Chapter 26
chapter 26
“So many choices,” Sue mused. “Which one to pick.”
Naomi shifted at her mom’s side, the grocery store basket weighing more heavily with each deliberation Sue insisted was required for throwing together her “famous” spaghetti and tofurkey meatballs.
With jarred sauce, of course.
“Are we Bolognese babes tonight or hot marinara mamas?” Sue giggled and shook the jars of pasta sauce at Naomi. It was a game they had played when Naomi was younger, choosing their grocery items according to their moods or a weird theme Sue had invented. That was her mother in a nutshell, seeking adventure and playfulness in whatever she could find, including the grocery store.
But Naomi was sick of game playing. They’d been at Fine Foods for over thirty-five minutes and that was a half hour she would rather spend on her bed, under the soothing caress of all the blankets she owned, unashamedly pressing her nose into wrinkled pillowcases where traces of pine and mint still lingered.
God, she was pathetic.
The grocery store—and Sue’s endless chatter—was probably a safer option. Because with mint and pine came the sequence of nightmarish events from the Diwali celebration the previous day. No matter what angle she took or scenario she played out in her head, the single damning fact remained that she had stood by, hoping Dev would rescue her from the South Asian community’s judgment. From Gia’s judgment.
She, the girl who solved her own problems her own way, had let them cut her open. She had just stood there, watching her skin split and the truths she had carefully hidden away bleed out for everyone to see. And ridicule.
Dev hadn’t said a damn thing. But, even worse, neither had Naomi.
Pathetic.
Naomi eyed the perfect rows of jarred sauces. “I’ll go get the spaghetti,” she muttered, shuffling toward the next aisle, basket banging against her hip. But when Naomi saw who was also in the pasta aisle, she debated turning back around. She’d shed enough blood already.
“Naomi.” Cynthia greeted her, her voice flat. “I didn’t know you shopped here.”
She usually didn’t. Fine Foods was one of the more expensive grocery chains in Kelowna, a place that didn’t offer a more affordable, generic option next to every brand-name item. But given Sue’s penchant for long-winded decision processes, Naomi had pulled into the first grocery store she’d seen.
Too bad the fear of not being able to afford food for the next few months was ruining what could have been an extravagant shopping experience. Even if the rebranded bazaar lured in Indian royalty who paid in gold bricks, there was no way it would transcend Gia’s disapproval of everything Naomi represented. Everything she’d ruined. Her reputation was toast.
Naomi glanced into Cynthia’s half-full shopping cart. She held back an eye roll at the plethora of “Smart Choice” labels, organic stickers, and zero trans-fat guarantees Cynthia was stocking up on, and reminded herself that her last interaction with the barracuda had been civil. Friendly, even.
“Just picking up a few items for dinner,” Naomi said, forcing a cheerful smile.
“I’m surprised you even have time for dinner. Isn’t the deadline for Gia’s store right around the corner?”
Naomi’s eyebrows shot up. She had assumed the ridiculous timeline had been for her only, a tactic to discourage her from competing for the job. Under normal circumstances, it would have been a pleasant discovery to know that Gia, despite rooting for Cynthia, had treated them equally in that regard.
But she wasn’t an equal, was she?
“I’m not worried. Things are going according to schedule.”
A small, private smirk twisted Cynthia’s lips as she considered the selection of noodles in front of them. “Oh, that’s right. Why would you worry, anyway?”
Naomi’s hand paused midreach from the cheapest package of spaghetti on the shelf. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, nothing.”
“Cynthia, what is it?”
When she turned to face Naomi, the coy little smile was gone. Her lips pulled into a hard, grim line and she assessed Naomi like she was a rotting, bruised tomato at the bottom of the produce bin. “Well, I know I would worry a lot less about my clients’ wishes if I were sleeping with one of them.”
