Side by Side

by Anita Kushwaha

  She knows she has disappointed him tonight. That what she has given isn’t enough. But it is all she has, and she has given it to him. Does he realize this? Did he taste it in the simple pasta dinner or see it in her false cheer or feel it as she reluctantly gave in to his embrace?

  Can he tell that she is trying, by coming home early? Taking the blame a moment ago? And the things she does for him discreetly, like covering her scar with Band-Aids or remaining silent about her guests, to keep him from worry. All of this enduring, for him.

  Does he notice any of these small sufferings of love? And if so, are they enough to make him stop and wonder what it costs her to carry on?

  12.

  AROUND THREE A.M., shortly after Kavita falls asleep in front of her laptop, the telephone rings, jolting her out of wavering sleep. The warning beacon in her gut blares, blares, blares. Danger is imminent. Her thoughts shoot to her parents as she hums with dread, vibrations high and quick in her chest. What’s happened? No one calls with good news before sunrise.

  Nirav answers. “Dad? What’s the matter? It’s the middle of the night.”

  Kavita rises from the couch and approaches the island. Nirav’s expression, moment by moment, shifts from drowsy to alert, in the widening of eyes, the arching of eyebrows. On impulse, she holds one hand over her mouth to stop the scream that is slowly creeping up her throat.

  “Oh God,” he says.

  What? she mouths at him.

  He covers the receiver with one hand. “Nani passed away earlier this morning.” Then he goes back to the call.

  She silently gasps, Oh no, and holds her elbows and listens in on the call but can’t make sense of the partial conversation she overhears. I knew it, she thinks to the hoof of the warning beacon. I felt it in my gut. I knew something bad was going to happen, and it has.

  Gnawing at her thumbnail, she waits. This new grief stirs the still-fresh loss she has been holding, adding hail to the storm, raising water levels. Soon the flood overtakes her and tears slip down her cheeks. She wipes them away on the sleeve of her pyjamas before Nirav has a chance to see them.

  When he hangs up the phone several minutes later, she approaches him carefully and wraps her arms around his torso, squeezing him tightly to shield him from the amputating pain of loss, the haemorrhaging. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers.

  “I knew it was going to happen sooner or later, you know?” he says, toneless. “We all knew she was terminal. But still, it’s a shock, isn’t it? It happened fast. Bloody hell, the last I’d heard, she was working a couple of days a week at the shop on Eling Road. She’d sit on a stool behind the register with her little oxygen tank beside her and chat with costumers.”

  Kavita loosens her embrace and takes a step back to see him better. “What happened?”

  “Complications. She couldn’t breathe. Her lungs finally gave out.”

  “I’m so sorry, Niru. What can I do?”

  He stares at the floor for a long moment. “There’s nothing anyone can do now. She should have stopped smoking decades ago. It’s her own bloody fault.”

  She blinks. “You don’t mean that.”

  “I do, actually. Filthy fucking habit. People need to take responsibility for their own lives. If you really want to do something, you just do it, don’t you?”

  Her eyes narrow on him. She suspects he has vaulted over shock to anger, knowing that anger is easier for him to manage than sadness. “Maybe she tried.”

  “Well, not nearly hard enough, obviously.”

  She presses her lips together and pauses for a second. “How’s your mum handling things?”

  “By the sound of it, she’s pretty out of it, actually. She’s sleeping now. Dad said she’ll ring a bit later.”

  “Have they started making plans? Is there any news about the service?”

  “The cremation’s at the end of the week. They want me to make a speech.”

  “What an honour.”

  “Easy for you to say. You won’t have to stand up and speak in front of two hundred people. I don’t want to do it.”

  “I know it must feel overwhelming right now. But you’ll probably feel differently once you’re there. Trust me, Niru, you don’t want to have any regrets about this.” Kavita remembers the pantomime of Sunil’s memorial service. “You only get one chance to do things right when it comes to saying goodbye.”

  “Regrets? Why should I have any? She’s the one who got cancer and didn’t fight hard enough to get better.”

