by Kamala Nair
After everything I had been through with Amma that summer, in spite of all the anger I had felt toward her, I still loved her. I knew this the moment I realized I would lose her. She had meant well. She only wanted to make up for the mistakes she had made in the past. If she came with us, Aba and I could help her find her way back to happiness. We would return to gardening and reading stories together, but this time Tulasi would be with us. My face was wet with tears. I loved Amma so much it hurt my insides. Without her, I would be lost.
The door opened and Aba came out. I was so caught up in my own thoughts that I didn’t notice the look of devastation on his face.
“Rakhee, Amma would like to see you.”
“Aba, can we still go to the sea?”
“I had completely forgotten about that,” said Aba, his voice gruff. “You actually want to go?”
My dream could still come true—Aba, Amma, and me, all together, walking by the sea, a real family. We could even pick up Tulasi on our way.
“Yes, Aba, please can we?” I said. “I think it will be good for us.”
Aba pressed his lips together in what I took to be a smile. That must have meant yes.
“I’m going to bring our suitcases out to the car,” he said. “You go see your mother now.”
I went inside Amma’s room. She was sitting at the dressing table again and her face was flushed but dry. She seemed calm, which I thought was a good sign, and she gave me a radiant smile as I came forward.
“Rakhee.” She reached out and took both of my hands.
“Amma, it’s going to be okay. I’m sorry about the way things have turned out, but Aba and I will take care of you. I promise we’ll make you happy.”
“Of course you will.” Amma rubbed the back of her hand against my cheek and I leaned into its softness. “You have always made me happy.”
“And Aba says we can still go to the sea. That will cheer you up, won’t it?”
“That sounds wonderful.”
“We’d better hurry, then. The driver is waiting.”
“Before we go, Rakhee, since I have you here alone, I want to tell you I’m sorry. And I want you to know how much I love you. I may do terrible things, I sometimes act out of my mind, but just know that I will always love you, that you are the most precious thing in the world to me, and that will never change.” Amma pulled me forward and pressed her hot lips to my cheek. “Now go to Aba.”
“Aren’t you coming?”
Amma’s smile wavered, and for a moment my heart stopped. But then she patted my arm and said: “I’ll be out soon.”
I drew away from her.
“Okay, see you in a minute,” I said, and walked out of the room. Vijay Uncle, Nalini Aunty, Balu, and Meenu were all gathered on the verandah. I had not expected this final courteous formality, but there they were, lined up stiff and polite as if they were posing for a photograph, as if they were sending me off at the close of a pleasant, uneventful summer.
I scanned the line. “Where’s Krishna?”
Sadhana Aunty, I noticed, was also not in the line, but I did not ask about her.
“Krishna is still unwell. We will tell her you said goodbye,” said Vijay Uncle.
“Rakhee, hurry up, we have to go now!” Aba called from the top of the steps.
It pained me that I would not get a chance to see Krishna, but I would write her a letter. I would invite her to come visit us in Plainfield. This was not the end.
Nalini Aunty gave me a perfunctory pat on the shoulder.
“Keep in touch,” said Vijay Uncle, and he slipped a dusty, unwrapped candy into my hand with a wink.
“Don’t forget us,” Meenu said, giving my arm a pinch.
“I won’t,” I told her. “I won’t forget.”
I looked at them all once more before turning away for the last time. “Bye!” I called, and ran across the lawn toward Aba.
“All set?” Aba said without looking me in the eyes.
“Amma will be right down,” I said, and followed him into the car.
“We’re ready,” Aba leaned forward and told the driver, as we settled in and shut the door.
“Not yet,” I said, “Amma’s just coming.”
“Rakhee—” Aba started to say something, but was interrupted by a shout.
“Wait!”
Krishna, barefoot and in her nightgown, was running down the steps. I opened the car door and jumped out.
“Rakhee!” she cried, and flung her arms around my neck.
“Krishna!”
“Rakhee, come back for me,” she whispered. “Please come back for me.”
“I will,” I touched my cool forehead to her burning one, “I promise.”
“It’s time,” came Aba’s voice.
I gave Krishna another kiss on the cheek and got in the car. Aba leaned across me and pulled the door shut.
The engine roared.
“But wait, Amma—” I said, and my heart flared with panic and confusion for only a split second before it hit me. Just now, in her room, she had been saying good-bye.
The car began to jog down the bumpy road.
My eyes filled up, and a huge feeling of emptiness opened in my chest. I turned around and looked out the back window.
Krishna was still at the bottom of the steps of Ashoka, waving. But she was not alone. A snow-white bird was strutting out of the trees, dragging his plumage behind him like a bridal train. He was crossing the road and heading toward her. Krishna stopped waving and turned her head to the bird.
I pressed my hand against the glass and watched Krishna and Puck grow smaller and smaller. The afternoon sun blazed into a frenzy of gold, blinding me.
Ashoka melted into the distance, and with it, so did Amma.
I sat back down on the seat and covered my face with my hands.
“Rakhee.” Aba took one hand and held it in his. “Amma will come back to us when she is ready.”