Everything, from the piped-in grocery store music, to the shuffle of tired parents grabbing last-minute items with newborns strapped to their chest, to the squeak of rusted grocery carts turning corners, faded away as a distinct ringing sound blared in Naomi’s ears. “Wh-what?”
Although Cynthia lifted a perfectly shaped eyebrow in disgust, her voice was saccharine. “I suppose I don’t know if you’re actually sleeping your way to your paycheck, but the kiss I witnessed in the parking lot after Garba left little to the imagination.”
Sleeping your way to your paycheck. Naomi’s dry lips parted but no words came out. It was Diwali all over again.
Cynthia sniffed and turned back to the pasta. “I suppose you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do to keep your new little business afloat, but if I were you, I’d be more discreet.”
“Have you been gossiping about me behind my back?”
“Honey, I don’t need to. Everyone is talking about what happened at Diwali. Even I heard about it, and I didn’t even attend. Fake dating? Getting chewed out by Gia?” Cynthia paused to toss a box of high-end, gluten-free pasta into her cart. “The community might not know what I know, but it’s still not a good look for you.”
Her throat tight and her mind alarmingly empty of a good defense, Naomi stared at the shiny packages of carbs in front of her. Even if her work on the bazaar paid out—and that was a big if at this point—there was no hope in salvaging her career in this city if people were talking about her. Fake dating was one thing, but what if word got out about the lies she told to secure the job? What if Gia decided to look into her family and discovered the real truth about Naomi’s heritage?
Everything Naomi had tried to build for herself, everything she’d done to keep the damn lights on…a waste. Thrown out like trash because she’d crossed too many lines.
When Naomi met Cynthia’s eyes, something inside her shriveled at the hint of pity she saw there.
“I was so wrong about you,” Cynthia said when Naomi failed to answer. She turned her shopping cart around before adding, “You are not the person I thought you were.”
With unfocused eyes, Naomi watched Cynthia walk down the aisle, staring long after she had disappeared from her line of sight. When Sue appeared at the end of the pasta aisle and beckoned her forward, it was like walking toward a mirage.
A grim, scowling mirage with steel in her eyes.
“ This is why I told you not to get mixed up with these people,” her mother hissed. “How many times do I have to tell you what they’re like before you pay attention?”
“How much did you hear?” Naomi asked, even though her usual defenses were nowhere to be found. She wasn’t embarrassed or irritated or even upset.
She was empty.
“I heard enough to know that you can’t stay here. You’re coming home with me.”
“Mom.”
“I knew I should have stopped you from moving out here. I knew—”
“Mom!” Naomi had lived through enough verbal beatdowns in the last twenty-four hours to last her a lifetime. She didn’t even glance around to see if anyone was listening to the pair of them, raising their voices in front of specialty bags of chips with hipster names—Flaming Hot Flavor-Stache and Dill Pickle Remixed, whatever that meant—at Fine Foods, of all places.
More than ever she wanted to be home, under that thick stack of blankets, with the shades drawn tight.
“Let’s just go,” Naomi said. And whether it was the flatness in her voice or the heaviness to her eyelids, Sue shook her head twice as she studied her daughter.
But she did as Naomi asked.
Sue stayed quiet the entire ride home, even as tears slipped mercilessly from Naomi’s eyes. The silence enveloping the two-door Toyota was anything but comfortable; it was heavy and dense, not worth wading through. Naomi didn’t even bother to wipe away the rivulets of humiliation on her cheeks, not even when she sensed her mother’s worried glances from the passenger seat. It was no small feat for Sue to hold her tongue so long, but Naomi was immensely grateful even though she knew it wouldn’t last.
Yet her mother surprised her when they stepped into Naomi’s apartment. She didn’t rail nor did she lecture. There was no self-righteousness in Sue’s firm grasp as she grabbed her daughter’s limp hand and led her to the couch. Once they’d settled themselves among Naomi’s alarming number of throw pillows, she studied Naomi for a long time before speaking.
