Trail of Broken Wings

by Badani, Sejal

  “I don’t think I’ve seen you in here before,” a man to my left says.

  My first instinct is to do what I always do, tell the guy I’m not interested. That there’s no way in hell we’ll be sleeping together. But my reflexes are off, rubbed raw from my moment with David. “First time.”

  “I’m Chris.” He takes the seat next to me. In the dim lighting, I guess him to be a construction worker. “I’ll have what she’s having,” he tells the bartender. “You are?”

  “Nobody,” I answer, downing another.

  “Nice to meet you, Nobody.” He swallows his shot. “Are you from around here?”

  “No.” I close my eyes, hearing David’s words in my ear, his touch on me. It is the first time another man’s presence has crowded out my father’s. “How about you?”

  “Live down the street. Just finished up a job.” He points to his hard hat on the stool next to him. So he’s in construction. “Little early to be drinking that much, isn’t it?” he asks, pointing to my bottle. “Something happen?”

  “Are we going to share sad stories?” I ask, meeting his gaze.

  “Don’t have to,” he answers, his gaze holding mine. “Just making conversation.”

  “I’m not the best conversationalist,” I say, remembering the hours David and I spent talking to one another. Thoughts of him flood me and I hate myself for what I want, what I can never have. The tingling at the base of my spine begins again, crawling up my back like razors ready to draw blood. Nausea hits me as the alcohol saturates my empty stomach. I forgot to eat lunch again, I belatedly realize. I glance around, searching for something but I have no idea what.

  “Are you OK?” Chris asks, interrupting my train of thought.

  “Do you have porn?” I ask, the alcohol buzzing in my ears. I close my eyes, trying to recall the last few stories I read.

  “Is that a trick question?”

  “The kind where . . .” I trail off, unable to say the words out loud. I swallow, scared, so completely scared, but left with nowhere to hide. “Where they hurt women?”

  “No.” He stares at me, and I see what I always saw in my father’s eyes—disgust. “I don’t.”

  “That’s OK.” I stumble out of the bar and into my car. Curling up in the backseat like a child, I allow the tears to finally flow, the sobs wracking my body until all that is left is the vision of my father.

  RANEE

  With all that is happening in their lives, they are rarely able to come together as a family these days. To do so now makes Ranee want to celebrate; she cannot, as it is not a joyous occasion that gathers them. Trisha has organized the house into separate sections and assigned each of them tasks. She has planned for one full day of packing and will schedule her movers for later.

  “The boxes are there,” Trisha says, pointing to a stack, “and the tape there.” She is dressed in sweats and a T-shirt, her hair pulled into a ponytail. To Ranee, she looks like a teenager trying to pass as an adult. “Let’s go, people,” she says, clapping her hands together.

  “What do you want us to pack?” Sonya asks, dressed similarly to her sister. Hands on her hips, she glances around. “How will we know what belongs to you versus Eric?”

  “It’s labeled,” Marin announces, pulling out a stack of books from the shelf. Each one has a sticky note with Trisha’s name. “Every single thing.”

  “No point making the job harder than it has to be,” Trisha seems to defend against any unspoken judgment. “Besides, I would hate to take anything of Eric’s.” At her own mention of his name, her lips thin out and her face tightens. Only Ranee notices the subtle shift and catches the sadness that crosses her daughter’s face before she masks it. “The sooner we’re done, the better.”

  Trisha called Ranee a few days back to tell her the news that they were moving forward with a divorce. Shocked, Ranee demanded answers, but Trisha’s terse reply was that it was for the best. She asked if her mother would help her pack her few belongings. Not only did Ranee agree, but she immediately contacted Marin and Sonya to enlist them.

  “There’s not a lot of stuff that’s labeled yours,” Sonya says, going through the music and only finding a few CDs with Trisha’s name on them. “He bought all the rest?” She indicates the shelf still filled.

  “I bought them, but after we got married,” Trisha explains vaguely, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “Since they were with his money, they’re his.”

