Chapter 24
We’ve been driving for a little over three hours now, the journey back so much smoother than the one to Skye. No sheep flooding the street, no traffic jams, no breakdowns.
We’ve stopped to stretch our legs and get some snacks, but otherwise we’ve talked the whole way.
Stories about his sisters, who, according to him, didn’t learn as much from the family cooking lessons as he did.
But then, he’s the one who’s had the most practice making the dishes their parents taught them.
He tells me how much Maggie helped after his parents passed, how the girls were finishing school and he was at university.
He moved out of the dorms and back into the house, and Maggie helped.
She cooked for them and looked out for the girls, but when they craved a taste of something familiar, something their parents had made, Jacob was the one to make it.
“They didn’t come back for the wedding?” I ask.
Jacob’s brows crease.
“For Maggie’s wedding?”
“Oh. No.”
He opens a bag of cheddar-and-onion crisps, passing one to me, his gaze averted.
“Are they not close?” I ask. “The girls and Maggie?”
It seems hard to believe, given everything he’s told me about Maggie’s presence in their lives. How important she’s been to all of them.
“They were busy,” Jacob said. “They’re both working, and it’s hard to take time off and…
” He lifts a shoulder. “They don’t enjoy coming back to Aberdeen much, and I don’t…
I don’t want to push them.” He pauses. “I think they have a lot of memories of our parents here. And of how things were after. They had to keep going to school as if nothing had happened, and they both struggled in their own way. Rachel became so distant, and Annie went hard the other way. She clung to Maggie, and to me. Never wanted to spend a single second alone. But by the time they were ready for university, they both wanted to get out of here, and now that they’re living away—I don’t know.
It just seems like they don’t want to come back. ”
I slant a look at him. “And do you feel—how do you feel about that?”
“I miss them, but we do call. And visit. And it’s not that I don’t understand where they’re coming from.
Sometimes I feel that same way about Aberdeen.
I’ll walk somewhere and pass the pub James would force me to do karaoke at, or the Indian restaurant my father loved, and it’s—” He swallows. “It’s overwhelming at times.”
“Have you never thought about moving? Like your sisters?”
He hesitates. “I have, but…Maggie’s there. And your dad, and I don’t know. I want to be close by just in case—” He stops mid-sentence, and my chest tightens.
“I get it,” I say.
It strikes me that he described that time after his parents’ death as hard for his sisters, but he didn’t talk about how hard it was for him. And it must have been. In addition to all his own grief, he was taking care of his sisters, while still in college. I can’t even imagine.
“And I have work,” he says. “That keeps me here.”
“Right,” I say. He holds the open bag of crisps toward me, and I reach for one, popping it into my mouth. “So, you’ve told me why you chose poetry, but you haven’t told me any of your favorite poems.”
He laughs. “That’s like asking me to pick my favorite child.”
“Okay,” I say. “A favorite poet, then?”
“Huh.” He thinks for a moment, his teeth pulling on his bottom lip.
“I’m not sure that’s any easier. I love all the poets I teach.
I think I mentioned some of them, but Meena Alexander in particular.
She was also from Kerala, like my family, and she immigrated several times during her life.
Her reflections on identity and migration and diaspora all resonate so deeply with me.
“But I also love the poets I studied as a child. And it’s hard to grow up here and not read a lot by Robert Burns.
” The corner of his mouth lifts. “Maggie actually gave me a collection of his poems for my birthday once. I think when I was eleven or twelve. We’d studied him in school, and in the creative writing classes I took, but it was the first time I read poetry on my own. Simply for fun.
“I spent a good deal of my thesis examining his work, actually. He’s considered the national poet of Scotland, and my research was an exploration of Scottish identity and the arts. What it means for me to be from here, born here, to be both Indian and Scottish now.”
“I want to read that,” I say.
He glances at me. “Really?”
“Yes.”
He hesitates. “It has some of my own work in it,” he says. “My poems. I don’t know if you’d—I don’t know. And I should probably warn you that there are a lot of Rabbie Burns’s poems in there too, and most of them are in Scots. They can be a little tricky to read if you don’t know how.”
“I’ll just ask you to translate for me.”
“Well, that I can do.” He eats another crisp. “You know, I think you’ll like his poetry, actually. He has a poem about one of your favorite things on the planet.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
A teasing glint enters Jacob’s eyes. “Haggis.”
