Side by Side

by Anita Kushwaha

  Maybe.

  Maybe Anchor is right.

  In the cupboards, she finds Sunil’s favourite cereal bowl, his favourite mug to drink tea, his favourite ketchup chips. In the fridge, she finds the jar of pickled onions he ate like olives. No one else likes them, and they’re about to go off, but she doesn’t have the strength to throw them out. All day, every day, she stumbles over these pieces of Sunil, and they disarm her, cause her memories of him to detonate inside her, and they are everywhere, these little bombs.

  If only she knew how to stop the onslaught. The changing weather inside her. The hurricanes. The drag. The head talk. But how? She couldn’t possibly ever have that power. These forces are bigger than her. And as their tall, tall shadows grow, she gets smaller and smaller beneath them.

  “Kavita?”

  She tries to swallow but can’t. “I’m fine,” she says.

  Another pause.

  “Have you heard from Chi?” he asks.

  “No, not yet.”

  “Well, she wrote to me the other day.”

  “She wrote you?”

  “Yes. She was concerned about you.”

  “I’ve been trying to get a hold of her for weeks. She’s been ignoring me. Why would she write you instead?”

  “I think you may have frightened her off.”

  “But I haven’t even spoken to her. How could I have frightened her off?”

  “Did you write her an e-mail recently?”

  “A couple of days ago. How did you know?”

  “She told me about it. She said you didn’t sound like yourself.”

  It was strange to receive this external report, almost as if she were sitting through a performance evaluation at work. If she wasn’t like herself, then who was she? Kavita didn’t know anymore. Who was she in the wake of Sunil’s death? It was too early, her grief still too fresh, for her to be able to claim resurrection like a Rose of Jericho, or transformation like an insect that emerges from its cocoon, winged, and more beautiful than before its seclusion. What she’s becoming remains vague to her, a matter of process too close for her to see clearly, as though she is standing with her nose pressed up against a self-portrait, but she can’t see her full likeness yet. “She told you that?”

  “Mm hm.”

  The betrayal bites. “Did she tell you what I wrote?”

  “No. Only that she was worried about you, and she thought I should know. I think she was hoping I would approach you and you would tell me yourself.”

  A few days earlier, after watching a talk show segment on the symptoms of depression, Kavita pushed her fears aside, and reached out to Chi, confiding in her that things weren’t going well, and she thought she might be depressed. Kavita hoped Chi would be able to give her some advice or maybe even recommend one of her colleagues. At the very least, Kavita expected her to write back. Chi, her oldest friend, who was now treating her as if she was mildly toxic. “I don’t know why she said that,” Kavita tells him. “And I don’t understand why she would go to you and not me.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t know what to say.”

  Kavita knows the excuses. People didn’t know what to say. They didn’t want to say the wrong thing. She knows the excuses, and might have even thought they were acceptable at one time, but now, she sees how slanted they are. Saying nothing was worse than saying the wrong thing. So much worse.

  “Maybe your frankness startled her.”

  Her lips part a sliver. She turns to the window, gazes at the smoky sickle moon that casts the barest light, and considers her husband’s words. Considers how much she has kept bolted inside, mostly for his benefit, to save him from worry.

  “Maybe you should try again.”

  But she has tried. To explain the changes occurring inside her that she doesn’t understand. The foreign things that have no common language to express themselves, as if the distance between her pain and the world outside it is unbridgeable. If such a common language exists, she doesn’t know how to speak it, yet.

  Neither have those around her developed an ear to hear it. She has tried, taken risks, put herself out there, in her way, always at a cost, with Nirav and Chi and even Dr. Jones. These attempts have been failures. These failures have taught her it is best to keep quiet. There is no safety in jumping faithfully into a pair of dead arms. There is only rejection, and condemnation, to an even deeper silence, an even blacker gloom.

  “I’m tired,” she says.

  “I suppose I should let you get some rest, then.”

  Once they say goodnight, Kavita sits up in bed, and reaches for the only person who seems to listen.