  “Sometimes you try everything you can, Niru, and things still don’t work out in the end.” Kavita sees Sunil smiling softly to himself with the appointment cards in hand. Then staring darkly at the doctor’s note. Then fixing his resolute gaze on the river and its current. She sees his eyes and the multitude of states between hope and dread they were conveying. She understands now what she didn’t at the time, and it makes her wish she could gouge out her memory to stop hindsight’s haunting. “It might have been like that for your grandmother. In any case, I think she deserves our compassion. Lung cancer, even self-inflicted, is an awful way die.”

  “If she’d taken better care of herself, she would still be here. The only people I feel sorry for are my mum and her brothers. All Nani’s left them is a mess to clean up. Apparently, her will wasn’t even in order, and she knew she was poorly. How selfish is that?” Nirav pours himself a glass of water and takes a gulp. “Last-minute tickets are going to cost a bloody fortune,” he blurts before marching into the office.

  Kavita follows a few steps behind him and leans against the doorjamb with her arms crossed, watching as he searches for flights.

  “Don’t worry about the money,” she tells him, encouragingly. “This is the reason we save in the first place, right?”

  He flashes her a black look.

  She curls her chilled toes. “All I mean is you don’t need to think about money right now. Just focus on your family. That’s all that matters.”

  For a while, the only sound in the room is the clack of the keyboard. “You know,” he says, eventually. “You don’t have to come with me.”

  “What?”

  He stops typing. “If you aren’t ready to face my family, yet.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He casts a side-eye. “If you’re still embarrassed.”

  “About what?”

  “…Your brother.”

  “Sunil?” she says, puzzled. “Why would I be embarrassed about him?” Kavita regards her husband’s stony expression. “Unless you think I have something to be embarrassed about?”

  The clack of the keyboard resumes with overcompensating fervour. “Forget I mentioned it,” he tells her.

  “How can I forget it?”

  “Kavita, honestly, I don’t have the energy for a row.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “Then can we just leave it, all right?” he snaps, raising his voice.

  She stares at him, wide-eyed.

  He collects himself with a sigh. “I think I just need some time on my own.”

  “Are you sure?” she asks. “I hate to leave you alone at a time like this.”

  “I’m sure.”

  As she considers him with a measuring stare, still confused about the direction their conversation has taken, doubt begins to burrow into her mind like a grub eating into the tender cork of a tree. Why wouldn’t he look at her?

  “Then I guess I’ll leave you in peace. Let me know if you need anything.”

  He acknowledges her with a minute jut of his chin.

  In the living room, she sits on the couch, covering herself with the ivory knitted throw. Coal swiftly occupies her lap and starts kneading her nervous stomach. Something wasn’t right. She could feel it in her gut.

  13.

  THEY CATCH A RED-EYE FLIGHT two days later and taxi o
nto the runway at Heathrow just after ten a.m. local time.

  As they exit the arrivals gate, rolling their suitcases behind them, they spot Nirav’s father and sister, standing to the far right of the crowded rail, waving enthusiastically. They haven’t seen each other since the wedding, almost a year and a half ago.

  Maya rushes forward, flings her arms around Nirav, and buries her face in the curve of his neck.

  “Isn’t it horrid?” she says. “I haven’t been able to eat a anything all day. I’m sure I’ll faint soon. I’ve been surviving on tea and Hobnobs.”

  As Kavita waits for Maya to acknowledge her, she admires her sister-in-law’s hairstyle (pink locks piled in a topknot reminiscent of samurai), makeup (bold cat eye in liquid liner and poppy red lipstick), and outfit (black leather tights and zebra-print faux fur coat), wondering how she managed to muster the energy for such an ensemble while surviving on a meagre diet of tea and Hobnobs. Self-conscious in her jean jacket, faded black cords, and concealer-free face, Kavita touches her hair, wishing it had occurred to her to do more than pull her air-dried waves into a ponytail.

  Maya takes a step back and opens her coat. “What do you think?” she asks Nirav. She is wearing a purple T-shirt that says FUCK CANCER in bold pink letters.

  “Subtle,” he smirks.

  “I’m having a bunch made for everyone. We’ve already donated to a few charities. Everyone’s promised to run in the big cancer relay this year. It’s going to be brill. Of course, you’re going to miss it, like everything else.”

