“Wait a second,” Grace said, the realization dawning on her. “Did you . . . How did you . . . You got St. Casilda to lay him off?”
Duncan was staring at Bent openmouthed. “You fucking did what?”
“With the best of intentions,” Bent said. “You know the college was going under. Cinasat contributed to their renovation project and assured them you would have a great job. You could have got some great publications out of it, with top coauthors. A chance you’d never have got at St. Casilda. It wasn’t just self-serving, you know.”
“Why not just offer him the job?” Grace said.
“Academics.” Bent shook his head. “They don’t like jobs outside academia. Grace, cut me some slack here. Think about the compensation Cinasat offered. Something neither of you could have made, even at the very best of universities.”
Duncan rose quietly to his feet. “I’m done here,” he said to Grace. He opened the door and walked out.
Grace knew who had sent the email about Duncan’s layoff. DOG something. Danibel Olivia Garwick. She had tried to explain before she’d been killed. “That shooting in Paterson wasn’t random,” she said.
“No one was hurt,” Bent said. “They were just trying to create a diversion, prevent you from meeting Danibel.”
“But they did try to get me. Outside Gannon Hall. At Dumont. That wasn’t some random mugging.”
“I had nothing to do with that,” Bent said. “I only found out later. You were interfering in things you didn’t understand.”
Grace could only gape at him. He was a stranger.
He looked at her pleadingly. “Getting Cinasat to hire Duncan, the hooniyam research, those were the only things I spearheaded,” he said. “They weren’t illegal. Symb86 wasn’t my idea. The deaths, I had no part in those. I only found out afterward.” He rubbed at his forehead again. “Look, Grace. I was just doing my job. Marketing, that was all. I did it all for Janie, you know. To do something really great, so that she wouldn’t have to think . . . I didn’t want to end up a . . . end up like my dad.”
End up like a loser. That was what he wanted to say, Grace knew. That was how he had always thought of his dad, because that was how his dad felt about himself. That had always been Bent’s goal, to have enough money of his own, and to control it, so that he would not be under his grandfather’s control. But now, all that had crumbled. He might be immune from prosecution, but he would surely lose everything.
“I’ll make sure Janie is okay,” she said, pushing back her chair. She kept her eyes averted from Bent’s face as she left the room.
57
DUNCAN
Sunday
“I can’t believe you put her up to this,” Grace said, watching Leela bring the pitcher down the brick garden path. It didn’t seem like a good time to do it either. Black clouds were gathering, threatening a downpour.
“I didn’t have to do much putting up,” Duncan said, grinning. “I was thinking about what that woman on the plane, Mrs. Atukorale, had said. I just asked Leela what they did in the village when a woman has trouble getting pregnant, and she volunteered the rest.” Grace’s face tightened, and Duncan wondered if he’d said too much.
Grace had begun to look gradually more relaxed over the past four days. Duncan thought the need to keep Janie occupied until their return to the US was what had changed Grace’s attitude. They had taken Janie to the museum, to show her the enormous blue whale skeleton that hung in one of the high-ceilinged halls. They’d bought her a kite and spent hours catching the wind by the beach. Another morning, they had gone boating on Beira Lake; from a flimsy swan-shaped paddleboat they’d watched real swans glide by. They’d taken Janie swimming at the Mount Lavinia beach, among the crowds of other screaming children who splashed in the shallows. In the evenings, guests had been dropping by. Janie had been enthralled with all the attention, so many aunties cooing and pinching her cheeks, so many children to play with. She had only asked once about when her father would be home.
It was only at night that Duncan’s thoughts returned to Cinasat. For the past four nights, he’d lain next to Grace’s sleeping body, listening to the whirring of the ceiling fan in their bedroom and the croaking of the frogs in the pond outside, and let his mind drift over recent events. He wondered what price Hammond would pay for his greed. When the case went to trial, Hammond would surely lose much more than the hand he’d had to have amputated. He worried about Janie, now that her mother had filed for sole custody. What would happen when she learned the complicated truth about her father’s crimes? Would Bent eventually write the tell-all book they’d heard he intended to produce? How would that affect poor Janie?
He thought about Jotipala, with the sea inside his heart. Could Nalini’s connections really get him and Karuna new jobs at a seaside hotel? How would the jobs change their lives? Would Jotipala still be able to drum after his shoulder wound healed? He wondered about Mo, still struggling with his grief over Angie. He thought about the turn his own life had taken, and about what the future might bring. Could he have prevented being laid off from St. Casilda? Would he have been happier if he had remained there? How could he not have known something was rotten at Cinasat? Sadness flowed through him at the thought of what he’d lost. Not only a job, but also the hope that his mother would be well again. The hope that he might have a child. But then, his ring impinged on his consciousness, as it so often did, and he remembered: nil desperandum. There was more to come—other doors would open, and he would see what lay beyond.
