Then There Was You

by Mona Shroff

  Charlie started to run off, but he turned back after a few steps. “You’re not leaving soon, are you?”

  “Not a chance.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  ANNIKA

  DANIEL’S MOTHER WAS an older version of Emma, her skin slightly browner, with eyes to match. She embraced her son a bit too long, making Annika wonder if Daniel had been avoiding more than just Charlie.

  Daniel’s father, a tall man with a full head of graying hair and the same green eyes as his children, stayed back a bit, his eyes narrowed at his son.

  Daniel stepped back from his mother, finally fixing his gaze on his father. When Daniel had looked at his mother, his eyes were the green of a meadow, promising everything light and wonderful. The green he rested on his father, however, was reminiscent of a murky body of water. The older man pressed his lips together.

  Daniel extended his hand. “Dad.”

  A small storm brewed in the older man’s eyes, and he waited a beat before shaking Daniel’s hand. “Son. About time you came to see your mother.”

  His mother placed a hand on her husband’s arm. “Ned—”

  “Mom, I’m fine.” Daniel turned to his father, his lips mashed together as if keeping in words that were better off not being said. “I’m here now.”

  “Yeah, well. It shouldn’t be that hard for a man to come see his family every so often. Your sister here talks of nothing but you. And her kid, does he even know who you are? I mean, I know you’ve had it rough, but you aren’t the only one who—”

  “Dad!” Daniel’s voice was hard and firm as he cut off his father. “Let it go.” He made a small motion toward Annika.

  Daniel wasn’t the only one who what? What didn’t she know? Annika studied his family, but both his sister and mother were looking between Daniel and his father as if waiting for the inevitable storm to rage.

  His father stopped and glanced at Annika, as if seeing her for the first time, and nodded. “Yeah, okay. I don’t suppose we should be airing dirty laundry when Daniel has finally seen fit to bring a girl home.”

  Daniel clenched his fists, staring at his father. It was Emma who brought life back to the room.

  “Everyone, this is Annika.”

  “Annika? What a lovely name.”

  Annika spun around at the sound of a voice with an Indian accent. The tension in the room all but melted away as the newcomer drew them all in. An elderly woman with paper-thin brown skin, white hair and pure love in her black eyes rolled into the kitchen in an electric chair.

  “Ba!” Daniel caught Annika’s eye and raised one eyebrow as he brushed past her to greet his grandmother. Annika gaped when he bent down to touch the older woman’s feet in greeting. But Ba stopped him halfway, and Daniel leaned over to embrace her. “What’s with the wheels, Ba? Getting lazy?” he chuckled, and Annika almost fell over.

  Ba? Touching of feet? What the hell was happening here?

  “Bahu waqt ti na dekayoo, beta.” Which Annika understood perfectly as she, too, was fluent in Gujarati. She should be—it was all they spoke in her home when she was growing up. “And my foot is broken. I’m sure you heard.” If Annika wasn’t mistaken, the old woman rolled her eyes and shot a look at Daniel’s mother. “Which means that I can’t go to weddings!”

  “I’m sorry. But I went. And you didn’t miss much. Just an amazing dol, great food, fun people.” Daniel laughed and ducked his head, but not before his grandmother managed a playful smack on his head.

  “Ba, there’s someone I want you to meet.” He stood and held out his hand toward Annika. “This is Annika. Annika, this is Ba.”

  Annika tried to keep the astonishment from her face as she automatically pressed her hands together and bowed slightly in namaste. “Kem cho?”

  Daniel’s grandmother beamed. “Ha! You got one that speaks the language.”

  Annika’s heart was racing, and her mind buzzed with incomprehension. She was still trying to wrap her head around what was happening when Daniel spoke.

  “Hoon tho bolu chun, neh?”

  He did speak it. He had an accent, but still.

  His grandmother harrumphed as grandmothers do and continued in Gujarati. “Yes, but how often do you come to see your grandmother?”

  In contrast to his father asking this question, Daniel grinned and answered her back in Gujarati. “I’ll try to come more.”

