The Shape of Family

by Shilpi Somaya Gowda

  Embarking on the hour-and-a-half drive home, they stopped at a roadside stand to purchase three quarts of the strawberries for which Watsonville was known, and made a spontaneous side trip to Gilroy, the garlic capital of the world. At a family diner, they gorged themselves on garlic fries and played their drawing game on the paper tablecloth: one of them started a drawing, then each person added an element, taking turns until they ended up with some nonsensical figure, like a man with a tree growing out of his head, or a house with a cat face for a roof. Then they all proposed a name for the picture and voted on the best one. Today’s picture ended up being a dog with a garlic bulb nose, and they decided “Gilly” was a good name for a puppy.

  “Not the healthiest meal,” Jaya said, as she continued plucking strawberries from the limp cardboard box on the drive home. “But we did manage to get in fruits and vegetables, so not all bad either.” By the time they arrived home, the strawberry boxes were empty and stained and Prem had fallen asleep, his head resting on the back seat next to Karina, where she let him lie, undisturbed.

  4 | jaya

  MAY 2009

  “Oh, this is heaven,” Jaya said, falling back onto the plush canopy bed. Outside the hotel’s picture window, the pyramid building punctuated San Francisco’s skyline. “Absolute heaven. Forty-eight hours of complete freedom. I honestly don’t know what to do with this much time.”

  Keith crawled across the bed toward her and straddled her body with his knees. “Oh, I can think of a few things.” He kissed the tender hollow of her neck and made a trail around to her earlobe, nipping at it gently.

  “Mmm.” She held his head in her palms and kissed him deeply on the mouth, tasting the lingering flavor of his minty gum. “We don’t even have to be quiet,” she murmured.

  “And we don’t have to be quick.” They slowly undressed each other and took their time exploring each other’s bodies, familiar after twenty years together, but no less thrilling due to the unusual sense of abandon they felt in the privacy of the hotel room.

  When they were finished, they lay next to each other, Jaya’s head tucked under Keith’s arm, her leg sprawled across his. There was such simple pleasure in feeling his bare skin against hers. Their lovemaking sessions at home had to be strategic and expeditious, while the kids were watching TV or after they had gone to sleep. It had begun to feel more like another activity that needed to be scheduled than the impromptu desire-fueled bouts of their early relationship.

  At this moment, Jaya felt utterly content, knowing she and Keith could still be lovers as they’d once been, that those parts of them had merely been buried under domestic detritus, not extinguished by its weight. The rough patch they’d endured last year with the financial market collapse had been difficult, but they’d survived. Keith was calmer and happier now that things had settled down. Jaya traced circles on Keith’s bare chest. “We should get your sister a really nice gift for doing this.”

  “Yes, so she visits again soon.” He kissed her and glanced at the clock. “I made a reservation for dinner, but it’s not till 7:30. You want to go down to the bar for a drink?”

  “Seems fitting.” She reached up and kissed him on the mouth, and he responded with a hunger that surprised her. They made love again, more briskly and rougher this time, unconcerned about the rhythmic banging of the headboard against the wall. Afterwards, they took a shower, soaping each other’s backs and laughing about how decadent it was to stand under the hot water with no interruptions or deadlines.

  * * *

  Jaya had first met Keith in a London pub on a warm Friday evening in September 1990, where they had both gone after work for drinks with colleagues. She was surprised by the tall, sandy-haired man who sat on the stool next to her and took a long drink from his pint glass, draining nearly half of it before placing it on the table. He smiled at Jaya’s widened eyes. “Long week,” he said in a flattened American accent.

  Jaya smiled, noticing the beginnings of his five o’clock shadow. “What do you do?” she said, intrigued by the crisp suit that accentuated his square shoulders, so unlike the men with whom she worked at the think tank, in their rumpled tweed blazers with elbow patches.

  “I work at Canary Wharf,” he said.

  Jaya smiled and glanced up at the ceiling for a moment, as if deliberating. “Hmm.” She raised an index finger. “Real estate, perhaps?” When he shook his head, she said, “Financial services?”

