Well-Behaved Indian Women

by Saumya Dave

  She turns onto her block in Midtown East, where all the offices have closed down and bars have opened up. She thinks about her bedtime routine. Washing her face, brushing her teeth, falling asleep to Netflix. To silence.

  But as she approaches her building, there’s someone waiting for her at the entrance.

  Sixteen

  Simran

  Simran’s mother is leaning against the brick building. She’s wearing her favorite little black dress from Barneys, a splurge that took Simran six months to convince her to make. They took a cab up Fifth Avenue after her English class that day. Simran told Mom to take the time to try it on, throw in a pair of shoes. Mom was always rushing, stressing, never doing anything for herself.

  Now, she’s typing a text message on her iPhone.

  “Mom?!”

  Simran runs toward Mom. She can’t decide if she wants to hug her or scream at her.

  Mom looks up. “Hi.”

  “Hi? Hi?! What are you doing here? Where have you been?”

  A couple, likely on their first date by the sheepish looks on their faces, stares at them. Simran smiles at them. They keep walking.

  Simran grips Mom’s shoulders. It’s really her. Her mom. Her hair’s thrown into a messy bun, and her maroon-rimmed reading glasses are slung in the front of her dress. A gray satchel, an old birthday gift from Ronak and Simran, hangs off her slim wrist.

  Mom reaches forward to hug her. Simran squeezes her and takes a deep breath. She smells like her L’Occitane lavender hand lotion.

  When Simran pulls away, Mom’s face is moist with tears.

  “Mom, what’s wrong? What’s been going on? You haven’t responded to my calls. God, I’ve been so worried about you. We all have. We thought you left us.”

  “No, I, well, I . . .”

  “You what?”

  Mom looks down. As the glare of the streetlight hits her face, Simran sees she’s still crying.

  “What is it?”

  Mom sighs. “I don’t even know where to start.”

  “Start anywhere.” Simran is more yelling than speaking. “Really. Anywhere.”

  “Greg died last night,” Mom whispers.

  The second the words come out, Mom starts sobbing. Simran has never heard her cry like that, with loud wails and quick breaths. She puts her arms around Mom again.

  “Oh my god. He died?” Simran stops herself from saying more because she can’t think of anything that will help.

  “He stopped breathing. Felt himself suffocate to death. Can you imagine?”

  “No,” Simran says. “That’s the most horrifying thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “It can happen with the disease. He knew that. We both did. But he didn’t want to be put on a ventilator. He was gone before I got to the hospital.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Simran says.

  “We knew it would happen.”

  “Still, that doesn’t make it any easier.”

  Mom nods and inhales deeply. Simran thinks she’s about to cry again, but to her surprise, Mom reaches into her purse for a tissue and dabs the corners of her eyes. She stands up straight and adjusts her dress. It’s as though something in her brain told her to go back to being tough, put-together Nandini.

  Simran motions to the lobby. “Let’s go inside.”

  She considers giving Mom a warning about her apartment as she pictures her laundry hamper choking with dirty clothes, the job applications scattered across her coffee table, and the empty bottles of wine lining the sink.

  Mom crumples the tissue with her hands. “Actually, if you don’t mind, I’d like to go to that coffee shop you took me to before. I need to eat.”

  “Okay.” Simran guides them to the corner of Thirty-Second and Lexington.

  The coffee shop is closed, so Simran suggests a twenty-four-hour diner on Park. It’s where she, Sheila, and Vishal go when they aren’t in the mood for Kati Roll or Mamoun’s.

  The only other customers are a group of girls in clubbing clothes, who are loud with drunkenness and the lack of inhibition that accompanies college students. They’re having chocolate milk shakes and cheese fries. The walls are covered with black-and-white photos of customers. A jukebox with neon lights is in the back corner.

  Simran and her mom sit in a red vinyl booth near the entrance. Whenever someone opens the door, the crisp New York air rushes in. Simran takes a quick glance at the large, laminated menu and orders a coffee. Mom also asks for a coffee along with an egg-white omelet.

  As they wait for their food, Simran tries to process everything that’s happened tonight. The Strand event seems so far away.

  Simran looks at her mom again. It’s surreal seeing her unfolding a paper napkin and laying it across her lap. She almost expects Mom to laugh, say this entire thing was a big, bad joke.

  They don’t talk until their coffees arrive. Both of them pour in cream and rip one white sugar packet.

  Simran inhales her coffee and takes a large gulp. “Does Dad know you’re back?”

  Mom nods. “I dropped my things off at home before coming here.”

  “And? Did you talk?”

  “Technically, I guess. He obviously looked surprised to see me. We said hi. He asked how Baltimore was. I said it was complicated. And that was it. You know him, he’s not the type to ask a bunch of questions. Of course, he did manage to sarcastically say that he hoped I had a fun trip. And then he stayed in a huff. That was it.”

  “Well, you did leave out of nowhere. He’s going to be angry and confused about that.”

  Mom’s omelet arrives, and she drizzles it with hot sauce. She once told Simran that she’s needed to put hot sauce on everything since she was pregnant with Simran.

