Chapter Three
Whoever came up with the phrase “all hell broke loose” must’ve known my parents. As expected, Druv’s parents recovered quickly and gracefully. After an appropriate amount of disappointment, Romona was entirely chill about me turning the engagement trip into a solo trip and going off to New York on my own.
“No point waiting around for my son for every little thing. If I waited around for his father to make time to do things, I’d never leave home,” she said, then followed it up with a list of darling stores and restaurants that she and her girlfriends adored during their girls’ weekends.
My mother, on the other hand, has been acting like I’m handing Druv a Goodbye, it was nice knowing you card. Over the past two days, every mistake I’ve ever made in my entire life has been dredged up from the depths of my parents’ vault of woes. They’ve accused me of being irresponsible and overconfident, as though Druv is a priceless, fragile artifact I’m lucky enough to get to hold and I’ve decided to bounce him in the air, with oil on my hands.
As soon as the last of the guests at the dinner party left, Druv broke the news to our parents. He went for it quickly and precisely, just like slicing a scalpel through skin. Taking my hand, he announced that I was off to New York City by myself because he refused to let me waste that much money. A brilliant approach because it relied on our parents’ favorite motivation: economics.
The announcement was greeted with an entire minute of silence, the kind that’s usually observed to commemorate the death of a world leader. After the initial shock, Druv’s parents rallied and mine pretended to rally for Druv’s benefit. As soon as we left the Kalras’, my aie practically pounced on me to change my mind as Baba goaded her in her rant with approving grunts (for her) and disapproving growls (for me). When I didn’t change my mind, the silent treatment ensued. It lasted all yesterday.
Today, on the day of my departure, Aie has dragged me to the temple to beg Ganesha for blessings and protection. She even paid the priest for an extra ritual to ward away the evil eye. My flight leaves in a few hours, and I think she’s trying to get me to miss it. But I know her only too well, so I’ve lied about the departure time by a good three hours. Plus, the idea of flying makes me nervous and a trip to the temple helps me relax.
“You know what the definition of stupidity is?” Aie asks as soon as we’re alone, her Marathi so sharp edged with anger the words land on me like slaps.
It’s taken us half an hour to leave the temple because we’ve stopped to say hello to a substantial chunk of the Indian population of the western Chicago suburbs. It’s Sunday and the dosas at the temple cafeteria are incredible, so everyone is here.
Naturally, I wasn’t brave enough to suggest getting food, given my mother’s mood, which hasn’t improved even after bribing the gods to protect her daughter from her own stupidity. Nonetheless, the smell of the crisp, buttery dosas lingers in my head like a reminder of missed joy.
I don’t answer, because she needs to get this out of her system and the only way past it is to let her. I remind myself that it’s just her worrying about my happiness.
“Stupidity,” she continues, “is not recognizing how fortunate you are. Do you know why you get away with it?”
I take her cane from her and help her into the passenger seat without responding. Rhetorical questions are my mother’s favored mode of communication.
“It’s because everything has come too easily to you. Stuff falls in your lap no matter what you do to kick it away,” she says when I slide into the driver’s seat. “Don’t you think it’s time to grow up and stop pushing your luck?”
“Druv was the one who suggested it, Aie.” I should have been the one to suggest it. But until he said it, it hadn’t felt like an option. Mostly because I knew exactly how virulent my mother’s reaction would be, and I refuse to feel ashamed for using Druv now to get around it. “It makes no sense to waste all that money.” I stay the course with the monetary motivation.
“You’re willing to sacrifice a life-changing marriage to save five grands?” she says in English, and I suppress the urge to correct her grammar. “Do you know the most common trait in smart people?”
I pull out of the parking space and find my way around the line of cars waiting to nab the coveted spot we just vacated. Finding parking at the temple on a Sunday might be harder than finding God. Between that and my mother’s feelings about my ungratefulness for Druv falling in my lap, much like a prime parking spot, the metaphors are making my head spin.
“Smart people learn from their mistakes,” she says, voice heavy with meaning.
