Chapter 33
The next morning, Simran wakes and goes downstairs to an empty house.
Geeta and Rishi left for their honeymoon a few hours earlier and with Ashok peripa still resting, the only person up is Veena perima, whom she finds in the kitchen, in an old ankle-length cotton nightgown under a light brown cardigan with tortoiseshell buttons.
Her hair is loose and spills around her shoulders, wavy from years of wearing it in a thick braid.
Simran is caught off guard by how much gray there is. A lot more than seven years’ worth.
Veena perima looks up from where she’s making a cake. “Coffee vennum?”
Simran waves her hand to indicate her aunt should keep working on the cake.
She’s always loved the coffee in Iyer House.
They make it the authentic Chennai way, letting it sit in a stainless-steel drip, a laborious enough process that most people, even her parents when they lived in Chennai, opt for easy brewing.
She walks back to the kitchen island and stands on the other side of it.
Her aunt doesn’t look up as Simran noisily slurps the coffee because that too is part of the ritual of drinking it.
Simran should tell her aunt about losing her job but that’s for another time; there’s another conversation she wants to have today.
She picks up a knife and helps hull and slice the strawberries that Veena perima will place on top of the cake when she’s done frosting it.
Even after the hectic barrage of wedding events, she has found time to make Kavitha’s favorite cake, which makes Simran smile.
“It’s been nice having you in the house again,” Veena perima says. “It almost felt like the old times, you living with us, Geeta back as well. All my girls together again.”
All my girls. Despite adopting her years ago, it has never sunk in that Veena perima thinks of Simran as hers.
She’d always assumed she was an imposition, brought to this house by tragedy, and that Veena perima saw her as something to tame, to control.
Simran swallows and stands straighter, knowing that she has a promise to keep.
But more than that, she wants this from her aunt. She puts the knife down.
“I’m in love with Leo,” she tells her aunt.
She always thought confessing to Veena perima would be nearly impossible, but the words come out easily.
“We—I lied to you about not knowing him. He’s my friend Olivia’s brother and I’ve known him for some time.
” Veena perima doesn’t stop icing the cake.
“We are together. I want to marry him some day.”
At this, her aunt gives her that X-ray gaze that feels like it sees through all the walls Simran has built. After a long moment, she looks back down at the cake, turning the plate so she can ice the other side. “I thought as much.”
Simran can feel her jaw drop. “You did?”
Veena perima nods. “I didn’t know if you loved him back, but I could tell he loved you.”
“How?”
Veena perima shrugs as she explains, “Just the way he’d look at you when he thought no one was noticing. Silly boy. He was quite obvious.” Warmth at the thought of Leo dissipates in a hot flash of irritation. “So you knew I wouldn’t be interested in Kamal and, still, you pushed me towards him?”
Her aunt purses her lips. “Leo lives in Toronto. I didn’t want you to leave again and never visit. Kamal is in Philly, you would be only an hour away. And he’s not some aira-gaira. He knew your parents and we know his family. If you married him, it would be perfect.”
Simran sighs, seeing her own complicity in what has driven her aunt to extremes. But she hates the authority with which her aunt makes decisions for her. “That’s not what I want.”
Veena perima flattens her mouth into a straight, unrelenting line. “I have the wishes I have. And my wish was for you to marry Kamal.”
Was. Simran decides to take it as a tiny peace offering. “I can understand that. But what about Leo? What about what I’ve just told you?”
Veena perima is silent for a long time as she puts finishing touches on the cake and sets the spatula down.
Then she looks up at Simran. “I always wanted you to marry a nice Tamil boy,” she says.
Seeing Simran open her mouth to argue, she presses on.
“This is how I was raised. I understand things are different these days. Like with Kavitha. Being gay is not a choice. It’s who she is, I accept that.
I will love her however she is, even if I had a different picture for how her life would go.
You cannot tell me what to wish for your life. ”
“And you cannot arrange my life to fulfill your wishes,” Simran says.
“I’m your elder,” she says. “I know what’s good for you.”