The empty feeling deepened, and I leaned my forehead against the window to hide my face. Around us, on either side, the forest was green and lush with life.
Aba squeezed my hand.
I knew that he would take me home.
Chapter 24
A few days after we returned to Plainfield I went out into Amma’s garden. It had survived the summer and that fall was unseasonably warm, so it continued to thrive. Even though the leaves were still green and the sky was summer blue, the air had taken on that distinct fall scent, crisp and sharp, the scent of new beginnings. I spent the whole afternoon yanking the flowers and the rosebushes up from their beds, making sure to get the entire root. I gathered the refuse into a giant wheelbarrow and made several trips back and forth to the ravine, where I dumped everything and watched as the piles and piles of vibrant blooms tumbled down the hill.
Aba never said anything about my act of vandalism, but not long afterward a landscaper arrived, and eventually a layer of fresh green grass carpeted the space where her garden once grew. No one ever brought up the idea of planting a new one, and when Merlin died of old age I buried his ashes there, marking the spot with a painted rock.
Aba and I developed an unspoken bond that had never existed before, the way I suppose soldiers do when they’ve made it through a war. He did his best, though I know it was not easy. Looking back, I think I probably took care of him during those years as much as he took care of me. When I was a senior in high school he married, with my blessing, a woman from his lab, Catherine, who has at last given him the love and stability he deserves. Still, sometimes even now I catch him with a certain distant look in his eyes, and I suspect he is not thinking of me, or of work, or of Catherine.
As for Amma, she never came back to us.
She remained at Ashoka for a few months before she decided to take that train to Trivandrum after all, and from then on she existed only in my dreams and memories. I ignored every phone call and every letter, though she persistently called and wrote up until my high school graduation, when I went east for
college. Aba tried to persuade me to speak to her, but I never budged.
All these years she and Prem have lived side by side as friends and neighbors, nothing more. Although I never heard Sadhana Aunty’s full revelation that last day at Ashoka, I eventually pieced together the truth. But I have kept it to myself. Krishna and Tulasi, both of whom I have been in close contact with, are mystified that they never married, nor sought comfort elsewhere. Privately, I have always wondered if it is because they cannot bear the thought of being with anyone else, or if it is just their small way of atoning for the chaos their love has wreaked.
Tulasi binds them together now. For a month after Prem took her away from the garden she was gripped by a panic, despair, and confusion so intense she could not speak. She cowered inside her bedroom at Prem’s house, mute and terrified. Prem consulted one of his colleagues, a professor of psychology, who suggested that Tulasi be institutionalized, but Prem refused. He could not bear to do that to her after everything she had already been through. But she grew increasingly withdrawn, sometimes locking the door so he could not come in to see her, and opening it only to allow a servant woman to bring in food and water. At night, he heard her crying out Teacher! Teacher!
He persisted in trying to reach her until one day she unlocked the door and let him into her room. Though she still would not acknowledge his presence, he brought her food and water from then on instead of the servant woman, day after day, and he would sit with her as she stared at the wall, explaining things about himself, about Amma, and about the world. She would never eat or drink in his presence, but whenever he came back into the room later, her cup and plate would be clean. After weeks of this ritual, one day, she took the plate as soon as Prem brought it in, and held it in her lap while he tentatively began to talk. A few minutes later, she took a bite. Then another. Then another and another until she had finished. A week later, she spoke to him, and her first hoarse words were, How is Rakhee?
Since then, she has undergone years of intensive therapy and, ultimately, surgery to correct her cleft palate. She has come a long way, but I don’t know that one can ever fully recover from what she has experienced. She has never been able to bring herself to see or speak to Sadhana Aunty again because, she says, it brings back too many memories of her life in the garden. These days she shuttles back and forth between Amma’s and Prem’s houses, and tutors schoolchildren in math, science, and English a few days a week. She remains generally shy of strangers and prefers to stay close to home, content to read, garden, and keep her parents company. Considering all she has endured, she has done remarkably well.
Although Tulasi and I have maintained our close relationship by writing to one another at least once a week and talking regularly on the phone, we have not seen each other since that summer. Tulasi does not feel comfortable leaving home, and as for me, I have not been able to find the strength to return to India because I know that it would mean seeing Amma.
Meenu and Krishna have long since left Malanad—Meenu studied dentistry at university and Krishna sociology—and both are now married. Krishna and I keep in frequent touch, and we have seen each other three times since that summer. She came to Plainfield for two weeks when we were in high school, then visited me a few years later in college, and a few years after that we met in Paris when I spent the summer there between my first and second years at Yale. Both Meenu and Krishna invited me to their weddings in Kerala, but I am ashamed to say I made excuses.
Sadhana Aunty, Vijay Uncle, and Nalini Aunty are all still at Ashoka. I am not sure if Vijay Uncle ever stopped drinking, but I know he runs the hospital now, and that my cousins regularly send money back for its upkeep. From what I hear, it is flourishing. Balu went to college in the city for a year, but ultimately dropped out, and now he, too, lives at Ashoka, where he helps his father out at the hospital. If for no other reason, I know I am a Varma by blood simply because the knowledge that the hospital is doing well and that it still belongs to our family fills me with a level of pride I have never fully understood.
