by Saumya Dave
“Food services!” A woman wearing a shirt that reads hospital dining comes in and asks if Natasha wants some water and peanut butter crackers. Natasha shakes her head. The woman looks at Suhani, then says, “Dr. Joshi? Is that you?”
“Nancy!” Suhani grins. “How’s it going?”
“I didn’t even recognize you!” Nancy smiles. “Thank God it’s almost shift-change time. I’m exhausted.”
“Oh, I bet! I’m glad you’re almost done and can be with your beautiful family,” Suhani says.
Nancy beams, then pulls up a picture on her phone of an adorable chubby baby boy with golden curls and large blue eyes.
Over the next few minutes, other hospital staff members come in and out. Almost all of them perk up when they recognize Suhani. Natasha feels herself swelling with pride during each interaction. This is my badass sister at work. Seeing her sister so easily slip into this other identity is jarring in the way it was when Natasha was five years old and learned her teacher didn’t live at school.
Once there’s finally a lull between people coming in and out, Suhani hands Natasha a slim box of tissues and says, “Can you tell me exactly what happened?”
“A big mistake happened. That’s what all this is.” Natasha’s voice squeaks.
“Just take a deep breath. I promise you it’s going to be okay,” Suhani says in a voice that’s both gentle and calm. She’s shifting from big-sister mode to assertive-but-caring-doctor mode. Natasha takes another tissue and Suhani rubs her back. Is this how she is with patients? No wonder everyone at work loves her.
“I don’t even know where to start.”
“Start from wherever you want.” Suhani rests Natasha’s head on her shoulder, ready to listen.
Twenty
Suhani
Natasha starts with the hours before she called 911. How she saw Karan and found out he has a girlfriend (how does he already have a girlfriend?!), her solo trip to Fado (why does she always drink alone?), the overwhelming dread that engulfed her when she was at Suhani and Zack’s apartment (why did Natasha ever leave their place?).
I’m supposed to be there for you, Suhani thinks over and over again as she listens to every detail. Even if we’re mad at each other, I’m always here for you. You should never feel that alone.
How could she have missed this? She’s a freaking psychiatrist, for God’s sake, and Natasha was staying at their place for weeks. And no matter what she and Natasha are going through, she always thought she’d be aware if Natasha was really struggling.
Her mind jumps to an array of moments: showing Natasha how to pick out the right jewelry for lehengas, marking up her math homework with a red Sharpie, getting annoyed when Natasha took her clothes, analyzing her fights with Karan, mediating drama between her and Mom and Dad. Is it possible that despite everything they’ve been through together, there are parts of Natasha she’s never known?
“I’m so sorry you got to that place and I wasn’t there for you,” Suhani says. “I’ll never let that happen again.”
“I’m the one who’s sorry for this entire mess.” Natasha taps her heels against the edge of the bed. Tap, tap, tap, tap. “How soon can we get out of here? This place is the worst. I don’t know how you work here.”
Medical school and residency desensitized Suhani to the jarring parts of the hospital. She gazes around her and tries to see the surroundings the way Natasha would. A drunk man curses as he’s brought in on a stretcher. In one of the neighboring beds, a petite doctor frantically presses on an old woman’s chest as a team surrounds her. Nurses scurry from computers to patient beds and back to computers.
“I know it’s not easy to be here.” Suhani is careful to weigh each word. “But I’m not sure we can leave soon.”
Natasha’s eyes are bloodshot. “Why not?”
“You’ve obviously been struggling for a long time, longer than any of us realized. Because you did something really serious.” Suhani tries to block out the image of Natasha taking pill after pill. If she’d swallowed even a few more or hadn’t thrown up, they wouldn’t be having this conversation. The thought lodges in the corners of her mind and threatens to launch her into an all-consuming panic. She almost lost her sister. Forever.
But she can’t focus on that now. All her energy has to go toward making sure Natasha is okay. She takes deep breaths until the panic lifts and leaves behind a tangled knot of protectiveness, sadness, and regret. What she’d give to wave a magic wand over the situation and make it all better.
“Yeah, but I can meet with someone and talk all that out. Go to weekly therapy. I’ll even go twice a week if you want!” Natasha pleads. “Isn’t that what you and Dad recommend to the people who are really messed up like me?”
She says the last part with a half smile, an attempt to make light of the situation.
“You’re not really messed up,” Suhani says. “We just all have to do what’s best for you. What’s safest for you.”
Suhani’s had this conversation with patients dozens of times. This should be easy. An attending once told her that everything’s different when your own family member is the patient, and now she understands how true that is. All her years of training feel irrelevant.
She clutches Natasha’s hands and keeps thinking, We could never lose you. “Look, it’s one thing to have thoughts about wanting to hurt yourself, which is already so tough, but taking that step to put pills in your mouth, multiple pills . . . that takes things to another level.”
She waits for a flicker of understanding on her sister’s face.
“But I’m fine now. Really,” Natasha insists.
My sister tried to kill herself. My sister tried to kill herself. My sister tried to kill herself.
