Karma Gone Bad

by Jenny Feldon

  The week passed quickly. During the day, we saw friends and visited family. At night, we crawled into bed on opposite sides, backs to each other. Tucker lay between us like furry Switzerland, trying to bridge an impossible gap. In the middle of the night, I’d wake up to the sound of Jay’s breathing and stare at him, huddled under the sheets away from me. It was like I’d never seen him before. Nothing about him was familiar—not the way he smelled or the sweep of hair that curled beneath his sleeping hat, now worn for warmth instead of protection from germs. That hair, the darkest possible brown before we left New York, was streaked with shocking gray. Somewhere along my path of misery and self-pity, Jay had become a stranger. I curled into myself, fighting back the crushing wave of fear that nothing might ever feel right again.

  I want to get out of here, I whispered to myself. I want to go home. But home was nowhere.

  ***

  The car’s headlights cut through the fog in front of us in a swath of dusty yellow. We were driving home from dinner with friends, an evening that started out promising but ended up stiff and awkward as the tension between us grew too large for our companions to ignore. I’d had two glasses of wine, maybe more…enough to make every sound louder, every worry more pressing. I slumped against the window with my forehead against the cold glass, disoriented by riding in the front seat and on the right-hand side. I wondered if everything would always feel backward now, no matter where I was or which way it was supposed to be.

  “I think we should get divorced,” Jay said. His hands on the steering wheel were loose and calm. His tone was normal, like he’d asked me to switch the radio station or to grab him some change for the tollbooth.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You aren’t happy. We aren’t happy. You hate India, and I’m going back in three days. Maybe we need to go our separate ways. Start over again.”

  A numbing cold spread through me. I stared at him. He didn’t turn his head.

  “I don’t understand what you’re saying. We just got married. You’re being insane.”

  Silence.

  “So we’re unhappy. Life hasn’t been easy. We live in a third-world country, for god’s sake. It’s not like these are normal circumstances.”

  “It’s not the end of the world. People get divorced all the time. It’s better than being miserable together.”

  “So now our whole marriage is ruined? India sucks and this is the best you could come up with? DIVORCE? What about ‘move home and save our marriage’?”

  He shrugged and kept his eyes on the road.

  His lack of emotion hurled mine into overdrive. “So that’s it? There’s nothing between ‘We’re having a rough time’ and ‘It’s OVER’?” I spat, halfway between disbelief and hysteria.

  “I want you to be happy, Jen. I don’t make you happy anymore.”

  “You make me happy. It’s India that’s making me miserable.”

  “That’s not totally true. You know that.” Dispassionate fingertips tapped on the gearshift between us. I dug my nails into the flesh of my palms, trying to make the pain prove this moment couldn’t possibly be real.

  “You can’t mean this. Do you have any idea what you’re saying? Look at me!”

  He looked at me. His dark eyes, almost invisible in the dim dashboard lights, locked with mine for a split second. Just long enough for me to glimpse what lay behind his chilling, robotic words: sorrow, bitterness, regret. But what shocked me most of all were the cold threads of fear I saw there, breaking through the familiar placid mask he’d been wearing since the day I met him. My husband, the man who’d spent seven years being strong enough for both of us without so much as a flicker of doubt, who was fearless and powerful and more impossibly self-assured than anyone I’d met in my entire life, was afraid.

  The blood in my veins ran colder still. I could feel my heart breaking with the crystalline catastrophe of shattering glass. I crawled across the seat until I was half on his lap, my head on his shoulder. I reached for his hand and held it between both of mine, so tight I could feel his fingers tremble and resist for a moment, then fall still between my palms.

  “No,” I whispered into the gray hairs at his temples, brushing my lips against them. Claiming them as mine.

  ***

  Thanksgiving morning dawned cold and bright. Ignoring the lump in my throat that formed whenever I thought about India or my marriage or the future, I grabbed Jay and pulled him out of bed, eager to get started on a day full of sacred traditions. Thanksgiving was my favorite holiday. If I’d learned nothing else in my ill-fated time in the third world, it was that there was a whole lot more to be thankful for than I’d ever bothered to think about before.