  “So has your father met Daniel yet?” Ba addressed Annika with a slightly crooked smile.

  “Ba—” Daniel sounded a bit like a teenager “—can we not do this?”

  “You hush, I’m talking to Annika. Besides, you brought her here.”

  “Ba...”

  She turned to face her grandson. “Isn’t she your girlfriend?”

  Daniel flushed bright red. “Umm...we’re...”

  “Friends. Ba, we’re just friends.” Annika helped. Is that what they were? Kissing-type friends?

  Ba narrowed her eyes at her grandson. “You did not bring a booty call here to meet your family, did you?” She said booty call in English, and Annika could barely contain her gasp.

  “Oh my God, Ba! Stop!” Daniel was all kinds of crimson, much to the amusement of his sister and mother. “How do you even know that word?” Even his father had cracked a small smile.

  Annika wasn’t sure what surprised her more: Daniel speaking Gujarati or Ba knowing the phrase booty call. She was blushing, but she managed to keep smiling and looking at Ba, all the while wishing there was a hole she could disappear into. She did not, however, miss the twinkle in Ba’s eye.

  “What?” Ba asked innocently. “It’s a question.”

  “Well, I think he brought me here to meet you because I caught him doing garba and bhangra like a boss at that wedding last weekend,” Annika said. “But now that I’ve met you all, I see that he’s been holding out on me.”

  Ba chuckled. “He always liked fooling people. Look at him—dark brown hair, green eyes. No one would suspect he had an old Gujarati grandmother.”

  “Aw, Ba. You’re not old.” Daniel gazed upon his grandmother with such love and affection that Annika almost didn’t recognize him. She’d watched a lot of things play upon his face, but this kind of love hadn’t been one of them.

  She laughed again. “I am, but don’t think I’m too old to knock sense into you. About time you came to see Charlie.”

  The affection he had for his grandmother never left his eyes, but his face went blank, as surely as if he had put on a mask to cover whatever emotion his nephew elicited.

  “Why haven’t you seen Charlie for a while?” Annika was puzzled, but the atmosphere in the room had again gone from jovial to something hard yet delicate. No eyes met hers, and certainly no one looked at Daniel. No one except his father, who scowled and shook his head. What didn’t she know?

  A car door slammed, and it seemed to break the trance. “That’s Michael with the replacement cake.” Emma nodded at the smashed cake next to the sink. She smiled widely, as if to remind everyone that they were at a birthday party.

  The family jumped on her suggestion with more than a little bit of gusto. Everyone, it seemed, needed to be involved with getting the cake ready for cutting. Even Ba rolled farther into the kitchen and started looking for candles. Everyone except for Daniel. He kept his distance. Still with his family, but just at the edge.

  Annika sidled over. She’d find out about the nephew later. She had a more pressing question. “So, one-quarter Indian, huh?” She raised an eyebrow. “And Gujarati at that? Daniel Bliant, you’ve been holding out.” She nudged him with her shoulder.

  Thankfully, his tension seemed to slip away, and he pursed his lips at her, amusement replacing the pain in his eyes. “No one ever believed I was part Indian. Especially other Indians. But Ba lived next door my whole life, and I was raised by her as much as my own parents.” He s
hrugged. “I would tell people, but they wouldn’t believe me. It used to piss me off, until my grandparents told me that maybe I should show people who I was instead of telling them. So I did.” He caught her eye. “I still do.”

  “So you decided to show me who you are?”

  “Well, I don’t hide who I am. It’s just...people know you’re Indian when they look at you. For me, they have to investigate further.” He met her eyes. “The opportunity presented itself, so...”

  She held his gaze, while something definitely more than friendship passed between them. Daniel Bliant was trouble.

  “There’s more, Annika. I want... I need to be honest with you.” His words and the look on his face set something churning in her belly. “What my family keeps dancing around...” Before she could think too much about it, the moment was broken by the sound of Daniel’s phone chirping.

  Daniel sighed and reluctantly reached into his pocket for the phone. Whatever he saw there caused him to furrow his brow.