The words repeat in Suhani’s mind and it takes all her strength to quiet them. She tries to see the situation the way she would as a doctor and not as a sister. The drained wine bottles at her apartment, Natasha living in her pajamas, her dread of seeing her friends.
Suddenly, everything becomes clear. And there is no easy way to say it.
“You need more help than just therapy,” she says. “This was really serious and you could have died. Do you understand that?”
She watches Natasha’s face shift from shock to defensiveness. Every part of Suhani wants to agree with her and say, Yes, of course you’ll be fine. Let’s just go home. But she can’t do that.
“I get it, bu—”
“I don’t think you do,” Suhani interrupts. “This isn’t one of those times like the others where we can all laugh off what you’ve done, not let you deal with the consequences. This is your life.”
Before Natasha can say anything, Zack walks in. “Uh, hey.”
Suhani refrains from jumping up and wrapping her arms around him. At the house, she didn’t have a chance to soak in Zack’s presence. But seeing him bathed in the fluorescent hospital light plunges her deeper into the emotional hangover she’s been buried under for the past week. A part of her still can’t fully process that that’s her husband, his tired eyes and slim, long-limbed body. That’s the man whose socks are folded in the drawer below hers. That’s the man she shares a DoorDash account and her nakedness and countless glasses of wine with. That’s home. She’s overcome with comfort and, to her surprise, raw desire, a longing to push him into bed and rip off his clothes.
“I was wondering when I’d see you,” Natasha says.
“Sorry it took me awhile.” Zack slings his hands into the back pockets of his slim-fit olive chinos. “Anuj and your parents are here so I was trying to buffer.”
“Ugh, thanks. I really can’t handle them right now. And I’m trying to get the fuck outta here, anyway.” On the word “here,” Natasha does a big, circular motion above her head to indicate the whole hospital.
“I’m glad she called you.” Suhani faces her husband.
I lov
e you, she stops herself from saying. And I’m so sorry for everything.
Seeing Zack solidifies what she’s known since this morning: they need to be home together. They need to be back in the corner of Atlanta that’s just theirs.
The night they moved into their apartment, Zack undressed Suhani in the middle of the bare living room. Goose bumps erupted on her spine as he licked her earlobe and the curve of her neck. She clutched his shoulder with one hand and with the other took sips from a chilled bottle of Moët & Chandon. The only light was from the Atlanta skyline. She needs to take their marriage back to that moment, so ripe with hope and excitement and promise.
“I’m glad she called me, too.” Zack faces the floor. “Natasha and I have been talking about how she’s been feeling.”
“Talking? When?”
A shadow of guilt crosses his unshaven face. “In the evenings, when you’ve been busy with work.”
Natasha and Zack exchange a knowing glance. If they were at the casting for that Indian Matchmaking show on Netflix, they’d be up for the roles of “funny, free-spirited woman” and “even-tempered white guy,” while Suhani would be the “uptight, know-it-all bitch” they’ve both been mad at.
A nurse, Shelly, comes in to check Natasha’s vital signs. She pauses when she sees Suhani. “Oh, Dr. Joshi! How nice to see you, darlin’.”
Shelly is one of the best ER nurses at Atlanta Memorial Hospital. Her gray hair, thick glasses, and southern accent give her the vibe of a loving grandmother with an edge, someone who regularly bakes cookies and also shares stories of her wild youth.
Suhani nods. “You, too, Shelly. We should be wrapping up here soon.”
Shelly understands to not ask any more questions and gives a singsong, “Lovely.”
“Lovely” is the last word Suhani would use to describe the moment, but she does appreciate Shelly’s ability to inject some cheer into even the bleakest situations.
“We’ll give you some space to take her vitals.” Suhani pushes aside the curtain and motions for Zack to follow her.
Anticipation fills her, one similar to the kind she had when they first got together and she’d get all dressed up for their dates, waiting for Zack to pick her up, wondering where the night would lead.
“You look tired,” she says once they’re standing in an empty corner of the emergency room.
Zack gives a weak laugh. “Thanks.”
“No, sorry, I don’t mean bad,” Suhani says. “I can just tell you haven’t gotten much sleep. I know it sounds strange, but I like seeing you this way.”
“I always liked seeing you when you were tired, too,” Zack says, his usually enthusiastic voice flattened today.
“I’m so glad you’re here. Not here here, but you know what I mean,” Suhani says as she reaches to cup his face the way she’s wanted to for hours. She loves his face, plain and simple. She loves his full lips and the dimple in his chin. She loves the way his smile stretches all the way up to his deep-set eyes, which are framed by black square glasses.
But Zack steps back as if he’s dodging a punch. The move is so jarring, so unlike him, that Suhani first thinks she must have misread it. But then she sees the firmness of his posture, his navy-blue All Birds shoes glued to the floor.
“What are you . . . ?” Suhani trails off, confused. “What’s wrong?”
“We’re not in the best place, remember?”
The words bring her back to reality, their reality. Her stomach churns as she thinks about how she packed her suitcase and left the apartment, how she texted him after she was in her childhood bedroom.