If I were a different person, I might laugh. Everything I know, I’ve learned from my mistakes. It’s been twelve years since I went to that party and almost ruined myself and my family. I was seventeen! I want to say, but my shame is so acute and debilitating, my tongue knots up.
“I haven’t seen Rumi in two years,” I say instead.
She goes still and silent.
I much prefer her in scolding mode. Aie in despair mode is something I’ve dreaded for as long as I can remember. Her sadness is much harder to navigate than her anger.
She gathers herself, shuttering her face. It’s her turn to not know how to respond. I should feel good about turning the tables, but all I feel is guilt and more shame.
“He’s my twin brother. Druv and his family would never understand if he didn’t come to our wedding.”
She turns to me, horrified. “Your father will die of shame, Miru. You know that.” She takes my hand. “Promise me. Promise me you won’t do something stupid.”
“Don’t you miss him, Aie?” I ask, suddenly exhausted enough for the both of us.
A tear slips from her eye, and she swipes it away angrily. “You kids are so American. Taking advantage of your parents’ love. Not caring about your part. Rights and responsibilities are two sides of the same coin. We didn’t do our part against all odds so you could become self-indulgent and think anything you do is okay. Obviously I miss him. I carried him for thirty-four weeks, I stayed up half the night for three years when he couldn’t sleep from colic. Your father and I starved so you two could eat. That doesn’t mean you get to emotionally blackmail us into getting your way. There are standards in the Salvi family. If you can’t live up to them, you’re dead to us.”
My mind and body separate, as they often do when I’m arguing with my parents. I think it started when I was seventeen and my father slapped me across the face, then emptied a bottle of sleeping pills down his own throat and almost died because I was stupid enough to forget who I was.
Aie isn’t just being dramatic anymore. She means every word. My body reacts as it is conditioned to do. I squeeze her arm and smile placatingly. “Druv is not going to leave me over this, Aie, I swear.” Saying the words makes me sick to my stomach. No matter how wonderful Druv is, and he truly is, this belief every person around me holds, that he’s a prize I’ve ended up winning by some stroke of luck, makes me want to roll up in a ball.
“This is what your baba and I worked for. So you could have this life. A husband like Druv. A family like the Kalras. I spent so many hours standing, I can’t walk without a cane, Miru!” She throws a look at her carved rosewood cane propped against the back of my seat, and unshed tears gleam in her eyes. “We have no hopes for Rumi. Our son is already lost to us. You’re all we have.”
“It’s a trip to New York. A two-hour flight. You’re not losing me. I just need a little time off. Can’t you be happy for me?”
She scoffs. She’s always found the concept of time off amusing: just another irony for the privileged. Time off from what? Your pampered life? That’s what she’s thinking right now.
“The only thing I’ve ever wanted was happiness for your brother and you,” she says. “But I know how fragile happiness is.”
“Why is it so hard for you to believe that Druv loves me?” I slide through another green light. The surprising lack of traffic is disconcerting, like the universe is trying to reinforce Aie’s point.
She looks at me like I’m being deliberately ignorant. “What does love have to do with anything? But sure, if we want to speak in simplistic terms, of course Druv loves you right now. You’re a beautiful, well-behaved young woman, and he’s a hot-blooded young man eager to start a family. In youth, before real life intrudes, love is easy. The question is, are you smart enough to build a good life on that? The life you build, that’s what makes marriage last. When hard times come along, when temptations arise, that’s what will keep him from walking away. The investment in what you build together: a home, children, a family, a place in society. The fear of losing that is what tides a marriage through life’s storms. Not love .”
Our wedding is four months away, and her words fill the car. The light I’m approaching turns amber. I step on the gas, knowing I have no chance of making it. Then, ten feet from the stoplight, I slam the brakes as it turns red. My poor old Prius bounces to a screeching halt, unused to my sudden recklessness.
Aie presses her hand against the dashboard and shakes her head as though I’m a child throwing a tantrum. Maybe I am. She turns to me with the look that always kept me from ever actually throwing a tantrum. Then she says the one thing that makes everything worse. “Just make sure you understand this, Mira. You are not to meet your brother when you’re in New York.”