  “Get up. We have to go to Starbucks.”

  “What?” Jay looked at me through narrowed eyes, then grabbed a pillow and pulled it over his head. “I’m sleeping. It’s early. Go away.”

  “We need to leave now or I won’t have time to get back and start the pies.”

  “Pies?”

  “Apple. Plus I’m doing the mashed potatoes and baking bread. But not if we don’t get out the door in the next five minutes. I can’t bake without coffee.”

  “I’m only doing this for pie,” Jay grumbled on his way to the bathroom.

  I handed him his toothbrush, fully loaded with Crest. “That’s OK,” I said. “I love you too.”

  All day, while I drank coffee and ate pumpkin muffins and peeled apples with short, inexpert strokes, I watched Jay when he wasn’t looking. I watched the way he wrestled with the dog and helped my dad bring in firewood, watched while he poured oil into the turkey fryer with studied concentration and childlike glee. His features, warm in the glow of the fire, were familiar again, like I’d been gazing at him through a dirty window that was suddenly scrubbed clean. When my favorite Macy’s parade float, the Sesame Street one, rolled into view on TV, Jay grabbed my arm and led me away from the dough I was kneading. On the mantel above the screen, our wedding portrait was framed in brushed silver. In the photograph, we smiled and squinted and held each other in the brilliant Nantucket sun. I wanted to crawl inside the frame and live there again, safe in the promise of our dreams coming true.

  “You don’t like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade,” I said, wiping flour on the legs of my jeans.

  “No, but you do.”

  I wanted this. I wanted him. I wanted Starbucks on Thanksgiving morning and apple pies and a bunch of kids with his dark brown hair and almond-shaped eyes chasing after him on a lawn covered with fallen leaves. If India was the bridge I needed to cross to get there, to get back to him, then I needed to figure out a way to cross it—without falling or failing or running away.

  ***

  “I left you something on the bed,” Jay said into my hair, his bare arms around me tight. He was shivering; he’d left his winter coat in the front seat of the car, not wanting to carry such a useless item all the way back to Hyderabad. His flight to Frankfurt took off in less than two hours. In twenty-four, he’d be in the car on the way back to Jasmine Heights with Venkat whistling behind the wheel. He’d unlock the door to the dark, empty house and crawl into bed without me.

  “What is it?”

  “Just wait till you get back. Call me when you get there. I’ll still be waiting to board.”

  “No hints?”

  “No hints.”

  I drove home. It felt strange to be behind the wheel after so many months of being a constant passenger. The setting sun blazed fiery pink as I headed west, toward my parents’ house, farther from Jay and the life I might have left behind for good.

  “Did Jay get off OK?” my dad asked when I let myself in the back door. He was standing in the door of the freezer, eating a carefully dissected half of a miniature Reese’s peanut butter cup.

  “Is there another one of those?”

  He fli
pped the other half toward me. We sat down at the kitchen table and licked at our respective chocolate pieces in silence.

  My dad cleared his throat.

  “Remember when I dropped you off at college sophomore year? When you cried and told me there was no way you could do it, to turn around and take you back?”

  My eyes burned at the memory. I’d hated school then, had almost failed out after my freshman year. I’d wanted nothing more in that moment than to dive back onto the bench seat of the rickety U-Haul we’d driven for 450 miles, to pack everything up and drive straight back home.

  “You told me I could do it.”

  “And what else?”

  “I don’t remember.” I got up and grabbed another peanut butter cup from the freezer. I tossed one at him. He caught it without looking and unwrapped it, slicing it down the center with practiced surgical precision.

  “I think it was ‘batten down the hatches.’”

  “Fair winds and following seas. Yeah, you’re right. Put up the spinnaker. Keep a straight course.”

