by Cary Groner
They carried the food to the sliding back patio doors, where Connie let them in and introduced everyone to Cody. He was a rangy fellow in his fifties, with a ponytail and an amiable grin.
Ben and the girls quickly bolted for the woods.
“Was that my nephew, headed to the great outdoors?” Peter said, incredulous.
“This is new,” Connie said. “This is just his second time here, but he loves it. Until now the only parts of his body he developed were his thumbs, for PlayStation.”
Cody got them drinks, and they stood around talking, getting to know one another. He’d developed software for Adobe before retiring the previous year; he and Connie had met online. They’d been going out for only two or three months, but from their easy affection it looked to Peter like it was going well.
Ten or fifteen minutes later the kids came out of the tall grass onto the field. Ben held something green in his hand. They walked up the stairs to the deck.
“Look what I found,” Ben said, grinning and holding up his prize. It was a leaf from a healthy-looking marijuana plant. “There’s about a quarter-acre of this shit out there.”
“Language,” said Connie.
“This stuff,” said Ben. “This totally sinsemilla-type serious dope stuff, Mom.”
She rolled her eyes and took it from him. The kids, smirking, trotted into the house. Peter and Connie looked at Cody, who smiled and shrugged with the closest thing to a Nepali shrug Peter had seen in months. “It’s my neighbor Ed’s land,” he explained. “He mainly grows apples and pears, but he finally bowed to economic reality and set aside a little plot for this.”
“And it’s safe?” Peter asked.
“A few years ago the cops realized that if they kowtowed to the DEA, the local economy would tank,” Cody said. “So they bust the meth labs and take their tithing of the dope revenues, and everyone is happy.”
Connie, irritated, said she hoped the field wasn’t booby-trapped.
“Not really Ed’s style,” said Cody. “But sorry, I guess I should have told them to stay on this side of the fence.”
Peter was glad to see him apologize; he’d come to understand this as a good sign, an indicator of strength rather than weakness, and he hoped it boded well for the two of them.
Connie, evidently mollified, put a hand on Cody’s arm. “Kids are going to roam,” she said. “I guess you can’t shelter them from everything.”
Peter wondered, in fact, if you could shelter them from anything.
“Ed shares, at least,” Cody said, smiling. “Let me know if you guys want some later.”
“Maybe if the kids aren’t around,” Connie said.
Peter shook his head, though, feeling like a square but not minding all that much. “I need all the brain cells I can get at this point,” he said. “If I want to kill off a few I prefer a good cabernet, though I’ve learned it’s best to drink it at sea level.”
Cody smiled. “Well, we’re almost at sea level, and we’ve definitely got cabernet.” He put a hand on Peter’s shoulder and turned to go inside. Peter’s eyes met Connie’s. Cody seemed nice enough, but Peter felt protective of his sister, and he was unsure about so many things now. If the kind of awakening Lama Padma had described meant that everything you were used to relying on crumbled under your feet, he figured he was on his way. It wasn’t comfortable, particularly if it meant giving up the intoxicating acuity of his own capacity for judging others, but he suspected it was necessary. If Connie was happy with Cody, that would be good enough for him.
A few minutes later, as the kids set the table and laid out the food, Connie cornered Mina and Peter in the pantry. “So when’s the date?” she asked, her voice hushed with mischief.
Mina looked at Peter. “I thought this was a secret.”
Peter peered at his sister suspiciously. “I did too,” he said.
“For God’s sake, I know my own bro,” said Connie. “He’s been looking way too happy.”
Mina smiled. “Next month,” she said. “Then we can finish the paperwork for Usha.”
“You going to have one of your own?”
“Jesus, Con,” said Peter. “Give us a second or two, will you?”
Connie put up her hands. “Sorry, sorry, don’t even consider having any fun on my account, God forbid.”
Cody called to them from the dining room. “We’re all set,” he said. “Let’s rumble.”
At the table, Usha looked astounded at all the food.
Alex turned to her. “The rule is,” she said, “you have to eat till it hurts. Otherwise you’ve failed.”
“Alex,” said Peter.
“True story,” said Ben. “You’ve got to totally want to hurl.”
“Ben,” said Connie.
Cody asked Usha if she’d like to say grace, but Usha didn’t understand. Mina explained, briefly, in Nepali. Usha then interlaced her fingers and said a few words.
“She said thank you Peter and Mina for saving her life and giving her books and food,” said Alex. “She’s sorry to hear about the Indians, though.”
Peter, holding Mina’s hand on one side and Alex’s on the other, sent his own thanks out to the universe.
After dinner Cody cleared the table and piled the dishes in the sink while Peter, Connie, and Mina adjourned to the deck and watched the kids play Frisbee in the field. Usha was new to the game but got the hang of it quickly. Ben was getting tall, leggy, and fast, but he still couldn’t catch Alex.