  “What’s wrong with me, Bear? I’m filled with such terrible dread. I know something bad is going to happen. I feel it in my gut. But I don’t know what or when. I promise to be ready, though. I’m scared. But I’m ready.”

  Her chin starts to shake. “Being ready is wearing me out. I don’t know how long I can keep this up. I can’t seem to keep up, Sunil. But I’ll try. I promise you, I’ll try.”

  The first tear falls. “And I’ll probably fail, like before. I can’t stop thinking about how I failed you. I play it over and over in my head. I lose you, over and over. I don’t know how long I can keep losing you, over and over.”

  She bows her heavy head. “I have no one to talk to, Sunil, only you. And you don’t talk back, no matter how I beg. You were the person I talked to and you should be here now. And you would be, but I couldn’t see the trouble underneath. I didn’t know how bad it was. I didn’t know any better.”

  She leans into the silence, waiting, receptive. Surely he knows she needs him more than ever. Surely he will come to her at last.

  But all she finds is more silence. The silence that has poisoned her house. That is slowly claiming her marriage. That swallowed up Sunil.

  She covers her face.

  Then a voice cuts through, hard as stone. No one’s listening, Black Gloom tells her.

  No one can help.

  You will always feel this way.

  Searing tears rise. She lowers back onto the mattress. As she lies there, she sinks into an inward darkness that feels inescapable, ever-lasting. She is crouched at the bottom of a well. No moon shines silver hope above her.

  “How do I get out?” she whispers. “Help me, Sunil. Please.”

  Toss her a rope. Send her a light.

  10.

  KAVITA DESCENDS into the church basement. She has the vague sense that she is back in high school. Something about the wide cement staircase, scent of cleaner, and relentless fluorescent lighting. She can’t help but feel like she is trespassing. But this is nevertheless the place she is meant to be tonight.

  She found the bereavement group online. They hold meetings on the first Thursday of every month. Newcomers are welcome. They offer support specific to the type of loss—parent, child, spouse, sibling, and, what caught Kavita’s attention in particular, suicide survivors. It is a new term for her. That’s what she is now, apparently. She didn’t know there was a name for it. She hovers at the bottom of the stairs and peers through the double doors to her left. A pair of elderly women pass her on their way from the washroom and one of them gives her a smile. Inside the large room, by the entrance, she sees a young man, about her age, sitting at a table, doodling on a nametag with a blue Sharpie. His long brown hair is half up, he doesn’t appear to shave very often, and he wears woollen socks inside his Birkenstocks.

  Granola, she thinks.

  The basement is lively with movement and chatter, which goes against the assumptions she has about bereavement groups. Aren’t these meetings supposed to be sombre affairs filled with even more sombre people? She shoves her hands into her jean jacket, fumbles for Sunil’s rakhi, and rubs it for comfort.

  She hears voices approaching her from behind. Glancing over her shoulder, she sees a middle-aged c
ouple slowing plodding down the stairs. She steps to one side.

  “Sorry,” says the man as they pass. The woman grins briefly at the tiled floor. Kavita follows their path to the table. The granola guy welcomes them with a broad smile. They chat for a bit and then he hands them each a paper to fill out. While they are hunched over, filling out forms, the granola guy keeps talking, pointing to different parts of the room. Kavita notices there are snacks laid out and a table of handouts. Lots of Kleenex. The couple stick the nametags onto their jackets and move somewhere beyond her sightline. It looks easy enough. But she still isn’t sure if she’s ready.

  Just then, the granola guy looks right at her. He offers her the same wide smile her offered the couple and raises one hand in a wave.

  “Hey,” he mouths. He motions with his hand. “Come in.”

  Her insides seize. Her face must have too, because the granola guy’s smile drops, as though he knows she is about to bolt back up the stairs. His dark eyes ask her to stay.

  But she can’t.

