Side by Side

by Anita Kushwaha

  “Dad?”

  “Kavita,” he says, a smile in his voice. “You’re back.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “We’re coming to get you, okay?”

  “You know how to get here?”

  “Yes, it’s not far.”

  “Did you listen to my messages?”

  “Yes, Dad. Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be fine. Meet us in the lobby. We won’t be long.”

  She hangs up and holds the counter for strength. Her body goes from feeling like it’s been flash-frozen to flash-thawed. But there’s no time to go limp and shiver. Her father needs rescuing.

  When they arrive at the hotel, she finds him waiting in the lobby, standing stoically beside the navy Samsonite suitcase, hard plastic and combination locks, that he immigrated with over thirty years ago, as though despite the decades and determination, he has as little now as he did back then.

  25.

  AFTER GETTING HIM SETTLED in the guest suite, they return to their condo to see if they can offer him something more substantial to eat than the McDonald’s he has been subsisting on for days. Nirav excuses himself to take a shower, claiming the man who sat next to him on the flight must have had bloody whooping cough.

  “There isn’t much in the fridge,” Kavita tells her father as she peruses its anorexic contents. “How about grilled cheese?”

  “Fine,” he shrugs.

  From the fridge, she pulls out margarine, sourdough, and cheddar, and lays them out on the island, where he father is perched on a stool, looking as though he’s eating at a diner counter. She starts buttering a slice of bread.

  “So,” she says at last. “You want to talk about it?”

  “What is there to say? I’ve told you everything already.”

  “You haven’t told me how you feel.”

  “What does that matter? It is what it is.”

  “It matters, Dad. You have to let these things out. Otherwise they can eat you up inside.” She can appreciate how hypocritical she sounds.

  Her father frowns into his glass of water.

  “You’ve had blow-outs before, but you’ve never left.” Leaving the home and the family that has been the centre of his existence for the past thirty years goes against everything she knows her father to be, everything he believes in, everything he has built. As a young man, he left his home once before, and if that kind of amputation had to be endured, once in a lifetime was enough.

  “I can’t go back there, not ever.”

  “But it’s your home.”

  “Not anymore. Some things are unforgivable.”

  Kavita grills her father’s sandwich in silence, recalling the London incident. She knows exactly what her father means. When the sandwich is perfectly brown and crispy, she slices it, and places it in front of him. He hands her one half, telling her that she has gotten too skinny, khaana, eat. Reluctantly, she takes the sandwich. They chew in silence for a while.

  Once he is finished, he drinks half the water in his glass, and seems ready to talk. “When I started my own family,” he tells her, “I promised myself I would provide my children with everything. A good home. A good education. The safety and security I never had. Every decision I’ve ever made, I made with you in mind.”

  Kavita knows this to be true. Generational and cultural indulgences like “me-time” or “man cave” or “mid-life crisis” were concepts as foreign to him as infidelity and divorce. He chose to work for the government because it was a good job if you wanted to raise a family. He was home every day by three o’clock, in time to make them after-school snacks. He never invested much in friendships or vied for promotions or conferences at work, because those things would take time away from his family. Kavita couldn’t speak to how he was as a husband, but he was a good father.

  “Look at how things have turned out,” he continues. “I have devoted my life to my family, and now I have nothing.”

  Kavita stops, mid-chew. Looks at him with glossy pain in her eyes. Remembers the words her mother uttered weeks earlier: I’ve already lost the most precious thing in my life.

  “You haven’t lost everything, Dad,” she says.

  “I don’t even have a place to live. I tried to make a place for myself in this country, this world, but it didn’t work. Now I have to try something else.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I have been reading about Buddhism, lately. Buddha understood suffering.”

  “Okay….”

  “There’s a monastery out east. They accept students. You can live there while you study.”

  Kavita remembers the day her father borrowed her laptop and the page he left open on the browser. She had been right back then. He had been planning his Great Escape. “Are you telling me you want to go there?”

  “Yes.”

  “For how long?”

  “As long as it takes for me to understand what has happened to my life, and what it all means.”

  “Dad, please don’t go. Not now.”

  “Your mother doesn’t want me around. My son is gone. You have your own life, Kavita. A husband to take care of. Life is pushing me in a new direction.”

  “I…” she stutters. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “There is nothing to say. I have already contacted them. They have accepted my application and invited me to stay.”

  “When did you apply? While I was gone?”

  He pauses. “No, before.”

  “So, even if you and Mom hadn’t fought, you would have left us?”

  “Our family is broken, Kavita,” he says, as he peers deeply into her eyes. “There is nothing left to leave.”

  Kavita stares at him, moon-eyed, unsure of the man sitting across from her. I don’t have your magic, she thinks to Sunil. I can’t make people stay.

  Suddenly she can’t stand to be around her father any longer, as if the threat of his desertion has already thrust her away. She marches to the front door.

  “Where are you going?” he calls out.

  “To check on Mom.” She pulls on her jean jacket and sneakers.

  “While you’re there, can you get a few things from my room?”

  Blaze climbs. Up. Up. Up. She squeezes her fist, spearing her nails into her fresh scar.