“Obviously, I remember,” she says. “But I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you, too.” Zack sighs. Despite his words, a gnawing dread forms in the pit of Suhani’s stomach.
“My dad told me about how you were willing to go to med school,” she says, needing him to know how much she appreciates everything he’s done for them. “You did so much to make sure we would work. You always have.”
Zack sighs and tilts toward her. “You’ve done things for us, too. I know you have.”
“We both have. Remember what we said at Little Spirit about how we made it through so many big things that should have been stressful?” she asks.
But as the words leave her, a truth materializes in her mind. Even though marriages are often defined by the big events, it’s the smaller, day-to-day moments that really form their tapestries.
Zack stares at the floor, which is covered in scuff marks and a speckled pattern that always makes it look a little dirty. His silence pushes her to keep going.
“Maybe we can go home and talk,” she says. “And just be together.”
She waits for him to say Yes, of course or There’s nothing I want more or maybe even his go-to Moooovin’ right along!
But when he looks up, his hazel eyes are coated with a heavy sadness. “I think I need some more time apart.”
“What? Time apart from us?”
Zack bites his bottom lip. “Yeah. From us.”
Instead of comforting her, the calmness in his voice is like a fist around her windpipe. Because Zack doesn’t make big, empty statements. No, that’s a trademark of the Joshi women, to say things in a fit of heightened emotion and then take them back later.
And in the four years they’ve been together, Zack has never been the one to want space. Even after their most heated fights, he pushes them to talk it out and not go to sleep angry, while Suhani always needs to cool off.
“But we should talk, and there’s no way we can do that with more space,” Suhani says.
“I know we need to talk. I just have a lot to think about before we do.”
An overhead page calls for a neurology consult and then a stroke code. The metallic smell of blood wafts over from the trauma bay and in seconds is masked by the sting of antibacterial cleaning solution. Suhani makes fleeting eye contact with one of the junior psych residents on call. She knows she shouldn’t be embarrassed, but for some reason, she doesn’t want anyone from work to know about what’s going on with her sister. But it’s just a matter of time. On Monday morning, Natasha will meet several of the junior residents and two of the attendings on the main ward.
She shifts her focus back to Zack. “What do you have to think about?”
Zack glances around them and runs his hand through his wavy brown hair. “This isn’t really the best place or time to get into it.”
“Roshan?” she asks, not even wanting to say his name.
Zack nods. “That is one of the things, yes.”
“What are the other things?” Suhani asks. “Work and kids? I know we can get through those. I really believe that.”
“It’s not that simple.” Zack wrings his hands and she stops herself from grabbing them. “I guess I realized that we’re not as close as I thought we were if you can keep certain things from me. I don’t make you comfortable enough to be open with me.”
“Of course you do,” Suhani says. “There’s way more to all this than you know, than I even realized until I really had time to think about it. Being at home and then talking to my dad made me see that, yes, I have kept my guard up with you. And I know I should have been more open. But I picked you, we picked each other, because of who we are together.”
I didn’t think I deserved to be happy, she thinks. For years, she heard Roshan’s voice in her head, telling her she wasn’t good enough. It was the adult version of the girls in middle school, always reminding her that she was defective in some way or another. No matter what she accomplished or who she became on the outside, she’d always be broken.
“I don’t know.” Zack shakes his head. “All I do know is that we’ve had some distance for a while and I just need to figure out what’s best for us.”
No, no, no, no, Suhani thinks as she hears the certainty in Zack’s voice
, a certainty that fills her with fear. Is what they’re going through just a rough patch that comes with the first year of marriage or a deeper sign that they don’t fit? She refuses to dwell on the latter.
Natasha would know how to talk through this with her. She’d give the most essential mixture of reassurance and analysis.
“I just need a break.” Zack shoves his hands into his pockets.
“A break from our marriage? Really?” The question doesn’t even sound real. How is he saying this? “You can’t just do that!” she says. “You’re my husband.”
You’re my world, she thinks. She wants to pull him into her, inhale the mixture of his natural, citrusy scent and Jack Black body wash. She wants to rub the back of his neck, tuck her chin into the groove of his slim shoulder, feel the edge of his glasses press into her cheekbone.
But something about Zack’s stiff posture and the hard expression in his eyes keeps Suhani rooted in place. For the first time ever in their relationship, she’s hesitant to touch him.
Another request for a neurology consult, this one more urgent, echoes from the overhead speakers. Brian, one of the phlebotomists, waves and wheels past them with his cart full of needles, tubes, and syringes. Suhani’s grateful for the brief interruptions even if she and Zack shouldn’t be having this conversation here.
Zack sighs.
Please argue with me, she wants to say. She knows from her own training that as unhealthy as it is to bicker nonstop, it’s much more dangerous when a couple stops fighting, when there just isn’t much left to say. Silence only leads to hopelessness, and after that, there really isn’t anywhere else to go.
“SUHANI!” Mom’s booming voice travels from the other side of the ER. No wonder she used to act. The woman’s voice is powerful.
“Mom. Try to calm down,” Anuj says.