“Whose bed?” she demanded but already knew the answer. The only one he loved.
“Trisha’s.” He started to sob, the sound reverberating through the house. “I never meant to do that to her.”
“You raped her,” she said aloud, still in disbelief. Tears coursed down her face, drenching her neck and shirt. Everything in Ranee wanted him dead, but she knew he was already dying. Left with no other way to hurt him, she walked away, though she promised him she wouldn’t. Grabbing her purse, she left the house and drove around for hours, with no place to go. When she returned, she found him collapsed on the ground, his breathing erratic and his mind gone.
SONYA
“Do you believe in miracles?”
“Excuse me?” I am behind the nurses’ desk, storing the cameras for the evening.
“Divine intervention.” The nurse is inputting information about a patient into a computer. “An act from somewhere out there”—she waves her hand toward nothing—“making everything right.”
I have never thought of miracles, never believed they were mine to have. If there were such a thing, then I wouldn’t have had the childhood I did. “I don’t know,” I say honestly, leaning against the station. “Do you?”
“Didn’t used to,” she comments. “But after last night, I’m starting to wonder.”
“What happened last night?” I ask, searching my brain for news I may have heard but not registered. David was right; information spreads like wildfire in the hospital. Good or bad, everyone seems to know events as fast as they happen. “I think I’m out of the loop.”
Over the last few weeks, I’ve started to make friends. It’s a new concept for me, given the last years of my life. Friends were the casualty of my nomad existence, a necessary loss for my survival. But now, seeing these same people every day, watching them dedicate their lives to helping others who are suffering, I realize that the world is not just black and white. It isn’t just my suffering and the darkness that became my umbrella versus those who seemed to have everything right—instead, there are shades of all the colors, each one seeping into the other, changing the landscape, an evolution of the human soul.
“Tessa died last night.”
I stop, my hands gripping air. She was the little girl I worked with when I began. Who titled her book ME. I saw her regularly after that, and she seemed to be getting better, stronger. “What happened?” I ask, dread settling in me like a lost friend.
“She sat up, asked us to call her family.” The nurse stares at me, her face filled with wonder. “They arrived immediately. Tessa started naming members of her family that had passed on. People she had never met before. Told her mom and dad that those people were there, that they would take care of her.” The nurse continues to input information into the computer. “She said everything was going to be all right.”
I don’t want to listen anymore. I want to leave the conversation, go back to taking pictures, believing in what I know to be real. “What did they say?”
“They listened. They held her. She closed her eyes, and a few minutes later her heart stopped.” The nurse shakes her head in seeming confusion. “It was a code blue. They did everything to resuscitate her.”
“Where was the miracle?” I demand, my heart breaking, angry at life’s unfairness. Tessa was young, just a child. She had just started to live, the future unwritten, waiting for her to decide on the story she would tell. There should be a rule somewhere, somehow, that happiness is the default, the fallback for every situation. Every turn, every twist should lead toward a better beginning. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel; instead, the entire path is paved with sunshine.
“She came back to life. Minutes after they pronounced her dead, she came back.”
I don’t respond, have no answer. I have never wondered about more than here and now . . . it is all I have had the capacity for. If there is a life after now, a profound reason for what happens today, then I have missed the memo or purposely ignored it. Either way, I have no opinion on life after this one. But the breath I hold, the sadness I swallow, leaves my body in one swoop. She is alive. For now, she is still alive.
“Do good in this life so your karma allows a wonderful life next time,” Mom used to tell us. Karma was both a threat and a beacon; the life lived now would determine the future.
I leave the nurse, still shocked by the previous night’s events, and make my way to Tessa’s room. I know it by heart, her room just a few hallways down from where I am. It is late, so I know Tessa will already have had dinner. Most likely her parents have left for the night; with other children at home, they can only be spread so thin. I listen at the door for voices. When I hear none, I quietly push open the door. Peeking in, I see what I need—Tessa sleeping peacefully, her skin healthier, her vitals better than ever before. Nodding to myself, I start to close the door quietly as David approaches.
“So you heard?”
Though the hospital is large, it is nearly impossible to avoid someone. Similar patients, same diagnostic areas—all of it leading to an eventual encounter. Being near him, in the quiet of the hallway, I automatically go to our last encounter, when I almost lost myself with him and after.
“Yes,” I say, stepping away from him. “It’s a miracle.”
“That’s what everyone’s saying,” he responds. I watch him, his movements, the way he speaks, all of it feeling familiar in a way that it shouldn’t, that makes no sense.
“She’s going to be all right?” I ask, afraid of the answer. If I were God, my first decree would be that once you have a miracle, nothing bad can happen. After a magic hand has touched you, after you have been deemed special, there is no going back. Forever after you are blessed. My second would be that everyone is worthy of their own miracle. “The cancer?”
“We think so,” David answers, somehow understanding my deeper question. “What happened, what she said, can only give us hope.”
