Chapter Twenty-Four
As I walk toward my hotel, I can’t stop thinking about Krish’s face when he told me about his childhood. I see him clearly, a boy with those somber, thickly lashed eyes and that dimple. It’s like I’m there. What a beautiful baby he must’ve been. What must it have been like for his birth mother to give him away? What must it have been like for his adoptive mother to find him?
An old pain lances through me. It’s been so long since I let myself think about babies and mothers. My abortion is something I never let myself think about. I’ve never spoken of it to a soul. My parents know because they arranged the whole thing. Rumi knows, but I don’t know how he found out. Probably from hearing Aie and Baba screaming at me when they found out about the pregnancy.
I don’t even know why I’m thinking about all this now, but the face of the nurse who prepped me is back in my head, clear as day. Her family was from the Philippines. I remember this because she told me. I understand how you’re feeling. My parents are Filipino. I know how Asian parents can be. If they’re forcing you, you should know that you can have the baby and put it up for adoption. You have that choice.
I was seventeen. And I really didn’t.
I’ve never thought about this before, but would I have made a different choice were I given it? I don’t think so. The idea of me, at seventeen, being a mother is impossible to contemplate. Just being me at seventeen was so painful I want to double up at the memory. I remember considering taking my own life before I considered telling my parents.
I look at my phone, where I’ve been following the map to the hotel. I can see the imposing facade down the block. Instead of following the path, I hail a cab. I’m not leaving New York without talking to my brother.
When I get to Rumi and Saket’s place, I see that the lights in the house are on. I ring the doorbell, but no one answers. It’s a moonless night and there’s no one on the street except a kid smoking by the neighbor’s garage. He disappears into the house when he sees me. A skunky smell wafts over, triggering those ugly memories from my childhood that turn me inside out and still hold me in their grip. I think about Krish standing on this porch for the first time and how careless I was with my judgments. How very wrong I’ve been about so many things.
I try the doorbell again. I’ve been standing here for a good five minutes, but I can’t make myself leave. Just as I’m about to give up, the door opens and a slightly flustered Saket stands before me, looking faintly embarrassed. His hair is disheveled, and his bright-red kimono with giant white lilies is hanging open as though pulled on in a hurry.
Great. Just great.
“Mira? Hi, honey!” He steps out onto the porch and hugs me. “Sorry to make you wait. Come on in.” He says not a word about me showing up at their doorstep at ten o’clock without any warning and pulls me into the house.
My brother is standing at the bottom of the stairs, hair also disheveled and in nothing but his boxers.
I want to die of mortification.
“Excellent timing, Miru,” he says flatly. “Come on in.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to barge in like this. But I had to come.”
“Don’t be absurd,” Saket says. “Mi casa es su casa.” He hugs me again. “You are always welcome here. If you ever need a place to go, this is where you come, okay? Always.”
Tears threaten, and I will them away. I can’t believe how much I’ve cried today, and it’s been the best day of my life.
Rumi takes a step down into the foyer and studies my face. “Holy shit. You found the ring’s owner.”
“Oh my God!” Saket says. “Is this true?”
I nod.
“That’s flippin’ phenomenal. This calls for a celebration. Wine? A Barolo okay?”
“I have no idea what that is,” I say. “But it sounds fantastic.”
Saket hurries away, and Rumi grabs the shirt strewed across the back of the couch and pulls it on.
“That is phenomenal, Miru,” Rumi says with an old kindness I haven’t heard in a very long time. “How the hell did you manage that?” His voice is filled with the same wonder I’ve been feeling since I saw Reva look at the ring.
Over wine that’s so good it makes me feel like I’m someone else, I tell them about my day.
Saket listens with unbridled excitement, and it doubles my own excitement. I’m practically levitating. How the hell did we manage it?
As he watches me recount the events, my brother’s wonder turns to incredulousness, then disbelief. “You rode on a motorcycle?” he says. “Yeah, right!”
I guess the old kindness was just my imagination.
My twin, who knows what I’m thinking without me saying a word, can’t believe that I rode on a motorcycle.
