“I need a drink. You want one?” Liam asked after we were seated. “That him?” he said, gesturing towards Sunny, who was now staring back at us.
“Maybe we should go now.”
Liam glanced at Sunny. “Don’t let him intimidate you Meena. We don’t need to leave because of him.”
I nodded, and he squeezed my hand before getting up to go the bar. I watched him walk through the crowd and wait in the drunken lineup of middle-aged men and thought how out of place he looked. When he got to the front of the line, Sunny walked over and stood in front of him. I saw the exchange, the way a person witnesses an accident waiting to happen. There were words. Words that I could only read in the faces of those around them. Liam took his drinks from the bartender and turned back towards Sunny and said something. Sunny puffed up and made wide-armed gestures that seemed to say, You want a piece of me? Liam walked back to the table.
“What an asshole,” he said, taking his seat. “I can’t believe you were married to him.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing. It doesn’t matter. Forget it,” he said, downing his drink and then mine.
By the time the bhangra music started, Liam had consumed enough rum and Cokes to think that he was Hrithik Roshan.
“Come on, Meena,” he said, getting up and reaching for my hand.
I crossed both of my hands over my chest and flatly refused. “I don’t bhangra.”
“Come on, stop being such a gora… All you have to do is walk in a circle, screw in a light bulb and open a door.” He mimicked the motion with his hands and attempted to pull me onto the dance floor.
“Stop it, everyone is staring at us.” I whispered it so harshly that he let go of my wrist and stepped back as if I had struck him. I reached for his hand. “I’m sorry. I just think we should go home now.” I saw Sunny still watching us from a marked distance and the way he looked at us made me feel like he’d been tracking us since we’d arrived. “Please, let’s go,” I suggested. I was pulling Liam towards the nearest balcony exit when I saw Sunny closing in on us with a long and steady stride.
“Meena! Meena, aren’t you going to introduce us properly?” Sunny asked. He grabbed my arm as we went through the doorway. I smelled the alcohol on his breath and saw it in his eyes in the way he struggled to focus.
Liam shoved him away. “Don’t touch her.”
“She’s still my wife.” Sunny shoved back.
“Not for long.” Liam leaned in to Sunny’s face.
Sunny stepped back, stiffened his lip and lifted his chin. “Oh, a fucking tough guy, huh?”
“Come on Liam, let’s go.” A crowd was beginning to form around us and I knew it would just be a minute before everyone inside the hall heard.
“For fuck’s sakes, Meena, did you really need to bring him here? Are you trying to make a fool of me?”
“Meena doesn’t need to make you look like a fool—you manage to do that on your own.” Liam curled his hand into a fist.
“Come on, let’s just go. This isn’t the place. Think of Irmila and Kal,” I urged, trying to pull him back from the scene that had formed around us. We turned and started to head towards the narrow staircase that led down from the other end of the balcony, but Sunny blocked our way.
“Well, I hope you enjoy her more than I did.” Sunny laughed, looking to his friends for approval. “I guess some guys like leftovers.”
Liam stopped, turned abruptly, and punched Sunny in the face. “The only leftovers are what I leave of you, you piece of shit.”
Sunny teetered, stumbling back a few feet, hitting the balcony railing before straightening up. He smiled as he cracked his neck to each side, then lunged at Liam with a fisted grip. The crowd inhaled and stepped back as if they were one person, gasping as the two struggled. Liam had Sunny in a chokehold and Sunny was sputtering, his face red, veins protruding.
“Sunny, Liam, stop this. Stop this right now!” I yelled.
Young men from inside the hall rushed outside to see what was happening, their shouts alerting others to come and see. I pleaded for Sunny and Liam to stop.
“Meena, get back.” Liam waved me aside with his free hand. Sunny elbowed Liam in the stomach and turned around, swinging blows, punch-ing him repeatedly until Kal came rushing out, pulled him off and dragged him back through crowd, telling him to calm down.