Like a rainbow after a tornado, I think. I was in the Southwest for a photo shoot when a mile-wide tornado ravaged the community. I took shelter like everyone else, waiting for nature’s evil to pass. Sirens blared; thunder clapped around us as the winds screamed their power. For ten minutes, we stood frozen, waiting without any other option. When silence descended, everyone ran out, trying to calculate with their eyes the irreparable damage done. As people scattered, searching for loved ones, someone cried out, pointing toward the sky. Every face lifted in dread, sure it was another twister, but instead a multitude of colors spanned the horizon, offering beauty in the face of despair.
“Then it’s a good thing.” I search for a way out, anything to avoid a repeat of what happened with David. I can’t lose myself like that again, if only because I fear I might not find my way out twice. I start to walk away, the only thing I know how to do, when he stops me.
“I miss you.”
He says it where anyone can hear. I look around, fearing an audience. The hallway is quiet. “You can’t miss what’s not yours,” I say, lashing out, trying to hurt.
“You’re right,” he agrees. “Doesn’t seem to stop it, unfortunately.”
I look into his eyes and see in them the sadness we both feel.
“I was never supposed to be here.” I start to say more, to fight a battle that hasn’t begun, when a nurse moves past us to enter Tessa’s room. Using the excuse, I flee, the only answer I have.
MARIN
They are seated around the dinner table, each at an equal distance from the other. The meal completed, they stare, first at each other and then at anything that holds their interest. Raj is the first to speak, reaching across the table for Gia’s hand. “How are you doing, Beti?” he asks.
“I’m fine, Daddy,” Gia says, pulling her hand away after a second. “Everything is good.”
Her demeanor contradicts her words. Her hair lies limply around her shoulders. There are dark circles beneath her eyes, and her nails, usually painted and trimmed, have been bitten to the skin. “You do
n’t look fine,” Marin says, her voice harsher than she meant. “You look terrible.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Gia says, not meeting Marin’s eyes. “Really appreciate it.”
Marin bites back a retort, her instinct screaming to tell Gia to get in line, to shape up. That her drama needs to come to an end now. Marin imagines telling Gia that if she dared to behave like Gia when she was a child, she would have been thrown against the wall in seconds without a chance to explain.
“You’re lucky that we—”
Before Marin can say the words she’s thinking, Raj interrupts. “Gia, I found this in your drawer the other day.” He looks defeated, like a father searching. “You can understand how worried we are.”
Gia reads the top line before letting the piece of paper slip from her fingers. “You went into my room? Searched through my things?” She drops her head. “How could you?”
“I am your father,” Raj says gently. “How could I not?” He comes around to her side, taking the seat next to her. “I have been so worried about you. What can we do, Beti?” Taking her hand once again in his, he says, “Tell us. Anything, just say the word.”
“I don’t know,” Gia whispers, the tears falling.
“Then why the tears? Hmm?” Raj slowly wipes them away, as if Gia were still a child. “Tell me.”
“I miss him,” Gia admits. “All the time.”
Adam. The thought of him brings bile to the surface. Marin swallows it but it rises again, leaving bitterness in its wake. “Have you no sense?” Marin demands, staring at Gia, seeing a stranger instead of her daughter. “You miss the boy that hurt you?”
“He loved me.”
“No, he did not!” Marin berates her, slamming her fist against the table, startling both Raj and Gia. “Do you have any idea what love is?” Marin stands, ignoring the warning bells going off in her head. “Love is good. It’s . . .” Marin struggles to define the emotion. “It’s working to give you the best life, a superior education. Everything I didn’t have, you do. That’s what love is.”
“No, it’s not,” Raj says quietly. He shakes his head in clear disappointment, turning away from Marin and back toward Gia. “We’ve done something wrong and it needs to be fixed. Somewhere along the way, we lost you and we need to find you. We need to get our girl back.” He pauses, shuts his eyes, and takes a deep breath. “Do you want to leave school for a while? Take a break, use some time to heal?”
“I can do that?” Gia automatically glances at Marin, as she is the one who will withhold permission.
“No,” Marin says, but Raj overrides her, his voice louder than hers.
“Yes, you can,” Raj says. “If that’s what you want.”
“I’m sorry, I thought we already discussed this,” Marin interjects, feeling the anger boiling over. Since their last conversation, she and Raj have avoided the topic of a separation. However, Raj did move his things into the guest room and now sleeps there. Other than co-parenting, there is little left for them to speak about. “She will not be leaving school.”
Raj stands, facing Marin. “If that’s what she needs right now, yes, she will.”
“I won’t allow you to destroy her life,” Marin says. “If you want a battle, you’ve got one.”
“Meaning what?” Raj asks slowly.
“Gia and I will move out. I’ll fight for full custody and the right to make all decisions about her life,” Marin warns. As soon as the threat comes out of her mouth, she knows it’s what makes the most sense. She and Raj are at an impasse, and his ideas will only lead to long-term harm for Gia. Marin can’t allow it, even if it means taking Gia away from her father.
“I would want to live with Dad,” Gia says quietly. She rises from her seat, coming to stand right next to her father. “My wishes would count, right?” When Raj nods, she continues, “Then that’s what I want. I don’t care if it’s here or somewhere else. I want to stay with you, Dad. Please.”
Marin staggers back, the shock destabilizing her. “Gia, what are you saying?” she pleads, feeling a type of fear she hasn’t felt since leaving her father’s home. “I’m your mother. You belong with me.”
