The Story Hour

by Thrity Umrigar

  I don’t say anything more. After few minutes Bettina say, “So he stopped taxing them, I hope?”

  I quiet but Bettina looking at me for the answer. “Well?”

  “He not listen to me,” I say softly. “He still charging them.”

  “Terrible, greedy man.”

  But I remindering how Menon sahib beg Mithai’s forgiveness. How he pay for doctor to come to take out nails from Mithai’s foot. And I never forget how he take me to his house and ask his missus to put extra plate at the table. She looking like heart attack. I sit in hall with Munna while they fighting in kitchen. She say feeding low-caste girl like me will pollution the whole house. That God will give Menon sahib leprosy or TB and bring hundred years of drought if he allow me to eat at their table. He say he tired of all God talk. He say Munna living because of me, Munna smart in school because of me, and now Mithai pain-free because of me. She is a deserving child, he tell his missus. Feeding guest in our home, that is also Hindu religion, he saying. From outside, I feeling all embarrass but from inside I grinning. I imagine Dada’s face when I tell him the story. He will not belief me.

  “I don’t know that what he did was so great,” Bettina say. Then she smile and put her thin hand on mine. Her skin look wrinkle, like used aluminum foil. “I’m so glad you’re living here, Lakshmi. Away from such ridiculousness.”

  Is Bettina correct? I not know. Same-same problem everywhere, I think. When I see Maggie next, I discuss with her.

  24

  THIS IS WHAT I don’t get,” Sylvia said. “Why are you doing this? What are you getting out of it?”

  Maggie shook her head. “That’s just it. I know it’s madness, but I just don’t seem to be able to cut it off.”

  “Are you in love with him?”

  “Oh, God, no.” Maggie was surprised at how emphatically the words slipped out of her mouth. “I love Sudhir.”

  “Well, he’s obviously fulfilling something that’s missing in your marriage. So the question is . . .”

  Maggie shook her head again, impatiently this time. For the first time in the years she’d been seeing Sylvia, she was a little irritated with the older therapist. This line of questioning was too predictable, too easy. She fought the urge to jump to her feet and pace the small room. She knew Sylvia would look askance if she asked for them to go for a walk, as she had done so often with Lakshmi and some of her other patients. For a second, she was proud of her own skills as a therapist, was glad that she didn’t feel constrained by the techniques she’d learned in school.

  “Come on, Maggie. Try. You’re so close to something, I can feel it. What is it that Peter gives you that—”

  “Sylvia. It’s not like that. This has nothing to do with my marriage. Sudhir and I are happy. It’s just that with Peter . . . I have this connection with him. Can’t explain it. It’s been there from the first time we set our eyes on each other three years ago. I fought against it successfully back then, but now I—”

  “So it’s strong enough to risk the breakup of your marriage?” Sylvia asked sharply, and Maggie’s head jerked back involuntarily, as if she’d been slapped. Her eyes filled with tears.

  “No. Of course not. That’s the whole reason why I keep talking about this sordid story. I guess I’m just looking for the strength to break it off—and then have it stay broken off.”

  “What would it feel like, not seeing him again?”

  Sylvia asked the question gently enough, but Maggie felt such a heavy emptiness in her chest that it took her breath away. A feeling of incredible loneliness, of being adrift in the world, overcame her. She closed her eyes briefly and saw herself on a raft on an ocean that grew wider and wider as the raft grew smaller and more distant. The figure on the raft was not moving. Rather, she was lying in a position that was instantly familiar: the pose of the model in Andrew Wyeth’s Christina’s World. She opened her eyes quickly to escape the desolation of that image, but she had her answer. Because she had recognized the blue dress she was wearing in the image: It was a dress she’d had when she was eleven years old. And the desolation of being alone in the world—she had worn that feeling as often as she had worn the dress. It had been her second skin in the years after Odell had confronted their father about his peculiar nighttime overtures and Wallace had responded by ignoring her completely. Mama was alive then, but if she’d noticed that Wallace was no longer playful with his adored baby girl, she had never mentioned it. She was probably in too much pain to care. She had died two days after Maggie’s birthday, spending her last two months in a morphine-induced stupor. Until Maggie had her first boyfriend at sixteen, nobody touched her in love or kindness except some of the old ladies in their neighborhood, who would pat her head and exclaim how much she looked like her dear departed mother. Wallace’s dismissal of her was total. He would come home from his first job at four, fall asleep on the couch for an hour, wake up, make dinner, and be out of the house to his second job by seven. The half hour when they ate supper was their only time together. At first, after Mama’s death, they continued eating at the kitchen table, as they’d always done. But after a few months, Wallace began to carry his plate to the TV, and pretty soon she joined him there. He would return from the convenience store at one a.m., and often Maggie would force herself to lie awake until she heard the key turn. Those hours alone in the apartment were some of the loneliest in her life. It left a permanent mark on her, this loneliness, abating only after she and Sudhir became a couple.