  “Kavita?”

  Shuts her eyes tightly. Waits for the release.

  “Beti?”

  She squeezes harder and harder.

  “Are you still there?”

  But the pain isn’t enough. It isn’t enough to stifle Blaze. It burns, burns, burns. If she stays a moment longer, it will burn her alive.

  She rushes out the door, its gusty thwack echoing along the hallway in a ripple of sound that chases and overtakes her, as if it were pain.

  26.

  THE SHORTER THE DISTANCE between her car and her parents’ house, the saltier the puddle underneath her tongue. More than once she feels like pulling over and emptying her already void stomach. The warning beacon in her gut blares. Danger is imminent. She is vectoring right into it.

  As she pulls up the driveway, she sees the For Sale sign on the front lawn, swaying back and forth with the breeze, over the curb where she sat with Nirav on the night the police came.

  She tries to open the front door, jiggling the handle, even though she knows it is probably locked. Then she rings the doorbell. Waits. Rings again. Turns one ear towards the door but hears no one stirring inside. The warming beacon blares, blares, blares.

  Does she have her house keys? She rummages through her purse. How is it they always find the darkest fold of her bag to hide in, this time wrapping themselves in an old ATM slip like and earwig inside a leaf. Her hands shake as she pushes into the house.

  “Mom?” she calls out, bounding up the stairs, two by
two. “Mom?” The living room is empty. So is the kitchen. And her mother’s bedroom. Just then, she hears the toilet flush.

  “Oh, for chrissake,” she sighs. As she paces the hallway and waits for her mother to come out of the washroom, Kavita presses her hands over her stomach, attempting to muffle the warning beacon.

  “Hello, beti,” her mother says, calmly. “I heard the doorbell, but I was already in the washroom by then.”

  Kavita follows her mother into the kitchen.

  “How was the trip?”

  “Fine,” eyeing her dubiously.

  “And Nirav’s mother? How is she managing?”

  “She’s okay.”

  “The poor woman. My heart goes out to her.”

  But would it, Kavita wonders, if her mother knew about how careless Mrs. Stone has been with Sunil?

  She watches her mother fill the kettle, unsettled by her apparent calm. “Mom?” she asks. “Are you okay? You don’t have to put on a brave face for me. Dad told me what happened.”

  Her mother sets the kettle on its base. “What can I say? Your father has always been a selfish man. He has abandoned us.”

  “He said you left him no other choice.”

  “Of course he would say that.”

  “You know I can’t take sides.”

  “When have I ever asked you to?”

  As her mother fetches cups from the cupboard, Kavita blinks at her in amazement. “The For Sale sign came as a surprise,” she says. “That seems a bit rash.”

  “If your father can leave, then so can I. Honestly, I have never been happy in this country. I’ve called my brother in Dilli. He said I can stay with him.”

  “You’re going to India?”

  “Yes.”

  “For how long?”

  “I’m moving back.”

  “Permanently?”

  “I don’t expect you to understand, Kavita. You’ve never been caged in a bad marriage. You’ve never lost a child.”

  Although Blaze settled during the car ride over, now it churns, an inner Coriolis effect of fire in her belly. She clenches her fist. Focuses on the pain. This pain she can manage.

  “We all lost Sunil.”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “We’re all in pain. We all loved him.”

  “When you’re a mother, you’ll understand.”

  Kavita can’t squeeze her fist any tighter. Blaze climbs. Up. Up. Up. She breathes its fire.

  “When was the last time you went to India? Ten years ago? Now all of a sudden you want to live there again?”

  “I’ve wanted to leave this country almost as soon as I arrived. I have never felt at home here. My family is in India. I belong in India.”

  “Aren’t I your family?”

  “You are married now, Kavita. Soon you will start a family of your own. You don’t need me anymore.”

  “Of course I still need you. I’ll always need you, Mom.”

  “Kavita, stop being childish.”

  “What about the renovations? You were so excited about them. Weren’t you planning on remodelling the kitchen? Maybe once the house gets a little freshened up, you’ll feel at home again. Like a fresh start. Isn’t that what you called it?”

  “Let the next owners worry about the kitchen. This isn’t my home anymore.”

  “But it’s Sunil’s home. It’s my home. We grew up here. We played in the yard and ate meals at this table and measured our heights on that wall,” pointing to her left. “Do you really want to give all that away? ”

  “Those are just memories. I have to face reality. Sunil is gone. I have no one to taken care of me in my old age. I have to think about my own welfare.”

  “Mom, I’m right here. I haven’t abandoned you. You can depend on me. I know our family isn’t the same, and it never will be, but if we stick together, I know we can get through this. Please. I’m begging you. Stay. Take down the sign. Let some time pass.”

  While she awaits her mother’s decree, Kavita feels as helpless as a girl again, at the mercy of her parents’ moods and fights and vitriolic silences. The difference now is she doesn’t have Sunil standing by her side, shoring her up.

  “Kavita,” her mother says. “Stop this. I’m tired. My mind is made up. I’m leaving. I’ve already booked my ticket.”