  He grinned. “Clever girl.” Jaya found herself annoyed that he’d called her a girl but pleased at the descriptor. She saw her colleague Anja, across the table, throw her head back and laugh heartily at something one of Keith’s friends said.

  “Can I get you another?” Keith asked, standing from his barstool and draining the last third of his pint glass. He gestured to Jaya’s glass, still half full.

  “Sure, Newcastle.” She watched for the reaction she knew would come, the way his face broke wide open with that boyish smile.

  “A true beer drinker,” he said. “Impressive.”

  It was Jaya’s father who had taught her to drink beer properly before she left for university. Her mother thought it was uncouth, but her father understood how things worked outside the delicate confines of diplomatic life, where women sipped champagne and men nursed crystal tumblers of single malt, and he wanted his daughter to be prepared. At first, Jaya detested the bitter flavor, but in time, she learned to identify the flavors of hops and barley until she could tell the difference between a blonde and a pilsner. She loved the rich, malty taste of Newcastle Brown Ale, but it was so heavy, she rarely drank more than one.

  A second full glass appeared on the table before her. Jaya inclined her head toward the glass in thanks to him. “I’ll have to pick up my pace.”

  “I’m in no hurry.” He slid his barstool closer before sitting again. As Jaya learned in the conversation that followed, he was an investment banker with Morgan Stanley. Having spent the past two years in New York, he’d come to London for his third year with the firm, a temporary posting before attending business school back home.

  “Why business school?” she asked, not expecting much of an answer. But Keith described the financial markets as a living, breathing animal with complex machinery. He explained how each part functioned: debt capital markets financed loans that made it possible for people to buy houses; corporate finance helped companies sell stakes to the public; and in his part, mergers and acquisitions, companies bought others to gain new business lines or divest themselves of parts that no longer fit. It was almost poetic the way he described everything working together to make people’s lives more productive.

  “Wow, that’s quite an answer,” Jaya said, reaching for the fresh glass of beer, noticing with a sideways glance that Anja and the other guy were still chatting and laughing.

  “You like that?” Keith said, holding his glass up to clink hers. “I’ve been working on my application essays.”

  Toward the end of her second Newcastle, Jaya told Keith about her work at the Foreign Policy Centre, how she’d been fortunate to land such a coveted job after studying international relations and anthropology at university. Keith leaned toward Jaya to compensate for the increasing noise in the bar, his brow knitted in concentration as she spoke about water quality and constitutional reforms, trying to impress him.

  When the bar became more crowded, Anja leaned across the table. “Hey, let’s get out of here, go get some dinner?” The air outside was still warm and heavy as they deliberated over where to eat. Keith proposed going for a curry and Jaya wondered if he was just indulging her. Either way, she didn’t care. They hopped into a taxi, a giggling Anja jammed in the back seat between the two men, while Jaya directed the cab driver to her favorite Indian restaurant.

  She learned in time that Keith hadn’t been pandering that evening with his choice of cuisine. He had a sincere interest in other cultures, and not in the exoticizing, appropriating way some men did. He genuinely wanted to learn to make paan himself,
buying all the ingredients and even the stainless-steel tin filled with matching small cups. Her parents accepted him because their life experiences had made them broad-minded and his credentials were impressive: he was a top-tier investment banker, soon on his way to an Ivy League business school.

  When Keith was admitted to Wharton after they’d been dating for only six months, Jaya assumed their affair would end with his departure. But he surprised her with a proposal on their one-year anniversary, which came with the blessing of her parents and a one-way ticket to America. At first, she worried about being far from her parents, but the distance from both their families turned out to be a blessing in the early years of their marriage, reducing the inevitable friction between such different cultures and upbringings. She and Keith were the sole meeting place of their respective histories; they could define their relationship without the baggage of her parents’ cosmopolitan tastes clashing with his family’s deep American roots.

  * * *

  That had been twenty years ago. Now, Jaya dressed in a sleek black dress with red heels for the evening. Keith chose a small table tucked into a dark corner of the hotel bar, where they sat close and sipped from tall flutes of champagne.

