The Story Hour

by Thrity Umrigar

  We are earthbound creatures, Maggie had thought. No matter how tempting the sky. No matter how beautiful the stars. No matter how deep the dream of flight. We are creatures of the earth. Born with legs, not wings, legs that root us to the earth, and hands that allow us to build our homes, hands that bind us to our loved ones within those homes. The glamor, the adrenaline rush, the true adventure, is here, within these homes. The wars, the détente, the coups, the peace treaties, the celebrations, the mournings, the hunger, the sating, all here. And this is something Peter, for all his travel, for all his worldly sophistication, will never know. He will eat at the finest restaurants in Paris but will never know the bliss of having your spouse make a pot of chicken noodle soup on a damp Saturday evening.

  She had been genuinely happy when Sudhir came home that evening, felt truly free, as if she had kicked a drug addiction and now could be the person she was meant to be, could fully be the spouse Sudhir deserved. Despite having gotten home just an hour before she did, Sudhir had already prepared dinner, and her heart tore with gratitude at this kindness. This is marriage, she told herself, these small, precious gestures of responsibility and love. I will never do anything to jeopardize this again, so help me God.

  Her world was still whole, unsundered, when she offered to do the dishes and clean up while Sudhir went upstairs to prepare for bed. She turned on the kitchen radio, unaware of how her life was unraveling, unaware that after getting into his pajamas, her husband had opened the drawer of his bedside table, reaching for the book of poems that he read nightly before bed, his hand touching an unfamiliar object. She didn’t know that while she listened to NPR, Sudhir was turning the necklace in his hand, recognizing the tiger’s tooth immediately, but unable to make sense of the inexplicable, to shape a narrative that would explain why Peter Weiss’s ridiculous necklace would land in his bedside table. And then a germ of suspicion attacked his mind. He shook his head to shake it off, but it took further root, bringing with it unwelcome pictures—the breathless quality in Maggie’s voice when they’d met Peter at the campus museum during his first stint here, the shameless way in which he’d openly flirted with Maggie, the way the tiger’s tooth had sat flush against Peter’s pink skin in the pool a few months ago, the sour, dyspeptic feeling in Sudhir’s stomach when he’d seen the bare-chested Peter talking to his wife in the water. By the time he walked back into the kitchen, where Maggie was drying the last of the dishes, the necklace dangling from his index finger, Sudhir had solved most of the puzzle. The only missing piece was what Maggie was trying to tell him by placing it in his nightstand.

  Maggie watched terror-stricken as Sudhir stood in front of her, resisting the urge to scream. Sudhir was speaking to her, his lips were moving, but the thumping of her heart, the roar of her blood, drowned out all other sound. No easy lie sprang to her lips. There was too much going on—the mesmerizing effect of Sudhir dangling the chain in front of her, the seething anger in his eyes as he asked for an explanation, her initial outrage that Peter would stoop this low, that he would deliberately break up her marriage even as he left town. “Why was this man in my house?” Sudhir kept asking, and even as she struggled to answer in a way that would allay his suspicions, she knew it was too late. This is it, she said to herself, the chickens come home to roost. As soon as she thought this, she knew with certainty that it wasn’t Peter who had betrayed her but the last person on earth whom she would’ve suspected of betrayal. And then she mocked herself for her naïveté, remembering Lakshmi’s story of how she had tricked her husband. If anyone is capable of betrayal, she told herself, it’s Lakshmi.

  Sudhir had left the house that night. Gotten into the same clothes he’d shed earlier and left without taking even his toothbrush. He came home the next morning and silently got ready for work. She hadn’t had the guts to ask him where he’d spent the night. After he drove off, she dialed the hospital and called in sick.

  She had spent the day driving around town, alternating between disbelief and bone-piercing grief. How could she have screwed up this badly? How could she have hurt Sudhir? But toward evening, as she drove home, she felt a strange peace. She and Sudhir had been together through thick and thin. It would be a long, hard journey, but they would make their way back. They had to. They had to.

  She found Sudhir on the back porch with the lights turned off. “Hi,” she whispered. “Can I sit with you for a few minutes?”