“Maybe,” Simran says, though she doesn’t think so. “But maybe I don’t want what you think is good.”
Veena perima chin’s lifts. “Leo, what religion is he? Will he make you convert? Will you ask him to become a Hindu, like us?”
“No, Perima. People marry across religions and cultures all the time. You find ways to make it work. You share each other’s traditions,” Simran says, realizing now she has to explain this.
Her aunt came to this country so long ago.
Thirty years back, she was among a first set of immigrants from her part of the world in a completely foreign place.
The way she kept her culture intact, the way she held on to her identity, was to cling onto it tightly with both hands.
“What about when you have children? Family is so important to us; it’s not the same way with these Westerners sometimes. Does Leo understand that we are very family-oriented?” Veena perima says, but her words are a little softer.
Simran thinks her aunt already knows the answer to that question. “What do you think he’s been doing all these weeks? He’s been trying to learn about our family.”
Veena perima’s face allows a split second of recognition before she purses her lips. “I don’t know anything about his family.”
And in that reversion back to fighting this, Simran understands.
It’s not intolerance. It’s fear. Veena perima’s understanding of the world is to get married to a Tamil man and have Tamil children—in that very strict order—because that’s what she did.
Neither of her daughters is doing that; Simran is her last chance.
The legacy she wants to leave behind to her kids, so they can leave it behind to their kids, are her traditions, her culture, her religion.
That’s how she sees the world and she doesn’t want children and grandchildren she can’t understand because they don’t view the world the same way.
She thinks the differences between them will make her lose them.
It’s that fear that makes her put conditions on what Simran knows is unconditional love.
But the fact that Simran has confessed about Leo and Veena perima is still speaking to her, the fact that she gave Geeta and the baby her blessing, the fact that her aunt is making this cake for Kavitha—all of this means that there’s a part of her that would rather adjust that world-view, however begrudgingly, than lose her children.
There’s hope. Kavitha had said as much: Veena perima doesn’t know how to change, but she is trying.
It will take time and it won’t be the way either Veena or her children have pictured it but a patchwork of both.
“I know you are worried,” Simran says. “But Leo’s an incredible man. He works hard, he loves his family, he’s kind to everyone.” She continues, needing Veena to truly understand. “Perima, I stayed away all these years because I felt like you were pushing a life on me that I didn’t want.”
Veena perima sighs, grabbing a barstool and sitting on it.
She’s still shorter seated on it than Simran is standing.
“You’re right. I wanted you to settle down years ago.
I wanted you to have a few children by now.
I wanted to look at the picture of my sister in the study, like I do every day, and tell her, ‘See? Simi is settled. You don’t have to worry.
I took care of her after you were gone, and now she has someone who will take care of her after I am gone. She won’t be alone.’”
Simran is caught wholly off guard. “I never thought—I don’t think—it’s not—” She shakes her head, trying to unscramble her emotions.
Veena perima’s voice is far away when she speaks.
“Your mother and I—we loved each other, but we were different. Maybe because I was the older daughter; after your patti died, I felt like I raised her a bit. I made sure she had a clean school uniform and cooked dinner in the evening. One day, when she came home talking about a boy named Rangan, I made sure our father arranged a meeting with his parents.”
Simran is almost afraid to breathe. “You’ve never talked about Amma or Appa before.”
Veena perima won’t look at her. “I must have.”
“I’ve been waiting all these years,” Simran says.
Veena perima hangs her head. “We don’t talk about these things.
I remember when my thatha died, my mother never cried once.
She believed in—what did she call it? Keeping a stiff upper lip.
So that’s what we did. Why share your emotions and make everyone around you sad too?
And then when your parents … At first, I was too sad.
So I stopped thinking about your mother.
I stopped remembering them. I stopped focusing on how different your life would have been if they had been alive.
I thought we’d get you married young, so you could have someone who was yours, after being alone for so long.
Then you left so suddenly and I knew I’d failed them.
That’s why I let you go. That’s why I let you stay away. ”