  “Happy anniversary, babe,” he said, nestling one hand between her thighs. “Even more beautiful than the day I met you.”

  “I love you,” Jaya said, her eyes shining for the husband for whom her love had stayed constant and yet grown since they had met two decades earlier. Their differences had not proved a stumbling block, but rather an opportunity to forge a strong foundation for their marriage and their children, and it was this of which she was most proud.

  5 | karina

  JUNE 2009

  The last few weeks of middle school were torture. Karina and her eighth-grade classmates were restless as their thoughts turned to long, lazy summer days. One day in the last week of the school year, a day like any other, Karina walked over to the neighboring elementary school to pick up Prem. During their fifteen-minute walk, Prem excitedly told Karina all about his day in third grade. Although she would never admit it to her parents, Karina enjoyed this time in their day, walking home together. Being alone with Prem was like being at rest. She didn’t have to work to make conversation or wonder if she was saying the right thing. She could stop worrying about how her hair looked. Prem would do all the talking. Sometimes, he would take her hand or hook his arm through hers, which she would allow if no one else was around.

  By the time they got home, though, Karina was ready to be done with Prem. She quickly dished out chocolate chip cookies and a glass of milk for him, then headed for the stairs.

  “Hey, Kiki, you wanna go swimming today?” Prem asked, as he sat on the kitchen chair.

  “Uh-uh,” she said reflexively. She sometimes got into the pool with Prem, since he wasn’t allowed to swim alone. But Karina’s usual impulse was to say no to anything Prem wanted to do with her—play a game, do a puzzle, go to the park—and yes to anything he could do alone—read a book, watch TV. Those two precious hours at home without teacher or parental oversight were Karina’s solace, two hours she could spend like a normal teenager. She felt her cell phone buzz in her back pocket with a message. “Do your homework and then you can watch TV,” she said to him.

  “Pleeease, Kiki?” He tilted his head to one side and pleaded with his big brown eyes. “It’s so hot today, it’s practically summer. And I want to try out the giant water shooter I got at Tommy’s birthday party.”

  Karina shook her head and turned away, unwilling to expend any more verbal energy fending him off. Digging another cookie out of the jar and placing it on his plate, she made a silent deal with her little brother and went upstairs.

  Her activities for the next couple of hours followed their normal pattern: she started her homework, then called Izzy to talk about it, which led to talking about the boys they each liked and analyzing every interaction they’d had with those boys in the past twenty-four hours. Karina tried on a few outfits, experimented with hiking up the hemline of her skirt and stretching out the neckline of her shirt. She practiced lightening her skin tone with cream foundation she’d borrowed from Izzy and pondered the results. Finally, she finished her homework, then went downstairs to check on Prem before Mom came home.

  He wasn’t in the family room watching TV, though he’d left the couch pillows all clustered on one side where he’d propped himself up. “Prem!” she yelled, plumping and redistributing the cushions across the couch, the way Mom would as soon as she saw them. Prem was not supposed to watch television after school. When he finished his minimal schoolwork, he was supposed to read or play with one of the educational toys in his room. In the kitchen, Karina brushed a pile of crumbs from the kitchen table into her open palm and dropped them into the sink. Where was the last kitchen chair? “Prem!” she called, getting annoyed. Mom would be home soon. She noticed that the door to the back patio was ajar and tentatively touched the door handle, her mind beginning to race before she threw the door open and walked quickly around to the swimming pool.

  Time stopped for a long moment as she took in the scene: the chair propped up against the wrought-iron fence enclosing the pool, the still diving board at one end, the crystalline aqua water with sunlight dancing on its surface, the oversized Space Rangers spaceship bobbing gently in the deep end. With her heart pounding, Karina ran back inside to retrieve the gate key, fumbled with the lock before flinging it open. As she drew closer to the pool, she saw a thin arm, its edges whitewashed through the water, dangling below the surface of the inflated spaceship. Suddenly she was in the water, paddling furiously over to the spaceship, yanking it out of the way to find Prem’s body lodged beneath. She choked on water as she screamed his name and tried to drag his body, weightless yet heavy, to the side of the pool.

