“Trisha?” Sonya’s young voice breaks through the sound of the cries, her arms surrounding. Fear laced into every word. “What happened? Why are you crying?”
“Can you at least tell me this?” Eric asks, jarring me back to the present. A muscle jerks in his jaw. “You knew about my past, the loneliness . . .” He pauses, hurt. “Why didn’t you want a child?”
“Because they always get hurt,” I finally answer, the truth searing me.
I sit in front of Mama’s house, the engine idle. I stare at the front door for what feels like an eternity, too afraid to go in, but more afraid not to. Thoughts haunt me, tugging at my brain. I try to push them away, desperate to forget, but they refuse to go. Now, it says. Now it is time. I shake my head, but time is not my friend or my ally. If it were, then maybe I would have more of it.
I finally step out of the car, the metal casket no longer providing me a reprieve. I don’t use my key, the house suddenly feeling like a stranger’s home instead of mine. I ring the bell and wait, sure that Sonya will be in at this time of the evening. I ring again. And again, my fingers sitting on the bell.
When Eric left the house, disgusted with me, I followed, jumping into my car, all the packed boxes left in the foyer. I could feel him watching me from his car, his love turning to hatred, two sides of the same coin, each emotion a worthy opponent of the other. I drove straight here, needing answers and sure that only Sonya could give them to me. What I can’t remember, she must. As if the floodgates have been opened, I can see her sitting on my sofa when she came to say good-bye. He plays the loving father. You let him. Her words repeat in my head, her eyes searching mine for a sign of recollection.
“Trisha?” Mama answers the door. “What are you doing here, Beti?” She steps back, motioning me in, but I stand rooted to the same spot.
“Is Sonya home?” My hands are shaking. “I need to speak to her.”
“No,” Mama says, staring at me. I imagine everyone doing the same thing, trying to understand the train wreck I have become. “What’s wrong, Beti?”
“When will she be home?” The sun is getting ready to set. The mosquitoes have begun to bite. As a child, I was always their target, my skin swelling with welts. “Because you are so sweet,” Papa would say.
“It’s late.”
Mama takes my hand, ushering me into the house. I allow her to do so, too weak to lead myself. “Soon. Come, we will have a cup of chai and you can tell me what has happened.”
I want to laugh. Her solution to everything, as if chai can fix the world’s woes. Yet, hadn’t I done the same thing? Offered Sonya a cup of tea when she came to say good-bye. Included a bag of hot cocoa in Gia’s gift basket. I wonder how many other habits of Mama’s I have made my own. When did I become her reflection and Papa’s creation?
“No chai,” I murmur, searching. The cries that have been muted until now are suddenly loud, searing me with their desperation. I watch in slow motion as Mama walks into the kitchen, pours the cup I refused, and sets it in front of me. I can barely make out the steaming milk or decipher what she is saying. Without a word to her, I walk out of the kitchen and toward the stairs.
“Trisha.” Her yell breaks through the barrier, but I ignore it, other voices louder. She follows me, her breath on the back of my neck.
I say nothing to her, climbing the stairs quietly, lost in another time, another place. My fingers grip the bannister, each step harder than the last. Reaching the top, I walk down the hallway, my hand sliding alongside. I reach my room first, flinging the door open. It is the same as I left it years ago. The last time I spent the night here was the day before I got married. That evening, everything seemed possible. The only thing missing from my life was the presence of my little sister, but I wouldn’t allow that to mar my good day. I had two dresses laid out on my bed, my red sari and a white wedding gown. Both I had spent hours shopping for, insisting everything be perfect for when I married the perfect man. No matter that Eric was white and older. He loved me as I deserved to be loved.
“Why did Papa let me marry an American?” I ask, my mind whirling. I know she is behind me, watching. “It went against our culture, his dictates.”
Papa never uttered a word of anger when I told them with trepidation that I had fallen in love with a white man. “Never marry a BMW” was the mantra of the Indian community. Black, Muslim, White—the three unacceptable marriage partners in our culture. I was sure my announcement would be met with fury and disappointment, that it would be the first time I would feel his wrath. I had prepared myself for the worst, but when he simply dropped his head and nodded his acceptance, I was left speechless. He walked out of the room and the discussion was over.
I stare at my room now, changed completely from that night, when I was still fifteen. Redecorated, a gift for my sixteenth birthday. I was allowed to choose whatever theme I wanted, whatever bed I desired. Everything in the room was trashed, replaced by new. Sonya stood by, watching in envy, as I chose the color to paint the walls and picked a princess theme décor to match my mentality. I kept the room that way for a year, until my friends began to tease me. I asked Papa if I could change it one more time, and he readily agreed. I went with a more mature theme, neutral spring colors that have remained to this day.
“He let me change the décor,” I murmur. “Buy everything new.”
“Yes.” She nods.
Her answers are quick, to the point. As if she fears saying too much. I step out of my bedroom and back into the hall. She follows me silently, a guide to a labyrinth with no way out. In the hallway, I slide my hands along the wall, remembering doing the same thing years ago. The red paint on my colored nails starts to drip over my fingertips and down the back of my hand. The paint turns to blood. I yank my hand off the wall, sure I have left a stain, but only pristine white stares back at me. I stare at my fingers but there is no longer any blood.