  “Then go,” Kavita pleads, “but let me take care of the house. Please. I’m not ready to let it go, yet.”

  “If I didn’t need the money I would burn this place to the ground.” Her mother peers around the room with startled eyes. “It’s haunted. I see him everywhere. I need to get away from here.”

  Kavita’s legs begin to shake as if the very foundations of their house, their only home, is beginning to crumble. “What about Sunil’s things?” she asks.

  “You can take what you like. The house is being sold as furnished. The realtor will take care of everything while I’m gone. You might as well pack up your things while you’re here. And take your father’s junk too, or else I’ll have it thrown out.”

  Kavita slackens her fist. The pain is not enough to smoother Blaze. It burns, burns, burns. If she stays much longer, it will burn her alive.

  “There’s only one thing I want,” she says.

  She strides down the hall into her mother’s bedroom, where she finds Sunil’s urn on the dresser. She hugs the cold metal snugly to her chest and canters to the front door. I’ve got you, Bear, she reassures him. I’ll protect you.

  “Kavita?” her mother cries out as she speeds past the kitchen. “What are you doing?”

  Before her mother can stop her, she trundles down the stairs and out of the house.

  I’ve got you. I’ve got you. I’ve got you—all the way to the car.

  I’ll protect you. I’ll protect you. I’ll protect you—all the way to the condo.

  27.

  ABOUT A WEEK LATER, Kavita finally arranges to meet Chi for coffee. Perhaps Nirav was right. Perhaps Chi just needed time to figure out what to say. Now more than ever, Kavita needs an ally.

  She rides the bus downtown, gazing passively out the slush-splattered window. The snow came early along with a push of cold weather that caught most people without their winter tires. Stories about black ice and collisions got nearly as much airtime on the CBC news last night as the usual headlines about war, natural disasters, and political scandals. She watches as pedestrians scurry along the sidewalk, buried in their winter garments. Soft snow begins to fall, light and stilling. You always loved the winter, she thinks to Sunil. She sees him snowshoeing along a trail in Gatineau Park, dressed in his navy winter gear. She went with him a few times. Remembers the Styrofoam sound of their shoes squeaking through slumbering trees, the awe she felt when it started snowing, the wood-smoke air in the warm-up cabin where they had lunch—peanut butter and chocolate chip sandwiches wrapped in aluminum foil, left to warm on one of the iron stoves. She can taste the first bite, gooey and sweet, a taste of childhood.

  Just then, a man walking on the sidewalk in the opposite direction draws her eye. Sunil? she thinks, frozen in a breathless moment. His features stun her: his tall, broad frame; his deep complexion; his chocolate brown coat, black toque, and woollen mitts. All identical to Sunil’s.

  Blinded by impulse, she pulls the bell and leaps off the bus. Back-tracking at a trot, she weaves through the crowded sidewalk, desperately trying to catch up with the doppelganger. While she’s lost in the waking dream of it all, the man isn’t a just double—he is Sunil.

  “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” she says to the other pedestrians. She rams into one man so hard he spills his coffee, a cappuccino-coloured Rorschach blot all over the snowy sidewalk. She apologizes but doesn’t stop her single-minded pursuit.

  After another block, she relents, out of breath, the cold air burning her throat and lungs. She has lost track of t
he man. Only when a stranger nudges her in passing does she waken up from the spell, disoriented, as if drugged. Embarrassed, she shrinks into the anonymity of her hood, and marches to a bus stop farther down the street, a neutral spot, where no one has witnessed her temporary delirium.

  She smokes a cigarette to hush her nerves. He looked so much like you, she tells Sunil. I was convinced. Or had she seen what she wanted? Will she ever stop looking for him? Ever stop expecting the nightmare to end?

  She rides another bus to the coffee shop. Despite the unexpected tangent, she still arrives on time. As she steps into the warm café, careful not to slip on the puddle on the tiles, she peers around. A few tables are still unoccupied. But there is no sign of Chi.

  Kavita takes her place in line behind a few other patrons and reads the festive specials off the chalkboard hanging behind the register: Spice up your life with a hot cider! Get into the ho-ho-holiday spirit with an eggnog latte!

  Is that all it takes? she wonders. She orders a gingerbread latte and settles into a coveted corner table by the front windows, a deep loveseat and armchair oriented for conversation. As she sips her saccharine drink, she observes a steady commotion of passersby through the snowflake-decaled window. Some people carry shopping bags with them, decorated in a variety of seasonal motifs—reindeer, snowflakes, Santa Claus. Somehow, Christmas is only a few weeks away. Where has the time gone? Where has she been?

  She gazes inwardly, searching herself for an answer. But she doesn’t know. Not where she has been, or where she is now, or where she is going. When she looks inside, all she finds are things she would rather not see.

  Cupping her hands around her drink, she tries to pull away from her consuming inner world to observe the one that is unfolding around her with such sound and colour and motion. The din of the coffee shop—the competing conversations, the Christmas music, the keyboards tapping, the high-pitched squeal of the frother—fill her with too much sound, too many vibrations. All the activity feels alien, almost blasphemous, as though a personal affront to her devout state of mourning.