  Somehow, Karina pulled them both out onto the deck. She recalled the CPR training from her babysitting course and turned Prem’s body on its side so she could pound his back. His shoulder blades were so small, so thin, and his whole frame seemed fragile. Placing him gently on his back, she found the spot above his sternum and began to pump with her fists, elbows straight as she’d been taught. Water spurted out of his mouth like a fountain.

  It was working. She could do this. She could save Prem and fix everything before Mom got home. After five compressions, Karina tilted his head back, plugged his nose and put her mouth over his cold blue lips, blowing with all her strength to push air into his lungs. She could do this, she had to. She heard his voice in her head: Kiki, please stay.

  “Prem!” Karina yelled as she tried pounding his chest once more. She thought of running to call 911 but knew she could not leave him, could not stop. “Damn it, Prem!” Why won’t he respond? She screamed his name until her throat was raw, then she began to cry. When she looked up, she saw Mrs. Mandell from next door moving toward her, a phone to her ear.

  Mrs. Mandell knelt down on the other side of Prem’s body. “I called 911. How long has he been like this?” She picked up his hand and touched his wrist.

  Karina kept counting as she pumped his chest. Three . . . four . . . five . . . nothing. Why wasn’t he responding? Was he mad at her? Prem never got mad. It was only Karina who got mad at him. “I . . . I don’t know. Ten minutes? Fifteen?” She met Mrs. Mandell’s eyes and saw what she would later recognize as pity. In fact, it had been only three minutes since she had pulled Prem from the pool, according to the subsequent medical examiner’s report, which also stated that Prem had been submerged in the water for at least twenty minutes, enough time for his lungs to fill completely.

  “The ambulance is on its way, honey,” Mrs. Mandell said. “Is your mother here?”

  Karina shook her head. “She’ll be home soon. Mom will be home soon,” she said, choking on the words she said to Prem every afternoon as a directive, a threat. “Prem? Prem!”

  The howl of a siren emerged in the background, growing nearer and louder. He had to wake up. He had to be okay. Prem!
She could no longer tell if she was screaming out loud or just inside her head. The sound became woven together with the piercing wail of the siren. She saw Mrs. Mandell stand up and retreat. She felt someone pull her up by the shoulders, and she stumbled backwards as two uniformed men took her place at Prem’s side. As they began to work, Karina was led inside the house and ushered to the kitchen table.

  “Who lives here with you?” Another uniformed man stood before her, holding a small notepad. “Mother? Father? Both?”

  “Both,” Karina said, then in a whisper, “Mom will be home soon.”

  6 | prem

  People want someone to blame after a person dies, especially when that person is a child. I was eight years old when I died, but I don’t blame anyone, especially not Karina, even though she was the only other person there with me. She’s the one people blame most, and they also say things like, “She was only a child herself, poor girl, so you can’t really blame her”—but they still do. And I know Karina blames herself. Although she’s never said this out loud to anyone, I know it’s true.

  Even when I was alive, I always knew what Kiki was thinking in her head, like I bet if I give Prem four chocolate chip cookies after school, I can talk on the phone with my door closed for ten minutes before he comes to bug me. Or I really wish Space Rangers came on for a full hour, so this kid would leave me alone while I do my Important Things in the bathroom. Kiki’s Important Things were trying on makeup she wasn’t allowed to wear to school, putting funny-smelling lotions on her arms and legs, and burning her ears with Mom’s curling iron.

  We spent a lot of time together, Kiki and I: every day after school until Mom came home from work. Mom always rushed in like she was late. She took off her work shoes and dropped her purse right at the door, then started racing around the kitchen, switching on lights, pulling things out of the fridge, turning on the stove. When I was little, I thought this was a game she was playing, to turn on everything super-fast, like in the Space Rangers’ ship when they’re trying to get liftoff, and I tried to help her by spinning the knobs for the oven and turning on the water faucet, until she got mad and told me to go to the TV room.