Chapter Twenty-Six Simi
Twenty-Six
Simi
Is it okay if we don’t go straight home?
” I ask my sister. It feels like we have something to celebrate.
Now that Rupi has her passport, the visa stamp extension should come through pretty fast. It also means she and Prem can apply for the marriage license and provisional green card, but I can’t think about that right now.
“Only if you buy me ice cream,” Rupi says.
“Sure, I’ll buy you ice cream and take you to my favorite spot in Nashville.”
We drive to the Parthenon, the full-scale replica of the one in Athens. We park the car, then pick up ice cream from my favorite creamery—a triple scoop for Rupi, and a single scoop for me—and follow the trail to the pond. It’s where my favorite view of the monument is, across the water.
“Very dramatic,” Rupi says, taking in the pillared building. “When you said the Parthenon, I was expecting a ruin.” She snaps her fingers. “But just like that, the building is whole again. Like us, move it from one country to another and boom! Fixed!”
I have to laugh at that. “Very symbolic, didi. If only we humans could rebuild ourselves that easily.”
She takes a giant bite and squeaks as the cold fills her mouth. “You know what, Chipku? I think you have.”
I stare at our reflections in the water. Two silhouettes jiggling on the surface, the ripples moving us closer, then pulling us apart, the sunlight dancing at our edges.
“You think I’ve rebuilt myself?”
“Yes. Beautifully. Look at you. You never have to rely on anyone. You stand tall on your own feet.”
“You sound proud.”
“Of course I am. I’m incredibly proud of you. I’ve always been.”
Tears push at my eyes, but I control them. I don’t want to ruin the moment. “Thanks, that means a lot.”
She pats my cheek. “Sheesh, we’d better be careful, or we’ll turn into the Guptas before we know it.”
“I mean, you are about to actually turn into a Gupta,” I say without thinking. But I realize how bitter I sound and apologize.
“Thank you and sorry all in the same day. Let’s not get carried away,” she says, but she doesn’t seem angry, and I relax.
Something about her is different. She’s been oddly Zen lately.
As though all her time with the Guptas has injected a tranquilizer into her veins.
Even with Saj just now, I can’t believe how they both laid it all out like that.
The entire time they were talking, I was waiting for Rupi to blow up and walk out of there and slam the door in Saj’s face.
But she stayed and listened and told him how she felt.
Since when did my sister get so comfortable with being vulnerable?
For a while we stand there, watching the sun going down over the beautifully balanced structure, then we start walking along the circuitous path.
“This is nice, isn’t it?” I say, wary of disturbing the peace but hungry for the connection of being able to talk to her.
“Not the best vanilla I’ve ever had. But yeah, definitely nice.”
I laugh. “I’ve missed you, didi.”
“Fine, it is nice. I like it when we’re nice to each other.”
“Me too. I can’t believe that we’re living in the same home again,” I say. “I never dared to hope that we would. And I hate fighting with you. I’m so tired of all the ugly feelings.”
Same here, baby girl, her eyes say. She takes another bite and savors it. “But you still have them, the ugly feelings?”
I should have known she wouldn’t let that go. I have the same feeling in the pit of my stomach I had when she forced me to take bitter medicine or made me study for exams. I could take my time, but there was no getting away from it. “Not as ugly as they were. But you are marrying the man I love.”
Again, I regret saying it the moment it leaves my mouth.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that,” I say.
She takes another bite of her ice cream and pauses before turning to me. “Why? I practically forced you to say it. You don’t have to keep buying peace by suppressing what you’re feeling, Simi. Maybe it’s time to stop doing that.”
“That’s not what I’m doing,” I say a little too quickly and far too defensively.
I expect her to call me out, but she doesn’t.
We walk in silence for a few minutes, pouring our focus into the ice cream until we reach the monument. Light filters through the columns behind us as we drop down on the stone steps. Rupi quietly finishes her cone. Her three scoops gone before I’ve made a dent in my one.
“Fine,” I say finally. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe that is what I’m doing. Maybe I don’t know how not to.”
She turns the full force of her newfound calm on me.
“Then learn. You’ve learned a whole new way of life here.
” She looks around at the families out for a stroll, the office goers out with friends after work.
“You didn’t back down from Karina. You’re taking care of me like you’re the older sister.