“I meant what I said, Peanut. I think you should come home. We can forget about all this. Leave it behind us.”
Of course. The tried-and-tested Sue Kelly coping mechanism: run away, erase your memory, never talk about it again.
Something in Naomi pulled tight, but it wasn’t a warning to slink away, to pull back, as she had with her mother so many times before. No, it was like a spring coiling to catapult itself forward, fueled by an emotion Naomi rarely gave in to when it came to her mother.
Anger.
“I don’t want to ‘leave it behind,’?” Naomi said. With exasperated, graceless hands, she reached up to wipe her cheeks, sticky from the residue of salty tears.
“This place is bad vibes,” Sue said. Already her mother was packing her mental rucksack, as if the weathered canvas were all the protection they needed. Cinch it closed, get moving. “We need a good cleansing.”
Naomi dug in her heels. “I want to talk about it.”
Sue’s brow creased in confusion, and Naomi couldn’t blame her. Talking things through was not part of their relationship: Sue filled the space between them with her opinions, lectures, and warnings, and Naomi listened quietly before moving on and doing whatever she felt was best.
But she’d never truly been able to move on, had she? Everything that had happened over the last three months—hell, over her life—was a testament that she was stuck in a past that she didn’t know. Sue had never filled in the blanks and Naomi had allowed her to get away with it, absorbing the hurt but never prodding at the wound.
“Talk about what exactly?” Sue asked.
“I want to know about my grandparents. About your parents.”
It was like releasing a storm cloud on a free spirit parade. Sue’s face fell. “Why? Did Gia ask?”
“This has nothing to do with Gia,” Naomi said. “ I want to know.”
“Why?”
The faint vibration in the base of her throat warned Naomi that her voice would quiver soon, and that fresh tears were not far behind. But for once, she didn’t care. Let someone else clean up the mess for a change.
“Because they’re my family, regardless if you want them to be or not. And you might shun your culture, but I want to decide for myself.”
“I did what I felt was best for you,” Sue said tightly. “That’s what mothers do. I’m sorry if I embarrassed you at Diwali, but when your father mentioned you were attending an event like that, I knew you were getting in too deep.”
Naomi shook her head impatiently, refusing to allow the full-bodied humiliation of that awful moment to waylay her from the conversation at hand. “I know cutting me off from my grandparents was your way of—”
“That’s not what I—”
“—protecting me but—”
“It wasn’t just me,” Sue burst out. “They asked me to leave.”
Everything in Naomi’s chest drew taut. One deep breath and she would shatter. “What?”
Sue let out a heavy sigh before she replied. “Yes, I hated my childhood and yes, I was very unhappy. But I was also eighteen and pregnant by my high school boyfriend. I was scared.”
“And they asked you to leave?” Naomi was incredulous.
“We were having an epic fight, which was nothing new. I always fought with them—I had never been the daughter they wanted me to be. But I threatened to leave, as I had many times before. Except this time, they agreed it would be best.” Sue pulled a fuzzy throw pillow onto her lap and smoothed her hand over the top over and over again. “It sounds awful—and it was—but given the people they were, and the person I was, it was the best choice for both of us. And for you, I thought.”
A dark, vile feeling crawled up Naomi’s spine. Her grandparents had willingly disowned their daughter? Agreed to cutting ties? Like, Sorry, you’re not what we want in a daughter, so let’s part ways ?
It was unfathomable. Disgusting. Wrong.
It’s exactly what Dev worries about , a small voice reminded Naomi, and she cleared her throat. “Just like that? You make it sound so easy, like it was a quick, clean break.”
A half smile quirked Sue’s face. “No, it wasn’t easy, at first. I think it was harder on them. For many years, they sent money. One of my cousins still calls every few months to catch up, and I’m pretty sure she does so because my parents want to hear about me.” Sue’s eyes softened. “And you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” An errant tear slipped from Naomi’s eye, but she impatiently swiped it away. “This is my history, too.”