Now he watched Grace as she reached reluctantly for the small clay pitcher of milk Leela had brought. Grace was dressed in white, at Leela’s insistence. He had waited until Grace’s parents had taken Janie out for ice cream, not wanting to deal with their skepticism.
“Carefully, right at the base, Grace Madam,” Leela said. She stood back, her lungi hitched up, arms akimbo, looking confident but not particularly reverent.
Grace poured the milk on the soil at the base of the araliya tree, splattering a little on the gray bark. They watched the milk run in small rivulets around the tree and seep gradually into the soil.
“May madam be blessed with a child,” Leela said as she took back the pitcher.
“That’s it?” Grace said, turning away from Leela to roll her eyes at Duncan.
“That’s enough,” Leela said, wiping a dribble of milk off the pitcher with the edge of her flowered blouse. “Madam will see. The spirits will be appeased.”
“Come on, worth a try,” Duncan said, after Leela had retired to the kitchen. They walked up the garden path to the coco plum tree. A squirrel was leaping up the tangled branches to where a ripe pink fruit dangled, just out of its reach. “You said you had a much more elaborate puberty ritual. Isn’t this like that one a bit?”
“God, no,” Grace said. “That was long. Three days sitting in my room with female company only. No fried foods. An elaborate bathing ritual on the fourth day. Neem leaves floating in the bathwater, and a branch of this araliya hanging in the bathroom, dripping sap into the sink. After the bath, I got to break a coconut open by dashing it on the ground. Actually, I only managed it on the third try. Mrs. Gunasiri—the midwife who had arranged the ceremony—didn’t seem too thrilled about that. Maybe that was an omen—the miscarriages. You never know.” She grimaced sarcastically, shrugging. “That was so long ago. Ma was into all that then, so Appa didn’t dare say anything. Now she would agree with him.”
“You have to believe a little bit,” Duncan said, although he knew she would deny it. “I mean, you grew up with this sort of thing.”
“Unconscious belief maybe,” Grace said, sounding distracted. She looked up as a streak of lightning brightened the air for a second. A rumble of thunder followed. She drew in a long breath. “Listen,” she said hesitantly. “I have to tell you something. I don’t . . . It’s hard to say it.”
Duncan frowned at her expression. “What?”
“It’s . . . it’s something I should have
told you a long time ago.”
Duncan felt alarm rising in his throat. Was she ill? Had she got a test result that she hadn’t told him about? Cancer?
“I had a miscarriage,” she said.
Duncan frowned. He would have known if she had been pregnant again.
“Not now,” she added. “When we broke up that time, after the big fight.” She was talking fast, the words pressured. “I think I might have brought it on, by drinking.”
“Are you saying . . . ? This was someone else’s . . . ?” He felt like he couldn’t breathe.
“No, no, no. It was yours. But I’ve been trying to convince myself that I miscarried because of something about my genes or my uterus or my hormones, but I don’t think that’s true. I didn’t want to believe that my body could go beyond nine weeks, because that would have meant admitting to myself . . . I think I did it myself.” Tears were falling. He stared, not understanding. “I know I did. I remember what happened. I had a lot to drink after I found out. And I knew that could end the pregnancy.” She took a deep breath. “I remember. I hoped it would.”
“I don’t understand,” he said. “What are you talking about?”
He waited while she explained, while the rain came down in hard drops that hit the ground audibly. After she had finished, he could only stand there, staring at her. Why had she not said anything before?
They could have had a child by now. Maybe a girl, only a little older than Janie was now. He would have watched her grow up. Shared with her all the things he loved. The sea, the woods. Taught her about other worlds the way Ms. Logan had taught him.
He thought about how long that argument had lasted, twelve years ago. What they had both said. Thank God I found out now. I could never marry you. How firmly he had clicked the door shut behind him.
When he came back to the present, he realized he was getting soaked with the rain streaming past the coco plum leaves. Grace’s face was in her hands, her hair dripping.
They trudged through muddy puddles to the porch, their rubber slippers squelching, and sat in their wet clothes on the cane settee.
“If not for that, maybe we’d have a kid.” Her voice was so low he could barely hear it. “I took that away from you. And then you gave up everything for me.”
Duncan sighed, wiping the water off his face. “You didn’t know we’d get back together.” What else could he say? There was nothing to be done about it now. That had been a different time. In that time, that was what happened. How strange life was. How little power anyone had to predict the course of it.
Thunder was rumbling in earnest now, and great flashes of lightning cracked the sky. A long time seemed to pass as Duncan watched the rain fall in relentless sheets, pounding against the ground outside the shelter of the trees.
58
GRACE
Weeks later
Duncan was already crouched outside the house, plucking dandelions from the flower beds. He looked at her hiking shoes doubtfully. “Sure you want to go? You’re not going to get all worried about your flies in the middle of the picnic?”
