Chapter 10 Simi #2
Both Rupi and I turn to him in unison.
“He’s a lawyer. He’s also Chandni’s brother. He’s family. He’s not going to tell anyone. There’s attorney-client privilege and family loyalty.”
“What if he tells Chandni?” I ask. “She’s more his family than you are.”
“He won’t. That’s not how lawyers operate. Also, we’ve been best friends since grade school, and god knows I’ve kept enough of his secrets.”
“What kind of secrets?” I say. I’ve heard about Saj but never met him.
“Let’s just say Saj had more fun when we were growing up than I did,” Prem says.
Rupi huffs out a groan. “Great. He sounds totally responsible.”
“He is,” Prem says. “And brilliant. He’ll know how to help us.” He scans his phone some more. “What kind of visa were you on?”
“A tourist visa, which you can’t work on. But it was valid for ten years.”
“So, technically you are not illegally here. You just worked illegally and there’s no paper trail,” I say, hope rising.
“I wasn’t supposed to stay more than three months, based on the passport stamp, but I’m not sure what that means legally,” Rupi says, but she looks the tiniest bit hopeful too.
“Okay, we have to be present to get a marriage license in the state of Kentucky. And there’s no waiting period,” Prem says.
“So, let’s go to the courthouse, then,” Rupi says.
“They need a government-issued photo ID,” Prem says.
“Is there no way to create a fake ID? They show that in the movies all the time,” Rupi says.
“I think we’re trying to get you to be here legally, not trying to do more illegal things,” I say.
Before any of us can say more, Prem’s phone buzzes.
“Hey, man,” he says. Then laughs. “I was just about to call you.” I can hear the voice on the other side of the call, but the words are not clearly discernible.
“Well, it’s a little more complicated than that.
” Another pause. “I think it’s better to discuss it in person .
. . You are? That’s great. Thanks. No, not the house.
Let me send you an address. We’re almost there. ”
A few okays follow before he hangs up and we pull into my apartment parking spot.
I know the timing is all wrong, but something inside me flutters with excitement. My sister is going to see my home. It’s the first home I’ve lived in without her. Even when I picked it out, she was the one I was thinking about. She was the one I most wanted to show it to. Now she’s here.
I see the column of her throat bob with a swallow.
I run around the front of my car to open her door.
The fact that she doesn’t have a bag or even a purse hits me hard.
She’s always had the barest minimal needs, but the reality of her earthly possessions being the clothes on her body is a lot.
Growing up, she owned two salwar kameezes.
One pair of jeans and some T-shirts that Glen had bought us. She only wore those for lack of choice.
It’s not like either of us could have thrown away clothes that weren’t in tatters. Every piece of clothing I’ve ever bought sits in my little closet. When you’ve experienced having nothing, you don’t get rid of things when you do have them.
The musty smell of the boxboard cupboard we shared as girls fills my head.
The memory brings with it an unbearable onslaught of emotions, so much pain and fear, but also the safety of my sister’s presence.
I haven’t let myself feel any of it in so long.
I open the door for Rupi and try to give her my hand. She doesn’t take it.
I want to turn to Prem, but he’s standing a few feet away from me. There’s an odd stiffness to him. A coldness I’ve never seen before. It’s like I’ve broken something between us. But he’s still here.
Rupi pulls herself out of the car on unsteady feet. I try to meet Prem’s eyes, but he avoids my gaze.
I lead her to my nondescript wooden front door with its faded varnish.
I use the keys to let us in. I steel myself for her to say something harsh, to flick her whip, to yank me down to earth.
But one step into my little apartment, and her eyes soften into wide, bright pools of emotion.
Everything I’m feeling in my heart is in her eyes.
Her gaze travels from the tiny open kitchen to the living room with a rug with some pillows standing in for a couch. She walks across the narrow space and into the bedroom, where there is real furniture, a bed with a bright sheet set covered in yellow flowers, and my little potted garden.
“What are their names?” she asks.
I have to fight the tears that rush into my eyes. “There’s five of them, so I named them for the Pandavas.”
“Of course.” She steps closer and touches the leaves. “Let me guess. Bheem,” she says, stroking the giant kadi patta.
I want to wrap my arms around her, but I no longer know how.
Growing up, we used to covet our neighbor’s lush balcony plants. Then one day when we were walking along one of the office buildings near our home, Rupi noticed a gardener planting some yellow-and-red crotons. She squared her shoulders and walked up to him and asked if she could have one.
“Sure, little girl,” he said and gave her a generous cutting. He also grabbed her hand and smiled at her, completely ignoring me hiding behind her.
Rupi smiled back and licked her lips. The man was so surprised, his grip loosened. Taking advantage, Rupi snatched her hand away and broke into a run, dragging me along, screaming, “Go die, you letchy bastard” over her shoulder.
As we ran home, I was terrified that he’d give us chase, but Rupi was fearless.
She understood the power of a public place.
When we got home, unfollowed, we fished an oilcan out of the dump behind our building.
Together we washed it out and made a hole in its bottom.
Then I helped her fill the can with dirt from the unpaved strip edging the road.
We stuck the pink-and-yellow cutting into the soil and stared at it for a long time.
Rupi watered it every day. She collected the skins from the copious amounts of bananas our mother ate and soaked them to use the water to fertilize Rukhmini.
By the time I left Mumbai, Rukhmini had climbed all the way up the metal grille enclosing the balcony of our flat.
A living wall of the most beautifully colored leaves that we made together.
Even now, when I think about the home that had sheltered me for the first twenty years of my life, the thing I see in my mind’s eye is that thick wall of leaves.
“Did you want to have a shower and freshen up?” I ask, watching her watch my garden of Pandavas.
“The soil is a little dry. You aren’t watering them enough.”
I don’t respond. I don’t want the gruff criticism to make me smile, but it does.
“You should soak banana skins in the water a few times a week.”
“I do, didi,” I say, and it snaps her out of the trance. I catch the same memories that just rose up inside me in her eyes.
“Good,” she says. “I know how you rich people like to waste money on buying fertilizer in the store.”
“Not that rich yet,” I say, and she looks around and harrumphs as though I just said the shallowest, most materialistic thing ever.
I probably did, because now that she’s here and she’s seen the tiny little world I’ve built, it suddenly feels enough.