“Even though I looked at my life and knew I didn’t want that for you, I never wanted you to hate my parents.” Sue shrugged. “I still love them, even after all that.”
Naomi studied her mother. The crystal necklace; her long, messy braid; healing beads around her wrists. Her mother had visited her only once before—a few years ago when she’d first moved to Kelowna—and had insisted on sage-cleansing her apartment and rearranging her furniture according to Naomi’s chakras.
Was this the daughter her grandparents had known or was this part of Sue’s rebellion, another backlash against cultural expectations? “How can you be so forgiving?”
Sue’s lips lifted in a rare, self-deprecating smile. “Yoga helps.” When she caught Naomi’s stony face, she sobered. “It happened a long time ago, Naomi. It was almost a relief when they let me go—it would be worse if they were calling all the time, reminding me of their disappointment. Or worse, guilt-tripping me over how I was choosing to raise my daughter.” Sue’s gaze lowered. “I wanted a fresh start, and while the buildup was awful, my parents’ decision allowed me to do that.”
“So that’s it. They don’t want anything to do with us? With me?” Naomi bit her lip before she said something hurtful, but the words thrummed through her as they had her entire life: I’m not you.
“I don’t know, Peanut. Everything I know about them is time-stamped. They care about their status in the community, they don’t want to rock the boat, and they didn’t know how to handle a daughter fighting like hell to break the mold. It was hard on all of us to have a kid like me in their community.”
Naomi drew her knees into her chest and tried to sort through the riot of questions flooding through her from the answers Sue had provided. She had always considered her mother brave and independent, but a new, fragile respect was growing where impatience had once been. Because Sue sat before her, dry-eyed and accepting of the life she led. She might not have earned her spot on the podium, but she was unashamed of the race she’d run. For the first time in her life, Naomi envied her mother’s too-calm, too-tranquil hippie persona. Sue, at least, was at peace.
There was only one question, really, that mattered.
“How can you not hate your parents even just a little bit?” Naomi asked.
“I talked about this at length with the guru at my annual meditation retreat,” Sue said. Naomi heroically repressed an eye roll. “There’s no handbook for immigrants and the generations that follow, Naomi. I think they did the best they could. They raised me according to what made sense to them. And I did the same for you.” She offered a rueful smile. “We don’t always get it right, huh?”
Had she heard this explanation three months ago, Naomi would’ve scoffed and written it off as a weak excuse for validating one’s decisions. But after meeting Dev and learning about him, his family, and the never-ending demands circling his life, Sue’s reasoning clicked. Sometimes children did not turn out the way parents meant them to.
Everyone just…tried. And maybe there were no absolutes in what was right, or authentic, or wrong. What Dev had introduced to Naomi about South Asian culture was beautiful and had filled her with a kind of joy she hadn’t known was possible, but the more Naomi thought about it, that sense of fulfillment hadn’t come from fitting in or receiving someone’s approval.
It had come from sharing special moments with Dev, from exploring new things with him and living in the moment. From the little things, too: him dropping her favorite chocolate bar in her lap when he returned from paying for gas, the way he trudged after her in the paint store but never uttered a complaint when she loaded his arms with industrial-sized buckets to carry to the car.
Piggybacks in the rain because she was shivering in a waterlogged lehenga.
She wanted more of that—just feeling and basking in what felt right. Maybe it would be worth the awkwardness of fumbling through the pain. After all, even though her heart still ached from her fight with Dev, she didn’t regret a single moment from the last three months.
Naomi cleared her throat. “What if I want to know them? My grandparents, I mean.”
Sue gave her a long, searching look. “I can get their contact information for you. But, Naomi, I can’t guarantee you’re going to get what you want from them.”
Undeterred, Naomi nodded. Maybe they would reject her or maybe they wouldn’t fit in with her and the life she wanted to carve out for herself. But she knew, without a doubt, she would be okay either way.
She wanted to try.