  She heard the faint rustle of his kurta and knew that he had shrugged his assent. She lowered herself on the love seat next to him. They sat in tense silence for a few minutes, and then Maggie reached over and took Sudhir’s hand in hers. She forced herself not to notice how cold and lifeless it felt. “I want to tell you something,” she said. “Something I realized today. Can you listen?”

  “Yup,” Sudhir said.

  She was unnerved by the flatness of his tone, by the deadweight of his hand in hers. She sighed. Sudhir was not making this easy, and really, who could blame him? But she knew she had to try.

  “I’ve been thinking of how humans are basically earthbound creatures,” she started. “You know? How our concerns are rooted to this earth, to family life.”

  This was not what she wanted to say at all. Already she could feel Sudhir’s impatience with her.

  “Listen,” she said urgently. “What I’m trying to say is, I realized today that you are a hundred times the man Peter will ever be. He . . . he means nothing to me, Sudhir. My life is here with you. I know this now. And I’m sorry for . . .”

  Sudhir shook his hand out of hers and rose slowly to his feet. He stood over her for a moment, and now that her eyes had adjusted to the dark, she saw that he was shaking his head. “If it took you this long to know that I’m a hundred times the man that Peter is, Maggie, then all I can say is I’m sorry. You’re far more stupid than I ever imagined. Frankly, I’m insulted to even be compared to that pompous asshole.”

  She sat in shock, staring into the dark, after Sudhir left the room. In all their years together, he had never talked to her in this way. She knew that she had blundered, that her inarticulate words had actually made things worse between them; that what had felt like a revelation to her was an obvious fact to Sudhir. And not because Sudhir was a vain man—he was in fact the most self-effacing of men—but because he was wise. He didn’t need to have an affair to learn the value of what they’d built together.

  Maggie had hated herself then, and she carried that self-hatred into the pool with her this morning. But the warm blue water felt like forgiveness. With each lap she swam, the self-loathing dislodged itself a tiny bit. A welcome blankness fell over her mind, a respite from the anguished thoughts that fired like shards of coal in her brain. After a few more laps, she floated on her back, listening to the Mozart playing on the overhead speakers, looking up at the glass ceiling, recalling a hundred other Saturdays when she and Sudhir had been in this pool together, feeling a sense of connection even when they were at opposite ends, Sudhir flashing a grin or mouthing her a quick kiss whenever their eyes found the other.

  Madeline White, a professor in the history department, entered the pool, spotted Maggie, and swam up to her. Maggie inquired about Madeline’s recent hip surgery, asked how her husband, Phil, was doing, and then excused herself. Small talk in the pool was beyond her today. She was aware of Madeline’s start of surprise as she turned abruptly and swam toward the far end of the pool.

  Ravel’s Boléro was playing overhead, and Maggie swam a few more laps. Feeling a tiny cramp in her calf, she decided to stop, holding on to the pool wall as she stretched out her leg. After a few minutes, Sudhir swam up to her. “Everything okay?” he said, shaking the water from his body.

  She looked at him, took in the dark hair slicked down on his forehead, the slender shoulders, the flawless skin the color of tea, and thought he’d never looked more beautiful. She smiled at him. “Yes. Thanks for checking.” This was what she’d felt the other day but had been unable to say: It was this shorthand
, this history, this knowing of each other, these daily acts of kindness, that she’d come to value, that she’d never again take for granted.

  She opened her mouth to say something, but Sudhir spoke first. “I just wanted to tell you. I’m leaving next Saturday.”

  “Leaving for where?” Sudhir usually gave her his travel schedule as soon as he knew it.

  He looked away, staring at a spot beyond her shoulder. “Leaving . . . moving out. I got my own apartment.”

  She felt something within her collapse so dramatically that she was glad the buoyancy of the water was holding her up. On land, she would’ve fallen, her legs unable to sustain her, she was sure. She felt as if her very soul, her spirit, had escaped from her, so that her body was an empty shell, the facade of a tall building, with no rooms, no hallways, on the inside. A cold, icy fear entered her. Her eyes stung with tears.

  Her lips moved. She said nothing.