  “Yes, I did leave suddenly, but—”

  “But what? You’d be so upset if Dad did anything like that to you.”

  Mom’s fork and knife drop on her plate with a loud clank. “Did anyone stop to think for one second why I did what I did? That maybe it wasn’t an easy, no-big-deal type of thing for me?”

  “Then what was it? Why did you do it? Why did you shut all of us out?”

  “Simran, this is going to be hard for you to understand right now but when”—she catches her breath—“or if, you’re married and have kids, you’ll realize that there are a lot of things you give up in order to make life work for everyone else.”

  “I know that. You’ve said that for a long time. But what changed now?”

  “With you and Ronak getting married, it hit me. I’d just be in the house with Dad. Or with Dad and some combination of his family. And that would be that. The idea of it made me feel trapped. Maybe I’d take the occasional break with some of the other aunties, but even they’ve become busy with grandchildren or traveling or whatever.

  “I had been frustrated with my job for a long time but wasn’t ready to quit because it was the only thing I had going for me outside of the house. But then Greg got in touch with me, told me he was sick, and needed someone to take over his patients. And I thought, Maybe this is my chance to practice medicine in the way I’ve always wanted. Greg had a light patient load, and his practice was already sold to a larger group, so there would have been no pressure for me to see a certain number of patients in a tight time frame. I could spend valuable time with them, do some extra reading on their cases, and teach residents at Hopkins on some mornings, the way he did.”

  Simran pictures Mom in her white coat, her stethoscope slung around her neck as she teaches residents how to decide on the best antibiotic or when to consult a specialist or how to break bad news to a family. She’s similar to Kunal in that way, always wanting to do more, push herself, partially because of innate ambition and partially to quiet that steady IV drip, drip, drip of a thought: You’re not good enough.

  But unlike Kunal, she didn’t have people encouraging her to work
, to expand. By his age, she was already with her first husband. Simran wonders who she would have become if she hadn’t been born in India.

  “Mom, I’ve always seen how difficult it’s been with Dad’s family around expecting so much from you. I really have. But couldn’t you have tried to talk to him about this job? How do you know what he would have said?”

  “I don’t know,” she admits. “But that’s the thing. I can’t let go of things from the first years of our marriage. And see, that’s the problem with arranged marriages. Nobody knows how to communicate with their spouse or how to deal with issues that you kids experience earlier, since you date, so a lot of things are misunderstood or not conveyed.”

  Simran refrains from telling her that plenty of things are misunderstood or not conveyed, even when you have dated.

  “And then people become bitter,” Mom says. “That’s the real danger: bitterness. Bitterness first breeds disappointment, then manipulation. Some people learn how to mold bitterness so it suits them, but I knew I couldn’t be that way.

  “I was at my most vulnerable when we got married. I was going through a lot of things because of—it doesn’t matter, because of what—but I was going through a lot, and he didn’t understand me, so I curled into myself. Tucked parts of myself away. And because of that, his family was able to control him through their demands. And now, he is more understanding, more aware. I see what a kind and patient person he is. But I can’t let go.”

  “So, then that’s it? You just say, ‘Oh, I can’t let the past go,’ and decide not to even try?”

  Mom reaches across the table and takes the coffee mug out of Simran’s hands. “Simi, calm down.”

  “Right, sorry. I should stay calm as my mom tells me she just wants to give up.”

  “Do you know why I came back from Baltimore?”

  “Because your friend passed away and you wanted to be near family?”

  Mom shakes her head.

  “You needed a break from your new job?”

  “No, because I needed to try to talk through things with your dad. I don’t want him—or you, or Ronak—to think I don’t care about you. And you need to stop trying to handle this situation for your dad and me.”

  “Me?” Simran asks.

  The drunk girls leave. Simran and Mom are now the only people here.

  “I knew you would get involved and try to fix things between us. That’s just how you’ve always been. But this is not your concern. He and I should be managing this with each other, like adults. And the only thing I’ve ever really wanted in my life, more than anything, is for you to not have to go through any of the struggles I did. I spent so much of my time as a little girl concerned about my parents. And then, as a married woman, I was always worried about being a perfect daughter and sister-in-law. You have the chance to discuss these things with Kunal beforehand. Make sure you don’t have to deal with that.”

  Simran thinks back to the instances when her mother warned her about how she’d look toward Kunal’s family or how important it was for Simran to have her own career. All those times when Simran thought Mom was getting angry at her for not meeting some high, preconceived expectations. Was she looking out for Simran the entire time? Was she determined that her daughter wouldn’t suffer the way she did?

  Simran sees her mother’s life in a blur: running away from her first husband, taking care of her dying father, moving to America with Dad, waiting for letters from Nani, getting yelled at in residency, sitting in her car, exhausted, only to come home to cook for a full house. Despite everything she went through, she remained hopeful and made sacrifices so Simran’s life wouldn’t be like hers.

  “Beta,” Mom says, folding Simran’s hands in hers, “don’t cry.”

  “I’m not,” Simran says, and they both laugh. She’s had that same response since she was a little girl, even after she skinned her knees playing kickball and had snot running down her face.