  Everyone falls silent, staring at her. Marin finally breaks it, stepping closer to Trisha. “Are you telling me that anything bought after marriage Eric says belongs to him?” Marin shakes her head. In seconds, she transforms into the executive that she is, assessing the situation, unhappy with the results. “I’m going to call around, find you a better divorce lawyer.”

  “That was my decision, not his.” Trisha finally faces her sister. “He wanted to be generous with alimony, split everything in half. I refused.”

  Ranee closes her eyes, praying for guidance. “Why, Trisha?” She wrings her hands together. “What will you live on?”

  “I’ll be fine.” Trisha insists. Finished filling a box with her shoes, she tapes it closed. “I’m going to look for a job.”

  No one says a word, each one fully aware that Trisha hasn’t worked in years. Silently, they return to their packing. It is easier than they initially imagined, since so many of the household possessions were bought after Eric and Trisha took their vows. Ranee watches her three daughters carefully, seeing them for the women they are, and also the women they could be. She imagines a trapeze artist walking a tightrope across a large gulf, desperate to reach the other side but unsure if she’ll survive to make it.

  “He wanted the divorce?” Ranee asks, taking a seat on the sofa for a minute of rest. Time has passed quickly as each one worked diligently on the task at hand. She pours them all glasses of iced tea, choosing the cool drink over her preferred chai. “Because of children?”

  Trisha whips around, her glare warning Ranee to let the subject drop. “It just didn’t work out,” she says mildly, her voice rising, a hopeless attempt to protect the truth. “Marriages end every day.”

  “Without a reason?” Marin demands, joining the conversation. She finishes labeling a box “Dishes and Plates.” The china from the marriage is left untouched in the cabinet. “You two always seemed so in sync.”

  Ranee hadn’t confided in Marin the information Sonya had given her about the real reason for Eric and Trisha’s separation. With Gia’s situation, Ranee was sure Marin had enough to deal with. But it was hard to keep the truth from her oldest. To Ranee, another secret felt like yet another skeleton.

  “We wanted different things,” Trisha answers coolly. A few beats later, she asks, “How is Gia?” The change of topic is abrupt, clearly not fooling anyone. “She’s back at school?”

  A week has passed since Gia returned to school. Ranee stopped by the morning of her first day back and stood by while Marin and Raj awkwardly went through the rituals of early morning preparation. Ranee listened as Raj chatted about the weather, ignoring Marin as she silently rechecked Gia’s backpack to make sure all her finished homework was in the appropriate folders. Gia gave Ranee a hug good-bye before slipping into the car for Raj to drive her to school. Marin immediately returned to work, leaving Ranee to see herself out. She called that afternoon to check how Gia’s first day went, but Marin coldly replied that it was fine and she was in her room studying.

  “Yes,” Marin answers, now the one to avoid everyone’s eyes. “She appreciated your gift basket.”

  “You gave her a gift basket?” Sonya asks, a smile hovering. “Really?”

  “It seemed appropriate,” Trisha says, defending herself with a shrug.

  “What was in it?” Sonya asks, dropping the tape roll and scissors on the box she was packing.

  “CDs, some books, I think,” Trisha pauses. “Maybe hot chocolate, body wash.”

  “Just what she needs,” Sonya says. “Some yummy-sm
elling soap.” Sonya starts to laugh, fueled by the ludicrousness of the situation.

  Ranee opens her mouth to scold Sonya, to tell her that the thought is what counts, but before she can utter a word, Trisha starts to laugh. At first it is small, almost as if in embarrassment, but soon she is doubled over with it. Marin watches in shock, but soon enough she joins in, the laughter contagious.

  For just a moment they are young again, all three of them, laughing like they did in their room late at night, bonding over the pain that no one else could understand. A decision to laugh instead of cry, to survive instead of let go. There was no past and no future, just now. As Ranee watches them, she wishes she could hold them in this place forever. Where they remember how to laugh with one another, to find joy even when sadness is the dominant emotion. But it is not meant to last. Just as Ranee begins to hope that they are once again tied together, that maybe there was a right after all the wrongs, Trisha’s laughter turns ugly, bitter. As if remembering the surety of her life is shattered, she stops abruptly, shaking her head in obvious disgust.

