Chapter Twenty-One Simi
Twenty-One
Simi
This past month has been no cakewalk, but standing outside Dr. Johnson’s office feels even harder. Too unfair.
I try not to think about my sister’s words. That’s how bullies work. If you kneel to her now, you’ll never stop kneeling.
I wish I could talk to Rupi about what I’m about to do. But Rupi and I have been stuck in a seesaw of silent treatments. It’s currently her turn to hand it out and mine to be at the receiving end.
I hate how hard Prem’s family liking her hit me.
I’m not sure what exactly I expected, but it wasn’t this endless fawning.
I don’t even know why I’m surprised or why it bothers me so much.
It’s not like I wanted them to dislike her, and the truth is that for all her prickliness, no one ever does once they know her.
My sister has always been unfailingly endearing to anyone with half a brain and any heart at all.
She’s always acted like it’s a part she plays, like she does it on purpose for gain—the making people like her.
I’ve never noticed until now that it might be because she’s terrified of actually being liked and even more terrified of liking others.
It’s been three days, and the hurt in her eyes over what I said at the Sunday lunch hasn’t stopped haunting me. But I was hurting so much, and seeing her so oblivious of it really messed with my head.
She might be right about the fact that I’m responsible for her being in this situation, but she is absolutely wrong about how I should handle Karina.
Sure, she’s a bully, but she’s a bully who has me exactly where she wants me.
She knows exactly what I have to lose. And I’ll do anything not to lose it.
I take a breath and walk into Dr. Johnson’s office. A huge framed canvas of TASha on the wall greets me and breaks my heart.
It’s cowardly of me to do this in the office without Preeti here, but things have been a little awkward between Preeti and me recently. She seems to sense my feelings for Prem, and her guilt at having “encouraged” me when he wasn’t interested hangs between us, unspoken.
It’s a good thing that the girls are supposed to start spending a few hours a day in day care this week to get better socialized. Maybe it was time to cut my hours with them down anyway.
Instead of beating around the bush, I come right out and tell Dr. Johnson that they need to find someone else to help with the girls.
“With my sister getting married, I want to spend more time with her, and there’s a lot to be done before the wedding.
” I’ve rehearsed and re-rehearsed the words over and over, but it still hurts to say them.
He stands and comes around his desk. “Is this about the green card paperwork? Did Karina say something to you again?”
I shake my head. If he gets in the middle of it, that will only make Karina even more mad. “It’s just a matter of not having enough hours in the day. I’m feeling too stretched thin. I don’t want my work at the practice to suffer.”
“Simi, you’re the best nurse we have. Dr. Cline and Dr. Ung both think so. And Dr. Rai knows it too.”
“I really need your help with this, Dr. Johnson. Please.”
“I’m guessing you haven’t talked to Preeti about it yet.”
“I will. But can you talk to her first and explain?”
He studies me, his expression deliberately neutral. “Can you do me a favor? Can you stay until TASha have transitioned into day care? After that, we’ll look for someone else.”
“Of course. Thank you so much. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”
He gives me a half-hearted smile. “Also, let’s not tell Preeti just yet. She’s already not doing well with the girls starting day care.”
I’m not either. I want to keep the girls at home and not expose them to the big, wide world just yet. “I understand.”
He looks as relieved as I am to have bought some time. I can tell Dr. Rai that it’s done, and we can get things going on the paperwork.
I make my way to her office and find she’s left for the day.
I should feel lighter, but I don’t. I keep seeing visions of my sister punching the children in our neighborhood for teasing me.
Just as I’m getting ready to leave work and wondering if I should try to pick Rupi up a little early today, she calls.
“I was just thinking about you,” I say before I can stop myself.
“Well, if you were wondering how to get rid of me, you’re out of luck.”
So much for sisterly bonding. “I’m done with work early. I was wondering if you wanted to hang out.”
“In that case, you’re in luck. The angel of death and the rasgulla have decided to drag me to your place of work. We’re almost there.”
I was not expecting that. “Prem’s with you?” I say, not even caring how pathetic I sound.
I can hear her eye roll.
“Yes, he got tired of setting fires at his restaurants and decided to come home. Meet us at the hospital cafeteria. We’re almost there.”
When they get there, I’m already waiting, because I no longer care about appearing desperate to see Prem. He looks as exhausted as ever.