“And that’s the least wild thing I’ve done today,” I say smugly.
He starts to laugh. But it’s not a happy laugh. It’s mean, and he doesn’t stop.
“Rooh,” Saket says. “Stop it.”
“What?” Rumi says, finishing his wine in one large gulp. “I just never thought I’d see the day when Uptight Mira would have some fun.”
Uptight Mira.
I want to throw the wine in his face.
“Fun? You mean the thing you were having when we were growing up, while I was running around trying to save your ass?” And keeping him from being killed by our parents.
He looks surprised that I reacted and slams the empty glass on the coffee table. “Oh, sorry, should I also have been holed up at home, toeing the line? Too chicken to do anything?”
These were the exact words that goaded me into going to that party. Into having my disastrous rebellious phase that lasted all of one evening and ruined my life.
I stand and grab my bag. Why the hell did I come here? I can’t be around him anymore or I’ll say things I’ll regret. “You’re a jerk, you know that?”
He leans back on the couch. He doesn’t care that I’m upset. He doesn’t care that I’ve been throwing myself at the glass wall he’s put between us. He couldn’t care less if I stayed or left.
“At least I’m a jerk who’s living his life. At least I’m not so apathetic, so cautious, such a damn coward I might as well be dead.”
Before Saket can reprimand him again, I throw my bag back on the couch. I’ve had enough. “A coward?” My voice is loud and hot. “Have you ever considered why I might be such a damn coward?”
Instead of answering, he makes a rude sound.
“Do you not remember how many times I lied so you wouldn’t get in trouble? Have you forgotten how many times I sneaked you into the house after Aie and Baba went to bed and you could barely walk? How many nights I didn’t sleep so you wouldn’t get caught? Apathetic? I can’t stop seeking out people’s pain and discomfort even when I try because I had to be so tuned in to you! Uptight? Do you know how many things Uptight Mira didn’t get to try because you had to do what you had to do? You know how many things I didn’t get to be so you could be you?”
He looks shocked. As though having me react when he’s lashing out at me is somehow impossible for him to comprehend.
Saket picks up our empty glasses and stands. “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.”
Neither of us acknowledges him.
Finally Rumi looks like I feel, punched in the heart. “You resent me,” he says. “You’ve always resented me. You. The one person on earth I didn’t have to worry about loving me has hated who I am all along.”
“Stop, Rumi. Stop it. This isn’t about love. Don’t make this about love.” Because there isn’t a soul on earth I could ever love more than I love him. It’s the kind of DNA-deep love I could never explain. More than my love for my parents or my friends or the man I’m supposed to be spending the rest of my life with. There is nothing of this seamlessness, this deep knowing, in any of those loves. “This is about you constantly jabbing at me for how I never got to be this version of me you want me to be. Stop manipulating me. Because I’m sick of it. I’m sick of being blamed for everything. I’m sick of being told who to be. By every single person in my life.”
He pushes off the couch and faces me, eye to eye. “I don’t want you to be anyone other than who you are.”
“And who the hell is that, Rumi?”
“Don’t you want to find out? Don’t you want to be someone other than this person who never stands up for anything? You say you never got to be you. Is it my fault that you never even tried to find out who that was?”
I shove him. I’ve never in my life been physically aggressive with anyone. Even when I should have been. Even though I still have lucid graphic dreams about bludgeoning the person who took advantage of my physical weakness. But I shove my brother.
“Call me a coward again and I will punch your face.”
He looks so stunned that if I weren’t having rage palpitations, I’d laugh.
“Yes, I’m a coward. Yes, I’m uptight, I’m spineless. I had to be. I had to contort myself into this person Aie Baba wanted, because—” His face drains of color, and I stop.
Now I want to take everything back. Every ugly word I’ve said, every word I’ve thought, I want to swallow it back.
“Because of me. Because I can never be who they want me to be.” His curls are wild about his face, his eyes even wilder. I suspect I look much the same. Like we got caught in a windstorm and are only now realizing it.