  “I guess I should have done more research, tried to figure out what to give a girl like Gia,” Trisha says.

  “What does that mean?” Marin demands, her own laughter coming to a halt.

  “Why wouldn’t she tell you what was happening to her?” Trisha demands. “Hard to figure out.” Trisha stacks a box atop another. “Don’t you think?”

  Marin slowly approaches Trisha without breaking her gaze. “You don’t want to know what I’m thinking right now.”

  “Gia is a teenager,” Ranee interrupts, coming to stand between the two of them. “It does not always make sense why they do what they do.”

  “I just think—” Trisha begins, but Marin interrupts.

  “I think my daughter is none of your business,” Marin lashes out, clearly ignoring Ranee’s attempt at diplomacy. “And you’ll understand my hesitancy to accept any advice from the woman who can’t have any children of her own.” Hands on her hips, she has the stance of one ready for battle. A thought seems to occur to her, the revelation clear on her face. “Is that why Eric left? Because you couldn’t have children?”

  “I didn’t want any,” Trisha says slowly, her words laced with venom. “Good thing too, huh? Given the track record of our ability to mother.”

  “Everything my daughter is, is because of me,” Marin throws out.

  “Including the bruises?” Trisha demands. The words are whispered, said so quietly that Ranee isn’t sure anyone heard. But when Marin grabs her purse and moves toward the door, Ranee accepts that she did.

  “Good luck with the move,” Marin says.

  Ranee wants to call out, to beg her daughter to stop before it is too late, but the words stay stuck in her throat. Her only option is to watch her family tear themselves up from the inside, until nothing but fragments remain of who they could have been. Just as Ranee starts to turn away, to accept the inevitable, Trisha reaches the door before her sister.

  “Marin,” she says, her face filled with apology, “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.” She lays a palm against the wood, curling it into a fist as if she can hold on. “I love Gia. I love you. I’m just not in a good place right now.” She steps forward, her body tense, almost preparing for a rejection. When none comes, she slips her arms around Marin’s shoulders and brings her sister in for an embrace. They stand in silence for only a few seconds before Marin steps away. Opening the door, she walks out, shutting it quietly behind her.

  Ranee walks through the darkened home, running her hands over the polished wood and fine furniture. The three of them finished packing the rest of the house in silence and then made a simple meal of potato sakh with naan. No one brought up what had happened between Trisha and Marin, preferring to pretend rather than confront. With so much they were already dealing with, selective amnesia felt easier. Sonya left soon after.

  Ranee and Trisha quickly cleaned up after dinner. Trisha had released Eloise from her duties soon after Eric walked out, so the two of them were left to deal with the dishes. Once the kitchen sparkled, Trisha murmured that she was going to go lie down for a while. Ranee simply nodded, watching her daughter wearily climb the stairs toward her bedroom. She decided not to leave, an urge to remain with Trisha stronger than the desire to escape to the security of her own vacant home.

  As the night sky falls, casting the room into darkness, Ranee chooses a seat in the den, glancing around at her daughter’s choice of décor. Simple but elegant, a statement on how far she has come from the humble home she was raised in. Ranee is the first to admit she does not have an eye for decorations. It seemed pointless to decorate a home that felt more like solitary confinement. But Trisha clearly had no similar notions and chose to make the most of her house. She allowed it to become the vessel for her dreams, the place where she made reality fit her vision of a life well lived.

  But she rejected the one thing that promised her everything—a child. The irony does not escape Ranee. Her children bound her to the man she was forced to marry, while Trisha’s refusal to have a baby caused her to lose the man she loved. In the deafening quiet, Ranee imagines she can hear Trisha’s cries on the bed upstairs. Her weeping for the castle that has crumbled around her. Oblivious to the truth, she never knew the castle was built from a lie—a grenade meant to explode.