“I was crying,” I say, lost in another time. “I screamed.”
“I didn’t hear you,” Mama says, anguished. I pivot toward her, watching with odd detachment as she wrings her hands together. She refuses to look at me, her tears falling off her face and onto the floor. Like an old woman, her body has shriveled into itself. In front of my eyes she seems to have aged by twenty years while I am stuck in a time warp. “I never heard you, Beti.”
“The bathroom,” I exclaim. There was blood in the bathroom, in the sink. I can see it now, swirling with the water. Throwing open the door, I stare into the sink, but only sparkling porcelain stares back. “There was a rag. I cleaned the blood with it.” Opening the drawers I search for it. But they are bare. I grab the trash can, sure I threw it in there, but it stands empty. The laundry basket is the same. “Where did it go?” I demand.
“It’s gone,” she says, reaching for me, but I push her away. I don’t want her hands on me. I start to rub my arms, feeling the heavy weight of something else or someone else on me. “I never saw it.”
“Where did it go?” I demand, sure she is playing a game with me. The memories flood my mind, erasing the line between yesterday and today. Lost in a vortex, my mind throws me from place to place, refusing me reality to hold on to. “It was right here.”
“I don’t know,” she whispers.
“Sonya may know,” I exclaim. I rush toward her room and open the door. “Where is she?” I demand when my search comes up empty.
“She’s still at work, remember?”
“You’re lying!” I scream. “She’s just a kid.”
“She’s a grown woman,” Mama says quietly. “So are you.”
She must be joking. I am only fifteen. Still a child. I have pretended to be a woman, like all teenagers do. But deep down I am still a young girl, waiting for when I am fully grown and dreading it at the same time. “Why are you saying this?” I cry. “After what happened, how can you do this to me?”
“What happened, Beti?” Mama asks.
I start to tell her what I remember, vague images filterin
g through a dark curtain, but something in her eyes stops me. A revelation that what I will say is not a surprise, not a secret I have kept from her, from myself, but instead the other way around.
“You know?” I am on a swing, flying so high that I fear I may fall. One moment I am the woman she says I am, and in the next second I am just a teenager. I vacillate between the two, neither one feeling real to me.
“Yes,” she admits, lowering her head. “Not then, but recently.”
“How?” I demand. Shaking my head, I push past her back to the bathroom. There, I stare into the mirror, the image staring back at me changing. The girl with her hair strewn haplessly and tears streaking her face evolves into a woman I no longer recognize. “What’s happening to me?” I demand, grasping the sink for stability. “What happened to me?”
“You don’t remember?” she asks.
“Tell me!” I scream again, hearing it echo in the empty house.
“He came to you late at night, after Marin’s wedding. He started drinking after all the guests left.”
I can smell the liquor now. He had never drunk before, always threatening it, but never following through. But that night he reeked of it. Cheap liquor mixed with the smell of wine. I made the distinction years later, the smell of both still causing my stomach to churn. I was fast asleep. I had started sleeping in my own room, insisting Sonya sleep in hers. He whispered the words in my ear, waking me with a touch. His hands down my arm, pulling the blanket slowly away. I clutched at it, fear paralyzing me.
“You are the only one I truly love. You know that, right? It is why you are so special to me. Why I treat you differently.”
Why I never beat you, were the unspoken words. The ones he didn’t utter, but made sure I understood. As he lifted my nightgown, the thought reverberated in my head. I was the lucky one. The special one. That’s why he wasn’t beating me. And when he finally bore down on me, I was grateful that I was still safe from his fists. If this was the cost of being protected, then it was a small price to pay.
“What did he do?” I demand, everything moving faster and faster. The first time we went to an amusement park, I repeatedly rode the teacup that went round and round, laughing as everyone complained how dizzy they were. Only after, when I climbed out, did I realize the effect. Holding on to the side of the ride, I fought for everything to stabilize and failed. I vomited seconds later, the purge finally giving me the steadiness I craved. “Tell me!”
“It doesn’t matter,” Mama starts, obviously hiding the truth. We had learned to appreciate our lies like a veil over our lives, each untruth stronger than the facts. I loved playing with her saris as a child, using the end as a veil like women were required to in India. Always fascinated by the mystery it represented, I see it now for what it is—an excuse to keep a woman in her place, her beauty and power hidden from the world.
“It matters to me,” I yell. At the same time I demand an answer, I want to run from it. Now I understand Sonya’s instinct, her desire to keep moving. When faced with what has happened, when you have no choice but to live with it, it seems wiser to sink rather than swim. “Tell me!”
“He raped you,” Mama whispers, each word sounding as if torn from her throat. I take two steps back, her admission repeating itself over and over in my head. I was blind for so long that now I wonder how I will ever learn to see again.
“How did you know?” Maybe she is mistaken. I still hold on to the chance that maybe it’s all a dream, that I was confused. That the fiction I created, built a life on, is what is real, and she is spewing a lie.