“I’m sorry,” I say. But I know it’s not my fault. So I make myself say that too. “I am sorry. It’s the ugliest thing, but our parents being the way they are isn’t my fault. You are the world’s most perfect being, Rumi. My world rests on you being you. I’ve never wanted you to be anyone but you. But the fact that Aie Baba did, how can you blame me for that?”
“I don’t. I blame them for that. I just wish you understood.” He looks away, then back at me, and I brace myself for what he’s about to say next. “I just wish you’d stood up for me once. Not just shielded and deflected, but stood up.”
He’s right. The sick thing is that I’ve always known this. I’ve always understood how wrong our parents were, how cruel. But until this moment I’ve never been able to admit it. I’ve made excuses upon excuses. I’ve compensated for their behavior by contorting myself into the shapes that might make them love me enough to listen, to change, so I might make them see Rumi for who he is. It’s the most convoluted logic, but up until now it’s felt like the only choice I had.
“I’m so sorry,” I say. The shame inside me is so sharp it’s an actual ache. An eleven on my beloved pain scale.
“Oh, Miru.” Rumi is the first to move. He puts his arm around me and pulls me close, and I go easily. I’ve missed him. The way he’s holding me means he’s missed me too. “Maybe I do understand why you felt like you couldn’t stand up for me,” he says. “I think I’ve always known that it wasn’t because you were weak.”
“I wasn’t?” I feel so damn weak right now.
“Maybe you were protecting me in the smartest, most pragmatic way possible. At first you were just keeping them from throwing me out. Then you thought you were keeping our family together for when you hoped they’d finally see sense.”
I didn’t think it was possible, but the tight knot of pain inside me loosens at that. “Thank you,” I say.
“I understand why you’re you, Miru,” he says with a sigh. “But we’re adults now, and it’s painful to watch you still doing it. It’s like watching Mrs. Incredible tying herself in knots.” His voice softens. “You still live at home. You schedule your days around their needs. And ... and well, you’re getting into this marriage to make them look good.”
Just like that, I’m shaking again. How can he stand there so clean, flinging all the dirt of our ugly history at me?
I pull away and face him. “Druv has nothing to do with this. But you do. What about your role in all this? If you always knew, why didn’t you say something? I know I chose to do it, let myself twist into knots to suit them. It might have been because I thought that would make it easier for you, or it might have been because I didn’t know any other way. But if you saw it, then instead of stopping me, you let me. You let me be the scapegoat. You left me to it and walked away. You abandoned me.”
Shock vibrates through me. I’ve never thought about him this way. I’ve never thought about me this way.
Instead of reflecting my anger, he looks sad. “I tried,” he says, and his voice is quiet. He’s not shouting. We’re talking, like adults. “It wasn’t in the kindest way, but when I figured it out, I tried. I’m sorry too. I should have tried harder, but you were always so convinced that you were happy. It felt cruel to take that from you.”
I drop down on the couch because it’s a lot. All of it is a lot.
“Are you happy?” I ask. “Is that even a real thing?”
Before Rumi can answer, Saket comes back in. “That’s a lot for one day,” he says and wraps his arms around Rumi.
A laugh escapes me. “Okay, stupid question.”
Rumi presses a kiss into Saket’s cheek. It’s unbearably tender. His smile is everything I’ve ever wanted for him.
Saket sits down next to me and puts an arm around me. Rumi does the same. They’re holding me from both sides, squeezing me back into myself. I put my head on Rumi’s shoulder. It feels good. It feels like amid the debris of everything we just blew up, we’re fine. For the first time in a long time, we’re fine.
“I think I might actually be happy,” Rumi says. “It’s not all the time. God knows, I’m not that evolved. But when I am, I just am, and it’s so much simpler than I thought it would be.” His voice changes again, turns the slightest bit more vulnerable. “But it didn’t happen until I stopped being afraid, Miru. Until I stopped believing everything I’d been taught about myself. It didn’t happen until I learned to follow my heart. It’s terrifying, but you have to learn to listen to what your heart is saying.”
His words hit me slowly, one painful jab at a time, and something I’ve been trying to push away floats its way to the top of my mind.