  His eyes flickered over her face and then moved away, as if distressed by what they saw there. “I’m sorry,” he said. “There’s no other way. We can decide what to do about the house later. You can stay there forever, I don’t care. I’m not going to fight you over anything. You can have anything you want. I just . . . I want a quick divorce, that’s all.”

  Divorce? Had Sudhir really just said that word? That nasty, unimaginable, not-applicable-to-us word? But why was she so surprised? People got divorced all the time. Hell, she’d be out of business if half of her clients weren’t divorced or contemplating it. But what did those people have to do with her and Sudhir? Her Sudhir. She had known him practically her whole adult life. He was her partner. Her life mate. Her deepest, closest friend. Her family. He was her family. One didn’t divorce family, did one? But one didn’t cheat on family, either, did one? Betray them, wound them? Well, yes, people did. One did. And they had to take you back. Family had to take you back. That was the whole point of family. The way you took Wallace back, you mean? Well, no, that’s different. He was never really sorry, he never really apologized. Whereas me, I’m repentant. I’m a penitent. I will walk on hot coals to express how sorry I am. I will climb a mountain made of broken glass on bended knee in apology. I will atone. But please, God, not this. Nothing with Peter, not the sweetest, maddest moment of lovemaking, is worth this, this destruction, this cleaving. Because that’s what it will be—a cleaving, one half of me gone, since Sudhir is the other half of me. The better half. God, he always was the better half. How could I have not known it?

  She heard Boléro build up to its rousing climax and thought, I will remember this moment forever, the rest of my life. I will never again be able to listen to this piece of music without remembering this moment when my soul left my body and I was still alive. But the next second, a fury blew through her, blasting away the icy numbness of a second ago, and she thought, Fight, fight, fight, do not give up without a fight, you idiot, this is your life, your love, you are fighting for. Make him change his mind, make him see the stupidity of his actions, make him stay, just make him stay, today and the next day and the next, until some normalcy seeps back into your lives, until the scab begins to form, until healing happens. We will do couples counseling, we will make changes, we are sentient, intelligent, caring people, we love each other, we have the advantages of education and culture and wealth, we have a great support system, we can afford the best therapists money can buy, we can do this, we can make it work, we will succeed, because if we fail, with all our advantages and privileges, what hope for the millions of others who don’t have half the things that we do? Say something, say something, something perfect, something wise and loving and accurate, get through to him, this is Sudhir, this is no stranger, this is your Sudhir whom you’ve known since he was twenty-three years old, Sudhir who courted you with his soft manner and easy smile, Sudhir whom you married at city hall in a simple ceremony attended by only your grad school friends, Sudhir who took you to Niagara Falls for a honeymoon even though both of you were flat broke, Sudhir whose first car in the U.S. you helped pick out, a secondhand Chevy, Sudhir who took you to Calcutta for the first time a month after he got his citizenship, Sudhir for whom you, born and raised in Brooklyn, moved to this lily-white college town, something you’ve never quite made your peace with, this is Sudhir, I tell you, look past the opaque eyes, the mouth that is already arranging itself in lines that you don’t quite recognize, this is your Sudhir still, even if he’s receding in front of your disbelieving eyes, claim him, fight for him, claim him before it’s too late. Or is it too late?

  “Honey,” she said. “Can we talk about this? I— This is not the place for this serious a conversation.”

  He shook his head impatiently. “Sure. We can talk. But my mind’s made up. I’ve already signed the lease. And the movers are coming Saturday.”

  Her chin wobbled. “I don’t understand. How you can. After all these years. Just like that.”

  She saw something flash in his eyes before they turned cloudy again. But she knew what he was too much of a gentleman to say: He didn’t understand how she could, either. After all these years. Just like that.

  Sudhir was talking, and she forced herself to listen. “The apartment’s not that far. It’s on Garden Street. Just three miles away. I will still come and mow the lawn every week. And if you ever need anything . . .” Sudhir looked uncomfortable. “I will, you know, help in any way I can. With money or whatever else.”

