to care that Owen was drunk or that his daughters were bickering. As he surveyed the table before him, all he seemed to care about was that his family was together. Meena couldn’t help thinking his attitude was a far cry from the father who had left her at the age of five for two-and-a-half years.
But perhaps he had been making up for it ever since. After all, it was her father who suggested they move back to Australia when Sasha was still a baby and they were struggling living in London. ‘What’s happened has happened,’ he’d said, again. Meena was unconvinced. ‘I’ll help you till you get your bearings,’ her father then said. It was the latter statement that helped cement their decision.
The last thing she had imagined when Sasha was born was that they’d still be living in that Clapham flat with the damp stain on the ceiling. Meena’s fantasy that they’d be in an ultra-modern yet still outwardly traditional Victorian terrace in West London got smashed to smithereens when the reality of having a baby came to the fore. After it was made clear to her that attending PR events with a pregnant belly – especially the one that involved a burlesque show for some finance bros – was kind of awkward, she quit her job. A colossal mistake, in hindsight: it meant that they went from two incomes to only relying on Owen’s salary to make ends meet. But Meena wasn’t worried, because his confidence about the big commission that was coming meant that any day now they would move out and into the place of her dreams, and she could finally email photos of her living the glam mum life to her overachieving sister who had hardly ever left Australia.
Unfortunately the commission never came. Owen learned that his role was headed for the chopping block. With a redundancy looming, they took the safe option of staying in her flat and keeping their outgoings low. When the redundancy did eventuate, they had little choice but to take up Meena’s father’s offer.
‘This baby deserves new clothes!’ her sister had said, after they landed in Sydney with a couple of suitcases.
Meena tried to not take offence. ‘All her best clothes are being shipped.’
‘Well, that was silly. She’ll be too big for them when they get here.’
Meena didn’t want to say that money had been so tight all of Sasha’s clothes were second-hand and bought off people advertising them online, because she didn’t have any friends who were parents yet.
‘Anyway, it’s nice you called her Sasha. It sounds so much like Sana. Are you sure you weren’t tempted to call her Sana?’
‘No,’ Meena said quickly. After she had registered her baby’s name and announced it to her family, it occurred to her that her child’s name sounded similar to her niece’s. But by then it was too late.
They arrived when Sydney was at its glamorous best – summer. The sun was high in the sky, everyone was tanned and smiling, the bars by the harbour were full and the seawater was the perfect temperature for a dip. Except they didn’t take advantage of any of that. To her now decidedly English disposition, the sun was too hot for her baby, the carparks at the beaches were always full and her husband seemed to be in a permanently grumpy mood, heightened by the fact that they were living with her parents.
It was her parents who decided that, since Sasha’s first birthday was around the corner, it would be the perfect time to also hold the wedding ceremony Meena and Owen never had, having opted instead for a quick registry job after Meena found out she was pregnant. Owen didn’t particularly care about the wedding ceremony, but he was keen to celebrate Sasha’s birthday. Sasha, who brought a smile to his face even when everything else made him grimace. He was always happy with Sasha. It was the one thing that reassured Meena. He was a great father and he had taken on the role with gusto. He woke up in the middle of the night to feed her, he changed nappies like a pro and bought an annual pass to the zoo so they could have family outings together.
Sasha’s birth had brought them closer. Even when they were sleeping in that small studio apartment, the two of them squished on the futon that replaced the creaky sofa bed and Sasha in the bassinet beside them, they seemed happy. Yes, it was exhausting being parents to a young baby but for some reason the exhaustion never hit them as hard as people had warned them. Perhaps they both had temperaments that meant they could cope with limited and broken sleep. It was the one thing she truly felt she was succeeding at – when the new mums she eventually met mentioned how hard they were finding having a baby, she could empathise but not fully understand. In many ways it was relatively easy for her. Sasha latched to her breasts without complaint; she didn’t get windy or have colic like some of the other babies. When it came to getting her on solids Sasha ate all her mushed-up veggies. It helped, perhaps, that both parents were around and doted on her.