“Okay, show’s over. Everyone go back inside. Everything’s over,” Kal said, dispersing the crowd. “Jesus, Sunny, get it together. This is my wedding.”
“Fuck that.” Sunny spat blood in Liam’s general direction. “Fuck them.” Liam was doubled over in pain, his hands on his ribs. He stood up slowly, wiping his bloody mouth on his sleeve. I put his arm over my shoulder and helped him up, balancing his weight on one side until he could stand on his own.
“You better watch your back,” Sunny hollered. “If I ever see you again I’ll fucking kill you.”
“Save it, you motherfucking piece of shit.”
Sunny pushed Kal out of the way. “What did you say?”
“You heard what I said.”
Sunny barrelled into Liam’s chest, pile-driving him against the balcony, pushing him over the edge. I leaned over the railing, screaming his name as he hit the ground like a bird falling out of the sky.
3.21
Ioors of the peach hospital corridors before retreating to the waiting room, where the pasty walls whispered all the bad news that had been delivered there. I held my head in my hands, trying for a prayer. Kal and Irmila were huddled by the reception desk. Irmila’s eyes were red and tear stains cut down her face, drawing fault lines through her makeup, cracking her veneer. “I just can’t believe it,” she kept saying. “How could this happen?” When Kal put his arms around her I wanted to close my eyes in the envy of such an embrace—the little words and small assurances that made her stop crying momentarily. “It’ll be fine,” he whispered in her ear, the same way Liam had always told me, the same way I’d told him when he’d stuttered on my name, his throat clotted by blood. “Stay with me,” I’d said. “You’ll be fine.” I’d said it over and over, convincing myself that the distance in his eyes was not an end.
I curled into the pay-phone booth and called the babysitter, crumpling my sobs between twisted tissues and false reassurances. I crossed my arms over my chest, pressing my forearms against my engorged breasts to stop the letdown of milk that tingled at the mention of Leena’s name. The nurses at the nearby station offered me downturned smiles when they heard me ask about the baby, when they saw the bloodstains on my sari. If this was the beginning of sympathy, I thought it too soon and looked away.
The sun still hadn’t set. It lingered on the edge of the horizon, burning the last of that spring day into a thin line of red until finally it slipped into shadow and the hospital grew quiet and reflected itself back in the large windows. I pressed my palm against the glass, watching everything behind me as if it were in front of me. Even the clock on the wall reflected time backwards. How many hours had it been? How long had we been here? I tried to add it up, but could only manage subtraction. I could only calculate the loss. Irmila and Kal were sitting in the 1980s’ waiting-room chairs, resting their heads against each other’s, staring at the paintings on the wall—paintings of fruit and flowers. Mostly still life. Like my face in front of me.
I turned around when I saw Serena had come in with my mother.
“What are you doing here?”
“Meena,” was all she could say. Her face was small and sad, her silence trembling.
“What? What do you want?”
Kal stood up. “I asked them to come… You can’t go through this alone.” “Go through what alone? Just what do you think I’m going through?” My mother reached out her hand and I knocked it away. She grabbed my hand and held it, locked in hers. Part of me wanted to tell her to go, but my rage turned in on itself and I collapsed, leaning into her arms, sobbing insults and injustices until she held me so tight that words cou
ld not escape and my mouth hung open in woe.
We sat in a row, all of us staring at the clock, observing time. Every second and minute measured, counted and added into a prayer or wishful thought of what would come after this moment and then the next. “Time passes slowly when it is all that you have and all that you wish for,” my mother said, patting my hand in hers.
Someone was calling my name. Everyone stood up. It was the attending physician. He spoke in muted tones. His eyes were small and clinical. Tired. The kind of tired that makes you think only of home, of your bed, of the people you love, the tired that unchecked makes you weep like a lovesick fool, the tired of crying eyes and worn-out hearts, the tired of the destitute, the tired of standing outside in the rain without an umbrella waiting for a bus, the tired of mothers with too many children and too many mouths to feed, the tired of hopelessness, the tired of bad news, so much bad news.
