by Sonali Dev
He didn’t respond.
“At least look Julia up. She’s taken thousands from the FundMe campaigns she’s done. This is how she makes money.” Of course she’d looked over HRH’s PI reports and googled the heck out of her.
He pressed his hand into the back of his head again. “She hasn’t asked Emma for a penny.”
He wasn’t going to believe her. Not with how he saw her. Not without her side of the story, which she couldn’t give him. “I can tell you that she’s cost me my family. I lost their trust because of her. I got thrown out.” For fifteen years.
He glanced at the door beyond which Neel was waiting. “From where I’m standing, you don’t seem thrown out of your family.”
“It’s complicated.”
That made him laugh. “In my experience, when families throw you out, it’s really quite simple.” He snapped his fingers. “They throw you out. You cease to exist. End of story.”
The pain in his eyes made the urge to reach for him tear at her again. But all she could do was stand there, their gazes locked.
Finally, he looked away. “I think we’ve kept Nisha’s husband waiting long enough.”
But she couldn’t let him go. Not like this. “Listen, I behaved terribly. I should never have said those things. All my life I’ve been taught that doing the right thing gets you what you want. So I focus too much on doing things and getting what I want, maybe to a point where I become callous to everything else. I get that. And I’m sorry. But I have no reason to lie to you about Julia.” She pressed a hand into her belly. “She has a talent for finding every vulnerability in you and manipulating it. She’s here because she wants something and she’ll hurt you to get it.”
His eyes softened, the anger-tinted curtain he always kept between them lifted for a moment. “You did deal my ego some good wallops, but I haven’t done any better either. So, yes, we’ve had a hard time getting around our judgments of each other. But if you can’t trust me with the truth, you’re asking me to judge someone else unfairly, too.” He took a breath, that chin dimple digging deep. “I thought being on camera might help Emma get her head on straight. And maybe it did a little bit. Neither Emma nor I meant you or your family any harm when we got involved in this. If Julia does indeed mean to harm you, I’ll do all I can to stop her.”
If disdainful DJ had turned her into a bumbling idiot, this sincere avatar of him saying those words made something inside her fall in place and click tight. She couldn’t do it, couldn’t punish him for what Julia had done. Not without knowing more.
Neel coughed outside and they both looked away from each other and at the door.
“Thank you. I need time to think this through,” she forced out. Just be careful, please.
“Emma’s probably back from her scans. And Neel looked like he needed to talk.” He paused, brow furrowed, lips pursed. “You seem to be holding so many secrets on so many people’s behalf. I imagine it must be exhausting.”
On that note he left, his words hanging in the air behind him like his clean, intoxicating scent. For a moment she was almost afraid to move, lest she step on one of the pieces of her heart that lay scattered in his wake.
He was right about Neel, though. He had looked tortured. She sent Nisha a text before asking him to come inside: “Neel’s here, what do I do?”
Nisha didn’t respond, so Trisha was pretty much on her own.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
You’re hiding something from me, Trisha.” Neel was most certainly not looking like himself. “And my wife’s hiding something too.”
Oh dear.
“What about you, are you hiding something from us?” She sounded like a complete nutjob, but all she wanted was to deflect.
Neel looked like she had ripped off his skin. He dropped into a chair. Dropped, as though his legs had given way, and pressed his face into his hands. Something about his reaction made her think about Mishka’s phone case, which made her think about ex-Barbara.
His shoulders started to shake.
“Are you crying? Neel, what’s wrong?” He was scaring the shit out of her.
He looked up, eyes glistening with fear and shame. And shame, did she mention shame? Fear was okay—it kept you from doing stupid things. But shame? Shame was not good. Shame meant a stupid thing had already been done.
“Did you say anything to Nisha?” he asked.
“About what?”
“About that bloody phone case.” British curses were not good either. Given that ex-Barbara had refused to leave England for him.
“Do you think I would tell Nisha that right now?”