  “Maggie,” Sylvia was saying. “What is it, my dear?”

  Hearing the concern in Sylvia’s voice made Maggie realize she was crying. She looked at her, unable to speak. “I . . . can’t . . .” She felt cold; felt her body shaking. She reached for the Kleenex on the table beside the couch. “Sorry.” She sniffed. “Something you said . . .”

  “What?”

  “. . . about not seeing Peter again . . .” She roughly brushed away the tears on her cheek. “It just brought back this memory.”

  “What’s the memory?”

  “The way my dad neglected me after my brother confronted him. About, y’know, that stuff.”

  “Does Peter remind you of—”

  “No. Nothing like that. Just that I think I’ll feel empty if I stop seeing Peter. That same kind of horrible emptiness.”

  “You’re no longer that helpless little girl, Maggie.”

  “I know.”

  “And you have Sudhir.”

  “And I have Sudhir. Who loves me more than I deserve.” The tears fell again, but for a different reason. The second round of tears was being shed by a woman who felt a profound sense of gratitude for having found a man whose love for her was steady as a flame. For her stupidity at doing anything to risk that love. She had won. With Sudhir, she had won. Wallace’s cruel neglect had not crushed her, had not left her damaged. Rather, she had recognized Sudhir’s purity, his decency, immediately.

  Maggie exhaled loudly. “I think you’ve helped me realize something, Sylvia,” she said. “I just need to process it a bit more on my own.”

  Sylvia smiled. “Glad to be of help.”

  They talked for another ten minutes, and then her time was up. “See you in two weeks?” Sylvia asked. “Same time?”

  “Yes. Sure.” She handed Sylvia a check and rose to leave, but the older woman stopped her by leaning over and touching her arm. “Maggie. I just want to say—I know this is hard. Calling it off with Peter, I mean. And that . . . I recognize your struggle.” Sylvia paused. “That’s all.”

  Maggie nodded. “Thanks. See you next time.”

  It was an uncharacteristically warm winter’s day, and Maggie lingered on the street for a second before entering her car. In the distance, the snow on the mountains glittered in the afternoon sun. Maggie looked up to a perfectly blue sky and then frowned when she heard the chirping of a bird. It’s a false alarm, birdie, she thought. It’s not close to being spring, even though it feels like it. Don’t get your hopes up.

&nb
sp; She got into the car, turned on the engine, and realized she couldn’t drive. Couldn’t move. The loneliness that she’d felt a few minutes ago lingered. Even though she felt ridiculous, even though there was a chance that Sylvia might look out her front window and catch her sitting in the car in front of her house, Maggie leaned her head on the steering wheel. The warm plastic dug into her forehead. What was the matter with her? What about Sylvia’s innocent question had triggered in her the bleakness, the utter solitariness of those dark days of childhood, when she’d felt she was losing not one but both parents? Even at Wellesley, she had felt that deep existential solitariness, walking alone around the lake at dusk, her hands thrust deep into her jeans pockets, barely glancing at the posse of girls she passed on the path, because their ruddy complexions, their well-scrubbed faces, only accentuated the difference she felt. It wasn’t about being black, although that was part of it. It was the feeling of being a castaway, someone who had been thrown away by her own father.