“Hi,” he says, walking right up to me and not stopping until our bodies are almost touching.
“Get a room,” my sister mumbles as she passes us and plonks herself at a table in a far corner.
Every time I want to soften toward her, she pisses me off. Can you have some respect for my relationship? I want to scream. I don’t, of course. I quietly follow with Prem and Saj and join her.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?” I ask after we’ve grabbed our drinks of choice.
Rupi throws Saj an icy look that makes me wonder what he did to make her angry. “We’re all wondering the same thing. Maybe Mamma convinced him to ask you out and he’s done enjoying the single life.”
“Not quite yet,” Saj says in the calmest voice. “And lovely as you are, Simi, I don’t think we need yet another complication.”
“Word,” Rupi says on one of her particularly mean scoffs. I guess I’m not the only one she’s frozen out.
“You called this meeting?” I ask Saj, because it’s impossible to engage with Rupi when she’s like this.
He nods. His eyes are watching Rupi. “Looks like we have no choice but to reach out to Tina Komar and make an appeal for Rupi’s passport after all.”
Rupi freezes over her ice coffee, which means this is the first she’s hearing of it too.
“Wow, this again?” she says, working hard to sound bored.
“In case it didn’t register the last fifteen times I said it: Tina will not return my passport.
” There’s absolutely no emotion in her voice, and dead coldness in her eyes.
She turns to Prem. “I thought you said he’s a good lawyer. ”
“I am,” Saj says with even less emotion. “Which is why I know that we have to do this. Not having a physical passport is going to add a year to the process since we don’t have any other documentation.”
“My god,” Prem and I say together and with enough emotion to make up for Saj and Rupi.
I squeeze my temples. This cannot be happening. “Another year on top of the two years they have to be married?” I absolutely cannot imagine going through this for three years.
“Yes,” Saj says a little more kindly. “Unless Rupi lets me contact Tina.”
I don’t think I can breathe. My lungs constrict, and I gasp for breath. I can feel all the blood in my body rushing to my face.
Prem rubs my back. The horror on his face makes everything worse. My sister sits there and watches me struggle to take in a breath, her face frozen in a mask.
Saj brings me a glass of water. I take a sip and hand the rest to Prem.
I want to hold him. I want him to hold me. I miss him so much, I don’t think I can bear it.
I force myself to slow my breathing, to calm down.
“There is no way we can do this for three years,” I say. I have not a single doubt that Prem and I will not survive it. We’re already stretched at the seams to tearing.
“You have to let Saj contact Tina for your passport,” Prem says to Rupi. “Please.”
She throws a look of loathing at Saj. As though Prem begging is his fault, and she’s never going to forgive him for it.
Then she turns to Prem again. “They have me on camera taking thousands of dollars’ worth of stuff.
Do you want cops to show up at your door and arrest your fiancée?
Because the moment Tina knows where to find me, that will happen.
” She rubs her arms and throws him a look that unleashes all her rage.
“But that would solve all your problems, wouldn’t it? ”
“If I wanted you to end up in jail, I wouldn’t be doing any of this,” Prem says with surprising heat.
Rupi blinks as though she was not expecting him to respond.
He looks at Saj for help.
Prem shouldn’t have to solve this by himself. “What if Saj can figure out a way to make sure that doesn’t happen?” I say, because there has to be a way out.
“I know you both think that Saj has some sort of magic wand, but I know what his strategy is, and I’ve already said I’m not going after Tina for trafficking.”
“But why?” I ask. “What happened to standing up to bullies?” It’s the one thing Rupi has always been obsessed with.
It’s why she’d never forgive me if she knew I’d just resigned.
No one cares more deeply about justice than she does.
She may not admit it, but the reason we both survived our childhood was because Rupi knew when something was wrong and she never sat by and let it happen without doing something.
Her not wanting to go after Tina makes no sense.
“Really?” she says. “You want to talk to me about standing up to bullies? Does that mean you’re not going to roll over for Karina?”
“Don’t you think me rolling over for Karina becomes even more imperative if you insist on stretching this out even longer?”
For the first time, she shrinks back. “I can’t,” she says.
Suddenly I know there’s something she isn’t telling us. “Why the hell not?”
“Because I can’t throw everyone who works at Curry and Tikka under the bus, okay! Not without knowing how this will impact them.”