And what of Sadhana Aunty? Once when I was in college Krishna sent me a family snapshot. I hardly recognized my aunt. In fact, when I first glanced at the photo I thought that the white-haired, stone-faced woman was Hema. I wondered later how I could have made such a mistake, since they looked nothing alike, until it struck me that they both had the same hollow look in their eyes: the look of a woman who has lost the thing she loves most in this world.
This brings us to the present, with me sitting on the floor of my studio, holding the letter I just received from India in my hands:
My dear Rakhee,
I must be the last person you ever expected to hear from after all these years, and I understand if this may be an unwelcome overture, but I find I cannot keep silent any longer. In my heart, you are like a daughter, and it is with this love, and the love I have for your mother, in mind that I am penning this letter.
First, I must offer you my congratulations. It was with great joy that I heard the news of your engagement. It fills me with pride to see you doing so well, and I have been very gratified to learn of your many successes over the years. You are a credit to us all.
But I must come to my real reason for writing this letter. For years I have watched over Chitra. Her house is only a short walk from mine here in Trivandrum. It is a small but charming house, with a pond and, of course, the most exquisite garden (people come to our road just to walk by and see it). She has us for company, and there is enough money between your father and me (I am still at my teaching post at the college) to keep her comfortably. Her life here has been simple, yet peaceful. You need not worry on that account.
In spite of her constant sorrow over losing you, for years, with the help of medication, she has managed to keep the crippling depression that you well know she is prone to at bay. However, as of late, ever since she heard of your engagement, I have noticed changes in her that worry me. At first she was thrilled to learn of your upcoming nuptials, but in the period that followed, her mood darkened and she began to withdraw. She spent a full day alone in her bedroom with the curtains drawn, refusing to see anyone. We coaxed her out the next day, but she seemed different. She was sullen and vacant. The only thing, aside from prayer, that interests her these days is gardening. She has always been passionate about it, but her preoccupation has become compulsive—it now borders on obsession. I overheard her praying this morning and she was asking God to bless your marriage. She begged God over and over again to protect you from the fate that has befallen her.
I do not tell you this to arouse your pity, but because you should rightfully know as her daughter what is happening. I truly believe that putting an end to this long rift will be beneficial to you both. Please know that I would never attempt to rationalize what she did to you, but I suppose I am hoping you can at least try to better understand her actions. For a long time she clung to a dream, a beautiful dream, however ephemeral, that she could stitch together the various parts of her life, old and new, and have the family and the love she felt had been stolen from her and had longed for ever since. All she wanted was to fight for that dream so she could feel real happiness. She wanted it not only for herself, but so that she could be the best mother possible to you. She felt she was not living up to that role, weighed down by the unhappiness of her circumstances. Some may call this naïveté, but I prefer to think of it as purity of spirit. Purity to a fault, of course, because of the pain her actions caused. But I do think in some ways Chitra is like a child, and she does not always consider these complications.
Rakhee, I am writing to you now, selfishly for her, but also out of concern for you. Listening to your mother’s prayer, it struck me that her fears are not unfounded. By hiding from the past rather than facing it, you are doing the same thing she once did. How can you start this new chapter of your life on the right foot if you continue to shut out your mother in this manner? She has made many mistakes, there is no question about it, but she is still your mot
her, and whether or not you believe it, she loves you dearly.
Come see her before you marry, I beg of you, Rakhee. I do not expect you to forget, or even to forgive, but for the sake of your own peace of mind, for the sake of your mother’s emotional well-being, and for the sake of this new journey upon which you are about to embark, please face her. If I have learned one thing, it is that love is an incredible gift we are not all blessed enough to find or keep. I learned this the hard way. Do not squander it by starting your new life based on secrets. Do not repeat your mother’s mistakes. I regret that the first letter I sent to your mother those many years ago came too late, and I pray now that this one reaches you in time.
It is no small feat to rise above the challenges and sorrows you have faced, many of which I acknowledge were caused by me. Please know how sorry I am for this, and that I wish nothing but joy and continued success for your future, in your academic pursuits, your marriage, and the new family you will inevitably create.
Humbly yours,
Prem Uncle
I fold up Prem’s letter and sit for a long time, thinking.
This story that I am writing for you has almost come to an end, and I am still so confused.
I am not sure I have it in me to do what he asks. I am not sure I am strong enough. I am not sure I can forgive. I am not sure of so many things. It would be so much easier to crumple Prem’s letter up, to throw it in the trash, to burn it, to keep running. But what would I be running toward? I close my eyes and think of you. If you were here right now, you would tell me to calm down and stop worrying about all the things I am not sure of and start concentrating on the things I do know.
I open my eyes. I do know I no longer want to hide. I do know I want to fill up that empty space I have carried inside me ever since that summer day my father and I drove away from Ashoka. I do know that I want the chance at a future with you.
I unfold Prem’s letter and read it one more time.