Sasha’s first birthday/Owen and Meena’s wedding ceremony took place at a harbourside park with a gazebo they hired for the event. Just when Owen and Meena, Sasha in their arms, went to cut the cake, Asma clinked her water glass for what Meena thought was going to be a speech. Instead, she said she was adding to the happy news of the day by announcing her second pregnancy. Everyone oohed and clapped. Asma smiled the sweetest smile at her sister. Meena nodded in return. Well played, Asma , she thought , but she truly didn’t care. The sun was shining, there was a beautiful breeze blowing, her daughter was wearing a brand-new designer dress that her parents had bought for the occasion and Owen, at least for the moment, seemed happy. Meena wanted to soak in the moment.
After the celebration, Sasha stayed with Meena’s parents, while she and Owen enjoyed a delayed honeymoon, spending a couple of nights at a five-star hotel in the city. They relished the freedom of being without a child. That feeling led to a sudden urgency in the bedroom – they pounced on each other from the moment they checked into the hotel and spent the next couple of days making love, catching up on sleep and eating room service.
At one point that weekend, he turned to her and said, ‘I’m glad you made me stay.’
‘At this hotel?’
‘No, when you found out you were pregnant. It worked out, even if I didn’t necessarily believe in us.’
‘You stayed because you wanted to, though.’ They had just made love and she was flushed from the exertion of it.
‘But the pregnancy—’
‘That was a gift,’ she said, her face smiling at the thought of her dear little girl.
‘Yes, but you planned it. That was part of your plan, right?’
She got up in bed, alarmed that he actually thought that was the case.
‘No. It definitely wasn’t part of the plan. Don’t you remember? I was off the pill and you forgot to use a condom.’
‘But you didn’t tell me you were off the pill.’
‘That’s because by the time I remembered, you’d already had your way with me.’
‘I had my way with you? The way I remember it, you threw yourself at me.’
Meena felt her heart racing for all the wrong reasons. Owen sensed the mood shifting.
‘Anyway, it doesn’t matter now,’ he said quickly. ‘I’m happy that things worked out the way they did. Sasha is the best thing to have happened to us.’
‘She is,’ Meena said, but she was still a little shocked that all this time he’d thought she meant to get pregnant.
‘Forget I said anything, okay?’
‘Yes, but all this time ... You thought I meant to trap you?’ she asked, looking him in the eyes.
He looked away, annoyed at himself. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything.’
‘No, I’m glad you did.’
‘Actually, I think we’ve done plenty of talking for now. I believe you didn’t fully finish that last time.’ And before she had time to say anything further, he was on top of her, kissing her breasts then moving down to her stomach, and then finally paying attention to her pussy, sending her into a frenzied orgasm. The way this man had such a powerful physical hold on her was perhaps what kept her holding on to their relationship. There were women the world over who were unsatisfied with their sex lives and here she was with someone she’d been with for a number of years, who to this day made her come again and again. How could she let go of that?
Their mini-honeymoon was the best two nights of their marriage, and in many ways the memory of it allowed Meena to push through the hard parts of the rest of the year. Much of it involved living with her parents while Owen unsuccessfully looked for work, till he finally found the role that allowed him to truly excel at what he did – making sales and earning a good living from it.
By the end of the year, when they’d moved out of her parents’ place and into their own new apartment with three whole bedrooms, she broached the subject of having another child.
Owen shook his head. ‘Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me,’ was all he said.
She’d brushed it off, thought it was a joke. But looking at him today, seeing him drunk and thoughtless in her family’s living room, she wondered if he’d meant it. If he’d ever let it go. She glanced over at Sasha, in the other room, watching TV with her cousins. Her daughter would never know what it was like to feel the way Meena once did, alone in a hospital with no one by her side, not understanding why the ones she loved had abandoned her. More than anything to do with Owen, it had been Meena’s determination to make sure Sasha grew up with two loving parents that had kept her fighting for her marriage.
Fool me twice, shame on me. She heard Owen’s words echoing in her head. They clenched at her heart, just like they did the first time he said them.