Surely you can learn to say what you’re feeling. ”
Can I? I want to.
“It’s been hard,” I say before I can stop myself. There’s a dam in my throat, and there’s a flood behind it. Rupi watches me with a challenge in her eyes and waits.
“It’s been brutal, in fact.” I let the words out.
“You’re living all the moments I’ve dreamed of for myself with Prem.
Being embraced by the family, how you’ve bonded with each one of them, planning the details of the wedding.
I know you think it’s not real because the marriage is not.
But these things are real. You’re in their hearts now, Rupi.
This was supposed to be my life. It’s not going to be the same when it’s me after you get divorced.
You’ll have already broken their hearts.
Everything will be tainted by then. And Prem’s dad.
Prem worships him, and I may never get to meet him as his daughter-in-law if something happens to him.
” I stop to catch my breath. Tears are running down my face.
Rupi leans over and wipes my cheeks. “There, was that so hard?” She throws a look at the ice cream melting in my hand. I hand it over. I’m done with it anyway.
“Yes. It was awful.” The hardest words I’ve ever said. And now that they’re dug up, I feel gouged out. Like I should be bleeding from the wounds.
She starts on my cone. “You weren’t wrong earlier.
When we were growing up, I was so used to thinking for the both of us that I steamrolled you when you expressed your opinions.
I didn’t mean to, but I did. Maybe that’s why you didn’t know how not to suppress what you’re feeling. I’m glad you got that out.”
“Why? What good does it do us?”
She tucks a loose lock of hair behind my ear.
“It helps us come up with a plan. If we’re going to live this lie, we have to be able to talk about how to do it.
You can’t just keep focusing on all the things you’re losing because I’m marrying Prem.
We can’t do anything about that at this point.
Let’s figure out how you’re going to continue your relationship without all this sulking both of you have been doing. ”
My first instinct is to deny it. We’re not sulking I want to say. “We’re trying,” I say instead.
She laughs. “Wow, that’s you trying? Is this how you guys communicated before I came along?”
That stings. Maybe we’ve had enough communication for a day.
“Our relationship was perfect. A situation like this would throw any relationship for a loop.” I purse my lips and swat away the fat tear that leaks out of my eye even as I try to stop it.
“I don’t know why you keep trying to undermine my relationship. ”
“I’m the one undermining your relationship? When this supposedly perfect guy is dealing with things by running away every chance he gets?”
“You’re being unfair. I know you think he somehow doesn’t deserve me. But how can you think that when you’ve seen the person he is and what he’s done for me, and for you, at every step.”
“That’s not what I’m saying at all. I did think he didn’t deserve you at first, but I was wrong.
I know that now.” She throws me a look that tells me I’m not going to like what’s coming.
“But I don’t think you do. What I’m saying is that you’re the one who acts like you don’t think you deserve him. ”
I stand up. I guess this letting-my-feelings-out thing isn’t all it’s cut out to be. “I don’t know why I even try with you.”
She pops the last piece of my cone in her mouth and wipes her hands on her jeans, then she stands.
“You try with me because I’m your sister.
You try with me because I’m all the family you have and you wouldn’t be here without me.
” She says it calmly, but there’s nothing calm about how those words land on me.
“And I’m all the family you have too. You wouldn’t be here without me either. You’d never know what it’s like to live in a big house and be fawned over by a loving family without me.”
That elicits a smug smile. “See. Already you’re getting good at saying what you mean.
Well done.” She’s trying to make some sort of point, and I wish she’d just spit it out.
She goes right ahead and does. “So, that’s the charm.
It’s the big house and the fawning family.
That’s why you love him.” She starts walking down the steps without waiting for me to follow.
The calmer she is, the more restless I get. “You know that’s not why I love him. But that is what you’re falling in love with, aren’t you?”
Now she stops and turns to face me. “I am not falling in love with a damn thing.” She takes a breath. I guess I’m not the only one who has trouble facing my feelings, after all. “But if it’s not the family and the house, what do you think it is?”
“That sounds like a rhetorical question. You’re dying to tell me what you think it is. So, just tell me.”
“Could it be how easy it is to get your way? How he never pushes back or makes you work to make him feel loved? He lets you drive every single thing in your relationship.”