I closed my eyes. The doctor continued to speak, more technically now. I didn’t need the details. I couldn’t hear his words beyond the loss. I couldn’t hear anything but Liam’s voice, his whispers breaking inside me like waves of grief, receding to the quietest parts of my mind. Everything fell away from me.
The doctor motioned to a young nurse.
I followed her down a long, sterile hallway towards a double set of steel doors. She kept looking back at me, making sure I was still there, the painful proof that I could exist without him.
The doors opened and closed me in.
Everything was quiet now.
Liam was lying on a metal gurney in the middle of the room with the remnants of medical heroics around him. As I walked towards him, I lifted my hand to my mouth, choking back mournful cries, muffling the sound that only the dead can hear—the sound of wind before it wakes you.
Kal came into the room after me.
“Meena.”
I turned around, unable to speak. My mouth was full of screams, yet clamped by terror. Kal reached for me and I pushed him away, draping myself over Liam’s chest. I shuddered, calling his name, sobbing until there was nothing but the vibration beneath grief—a deadened sound like fists against ice.
3.22
C louds drifted across the morning sky like shapeless spectres. I pulled the sheers across the window like a shroud, as if I could dampen the haunting, but it lingered in the stillness of the house and in the inanimate sounds of the ticking clock, the creaking floorboards, the leaky faucet that Liam had meant to fix.
The phone rang, splitting the silence into two realities—one for the living and one for the dead. Kal answered, speaking in a low tone: “Not so good… she cried all night. I think she may be asleep now… I’m not sure… I think I’ll stay. No, I know that… Can you even hear yourself… You’re worried about the honeymoon when Liam was just killed… ”
As I lay on Liam’s side of the bed, listening to Kal argue with Irmila in frustrated whispers, the phrase “Liam was just killed” wounded me. I whispered it like a non-believer, wanting to hide in denial, but everything spoke to his absence—even Leena. She had cried out in the middle of the night and when I rushed to the nursery and peered into her crib, I was surprised to find her in a deep slumber. I remembered my mother telling Serena not to worry that A.J. often cried in his sleep. She believed that when babies slept they returned to God, where they assimilated all their past lives and purposes to this one. That they cried when God returned them to our care. I ran my fingers through Leena’s black ringlets and wondered what she dreamed of and if she saw her father there. I thought of all the things she would miss. She was only six months old. She wouldn’t even have the pleasure of remembering him.
I got out of bed and walked into our ensuite. Liam’s razor was by the sink, his towel and clothes still on the floor. I’d always nagged him to clean up after himself, but now was glad that he hadn’t. I didn’t want to forget that morning. I’d showered and was standing in front of the mirror looking at how my body had changed. As I turned, I saw Liam leaning up against the door. I didn’t like him seeing me in my slackened skin, and pulled my robe in front of me. He walked up behind and put his arms around me and stared at our mirrored image, said that he too was amazed how one life could change him so much.
A shadow fell across the mirror and like a hopeful fool, I spun around, uttering Liam’s name. I turned back, trying to hide my disappointment from Kal. “Meena, the police called. They need a statement.” I wondered what more I could tell them that I hadn’t the night before. I didn’t want to talk to them again and see them scribble my loss in a few notations on a spiral pad that they would flip shut and hardly remember but that I would never forget.
“Not now,” I said. Short words were all I could manage; small meanings contained things, hid the quake in my voice. I wondered what to say in the wake of death. It was like trying to speak a language that had no words. “I need to check on Leena,” I said, and walked across the hall to the nursery. She was awake, staring at the sunspots on the ceiling, batting her fists and legs as if she were trying to reach them. She smiled when she saw me. I picked her up, and sat down in the rocking chair, holding her against my chest, my hand cradling her head just as I’d done when I came back from the hospital. I sat there for hours, rocking back and forth, lingering in the false sense of momentum, allowing the motion to console us both.