  But hadn’t she successfully dispelled that desolation over the years? She had never been lonely, not like that, since she’d met Sudhir. Her years with Sudhir had been—were—rich beyond any fantasy she could’ve had, filled with warmth and kindness and travel and friends and parties and a large extended family in India who had taken her to its bosom once they saw that she loved their Sudhir as much as they did. Sudhir’s sister, Reshma, was like the sister she’d never had; just last week Reshma’s youngest daughter, Deepa, had called Maggie, called her, not Sudhir, to discuss some boy problem that she was having.

  Homecoming. She’d had a sense of homecoming from the first time she’d met Sudhir. From their first meeting on that rooftop terrace, he got her. Understood her jokes, her moods, her silences. Included her in all his gatherings, invited her to all his parties, opened up his home to her. There was the inconvenient fact that he did this with everyone he met. At times, when she’d catch him looking at her in an unguarded moment, she’d suspect there was something special, an understanding, that flowed between the two of them. But in the next second, Sudhir would smile at someone else, welcome another visitor into his home, slap someone else on the back, insist that everybody try the new dish he’d just cooked.

  It had gone on like this for over a year. In that year, Maggie tried dating other men, but to them she had to explain her jokes, make excuses for her silences, translate her words. After a while, she stopped trying. Sudhir didn’t seem to notice one way or the other. Occasionally, he’d inquire about a past boyfriend, and when she’d shrug, he’d nod and say, “He was a nice guy. I liked him.”

  “Do you ever not like someone?” she teased.

  He thought for a moment. “My third-grade teacher. She was a bitch.”

  She’d decided that they were to be only friends. That Sudhir was gay or asexual or that she was simply not his type. That she would remain in his life but on the periphery, and that it was time to start dating again. So when he told her, in his casual way, that a bunch of his friends were going to hear Bruce Springsteen and they had an extra ticket and would she like to come, she almost said no. When she saw the beer-guzzling crowd, the massive amplifiers, the line of policemen, the general mayhem, she was sorry to be there. But it turned out to be a magical concert, on a cold, crisp fall evening. The trees around them were bare, but as the sun went down, a full moon ascended in the sky. Springsteen reminded her of a white James Brown, playing like the devil, on fire with youth and passion. But the true revelation was Sudhir himself. She had never seen him like this: tousled hair, eyes closed, head tilted skyward, mouthing the words to most of the songs, glancing at her now and then and smiling a deep, warm smile. He had never looked so beautiful, so young, so . . . free. So completely, purely himself. And as the night went on, it became impossible to remain in their seats. Here it was, a crowd on its feet, unable, unwilling, to sit down, the music entering their bodies, moving their feet, shaking their heads, singing, singing, singing along with the sprite on the stage who inflamed them, seduced them, aroused them with his incessant beat.

  And then it happened. Halfway through the show, a count-in, a jaunty piano intro, and then: “Got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack.” Maggie remembered it as if it were yesterday: The crowd screams in recognition, hands rising in the air, the thrilling sound of thousands of voices singing together. And Sudhir turns toward her, slowly, eyes still closed, and then he opens them and looks at her, looks at her, and she is about to say something funny or ironic, but then stops because all of a sudden she can’t breathe, she has just read something in those brown eyes, and she knows how long and how desperately she’s needed to see that message in Sudhir’s eyes, how unsure she has been this last year and how certain she is now, and she opens her mouth to confess something but suddenly her chin is resting on his shoulder because they are slow-dancing, just shuffling their feet in time together, really, in that tiny space, but dancing all the same, Sudhir’s arm tight and strong around her waist, his other hand holding hers in place over his heart. Everybody has a hungry heart. She sure did, didn’t she? She sure did and didn’t even know it, didn’t know it until this moment, but already that hunger is receding, replaced by something she has no name for. Happiness? Contentment? No. Belonging. That’s it. Coming home.

  She decides to sneak a peek at Sudhir’s face, turns her head slightly, and he moves, too. They stare at each other for a second and their lips meet unplanned. The kiss is the most natural thing Maggie has ever experienced. “Hi,” he whispers to her, and she replies, “Hello.”