His eyes widened then narrowed. “You two tell each other everything.” This was not true; she had not told Nisha about how she had humiliated herself in front of DJ under the influence of his food. “And what do you mean ‘right now’? Something’s wrong with Nisha, isn’t it? How can you not tell me?”
How could she tell him? “How could you do what you did?” She deflected again. “How?”
He had taken her niece, Nisha’s daughter, to the National Portrait Gallery with ex-Barbara. Behind Nisha’s back. That felt like a betrayal on so many levels. “Actually I don’t want to know.” If he told her, she’d have to tell Nisha. She refused to be the person who hurt Nisha.
“Trisha, please, I need your help.”
She leaned back into her desk. “Listen, I have a lot going on. I don’t have time for this right now.”
He stood and pushed his glasses up his nose with an unsteady finger. “Okay.”
Not only was his finger unsteady, but the shadows under his eyes were dark and deep.
He was trying to tell her something, and she’d made up her mind about what it was before he’d spoken.
Less than ten minutes ago she had told DJ that she regretted her callousness. Now she was turning away her brother-in-law—a man who had never done anything but stand by her—when he’d asked her for help. That was definitely callous.
“Wait, Neel. Come back. Sit down. Can I get you something?”
He shook his head but sat. “Thanks.”
“Tell me what happened in London.”
He slumped into the chair. “We dated for seven years. That’s a very long time.”
Trisha forced herself to not groan, or strangle him with her bare hands. He was bringing up ex-Barbara? Now, when Nisha was home struggling with herself over a baby? “You and Nisha have been married for ten years, that’s even longer!”
“I know. Don’t you think I know that? But why do people believe that everything you ever felt for someone else before you got married disappears when you get married? Yes, you put it away and you move on. But you don’t die. Your ability to feel things for other people does not die. When someone who dumped you looks at you with longing, it . . . it feels like . . . it feels like such a victory. It feels like all the pain, all the humiliation you felt was redeemed.” He ran his hands through his hair. “Bloody hell, I’m a terrible person.”
“Please stop saying that.”
“Saying what?”
“‘Bloody.’ It makes you sound British and . . . never mind. Wait, she looked at you with longing?” How dare she! “You let her look at you with longing?” How dare he!
“Barb wanted to catch up, wanted to meet Mishka. Mishka wanted to go to the National Portrait Gallery. No points for guessing who put that idea in her head.”
Despite the conversation they were having, pride for her niece flooded through her. She’d told Mishka all about the gallery before she left, and she’d remembered. Best niece in the world.
“When Barb heard that Mishka wanted to go, she offered to take us. She knows one of the curators and offered to give Mishka a behind-the-scenes tour. Mishka got so excited. How could I refuse?”
Trisha squeezed her temples. “Why did you come home early?”
“Because I shouldn’t have done it. I shouldn’t have gone out to lunch with her. Because she told me she regretted losing me. Because she
’s alone and unhappy. And I’m not. Because I realized that Mishka was going to tell her mother and that Nisha wouldn’t see it as a simple thing. She’ll let it break her heart. And I should have thought about that before I went to lunch.” His hands were still in his hair and his grip tightened. “Has she left me?”
“What? No! Why would you think that?”
“Because it’s Nisha and we came home early and, well, it’s Nisha and she wasn’t home.”
At least he knew Nisha. Apparently better than Trisha or even Nisha herself, because he was right. Under remotely normal circumstances Nisha would have had a coming-home dinner laid out, balloons and flowers for Mishka. God knows what kinds of embarrassing homecoming treats for Neel. And they had both forgotten that Neel would notice that she hadn’t done it. Even if she were really traveling for work, she’d have rushed home the moment she heard they were back.
“She’s working, Neel. Now that Yash is running, you know things are going to get crazy for her. She’s been revving up for this for years. There might be some changes coming. The demands on her time are going to increase. You know that, right?”
He lifted his glasses and dabbed his eyes on his sleeve. His hair was standing up in spikes, making him look like the boy who’d slipped her his ladoos at parties, not because he didn’t want them but because he knew how much she loved them. “Does she know?”