A loud laugh escapes me. “He does not have a whole poem about haggis.”
“He absolutely does. It’s a bit of a classic, really. It’s called ‘Address to a Haggis.’ ”
I laugh again. “I need to know everything about this. Do you remember it? How does it go?”
“I don’t have it memorized, but it ends with ‘Gie her a Haggis.’ ” Jacob’s accent grows deeper as he says it, lilting in new ways. It’s distractingly attractive.
“Meaning?”
“ ‘Give her a haggis.’ ‘Her’ being Scotland. It’s kind of an ode to the country, a patriotic sort of poem.”
“I need to read the full thing. And your thesis.”
Something flickers across his face. “Are you sure? You don’t have to—”
“And give up the chance to read your poetry? No, I absolutely want to. That is, if you’re okay with it.”
He grins, slowly, his expression warm. “All right. I’ll find it for you, then. When we return.” He settles back in his chair. “But enough about me. I want to hear what your new show’s about.”
“Sorry?”
“You said you were working on something new?” Jacob asks.
“Oh. Yeah,” I say. “It’s—we’ve been trying to push for some changes on the show.”
“Changes like…”
I swallow. I haven’t really talked this idea out with anyone yet.
It’s so new, but it’s probably good for me to practice, to get some feedback before I send the pitch to Natalie.
“My boss and I, we realized that all these shows feature the same kind of love story. Young people looking for love. And with the way the show is marketed, and the celebrity status that people on the show receive, it has become a little…stale. And I was thinking it could be nice to feature more mature couples. People finding each other later in life. People who found love once and are looking for it again, or are finding it for the first time. And instead of throwing everyone on the same beach…”
I glance at him to find him riveted, his eyes fixed on my face. “Yeah?”
“Well.” I laugh. “Maybe it’s a little silly, but I was thinking about our drive up here, and all the stuff that happened, and how—” How it threw the two of us together.
How it created the circumstances for me to fall in love.
“There are adventure shows like this, where people pair up and go through obstacles.”
“Like The Amazing Race,” he says.
“Yes. Exactly. And I thought, what about a show like that, in different countries around the world, where we spend a lot of time in each one? We explore different cities and cultures, and these couples pair up, go on these adventures, with hurdles that we throw at them, all to win a cash prize. And maybe…we explore each of their stories, what their life has been like, and maybe we watch them find love.” I shrug.
“I don’t know. I’m still working out the concept, but it feels different from anything on the air right now.
And I’ve been wanting to work on something that allows for a little more…
exploration. More time to dig deep into each contestant and their story, and this format could allow for that. ”
“Neelu, that’s—” Jacob releases a breath, a gentle puff of air. “Have you told your dad about this idea?”
“No.” I frown. “Why?”
The lines around his mouth soften. “No reason. I just…I think he’d like it.”
“Really? I mean, he told me that he was a fan of Love in the Sun, which I had no idea about, but I don’t know if he’s interested in other reality television.”
“I don’t know if he is,” Jacob says. “But this? He’d find it really special.
Knowing that this trip—this trip you took with him—that his story with Maggie, that any of it had inspired this idea.
He’d be—” He stops abruptly. “I’m sorry.
I know your relationship with your father is really different, and—”
I swallow, my throat a little tight. “No,” I say.
“I—maybe I should tell him.” I didn’t think about it before.
I didn’t think he would care, but now…I think Jacob’s right.
I think he would. “I wonder if…Maybe I’ll interview him.
About the trip, and the wedding, and everything.
I was going to try to find some sample contestants and film them, but my boss wants this pitch quickly, and… do you think he’d be open to do that?”
Jacob’s eyes are warm behind his glasses. “I think you should ask him.”
“All right,” I say. “I will.”
—
Two hours later, we’re nearing Aberdeen, and we’ve mostly been quiet. I’m working through the show concept in my mind, and Jacob’s on his phone, tapping something out. I asked once if he was texting Maggie or my dad, but he said it was just “work stuff,” and we left it at that.
I’ve decided to ask Maggie and my father if they’d let me interview them.
I don’t have any real film equipment here, but we can use my phone, put something together just to give Natalie a sense of the idea.
My father and Maggie will be back from Skye in a week, and the personal touch might be exactly what this pitch needs.