  “Pull up the anchor and try not to sink.” My dad smiled, pleased with the opportunity to speak sailor.

  “Wear foul weather gear.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “No, but if you’re talking about India, you might as well say it now. I’ve got one more monsoon season to get through if I’m going back.”

  “You’re going back,” my dad said firmly, sweeping chocolate crumbs off the table with a triumphant flick of his wrist.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I’m your father. I know everything.”

  ***

  In the middle of the guest-room bed, which Jay had attempted to make in an adorable, inept way, was a plane ticket in a navy-blue-and-gold Lufthansa envelope. He’d refused to book me a return ticket when I’d left Hyderabad, maybe because he’d been plotting our divorce all along. But here it was, sitting up proud on top of my empty suitcase. Scrawled on the envelope, in black permanent marker, was a note.

  I love you, Wife. Pack what you need and come home.

  MANGO SEASON

  Chapter 19

  “Hurry, Venkat! We need to get home fast.”

  “What’s the rush?” Jay asked, pulling me closer to him in the backseat. “I still can’t believe you’re really back.”

  “Me either,” I admitted, curling into the warmth of his sweatshirt. It was a few days past Christmas; the temperature in Hyderabad was the lowest I’d ever known. Which meant that at three o’clock in the morning, wearing a sweatshirt without melting into a sweaty puddle was actually possible. Five o’clock shadow aside, Jay looked like a little kid in the oversized blue zip-up, young and vulnerable, hood pulled up and sleeves rolled down over his knuckles. I liked him like this, a throwback to the cocky college kid he’d been when we started dating. His corporate self, all Armani and dry cleaner creases and Jean Paul Gaultier cologne, was nowhere near as endearing.

  My emotions were all over the place: exhaustion from the trip, relief at being back with Jay where I belonged, fear and anxiety about what lay ahead. But mostly I felt grateful. I’d spent months feeling ashamed of myself in almost every way, but now I had a reason to stand up straighter and feel proud. Packing my suitcases and getting back on the plane had taken almost everything I had—but I’d done it. I was here. Here, with one more shot to do this journey right.

  At the Jubilee Hills check post, a cow leaned into the window, pressing its damp nose against the glass. I wondered, since cows were holy and the stars invisible because of the smog, if it would be OK to wish on cattle instead. I closed my eyes and wished. When I opened them, Jay was staring at me like I was crazy.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Wishing on a cow.”

  “You’re kidding. You didn’t take those Lariam pills, right? I told you that doctor here said they were dangerous.”

  “No pills. I figured malaria was the least of my concerns at this point.” I swatted at the mosquito buzzing near my ear, which was no doubt trying to make me eat my words. “Seriously. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m really glad to be here.”

  “You don’t mean that. It’s just the jet lag talking. You’ll be back to hating it again in the morning,” Jay said. He rubbed my thigh, scraping his fingernail across the seam of my jeans. “It’s OK. You don’t have to be glad to be here. I’m happy anyway.”

  But I was glad. I was thrilled to see Venkat again, with his serious dark eyes and his mischievous smile, beanie pulled low across his smooth brow. He wore a puffy nylon parka, shiny and black, with an oversized hood that covered his entire head, hair and all.

  “Venkat, it’s still pretty warm outside. Why are you wearing that huge jacket?”

  “Winter, Madam,” Venkat replied solemnly.

  The air was as pungent as I remembered it, but the harsh unfamiliarity was gone. The bad smells and the good were woven together. Through the less pleasing scents, I could smell things I loved: sandalwood and wood smoke and hot chai. I was looking forward to our next meal at Ginger Court, to catching up with Jena and enjoying an order of chili-fried American corn. I was glad to be safe inside the Scorpio, watching the half-demolished buildings rush by as we drove down Madhapur Road, past a dark and quiet Shilparamam, beneath the gleaming HITEC City arch toward home.

  “You’re not giving me any credit at all. I’m a changed person, remember?”