  “I’ll wear mine to the funeral,” he winks.

  Kavita regards the slogan, impressed by the loudness of their grief, the way it testifies. It’s so loud, it even has T-shirts.

  As Nirav and Maya continue their conversation, she shifts her attention to her father-in-law. He looks more or less unchanged. Tall, broad, and alert. A man who has spent his career teaching high school History and Geography in a state of enduring disappointment, evident in his perma-frown. He is wearing a navy pea coat, khakis, saddle-coloured Oxfords, and what she considers a very British-looking newsboy cap, recalling a tirade he had gone on once about baseball caps and how appallingly “American” they were. His uncomfortably blue eyes gloss with rare emotion as he watches his children embrace, yet even now he emits a somewhat annoyed air. A moment later, he shifts his attention to Kavita. Walking toward her, he reaches out his hand. “Well hello, Kavita.” As usual, he speaks without smiling. They shake hands. He isn’t a hugger.

  “Hi, Mr. Stone.”

  “How was the crossing, then?”

  “What can you say? It’s the red-eye.” She scans her father-in-law’s features. She suspects that the almost infected tint to his eyes speaks to how little he has slept in the past few days. “How are you managing?” she asks.

  “Oh, you know, hanging in there. The missus is in a bit of haze, of course. But that’s to be expected, isn’t it? How’s my lad?”

  Kavita looks sidelong at Nirav. He is forehead-to-forehead with Maya, locked in conspiratorial chatter. “I’m not sure, to be honest. He keeps so much to himself. Sometimes I wish he’d have a good cry and let it out.”

  “Heavens, no. That wouldn’t do at all. Kavita, you must understand, my dear, that the Stone men uphold a proud tradition of drinking in lieu of tears, and there’s been a lot of that going on, I can assure you. Fortunately, my wife’s family also partakes in this noble custom. It is perhaps one of the few similarities between our clans. In any case, I’m sure Maya will cry enough for all of us, isn’t that right, my darling?”

  “I can’t help it,” Maya pouts. “I’m sensitive.” Locking arms with Nirav, she flashes Kavita a possessive look. “So lovely you could make it, Sis. You look absolutely brill, by the way. Lost a stone, have we?”

  Nirav scans Kavita from neck to ankle, forehead wrinkling, as if noticing her weight loss for the first time.

  Mr. Stone grins at his children. “Come along, then,” he says, as he walks over to Nirav and grabs his suitcase. “Enough dilly-dallying. They’re already fleecing us with the parking. Spit spot.”

  “All right, Mary Poppins,” teases Nirav. “Don’t swallow your umbrella.”

  Kavita follows a few steps behind them. The scratch of her suitcase wheels against the ground is the only sound she makes until they reach the car.

  They drive from Heathrow to Harrow, where the rest of the Roy clan are gathered. As they drive along the narrow streets, on the opposite side of the road than she is accustomed to, Kavita observes the unfamiliar surroundings—the gloomy sky, the chilling drizzle, the tightly-packed Tudor-style houses, the frequent rotaries, the rundown high streets, the tube stations with their iconic emblem, the quaint pubs with even quainter names: The White Horse, The Castle, The Moon on the Hill.

  They park along the street in front of Nirav’s maternal grandmother’s terraced, Tudor-style home, with beams painted periwinkle rather than the customary black or brown, and a front door that is a surprising shade of red. The front garden has been paved over with pink interlocking stones, where Nani’s white Vauxhall is parked.

  The cold vapours of the air leach into Kavita’s bones in seconds as they approach the house. November in Ottawa is dreary, but this is another level of autumnal desolation.

  A sepulchral chill crawls over Kavita as she expects to see Nani’s thin, beaming face peeking through the doorway to greet them. She pictures her rusty hennaed roots and dark bindi like a beauty spot, and of course, her sari and cardigan uniform.

  Nirav’s mother answers the door a second before they are about to let themselves in. Nirav takes after his mother in the length of his limbs, warmth of his complexion, and darkness of his hair. Mrs. Stone is dressed in a navy chiffon sari and black cardigan. Her silver-streaked hair is pulled back into a ratty bun. Smudges of mascara blacken her eyes. Her lips are nude and shrivelled.