“No.” Nisha didn’t know about Barbara yet. “But Mishka telling her is only a matter of time.” She squatted down in front of him. “Call Nisha. She’ll tell you she’s okay. She needs to take care of this, then she’ll come back home.”
Neel looked at his hands.
“You do want her to come home, right?”
His head snapped up. “Of course! How can you ask me that? She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I’ve never doubted it, not even for a minute. I did a stupid thing. I let my ego get stupid. But when I was sitting there at lunch, all I could think about was how she was going to feel when she found out. And I haven’t stopped kicking myself since.”
She reached out and rubbed his arm. “It’s going to be okay. But I have to go. I have patients waiting. Trust me—just call Nisha.”
They both stood.
“Thanks for hearing me out, Shasha.”
She smiled at him. “You know I love you like a brother, right? You and Nisha . . . I knew you two would end up together. I always knew it. Even when you were with . . . with her. Even when you were with Barbara, I knew you’d find your way back to Nisha, that the way she felt couldn’t be one-sided. I’ve seen you two for ten years and I know it isn’t one-sided. But if having that with someone who’s so perfect for you hasn’t been redemption enough for the pain you felt—” She had to take a breath here. “Ten years ago, then maybe I was wrong.”
He took her hand and squeezed it. “You aren’t wrong. I swear. Nisha is everything, you know that. She’s given me everything. Never asked for anything in return. I can’t even articulate how much . . . how much I love her.” His voice cracked on those words and it was the most beautiful thing.
Her sister was bearing all her fear and anxiety alone. It was easy to think it was because she was scared, because she lived in fear of Neel deciding he’d settled for her, but the truth was, she was trying to protect him from the pain of hope and worry, and taking all of it on by herself.
All her life Trisha had prided herself on being someone who fought for things she wanted. And yet she had accepted Yash shutting her out, HRH writing her off. She’d believed in her own guilt so much she had never had the courage to ask for forgiveness, to forgive herself. DJ was right; they might be angry with her but she hadn’t ceased to exist for them. That much she knew. Maybe it wasn’t too late.
Unlike her, Nisha was brave, and she knew what to do with her love. She had loved Neel hard, and despite her insecurities, she’d given him everything she had. Fortunately, he saw that.
She threw her arms around him. “Then prove it to her, Neel. Prove it to her.”
AFTER NEEL LEFT, Trisha was about to call HRH to try and figure out the Julia problem, but her fingers dialed Yash instead.
“All okay, Shasha?”
The day had been an emotional roller coaster. All her days seemed to be going that way recently. But it was that question from her brother that finally tipped her over the edge. Regret choked her throat. “No, no it’s not. Can we meet? I need to talk to you.”
“I’ve got a full day,” he said, then shouted a random string of statistics to someone in the room. “How about later in the week?” He’d just come back and had to be busy.
“Yash, I need to see you today.” She didn’t bother to suppress the sniff that hiccuped through her. “Can’t you make time for me?” Even to her own ears she sounded ten. Actually, she sounded seventeen. Her before voice.
There was a beat of silence. “Okay. I’ll see you at the Anchorage this evening.”
“Really?”
He laughed. “Why do you sound so surprised? You did want to meet, right? Please tell me this wasn’t some sort of test. I think I just blew off the mayor of San Francisco.”
“Did you really?” Maybe it was a test. She wasn’t sure. Now she felt awful.
“No. I’m kidding. I love you, but I do want to get elected. I needed to stop by the Anchorage anyway. Will you be done with patients by six?”
“Yes. Thanks, Yash.”
NATURALLY, JUST AS she finished with her last patient, an emergency came up. Anne told her that Dr. Entoff was happy to take it, “But I’ll let him know you’re here so you’ll want it.”
She almost asked Anne for the case details, but then she said, “No, thank Dr. Entoff for me. I have to leave.”