My mother came in and offered to take her from me so I could rest but I shook my head, unwilling to put her down even when Serena came in and sat down next to me. “The arrangements… ” she began. I raised my eyebrows, disinterested in this process that was taking Liam from me in fractured steps. “The hospital… ” She stopped when she realized that I didn’t want to talk.
When the woman at the hospital had handed me his personal effects in a brown paper bag, I’d stared at her in disbelief, wondering how there could be so little left. His clothes, his wallet, his watch. I wanted to yell at her, to throw the bag at her, but instead I clutched it to my chest like it was everything.
“I’ve made some calls,” Serena said. I nodded, biting down on my lip, grateful that I would be spared such things. But my own thoughts were of little comfort—they flattened and stretched out like time, like eternal questions that began and ended with Why?
3.23
T he house was full of whispers. Fragile movements and gentle footsteps gathered like dust in corners. Grief filled the rooms like grey morning light. It was palpable.
I had no real sense of how much time had passed. Time had a different set of rules for the dead and grieving: every second was an emptiness burrowing in my marrow, and every hour left me more fragile than the previous one.
Days and nights passed in this hazy state of denial and understanding, broken only by the small consolations of bouqueted apologies, their con-stancy conveying multiplying regrets, their acrid smell only contributing to my grief. I’d pull at the petals, plucking them offone by one, letting them fall to the ground for Leena’s amusement.
“Such beautiful flowers… and you’ve ruined them,” my mother said as she swept up the remains. “Why? For what purpose?”
I shook my head, unable to answer.
“You should get dressed. People will be coming over soon.”
“What people?”
“Serena, her mother-in-law, a few others,” she said as she tossed the petals into the garbage can.
My sisters, even Harj, had come over every other day, all of them bound to me by the hierarchy of events that bring Indian people together—the birth of sons; the marriage of sons; and death, any death. Death, in its infinite and final design, healed and humbled the living. Sometimes I talked to them and at other times I let my mother tell them how I was. She took some pride in recounting my details. As if knowing that I woke at three in the morning, and wept until five, that I could not eat solids without throwing up made her the mother who had not abandoned me. As if knowing these things absolved her. She’d all but moved in, insisting on staying in the guest room. “It’s not good to be al
one,” she’d said. When I reminded her that she was alone, she said it wasn’t the same though she couldn’t ar-ticulate how it was different.
When people came over to pay their respects, my mother made tea and accepted the apologies I stumbled over. “Sorry.” Sometimes, to their discomfort, I repeated their apology over and over until it distanced me from them and all I could hear was my own apology. It was my fault that Liam was dead. If I had never married Sunny, Liam would never have been dead. If I had never agreed to go the party, Liam would never have been dead. If I hadn’t had an affair with him, he wouldn’t be dead. I spent hours in those regrets, hoarding them and nesting them into some half-life, everyone looking at me with the gravity reserved for wounded animals and the terminally ill.
That afternoon Kishor Auntie and Serena’s mother-in-law came over to pay their respects. They came out of obligation to my mother, acting like bereaved Bollywood heroines, searching private sorrows in order to seem sufficiently upset by my loss. They sat down, drank their tea and ate their biscuits, talking of my life as though I weren’t in the room. When I got up to leave, my mother reached for my hand, gently urged me to sit down and fixed the white chunni that had slipped from my head. Kishor Auntie continued her commiserations: “And Sunny? Who would have thought that he… that this kind of thing would happen?”
I stood up and walked away, not wanting to hear any more about what she’d read in the papers, what she’d heard at the temple about the charges against Sunny. “Manslaughter.” Just the sound of the word made me want to vomit.
“Meena!” my mother commanded
“No, Mom. I’m not you.” I looked around at my sisters, who were moving in and out of the room like ghosts, tiptoeing around the memories of the dead—in the same way we’d tiptoed around the memories of my father, in the same way we’d built our lives around my mother’s grief.
“I can’t do this. I don’t want to be good at this… and why are you even here? You didn’t even know him,” I said to Kishor Auntie. “Neither of you did. You should both be ashamed.”
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