  “Everything okay?” What more? What did he need to be honest about?

  He shook his head. “Probably not. It’s my ex-wife. She wants to see me. Says it’s important.”

  Ex-wife? Daniel had been married? What else didn’t she know? Was that what the bourbon was about? She looked around and watched as Emma cut a piece of cake. She might as well have been cutting another piece of the puzzle that was Daniel’s life. Was this the more? She forced her face into a neutral expression. She did not, after all, have any real claim over him. “You were married?” She couldn’t keep the surprise from her voice.

  “Yes.” He nodded and looked back at her, apprehension in his eyes. “I wasn’t trying to keep that from you, I swear—and we’ve been divorced for three years.”

  “Does she ask to see you often?”

  He frowned. “Last time she got in touch, she wanted to tell me she was getting married. So, no.” He glanced at his watch. “We have time for cake. No big hurry.”

  Annika’s heart sank. She was getting more questions than answers here. And she wanted answers. All of them.

  * * *

  SHE AND DANIEL talked nonstop on the way back to her apartment. She learned about his experiences growing up, and how they were similar yet different from her own experiences. He was proud of his Indian roots and felt a great deal of frustration having to prove his heritage to Indians and non-Indians alike. He could have just let everyone believe he was white. It would have been easier.

  “But I couldn’t have done that. It was like hiding a part of myself—as if I was ashamed of that part of me. I wasn’t. I’m not.” He sighed. “I just got tired of the arguments. And I found that seeing was believing. So now I show.” He grinned, clearly proud of himself.

  “Yeah, you do,” Annika chuckled. “Meanwhile, I was always just trying to fit in. I wasn’t trying to ignore being Indian, but keeping my Indian side separate so I could be like the other kids.”

  “Did you? Fit in?”

  Annika shrugged. It was the classic immigrant story of straddling two cultures. Speaking Gujarati at home, learning how to make Indian food, going to temple, studying. But at school she spoke English, played soccer, and ate peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches.

  “I tried. But I was different, and I loved being Indian. I loved garba and being able to speak two languages. It took me a while, but I found a balance.” But now that she had some distance, she saw how she’d hidden the Indian side of her from Steven. More reason she was better off without him. “Although sometimes, I have the issue of people looking at me and seeing only the Indian part of me.” She rolled her eyes. “Shocked that I’m not a doctor or a lawyer. Kind of the opposite of you.”

  Daniel glanced at her and smiled that smile that she swore was just for her. “You have to get to know us.”

  Annika’s heart swelled as she realized that she and Daniel understood each other on a level that she could not even verbalize. They weren’t the same. But the bond still formed.

  “Your family is great. And I loved meeting Ba.” Annika bit her lip and turned to face him. “Thanks for introducing me.”

  Daniel glanced at her, a smile on his lips. “I wanted them to meet you.” He turned back to the road. He had insisted on driving home. “Sorry we had to leave early. It’s just that Sheila, my ex, really doesn’t ever ask to see me unless it’s important.”

  “So you’re still friends?” Annika did her best to keep her voice light and breezy, like this was a casual question whose answer had no bearing on her whatsoever. Wait. It was a casual question.

  “It’s complicated.” Daniel sighed. “We’ve been divorced for three years, but we parted on civil terms. She remarried a year ago.” He shrugged. “We wanted different things.”

  “What different things?” Maybe not so light and breezy anymore, but she wanted to know.

  The air between them turned electric with tension. He remained silent for so long that Annika was sure he wouldn’t answer her, and her heart sank. She stared at the road ahead and was about to tell him to never mind, forget the whole thing, when he said her name. He glanced at her quickly and then back at the road.

  “She wanted children.”

  “And you didn’t?”

  “No.” He sighed heavily.

  The next obvious question was, did he not want children, period? Or did he just not want children with his ex? But Annika wasn’t ready to ask that of him. They weren’t even dating. They were...what? They just got done telling his family they were friends, and her family, aside from Nilay, didn’t really know he was part of her life. No: two kisses, no matter how amazing, did not warrant the “Do you want to have kids one day?” question. She held her tongue.