“I think I would be better with Dad,” Gia whispers, not meeting Marin’s eyes. “OK?”
Her question is directed to Marin, but it’s Raj who answers. “Sure, sweetheart.”
Marin arrives in Brent’s hospital room late at night. She left the house after Gia’s declaration, driving first to her office at the company’s headquarters. She closed her office door and sat staring at the walls for hours. She reviewed all her options and even placed a call to a number of divorce lawyers, setting up times to meet next week. But some quick Internet research proved her fears correct: at the age of fifteen, Gia’s choice would take precedence. Once she told a judge she preferred to live with her father, there would be no reason not to let her do so.
Marin wondered how everything had gone so wrong. She had it all, everything laid out in exact detail, and now, without any choice in the matter, it was all crumbling around her. She had never loved Raj, she could see that now, but she had accepted their roles, their place, in each other’s lives. Understood that under the dictates of their Indian culture, the marriage was forever even if only on paper.
Now, nothing seemed certain. The concrete foundation she had built her life on was cracked, leaving her life susceptible to collapse. For Gia, Marin had strived for perfection but was deceived by the illusion. There was no excellence to be attained. No superiority to hold over those less accomplished. In offering Gia the world, Marin stole her daughter’s sense of self.
After leaving her office, finding that the walls that once offered her a reprieve felt like a coffin, she arrived at the one place she never would have thought to go. She sat in the hospital parking lot for over an hour, begging herself not to go in. It was too late for answers; too much had happened to try and scrutinize. Besides, she was not one to lie down on a sofa for a stranger to analyze. In doing so, she’d be admitting there was something wrong, and she refused to make such a concession. No one knew better than she how to chart her life. No matter what happened with Gia and Raj. No matter what the future held.
But she ignored her own words. Under the light of the moon and the glare of the fluorescent ER lights, Marin found her way to the hospital’s front door and inside the sterile walls. Taking the empty elevator to her father’s floor, she made her way to his room. It seemed like only yesterday she had walked down a separate but similar hall, leading Gia to the Trauma Unit. Yet, it was not yesterday. If it were, maybe she could undo the steps that followed. Change the course of her life and chart a new direction. Find a way to keep Gia as her own instead of losing her to circumstance.
“You won,” Marin says to her father as he lies very still under the white sheet. “I thought I could beat you, show you that I wasn’t yours to rule, but I was wrong.” She takes the seat next to her father’s bed, refusing to touch him. “All those years, you controlled me with an iron hand, but I convinced myself that in time I would prove I was stronger, smarter than you.”
After the first time he hit her, soon enough it became a regular occurrence. Marin never expected the violence initially, always believing she could do something wiser, earn a better grade to avoid the beating. But no grade was ever good enough, no behavior acceptable. It wasn’t until two years after their arrival in the States that Marin learned a very important lesson on how to deal with her father.
They had just arrived at an Indian function celebrating Navrati followed by Diwali—the festival of lights. Over nine days, the members of the Indian community, dressed in their finest attire, would gather to dance with sticks. Most of the women wore saris, while the girls wore chaniya cholis—ankle-length skirts and short blouses that left their stomachs and arms bare. A sheer shawl thrown over their shoulders and tucked into the back of the skirts was the only other covering. Each outfit had fake jewels threaded through, making the girls sparkle as they danced. Around statues
of the Goddess Lakshmi—the patron of wealth—they would twirl. Diyas lit the room, and incense permeated with a rose essence burned. It was nine days of beauty, filled with hope and a sense of community.
As a child, Marin still yearned for the celebrations in India, where the country shut down for the festivities. The streets would fill with those reveling in the occasion. Caste, color, and gender became irrelevant in the face of the joy. Marin would spend the nine days with her friends, and they rotated at whose house they stayed the night. Brent would tuck fifty rupees—a fortune—into Marin’s palm and tell her to go have a wonderful time.
Vendors lined the streets, their carts filled with sweets and toys. For Marin, the money was enough to keep her pockets filled for all nine days. Her friends envied the amount, their own fathers giving them only ten to twenty rupees. Marin was always quick to share, unable to enjoy her windfall if her friends suffered. The nine days of celebration were something Marin looked forward to all year, the happiness filling every part of her.
She assumed the celebrations in America would be the same, if not better. The first night, when she realized they were limited to the inside of a rented hall and that the festivities lasted only from evening to midnight, Marin lulled herself to sleep with memories of years past. It was only in the second year that Marin fully understood the difference—and what her life was now compared to what it had been.
After getting dressed and eating dinner, they all herded into their station wagon and Brent drove them the short distance to the church hall the Indian samaj had rented out for the occasion. After they parked in the lot, Marin jumped out, ready to run in and lose herself in the sea of hundreds of people in attendance.
“Marin,” Brent said, stilling her.
“Yes, Daddy?” Marin asked, wondering, hoping, for just a moment, that he was about to slip some dollars in her hand to buy succulent Indian sweets that some of the ladies sold to raise funds.
“I have a reputation to maintain. Remember that,” her father said as he lifted Sonya from her car seat.
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