“The flies can wait,” Grace said. It had been years since she’d been to the botanical gardens.
At the gardens, they walked along an avenue bordered by magnolia trees, swinging their joined hands. Duncan said, “Something’s different . . . since we got back home. You seem happier.”
How a secret could weigh you down, she thought. Without his forgiveness, she could not have forgiven herself. She hadn’t felt this light in twelve years.
He grinned. “A bit odd for someone with a jobless husband.”
“You’ll get one soon,” Grace said. “Plus . . . who knows. It might be good for you to be home.”
He stared at her. “Why?” And then, “Whoa. Are you? When did you find out?”
“The week after we got back, but I went to see Dr. Mowad to be sure. Thirteen weeks now.”
A small fountain was in sight. Two small children were running along its edge, their parents meandering after them. They looked like they were enjoying themselves. This was what parents did, she thought. They hung around, passing the time with their children.
There were a few birds calling. She had no idea what kind they were. It had been a long time since she’d been outside simply for the sake of it, listening. Another sound too, a quick rik-triktriktrik. Frogs? Crickets? Were crickets out at this time? She had forgotten. Some insects with startlingly blue abdomens were zipping low over the water, their wings only blurs. Were they dragonflies? Damselflies? She’d never had time for entomology. The only reason she knew anything about fruit flies was because she needed their ovaries. These flies, whatever they were, looked like they were enjoying themselves. Was this how they spent the whole of their lives?
The vials of flies are waiting. Grace brushed the thought away. If she’d stayed in the lab, this moment would have passed unnoticed. There was something mesmerizing about the constant arcing of water in the fountain, the incessant susurration of it. Up ahead, she could see bushes lush with pendulous lilacs. Their thick, sweet smell was already in the air.
Acknowledgments
I feel fortunate to belong to a nurturing and book-loving family. I owe thanks to two of the most well-read people I know: my brother, Sriyan, who bought me my first computer many years ago so that I could write, and who provided valuable and sometimes hilarious feedback on drafts of this novel, and to my sister, Lilanthi, who could always be counted on to provide thoughtful critiques and suggestions for good books to read. Thanks to my mother, Chandra, for her unflagging confidence in me, and to my late father, Vernon, whose anecdotes and spirit continue to enliven my writing. Thanks to Jon for his kindness in creating my first author website and for maintaining it for many years, and to both him and Susan for their encouragement. I owe much gratitude to my husband, Ben, for his constant support and for feedback on innumerable drafts of this novel, and to both him and Kian for the love that inspires and sustains my writing.
I am grateful to my agent, Shannon Hassan, for seeing the promise in the beginnings of this novel and for her patience and helpful advice, and to my editor at Little A, Vivian Lee, for her able guidance. Thanks also to Irene Billings, Erica Avedikian, and the rest of the team at Little A for all the work they have put into producing this book, and to the designer of my current author website, David Cooper, at Massive Designs, Inc. Finally, thanks to the journal Literary Mama, for publishing my 2011 short story, “A Soft Wife,” in which I first began developing one of the main characters in this novel.
Glossary
adura—An exorcist
aney—A widely used, versatile exclamation that expresses a range of emotions, such as annoyance, frustration, pity, and hope
Appa—Dad
araliya—Plumeria
asvaha—Evil eye; the negative influence of envy or others’ malevolent intentions
baba—A baby or young child; a respectful way of referring to young children
bali thovil—Healing ceremonies performed to negate the malign influence of planetary deities
diya redda—A cloth that a woman wraps around her body when bathing in public
hooniyam—Black magic or sorcery
kattadiya—A sorcerer
men—A word often used when addressing people in Sinhalese English, in a way similar to the usage of man in American English
nidhikumba—A touch-sensitive weed common in Sri Lanka
pirit—A Buddhist ceremony involving the chanting of scriptures
pota—The portion of a sari that falls back over the shoulder
thovile (plural: thovil)—A healing ceremony
vedarala—A practitioner of native medicine
yak adura—An exorcist of demons
yak beraya—A drum used in devil dancing ceremonies
yak thovil—Also called devil dancing; healing ceremonies performed to negate the malevolent influence of demons
yaka—A demon
yantra—A charm or am
ulet
Note: In Sinhalese English, plurals are often constructed by simply adding an s to a Sinhala word. For example, yakas would mean demons in Sinhalese English.
About the Author
Photo © 2018 by John Agnello
Ruvanee Pietersz Vilhauer was born in Sri Lanka and lived in India, Thailand, Canada, and Australia before settling in the United States. She is the 2018 winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Award, and the 2004 winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Competition. Her short stories have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and have appeared in many literary journals. This is her first novel. She is a psychology professor in New York and lives in New Jersey with her family.
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