  Despite herself, she smiled. Of course. He had it all worked out. Down to the mowing of the lawn. He would not shirk his responsibilities. She had his parents to thank for that, she knew. The elderly Bengali couple—whom, she realized, she would never see again—had instilled in their son a lifelong sense of duty and obligation. Funny to think that, just a few months ago, she had found his sense of propriety stifling. Had wished he were more carefree, more lighthearted, like Peter. Now she knew: Peter was built out of shifting sand, transient as a child’s sand castle. Sudhir was a rock.

  “You’re serious about this,” she whispered in a half-question.

  Another swimmer brushed past them, and Sudhir leaned toward her. “There’s no other way. I can’t be in that house anymore. Every time I look at you, I see . . .” He blinked hard. “I’m sorry.”

  They stared at each other, a shocked expression on both their faces. Then Sudhir raised his hand in a half-salute, half-wave, a gesture as familiar to Maggie as her own skin. “Achcha,” he said. “I’ll go swim a few more laps. And then I’ll be ready to leave whenever you are.”

  She stood at the edge of the pool, watching his dark head bobbing in the water, watching the rustled water he left in his wake. After a few minutes, she floated on her back, staring up at the ceiling, wishing there were a way to drown in the pool without anyone noticing, feeling as if the water holding her up were her enemy, feeling herself lying in a watery coffin. She wondered if the part of her that had escaped out of her body upon hearing Sudhir’s chilling words would remain lost to her the rest of her life.

  BOOK FOUR

  34

  MAGGIE STOOD IN front of the little cottage with the gray siding. Behind her, she could hear the sound of the waves, background music to the frenzied chorus of seagulls. A slight breeze carried the taste of salt water to her lips. It also shook the stalks of the lavender bush in the right corner of the small front yard.

  “So? What do you think?” Gloria asked.

  “It’s beautiful. No, it’s more than beautiful. It’s perfect.”

  “Wait’ll you see the inside. It’s an adorable little place.”

  Slow down, Maggie said to herself as Gloria unlocked the front door. Gloria has a vested interest in this, don’t forget. Then she chided herself for being suspicious. She had known Gloria since her first semester at NYU, where they had taken a statistics class together. They had remained friends through the years—Gloria had been one of the witnesses to her city hall wedding to Sudhir; years later, Maggie had flown in for a week after David, Gloria’s first husband, h
ad died from cancer at the age of thirty-four. She had also been present at the birth of Gloria’s son from her second marriage and, a few years later, had helped her pack when she and her new husband, Martin, had moved out to California.

  So when Gloria had heard that Maggie and Sudhir had split, her first reaction had been to laugh. In disbelief. After Maggie had convinced her that it was true, that Sudhir had indeed moved out, Gloria’s second reaction was to insist that she call to straighten him out. Swallowing her pride, Maggie had given Gloria Sudhir’s new phone number. Gloria was now a top-selling Realtor who sold multimillion-dollar homes in Southern California. Her powers of persuasion were legendary.

  A subdued Gloria had called back a half hour later. “I’m sorry, honey,” she said. “He would hardly talk to me. I’ve never known Sudhir to act like this. He— His mind’s made up, honey. I’m so sorry.”

  “I know. He’s changed.”

  “You want to come out here for a few weeks, hon? You know, just to get away?”

  Maggie hadn’t been able to go just then. She was working like a fiend, staying late at the hospital, taking on new patients at home. For one thing, she needed the extra income now that Sudhir was gone, and for another, time was her enemy. If she didn’t stay busy, the smoke of regret blew into her mind, clouding it, threatening to destroy her carefully planned days. So she stayed busy, forgetting to eat lunch or dinner, unaware of the dark circles under her eyes, ignoring the loss of weight and the startled looks she received from clients who had not seen her in a few months. She tried meditation but found that she couldn’t sit still long enough, so she took up running, racing up and down the steep streets of her neighborhood every evening. If she ran long enough, her fevered mind stopped replaying the familiar loop of the fateful day when Lakshmi had walked into the bedroom and destroyed her life. At the end of each day, she collapsed on her king-size bed, acutely aware of the loss of Sudhir’s body next to hers, willing him to return. A few times, unable to sleep, she had called Odell in France, waking him up in the wee hours of the morning, sobbing her regrets to him. As always, Odell listened carefully, quietly. But once they hung up, it was still only Maggie in the silent bedroom.