“He told me.” She reaches for me again, and this time I am too weak to fight her. His admission makes it real. Her petite body fits against mine. “A few months back, he told me everything.” Her tears start to soak my blouse as I stand completely still. “He hadn’t been feeling well. Wanted to confess. He said he’d been living with the guilt ever since that night.” She steps back, facing me. Cradles my face in her frail hands. “I’m so sorry, Beti. I’m so sorry.”
RANEE
Three months had passed since Sonya’s birthday. Brent was getting weaker over time. He had gone to the doctor’s but was not a fan of them telling him how to take care of himself. Because of his diabetes, they insisted he limit his sugar intake. He refused to give up on his vice and assumed he would be fine. But time proved him wrong. He started to feel worse and began to fear for his health.
“Ranee,” Brent called out one early morning. They were scheduled to have lunch with Trisha later that afternoon. Ranee had started to clean the house while Brent rested in his favorite chair.
“Yes?” Ranee swiped the counters clean, removing the few specks of dirt.
“Can you get me a glass of water?” he asked. Only recently had he begun to ask rather than tell.
Ranee took her time, secure in the knowledge that he could do nothing but wait for her. Filling a glass with lukewarm water instead of the cold that he preferred, she handed it to him and started to turn away when he said, “Trisha—every time we see her she is happy.”
“Yes,” Ranee agreed. Trisha had made it. Untouched, she was the one Ranee could point to and say something went right. “Her life is everything she wants it to be.”
“Yes.” Brent laid his head back, releasing a deep sigh. “It is good.”
Something in his voice tugged at her, made her stop and stare. “She was the one who was never hurt,” Ranee said, the words an accusation. “She was the lucky one. Happiness is hers to have.”
Opening his eyes, Brent didn’t respond to her statement directly. Instead, he watched her, fear filling his features. “What do you think happens to us when we die?” he asked.
The question took Ranee aback. She rarely gave death a thought when life took so much of her energy. “I don’t know. I imagine we face our creator, have to explain our actions,” she said, jabbing at him however she could. “Give a reason for hurting the ones we did.”
“And if there is no reason?” Brent whispered. “If it was a mistake you never imagined making?”
It was a question Ranee never believed Brent capable of asking. Staring at him, wondering if he felt regret for all of his actions, she asked, “Then why did you do it?”
“You know?” Brent whispered, his round eyes large in his weathered face. “How?”
“I was right here,” Ranee bit out, wondering if he was losing his mind. “Every single day, when you hit me and my two girls, I was standing right here!” she said, her voice nearly a scream.
Closing his eyes, he turned his face away, relief washing over him. Ignoring her outburst, he said, “Never mind.”
There was something he wasn’t telling her, Ranee was sure. She knew it the way she knew what was coming minutes before he started hitting. The way she knew that if there was ever good in his heart, it was long gone. Fear gripped her, pushed her to take a seat across from him. Staring at the man who once held her life in his palm, she demanded, “What did you do?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Brent whispered. A lone tear fell from his eye over his cheek. Too weak to wipe it away, he let it linger, the wetness leaving a trail.
“It does,” Ranee pushed, fighting against the voice in her head that demanded she let it be. For her entire life she had let things go. Suddenly, a force greater than the beaten voice demanded she act. “Tell me or I swear on the mangalsutra I wear around my neck that I will leave you right now to die alone.”
“There are some things better left unsaid,” he said quietly, his breath ragged.
“For whom?” Ranee demanded, the room closing in on her. Taking a step toward him, she towered over him. “For the first time in a long time, I want to hear you speak.”
He glanced at her, seeming to gauge whether she was serious. Ranee watched as he opened his mouth, but no words came out. He wrung his hands together; hands that were once so powerful were now weak and frail. “Please,” he begged, the first time in his life. Ranee stared at him before making her d
ecision. Knowing he could not follow, she reached for her keys and started to walk out of the house. “Ranee,” he called out.
Refusing to turn, she demanded, “Tell me.”
“I drank the liquor I brought home.”
“The bottles you threatened us with?” Ranee turned to stare at him. She still remembered the dozens of unopened bottles she would throw out. Stepping closer to him, she dropped her purse on the counter. “When?”
He struggled, something Ranee had never seen him do. “The night of Marin’s wedding.” Refolding the paper, he shifted in his seat. Rubbing his hand over his face, he refused to meet Ranee’s stare. “I drank all of it.”
Ranee racked her brain, trying to remember that night, but she couldn’t. Exhausted from the day’s events, she had fallen into a deep sleep. “Did you come to bed after?”
“Not ours, no,” Brent answered softly.
A slow buzzing started in her brain. From the base of her neck, rising to the top, drowning out every other noise. She felt the pounding between her eyes and at her temples like a bulldozer. The room began to spin. She clutched her mangalsutra, but it burned her fingers. Letting it go, she stared down at her hands. Small red hives started to pop up on her arms. Her vision began to blur, but she refused to let it—for the first time in her life, she had to keep her control. When her focus returned, the first thing she saw was the fire poker on the fireplace. For just a heartbeat she imagined walking over, pulling it out of the holder, and bashing him with it.
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