  That was it, Maggie now thinks. They held each other for the first time at that concert and had never let go. If she’d once been unsure whether Sudhir loved her, she had never been unsure since. All these years he had been by her side, steady, consistent, reliable. They’d had their challenges—the commuter marriage, when she stayed at NYU to finish her Ph.D. while Sudhir graduated and took his first teaching job in the Midwest; the three miscarriages and the cold, growing realization that they would remain childless while most of their college friends had babies; the inevitable culture clashes as they learned to become a couple. But by the time they moved to Cedarville seventeen years ago, they had built a life together. Sudhir knew about Wallace’s abandonment of her, even if he didn’t know the reason for it, and he was determined to compensate for every wound, every slight, his wife had suffered. Everything that Wallace had not been, Sudhir was. Everything that Wallace was, Sudhir wasn’t. Everything that Wallace had stolen from her, Sudhir had replaced.

  Maggie lifted her head slowly from where it rested on the steering wheel, blinking as a shaft of afternoon sunlight assailed her eyes. What was she doing? How could she risk hurting a man who had spent the last thirty years shielding her from the world, who had loved her with a steadfastness that still astounded her? She knew how Sudhir flinched if she so much as raised her voice at him, how sensitive he was. How long did she think her fling with Peter would remain a secret? How long before someone in this goddamn village—Cedarville called itself a city, but Lord, coming from New York, she knew better—saw her driving to Peter’s house and let something slip? Or Sudhir picked up her phone by accident and saw a text from Peter? She tried to carry it with her at all times when she was home, but what if she slipped just once? Even if she didn’t get caught, surely it was unfair to Sudhir regardless, this clandestine sneaking around, this hypervigilance, the secrecy and lies?

  Maggie frowned. Oh God. Oh dear God. She was behaving just like her father. This was what Wallace had done, sneaked around behind his dying wife’s back, crept into her room in the dark, lied and made her lie. Maggie shook with anger, although she was unsure of the target of her anger—herself, her father, or something larger and more amorphous than that: genetics, destiny, the curse of childhood abuse. Damn. She had tried so very hard not to be like Wallace. She had been so responsible in her adult relationships. Even her choice of profession was predicated on a desire to help people, to heal, rooted in a belief that people could
choose happiness, could choose health, could choose to live an honorable life with integrity.

  Integrity. Maybe she should give up that word for at least a few years. Until she had made things right with her unsuspecting husband, who came home from a day of teaching or a week at a conference, not knowing that his wife had spent the afternoon or evening walking around naked in a cottage on the outskirts of town, or had reached home an hour before he had and had gone directly into the shower, scrubbing her skin until she was rid of the smell and the touch of Peter Weiss. Until she could look at herself in the mirror again without flinching. Until the self-loathing, which sat like a small island in her stomach, floated away.

  Maggie looked in the direction of Sylvia’s house, fighting a strong urge to crawl back inside, to process with her the revelation she’d had about mimicking Wallace’s shabby behavior.

  And then she thought: You don’t need Sylvia. You know exactly what you need to do. Even if it hurts like hell. Even if it means experiencing the old childhood feeling of abandonment. Because you’re an adult now. A grown woman, in a good marriage.

  She took her cell phone out of her purse and sat holding it, staring out the windshield. It was two p.m. on a Tuesday. Peter would be at school. She could leave a long message on his home machine. That way, she would avoid the complicated fusion of shame and exhilaration she felt each time she tried to break up with him and he talked her out of it. Not this time. Not this time.

  She dialed Peter’s number and waited for the answering machine. Listened to his whimsical greeting and smiled involuntarily. Took a deep breath. And then spoke into the machine. She went on for so long that it cut her off and she had to call a second time. Her voice was firmer now; she could hear it herself. She ended by saying she’d loved every moment she’d spent with him, but she knew it was time to end things, now, before anyone got hurt. And that she would not respond if he tried calling her again, which she hoped he respected her enough not to do.