  She sprints back up the two flights of stairs, nearly tripping on the last step, but finds her balance, and doesn’t stop until she’s outside in the cold night, panting visible breath, under a yellow dome of light. She stands off to one side to catch her breath. A family of three—a mother, father, and teenage daughter—approach the entrance from the parking lot. She avoids their gaze, although she can feel their eyes reaching for her, and senses they want to share a smile, a moment of understanding between the bereft. She keeps her eyes fixed on the lazy traffic rolling past the church.

  Soon she is alone. Her shoulders relax a little. A sense of defeat drags her gaze to the cement. Coming here was a mistake. It was foolish to think she would have anything in common with these people. How could she tell them how badly she handled things with Sunil? If they found out, they would probably blame her for his death too. She has met the soft eyes of other mourners, and it is obvious that they can’t help her, because she isn’t like the rest of them. They haven’t done anything wrong.

  Sadness barrels into her.

  No, she isn’t like them at all.

  She doesn’t need to check her watch to know that the meeting should have started by now. She takes a deep breath. Watches the fog of her breath gather beyond her listless mouth.

  It’s okay, she coaches herself.

  I’ll get through this.

  I can do this on my own.

  Somewhere in the background, in the lampless corner she carries inside, she can sense the curling of lips, as Anchor and Gloom grin mockingly behind her back.

  11.

  A COUPLE OF FORGETTABLE WEEKS staggered into the past. One day, unexpectedly, her mother stopped napping in Sunil’s room. She washed and dressed and had toast and tea in the living room. Afterward, Kavita accompanied her to Home Depot, where she picked up carpet samples and paint chips.

  “The house needs a fresh start,” her mother declared. So, she went about changing it. Perhaps if no one recognized it, the place might become liveable again.

  Her father took to borrowing her laptop when she wasn’t using it to search for meditations online. He made daily trips to the library and came back with more readings on Buddhism. On her laptop, she discovered that he had been visiting the website of a Buddhist abbey in Nova Scotia, the retreats page, specifically.

  Meanwhile, Nirav grew more impatient. The pressure of separation had pushed him into a realm of his personality yet unknown to her. He gave her an ultimatum. “Move back in one week, Kavita, or I’m coming over to get you myself. Enough’s enough.”

  She liked ultimatums as much as she liked the words enough’s enough, something one might say to an impetuous child, rather than one’s wife. Nevertheless, she felt the pressure to return home. The idea of losing her marriage on top of everything else was inconceivable. Without Nirav, what else would she have?

  Nothing, Gloom told her as she considered what to do. Except me. The thought left her chilled as she glimpsed a future that hadn’t happened yet, alone with it in the dark well, forever.

  Today is moving day. After getting ready, she goes down to Sunil’s room. When she reaches the threshold, she hesitates. Peeking inside, she sees that the curtains are split open an inch. In the partial shadows, his room feels peaceful, as if he might be taking one of his long, weekend naps. But there’s no fooling herself into thinking his bed is anything but empty.

  Holding her breath, she steps over the threshold, at last confronting his haunted belongings. With timid steps, she peers around. An eerie feeling rolls over her, as though she is in a museum. With airy brushes of her fingertips, she caresses the remnants of him in the reverent way elephants stroke the bones of their dead. Certain features stand out to her. The indentations on his pillow. (She bends to it and inhales deeply. A faint scent of him lingers on the pillowcase, earthy and oily.) The thick book on his nightstand. (She can see the pages he dog-eared, on the bottom of the pages, as was his habit) The green polar fleece hanging on the back of his desk chair. (She bends and inhales. It smells weakly of Bounce.) The pile of neatly folded work clothes on top of his desk, ready to be worn to the office.

  Something in the trash bin beside his desk snags her attention. She recognizes the card she gave him on his last birthday, a few months before he disappeared. She leans forward and fishes it out.

  “I got you this stupid gag card even though you didn’t want any gifts this year. I thought that was strange at the time. But I figured you were just having your third-life crisis about turning thirty. I still remember the look on your face when I gave it to you. You shook your head as if to say, ‘Kavita, why don’t you ever listen?’”