  The truth, when she learned it, leveled Ranee. In a moment of vulnerability, Brent had uttered the words that Ranee was sure would stop her heart. That they didn’t shames her even now. Because his revelation, the one that no mother should imagine, let alone hear, is what makes women fall to their knees and wail, wonder how they could have failed so completely.

  Brent whispered his secret not to make it better, or to seek justice for his deeds. No, he confessed to unburden his own soul. For all the sins he had committed, this was the one he did not want to take with him to the other side. He hadn’t been feeling well, knew something was off. Wondered aloud if his time was near. When Ranee agreed it might be, he had dropped his head, gripped the armrests of the chair he was seated on, and admitted a wrong Ranee had never conceived. When he was done, when he laid his head back against the chair and closed his eyes, Ranee walked out and didn’t return home until hours later.

  Since then, she’d rehearsed the words, created the perfect scenario to tell Trisha the secret no one knew. But no setting seemed right; no combination of words fit together to make sense. Maybe now, Ranee thinks, the time has arrived. Without planning, without preparation, maybe the moment has finally come to admit the occurrence that Trisha needs to hear. Has the right to know.

  Heroes are not born or created. They become so in the passing moments of life. When something or someone demands you be more than you have been, when you must put aside your own needs and what is best for you to fight for another, no matter the cost. The past, the day-to-day living becomes irrelevant. All that matters is that instant when the ticking of the clock is louder than an ocean’s wave hitting the rocks, when time does not stand still, but slows, every second longer than the last one. This is when the decision becomes the only thing you can hear and see. When the choice falls out of your hand and fate intervenes. When your life is no longer yours but conjoined with another’s, each dependent upon the other to survive and thrive.

  Ranee stands and walks toward the stairs, prepared to take each one, but her courage fails her. Today is not the day. Ranee was not born to be a hero or a savior. She is not ready and wonders if she ever will be. Knowing that Trisha has mapped out her own life, fully aware that she holds the pen to help Trisha redraw the lines, Ranee is nonetheless too afraid to tell the truth. Instead, she walks to the front door, following the same path her other two daughters did before her, leaving Trisha all alone.

  MARIN

  Brent insisted Marin take Home Economics in high school. Along with Calculus and Biology, he was sure the class would fully round out her résumé. Marin didn’t mind. They scrambled eggs, a food Marin never had befor
e, and ate it with toast and jelly. She was used to roti and pickled turmeric root every morning; the American breakfast staple was a novelty. Marin devoured the meal, savoring the unique tastes. Afterward, as they were cleaning up, the students started playing a game.

  “If you could be any kind of fruit, what would you be?” one of the girls asked aloud to no one specifically.

  “An apple, because everyone loves them,” one girl replied.

  “A tomato,” one of the guys said, “because it’s a stupid question.”

  “Well, technically, a tomato could be considered a fruit, so thank you,” the girl who asked the question returned.

  They went around the room, Marin murmuring “Grapes,” but offering no reason when it was her turn. But when another girl said pineapple, Marin paid attention, curious about the choice. “Because it’s prickly on the outside and impossible to cut through. But once you get to the fruit, it’s worth the trouble,” the girl explained. “So don’t always believe what you see.”

  Marin eats alone at her desk. She and Raj have barely spoken to one another since Gia returned to school. The prosecutor assigned to Adam’s case keeps them abreast of any updates, but the backlog means things move slowly. Marin tries to temper her need for the process to speed up, wishing she could control it like she does her work. She’s refocused her energy on her job, grateful that their family life has returned to some semblance of what it used to be. The only difference now is that Raj and Marin take turns picking up Gia from school every afternoon, having lost trust she’ll be honest regarding her whereabouts.

  “Three o’clock?” Marin is on the phone, attempting to reschedule a meeting she missed while dealing with Gia’s situation. “I’ll have to get back to you.” Hanging up, she searches for Raj to see if he’ll be able to switch pickup duties. She finds him in his office, staring out the window. Knocking once on the open door, as if they were colleagues instead of married, she catches his attention. “Can you get Gia today? I have a call I need to take.”