“My niece is looking good,” said Connie. “How’d you manage that?”
“Tough stock,” Peter replied. “You should know.”
The clouds were turning purple overhead. Cody came out with another bottle of wine and opened it. “How can they eat so much and run around like that?” he asked.
“It’s called metabolism,” Connie said. “Remember metabolism?”
He smiled. “Vaguely.”
“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” said Mina. “Look at them go.”
“Ben could turn out to be a sprinter,” said Cody.
“He’s too wiry,” Connie said. “I’m thinking cross-country.”
To sit with a full belly on a cool fall evening, talking about the children, felt to Peter like brilliant, extravagant luxury. But they were beautiful. They moved like young cats, fluid and graceful and capable of startling acceleration, and then they’d get their legs tangled up and fall over one another, laughing.
One of Usha’s throws got away from her and headed toward the house. Peter got up and caught it, then went down the stairs and threw it back to her. She grabbed it, trotted a few steps, and threw it to Ben, who leaped in the air and turned, trying to catch it behind his back. He missed, and it hit him in the head. He staggered around, pretending to be hurt, and Usha laughed.
Peter looked over his shoulder at Mina, who was looking at him. He knew that look, of yearning and of love and of lust, and it sent jangles of energy right down through him and into the ground, as if a slender finger of lightning had slipped from the sky and found him waiting for its charge.
Connie noticed and fanned herself with her hand. “Getting warm out here,” she said. Mina dipped her fingers in her drink and flicked the water at her, and Connie ducked, grinning.
The sun dipped behind a low scrim of pink cloud, and a soft, warm radiance fell upon everything so evenly that the world seemed to glow. It was like the light at Lama Padma’s, a light that held secrets, and Peter felt his heart fill with love for these children.
Ben threw a long one about halfway between Alex and Peter, and they both ran for it. The Frisbee caught a little gust and sailed far out over the grass, and Alex outran him. At the last second, just as it was about to get past her, she leaped up high and caught it in midair, then fell and rolled and came to her feet with it in her hand. They applauded, and she took a little bow.
She nudged Peter with her shoulder as she trotted by. “Better get in shape, old man, I’m leaving you in the dust.” She skipped away fr
om him toward the others, laughing, her hair flying.
And he thought, Okay, kid. Leave me in the dust.
Run.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’m greatly indebted to my agent, Barbara Braun, for seeing the potential in this book and urging Cindy Spiegel at Spiegel & Grau to give it a read. Cindy has been a wonderful editor, and her suggestions have vastly improved the novel.
Many friends helped bring the manuscript along from my original, vague ideas about it. Jane Dwyer and Marilyn Montgomery, both nurses who took their children to Kathmandu when they went there to work in health clinics, provided many excellent stories about their sojourns. Sandy Shum, Paloma Lopez, Peter Moulton, and Marilyn Cohen generously consented to lengthy interviews about their time in Nepal and gave me extremely helpful information. I was also inspired by sources that included Barbara Scot’s Violet Shyness of Their Eyes, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche’s Blazing Splendor, and the Traveler’s Tales Guide to Nepal, including Broughton Coburn’s hilarious first-person account of having a leech ensconced in his nose.
My brother Cam and his daughter Christine talked to me at length about the pleasures and pains of fathers and daughters traveling together in foreign countries. My brother Chris provided sound information and juicy stories about life in the trenches of medical practice.
At the University of Arizona, my instructors Jason Brown and Bob Houston gave me important insights into the manuscript that helped lift it from its early abyss. My kind and tireless mentor, Elizabeth Evans, guided me further with excellent suggestions as I sought to address a variety of difficult issues.
My parents always encouraged me to follow whatever path I considered important, no matter how nuts it seemed to them, and for this I will always be grateful. My wife, Patti, has been amazingly supportive and patient; she’s a great soul and, as added benefits, smart as hell and totally beautiful.
The descriptions here of atrocities committed by Chinese soldiers are based on documented accounts and include stories related to me personally by Tibetans I have known. I have a profound debt to all those courageous enough to speak about their ordeals.
Finally, what modest knowledge I have of Buddhism I credit entirely to my extraordinary teachers of many years, the late Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche and his Dzogchen lineage holder, Lama Drimed Norbu. I owe them far more than I can put into words.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CARY GRONER worked for more than two decades as a journalist, then earned his MFA in fiction writing from the University of Arizona in 2009. His short stories have won numerous awards and have appeared in publications that include Glimmer Train, American Fiction, Mississippi Review, Southern California Review, and Tampa Review. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Exiles is his first novel.
www.carygroner.com