Anne stopped typing at her prosthetic keyboard and almost fell off her too-high chair. “Really?” she said, then quickly, “I mean, okay.” She was channeling the Grim Reaper, as usual. “Also, I set an appointment up for Emma Caine with Jane Liu tomorrow.”
“Thank you, Anne.” She turned to walk away, but there was a notepad sitting on Anne’s desk and she picked it up and started to draw on it. “Actually, would you do me a favor?”
Anne blinked and looked around her to make sure Trisha was talking to her. “Sure, what do you need?”
“Could you stand up, please?”
“Excuse me?”
Trisha turned the notepad toward her showing her the line drawing of the chair she’d done. “See the length of your legs? Here?” She circled the distance from the chair seat to the floor. “See, if your feet are not resting on the floor and you’re bent at this angle and your elbow pulls here, these nerves here can get pinched and then the pain that radiates from here can be felt here because your nerves all connect to your spinal column.” On every “here” she circled and drew lines along the human figure she’d sketched.
Anne stood. Her mouth was hanging open.
Trisha walked around the desk. “You mind?” Anne shook her head and Trisha bent down and adjusted the chair until it was the right height so Anne’s legs would rest on the floor correctly.
“Try that.”
Anne sat and wiggled about in her seat. “It doesn’t feel any different,” she mumbled.
Trisha smiled at her. “Give it a day or two. If it doesn’t help, you can always change it back.”
She was barely down the hall when she heard Anne on the phone. “You’re not going to flippin’ believe this . . .”
TRISHA PULLED UNDER the porte cochere and parked next to Yash’s car and turned the rearview mirror to look at her face. There were deep smudges under her eyes. She hadn’t had a chance to get out of her scrubs. It was a good thing Ma and HRH were not back from LA yet.
After a quick stop in the kitchen, she took the stairs up to Aji’s room. The portraits of Sita and Parvati gave her their usual half-compassionate, half-amused smiles. Sita, at least, had no right to be amused at Trisha. Sita had sent her husband chasing after a golden doe to make herself a blouse, for crying
out loud! And then she’d left the safety of her home when he’d begged her not to. Sure, that entire story was structured to scare women from ever crossing the boundaries society and the men in their lives set for them, so Trisha did feel bad for her. But she had paid for it by being abducted by a ten-headed monster and by causing a war for the ages.
All Trisha had done was lose her heart to a man who detested her and puked out her feelings on his shoes like a drunk sorority girl. And years ago, she had trusted a friend who had betrayed her. And now she was choosing to trust someone again, but the betrayal wouldn’t stop nudging at her.
“I’m sorry,” she said to Sita. She understood how trusting the world to be a safe place could make you stupid.
Raja Ravi Varma’s brushstrokes had a way of trapping a million emotions into the faces he painted, and Sita’s expression softened in returned commiseration.
Trisha made her way to Esha’s room. As usual, it instantly relaxed her. Maybe it was the smell of incense, at once light and heavy. Maybe it was all the lingering memories—Trisha and her siblings had experienced so many of life’s significant moments here. Then again maybe it was the giant circular bed they had all loved to flop down on.
Yash was flopped there right now. Esha and he were on their backs, their heads almost touching, their bodies radiating at angles like two rays radiating from the sun that was Aji, who sat there, stroking their foreheads in turn. To Aji they would always be her babies, and they in turn lost all their adulting pressures when they were with her.
Trisha smiled. This was a part of Yash Raje his voters would never have. It was a selfish thought, but Trisha wasn’t ashamed of it. Yash needed something of himself for himself, for them, for her. Suddenly she was so exhausted, all she wanted was to put her head on Aji’s lap, too, and sleep for ten hours straight, maybe twenty. Aji waved her over and patted the spot where there was space for one more ray in the sun Esha and Yash were making.
“It’s been five days,” her grandmother admonished before letting Trisha lean over and kiss her cheek.
“Hey, Shasha,” Yash and Esha said together without opening their eyes.