  “There he is!” She lunges forward and locks Nirav in a constricting maternal embrace. “My boy!”

  For a few moments, the air is grave-like around them. When Mrs. Stone finally loosens her embrace, she pulls back, and looks deeply into Nirav’s eyes. “I can’t believe Nani’s gone, Niru. She’s always been there for us. And now, in the blink of an eye, gone. What will we do without her? She held so much together. Now she’s gone and we’re falling apart already.”

  Staring at the stone steps, Kavita nods, solemn. She has heard the matriarch’s fabled tale. Widowed at thirty when her husband was killed in a scooter accident, with one daughter and three sons to care for, Nani shook off the shackles of widowhood and used her savings to emigrate from Calcutta to London. For six years, she lived with her cousin and his family while she worked and saved enough money to open a small Asian supermarket on Eling Road. When she could finally afford the passage, she sent for her children.

  “Oh, hello there, Kavita,” Mrs. Stone says, at last. “Terribly sorry, dear. I didn’t see you there. Quiet as a mouse, you are. My, you look thin.” A pause while Kavita is swept from ankle to crown. “Nani always liked you, you know. I think she approved of you more than she approved of George, really. Thought Nirav was going back to the culture when he married you or some such. Oh, don’t look at me like that, George!”

  Mr. Stone flashes his wife a stern look, nudges his way through the door, and marches across the foyer into the house. Maya follows close behind him, her face pinched, and her nose slightly lifted. “You would think it was their mother who died,” Mrs. Stone sighs. “Well now, don’t stand out in the drizzle. Come in, come in.”

  They crowd into the foyer. Shoes are scattered here and there. Coats are piled onto hooks and the end of the banister.

  Mrs. Stone wraps an arm around Nirav’s shoulder and leads him into the house. “Now,” she continues, “the men are in the back room. Niru, go and say hello. Kavita, come with me and sit with the ladies,” motioning to the front room.

&nb
sp; Kavita peers inside. She recognizes a few of the aunties seated on the floral sofa, sombre in their saris, talking in hushed voices, but most of the other women gathered in the sitting room she doesn’t know. One of the unknown women looks over at Kavita with a cool beam of judgement as only an older Indian woman can give a younger. Kavita instantly feels self-conscious and inappropriate in her faded cords and jean jacket. She wishes she’d had some traditional clothes to wear, but all of her Indian outfits were too offensively cheerful to pack. “Is it all right if I join you in a bit?” she asks Mrs. Stone. “I’d like to keep Nirav company for now.”

  “Fine, fine,” Mrs. Stone says. “But don’t be too long, dear. We mustn’t be rude in front of company.” She gives Nirav one last kiss on the cheek, then disappears into the front room.

  Kavita finally tunes in to the low murmurs of the house. She follows Nirav to the back room and stands in the doorway. The men are seated in a circle, spread out among the black leather sectional, club chairs, and a few kitchen chairs.

  Mr. Stone is seated at one end of the couch, grim-faced, as he swigs scotch. Beside him are Nirav’s three uncles, Dilip, Rajesh, and Sanjay. Tall and bald, Dilip mama, the second eldest, helps with the shop. Tall and round, Rajesh mama, the third eldest, runs a chippy. Tall and slim, Sanjay mama, the baby of the family, works as a clerk at NatWest. The other men Kavita hasn’t met.

  Despite the pre-lunch hour, a half-drunk bottle of dark liquor holds a place of honour at the centre of the coffee table, alongside an ice bucket, and a scattering of thick-bottomed tumblers. The din of the room swells excitedly with Nirav’s shy arrival. The men rise to greet him with strong hugs and firm shoulder shakes.

  As Kavita tiptoes into the room, the volume lulls, sharply. She feels like a character in an old Western, the stranger who walks into the saloon.

  The surprise only lasts for a moment. The men quickly adapt. They sit up straighter, welcome her with timid hugs and dry pecks on the cheek, and clear a space for her on the couch beside Nirav. Before she has a chance to refuse it, one of the uncles pushes a scotch into her hand. And with that, her admittance into their fraternity appears complete.