  A voice that sounded like her father harrumphed in the back of her mind. She ignored it.

  They drove for a bit in silence.

  “I guess we both have kind of tough fathers, huh?” Annika was curious.

  Daniel shook his head. “To say the least.”

  “My dad just thinks I keep making the wrong decisions in my life. Teacher versus med school. Steven versus... I don’t know.” She had almost said Sajan. “Not Steven, I guess. What’s your dad all bent out of shape about?”

  Daniel’s knuckles went white and his eyes went blank.

  “Nothing. Just father-son bullshit.” Daniel’s voice was thick with emotion. “I’ll just never be the man he wants me to be.”

  “Well, what does—”

  “Don’t worry about it, Annika.” He cut her off as he pulled up in front of her building. “It’s a lost cause.” He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. “I’m sorry. It’s just...me and my dad...basically, he doesn’t agree with how I live my life.”

  His face was closed to her, and she knew when a conversation was over. “I get it.” She smiled. “Parents are...complicated.”

  Daniel offered more questions than answers. Her parents’ imminent disapproval rang in her ears. Her attraction to Daniel aside, it didn’t really make any sense for her to get more involved with him with all these unanswered mysteries surrounding him. It was as if she was being given fair warning about trouble ahead.

  They got out of the car, and he tossed back her keys and got his helmet from the back seat.

  “Thanks for driving back,” she said as she started toward her building. He followed. “I thought you were going to see your ex.” She nodded toward his bike.

  “Well, yeah. But I’m walking you to your door.”

  Annika almost laughed, but he was totally serious. “Not necessary. I’ll be fine.”

  He shrugged. “Whatever. Let’s go.”

  Resigned, but in no hurry for her time with Daniel to end, she continued toward the building. She unlocked the door, and Daniel held it as he followed her in. When she turned to say goodbye, he grinned. “Your actual door.”

  She shrugged and
led the way up the steps to her third-floor apartment. Suddenly, Daniel was very chatty, sharing a humorous story about moving Emma into her first apartment, and his ba being firm about putting a small Ganesha in it.

  Annika tapped the necklace she always wore, the one with a pendant of the elephant-headed deity. “Remover of obstacles. Can’t ever hurt.”

  In front of her door, Daniel stood behind her while she fumbled with her keys. The fact that she could feel the heat from his body did not improve her ability to fit the key into the lock. She finally succeeded and opened the door, motioning for Daniel to follow.

  “Might as well have chai before you go,” she said, turning into the kitchen to clear her head.

  Daniel stood just inside the doorway, his hands in his pockets, an almost shy smile on his face. He fixed his eyes on hers, and she was forced to rest her hand on the counter to steady herself. “Tempting,” he said, pursing his mouth, suggesting the temptation was more than just the chai.

  Annika held his gaze a beat too long before responding. “Of course, you have to go. Sheila.” The thought of him going to see his ex irritated her. She held her hands out. “Well, I’m safe and sound.” A jealous growl escaped her throat. “Thank you.”

  Daniel did not break eye contact. “Yeah. I should go.” But instead, he moved a few steps into her apartment. Closer to her. Suddenly, the electric tension that had followed them from the car crackled and sparked. Against her better judgment, Annika walked to him. Close enough to see the struggle on his face, the war that seemed to always be waging in his eyes. Close enough to feel the heat from his body. Her irritation melted away.

  She nodded. “Mmm-hmm.”

  He stood for a moment longer, watching her, the thick, electric silence stretching between them.

  “Yeah, okay.” Then, in one quick motion, he turned and walked out.

  Well, okay.

  Annika let out a breath and shut the door behind him. She didn’t get the feeling he was still in love with Sheila, but there was something there she couldn’t place. A few kisses and meeting each other’s families didn’t make them a couple—she’d been pissed at him until last week, for God’s sake. So she needed to give up the irritation that he was going to see Sheila.