  And then, before Mom can comfort her any more, Simran blurts, “Mom, I know about your first marriage.”

  Mom yanks her hand away as if she just touched a hot stove. “What? What do you . . .” The expression on her face shifts from confusion to shock to anger. The anger sticks. “Mami told you about that? How dare she even thi—”

  “It’s okay.” Simran reaches across the table and grabs her hand again.

  “It is not okay at all!” Mom stares behind Simran, at nothing. “You were never supposed to know, and my mother is well aware of that. She had no business telling you that when I wasn’t even there. She always warned me it would come out, but of course, she conveniently didn’t tell me she’d be the reason why.”

  “What does it matter that you weren’t even there? Who cares? She did this so I’d be aware. It’s a good thing, Mom.”

  Mom slumps back in her booth. Simran isn’t sure if she’s going to scream or cry. Or both. Maybe she shouldn’t have brought this up. For a second, she almost thought they resembled those harmonious white families she saw in movies growing up. They didn’t fight or scream or misunderstand.

  But now, she’s fucked things up, as usual. Seconds stretch into minutes. Neither of them knows what to say. Mom grabs her hair, releases it, then massages her temples. Simran wonders if this is what she does when she’s overwhelmed at work. As much as she and her mother know each other, there’s still so much they’ll never know. Simran wonders if having those divides is the only way to be a daughter.

  Simran takes a deep breath. “I know you’re upset . . . but I also know that I’m happy I know about this. I only wish I had known sooner. We could have talked about it, or even if we didn’t, at least some things about you would have made sense to me. And look, it’s still hard for me to really process it. A part of me feels like I just heard some terrible story that wasn’t real. But I hope that you know it’s better this way. You’ve been taught to keep so much locked up inside of you.”

  Mom stares at the table. “That’s how it was for women in India. We’re taught to bottle up everything and put on an ‘everything’s fine’ face for everyone, even our own families.”

  “But it doesn’t have to be that way anymore.”

  “I’m sorry you found out that way.”

  “I’m not,” Simran says, and Mom looks up, questioning. “I mean that.”

  “There’s so much that happened . . . so much I’ve tried to forget, move past. But it’s impossible.”

  “Of course it’s impossible.”

  Mom reaches across the table and squeezes Simran’s hand again. She closes her eyes and then exhales. Something about seeing Mom so defeated breaks Simran. Her mother has always been tough and able to put on a strong face for everyone. Now she’s wondering how much has been behind that facade.

  “You’re okay now. You’re more than okay. Look at everything you’ve overcome,” Simran says. “You can get through anything. Anything. I’m so proud of you, Mom.”

  “You are?” Mom looks at her in surprise.

  “I really am.” Simran knows she can’t talk about this anymore; at least, not now.

  The waiter drops off the check. It’s attached to a card for free coffee on their next visit. Mom scribbles a tip and her signature, the same rushed one she writes on prescriptions.

  In a feeble attempt to make small talk, Simran points out different restaurants during their walk back to her apartment.

  And then, as they’re crossing Park Avenue, something occurs to her. Something she needs to write down, think about. Something she should have thought of before.

  Her mother’s right: arranged marriages make communication hard. Impossible, even, at times.

  But Simran can talk to Dad for her.

  If they try to hash out everything themselves, there’s too much room for misunderstandings and overreactions. Simran has to present Mom’s side to Dad and then let them talk. They both ne
ed someone to explain the other person’s perspective. Her mom won’t feel comfortable enough to tell him why she left. He’ll be too proud to say he was hurt.

  Once they’re outside Simran’s building, she says, “I’ll get out my extra towel for you. And clean up.”

  Mom shakes her head. “I’m going to go back.”

  “This late? Just go in the morning.”

  “No, I’ll be more comfortable at home. And my car’s right there.” Mom motions across the street.

  “Then I’ll come with you.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’ll just run up and pack a bag.”

  Simran doesn’t know how to tell her that after everything they’ve discussed tonight, she needs to be with her parents.

  Ten minutes later, they are sitting inside Mom’s air-conditioned Mercedes, with a playlist of old Bollywood songs in the background. Simran shifts the seat into a recline and soaks in the soundtrack of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. For a second, she’s ten years old again.

  “I’m glad you’re coming home,” Mom says after they’ve taken the exit for their house.

  “Me too,” Simran says, hoping she’ll still feel that way after she’s talked to Dad.

  Nandini

  She’s sitting in the home library, reading a journal article on the large Apple desktop. There was a new study that came out in The New England Journal of Medicine about hypothermia protocols following cardiac arrest. She saves the article, attaches it to an e-mail, and sends it to the internal medicine program director at Hopkins. Good read for the residents, she types into the subject line.

  Ranjit knocks on the French door. “Busy?”

  She fiddles with the stack of papers next to the computer. “No. Just sent an e-mail.”

  “I see.” He leans against the door. He has a brown manila envelope in his hands.

  The door was one of the first things they picked when they were building the house. Nandini liked its white-framed sections, all like tiny windows, and the way they allowed fractured sunlight to fill the library. They were so much more open and inviting than the large black doors in her parents’ house.