  “No one changes that fast.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence. You could at least give me credit for trying.” I swatted at his hand, pleased our banter had returned to teasing, a more familiar state. The anger-laced tension was gone. This kind of back-and-forth teasing was a throwback to happier times.

  “I give you more credit than you know,” Jay said. “Why are your suitcases all wet?”

  “I had to wipe down the outside of them with wipes. To get the Xs off.”

  “The Xs? You mean the customs marks?”

  “Yep. Luckily Peter tipped me off before I left for the airport. I wouldn’t have known to stick baby wipes in my carry-on.”

  “What does Peter have to do with anything?”

  “I called him while I was home. I needed a few pointers. On packing.”

  “Packing? How could Peter help you with packing?”

  “You told me to bring back what I needed, right?”

  “So?”

  “Well, as it happens, some of what I needed wasn’t exactly legal to bring into the country.”

  Jay raised his eyebrows. “Why don’t I like the sound of that?”

  “You will when you’re eating turkey lasagna for dinner tomorrow.”

  “Since when can you cook lasagna?”

  “There’s a first time for everything,” I replied, flashing him my best Mona Lisa smile.

  ***

  I curled, C-shaped, around the toilet bowl, taking small comfort in the fact that, at least prior to us moving in, it had been brand new. At least we had sole proprietorship of all the germs. Tucker wove around my ankles, sensing something was wrong, urging me to get up.

  “No one dies from Delhi belly,” Jay observed, brushing his teeth, unsympathetic to my moans. He used the tap water now, yet another sign of his success in the third world. Teeth brushing like a local? Check. He put a bottle of Himalaya on the floor next to me. “You’ll be fine in a minute.”

  “I will not be fine in a minute,” I croaked, retching for effect. “I don’t have ‘Delhi belly.’ I’ve been poisoned. I’m never eating Indian food again. Don’t even think about making me.”

  “You love Ginger Court. You couldn’t wait to go back. I was perfectly happy staying home and eating this turkey lasagna you keep talking about.”

  “Don’t talk about food. It’s making me sicker. I’m very, very ill.”

  “I’m very, v
ery late for a meeting,” Jay said, inspecting himself in the cracked mirror. He turned to leave. “I have a work dinner at Peshwari tonight anyway. You can skip it if you want. If you’re not better.”

  “Gee, thanks. That’s so nice of you.”

  “Have a good day,” Jay called. He was already halfway down the stairs.

  So much for husbandly TLC. Considering the delicate balance of our rekindled tenderness for each other, I’d been expecting him to react with more…concern. I was going to murder him. Just as soon as I got up off the bathroom floor.

  It was definitely going to be a sweatpants kind of a day. I texted Venkat and told him to stay at the office.

  After several mugs of weak Tetley tea with lemon, my stomach settled. I curled up on the couch with a bag of Cape Cod potato chips and a stack of brand new Us Weekly magazines, more creature comforts I’d brought along in my luggage. Technically I was supposed to be embarking on my newly revised Indian journey. But surely starting such a huge undertaking with food poisoning would be a terrible idea, right? There was plenty of time to start working on my new bucket list. One more day of moping around the house wouldn’t hurt anyone.

  The doorbell rang. Tucker went berserk. I ignored it, figuring the porch people would deal with whoever it was. They were still hanging around, overseeing the garbage man who came around on his bicycle, shooing away the stray dogs that tried to hop the gate and sleep on our lawn. Before I left, I was giving each of them fifty rupees a day, just so they’d be able to buy food at the grocery stand outside the tent city. It was twice India’s standard daily wage for migrant workers. I knew I’d have to stop soon, but I couldn’t help it. They kept me company, made the house feel less empty.

  But today they seemed to have disappeared. Their sleeping pallets and tiffin pails were gone. The doorbell rang again, now accompanied by knocking.

  “Madam! Is Sundar! I see you in there! Let me inside, please!”