  Why didn’t she? Listen, more closely. See the trouble in his eyes? They shone a message, but she didn’t know what it was. There was a message in his actions too, in not wanting any presents, not even cards, but she didn’t think that meant he wanted to die.

  She places the birthday card on his desk, lets her gaze sweep over his things one last time, then drifts out of the room, mute as a ghost.

  As the slanted autumnal rain falls, she waits for the bus at the corner of her street, regretful about not wearing something more waterproof than her jean jacket and scarf. She hoods the scarf around her head, but within a few minutes, it begins to droop soggily. She is about to risk fetching an umbrella from home when the red-and-white OC Transpo bus appears at the top of her street, like an ark. As she climbs aboard, she grins at the driver, sheepish. She chooses an empty seat in the middle of the bus, undrapes the drenched scarf from off her head, and gazes out the rain-spattered window, at the cars and bikes and people. It feels strange to be in the world again, around so much movement, that hasn’t stopped for a moment since her own world experienced its apocalypse, and yet still not a part of it. She has felt Other when riding the bus before, the times when she’s noticed she is the only brown person, the only woman. Now grief has made her Other in another way, but with this difference at least, she can hide and feel safe.

  The automated voice—male and robotic—calls out each stop in English and French. “Vancouver Avenue. Avenue Vancouver.” Intermittently, the stop bell dings. Soon she registers little as she peers out the window, slipping into the semi-coma that is so alluring about riding the bus.

  About ten minutes later, the automated voice calls out the stop for the Sunnyside branch of the library. With a sharp inhale, she awakens from her half-sleep and pulls the yellow cord. A quick dash from the bus stop and she finds herself in the dry refuge of the stone building.

  Now indoors, she seeks the refuge of books. Memoirs written by others who have lost their soul mate. Who have lost themselves to trauma. And yet have managed to remake themselves from the rubble into something whole again, albeit with cracks. In books, maybe she will be able to find a way to understand the strangeness of her new inner landscape. If someone else out there has felt the way she fee
ls, has thought the things she thinks, has heard the dark whispers, then maybe she isn’t so far gone after all, and there is still reason to hope.

  Outside, she waits for another bus, in a mud-spattered shelter littered with cigarette butts and greying trampled gum. Within a few minutes, the bus arrives, and she squeezes in beside an elderly man with a shopping trolley. As the bus crawls up Bank Street, it cuts through the Glebe with its trendy high street storefronts: spa, florist, fair-trade-coffee shop, micro-brewery.

  Once they pass under the Queensway, the street decays somewhat—gas station, pay-day loan office, Tim Horton’s. Condo developments have sprouted in the minimal patches of concrete where the old neighbourhood was clear-cut.

  As they near Parliament Hill, the surroundings gentrify again. The people in this area are polished, too, dressed in their office attire, marching this way and that, texting at stoplights. Whole blocks buzz with purpose and urgency.

  She disembarks at Wellington, crosses the street, and stops to check the time on the Peace Tower, the city’s grandfather clock. Even in the grey weather, the pointed copper roof stands out, green against grey. The Maple Leaf, though, hangs as limp as her sodden scarf. Squinting, she reads that it is a few minutes past noon. The rain has petered out to a fine fog-like mist. She decides to walk the rest of the way. Turning away from the Hill, she points herself westward, in the direction of her building. As she passes the National Archives, she admires the copper statue of the barefoot lovers sitting on a bench, the man grinning into the woman’s hair as though pleased by its scent, and the woman staring straight ahead with a stoic expression, spirited away by her thoughts. How lifelike, Kavita thinks. He doesn’t even notice how far away she is.

  A short while later, she arrives at her building, twelve storeys of sandy-coloured brick and generous windows. The bored concierge gives her a nod as she enters. As the elevator rises to the tenth floor, her stomach begins to squirm.

  She hears Coal’s kitten-like mewling before she reaches their corner unit. She gently nudges the charcoal tabby aside with the door and catches him before he is able to dart past her into the hallway. He welcomes her with sandpaper licks on her nose and chin. She whispers I love you into the soft fur behind his ears and sets him down.