“I missed you!” she said, shutting the door behind them and wrapping her arms around him.
“Me too.” His voice was muffled in her crazy hair. He loved her crazy hair. It could vine around his face, his head, and swallow him whole, and he wouldn’t mind.
“How was your trip home? Are your parents okay? How did the conversation go? Do you need a drink? Do you want me to ask more questions?” She laughed.
“You know, I could use a drink.” He sighed and sat down on the couch.
Emma returned with a glass of wine. “I hope this is okay.”
“Thanks. And the trip could have definitely been better. My family is crazy. I know you said that you shouldn’t do anything to upset my family, but I feel like when you meet them, you’ll question that statement.” He laughed.
“When I meet them?” She smiled up at him, snug against him on the couch.
“Yeah, we’ll have to figure out a time. More like I need some time before I can go back again.” He wondered how much time he would need after tomorrow’s call before he could go back home and then take Emma with him.
“But they’re still talking to you, though?” she asked, her eyebrows raised in worry.
He drank half the glass down. “We’ll see what happens when I call them tomorrow.” Tomorrow he would put all his parents’ meddling to a stop. He’d just have to explain how unreasonable they were being. How he felt. It was his life, and they would have to accept it.
“And this is what you want to do?” she asked. “I’m worried that I’m interfering in your family.”
“No. Don’t. This is what I want. And honestly, I should have just done it in the first place.” In fact, he probably should have just left his parents’ house when they’d said Radhika’s parents were coming. He kissed her, and the way she melted into the sofa under his touch, with a little gasp into his mouth, made him need her touch all the more. Her arms clutched around him, pulling him tight as she hummed against him.
He didn’t need a drink. He didn’t need the escape that Emma provided for him. “I just need you,” he whispered.
He rolled over and let his hand roam over Emma’s bare skin. Over the silken, barely present fine hairs on her arm, the galaxy of freckles painted on her shoulder, and the gentle nudge of her shoulder blades on her back. He squeezed her tight against him.
Rishi never knew it was possible to have this. A woman who could be his partner at work, in the bedroom, and at all times. The app was looking good, and everything had gone over well at their first real demo of its functionality. Even Emma was impressed.
His phone buzzed with a call on the table beside him. He looked at the screen. Mom. When would she ever realize he liked to sleep in? But nothing could spoil his morning now, not with Emma beside him. He could be strong now that she was with him. He’d tried calling the day before, but she hadn’t answered.
He grabbed the phone and walked into the kitchen so he wouldn’t disturb Emma.
“Good morning, Amma,” he said, rubbing his eyes from the sunlight that blazed through the living room windows.
“Rishi, sorry I didn’t see your call yesterday. I went to the doctor, and he gave me some new medicine for my blood pressure,” his mother said.
Worry struck him in the chest. Had he been the cause of this new decline in his mother’s health? The other day, he half suspected it was falsified, a tool to guilt him into marriage. The other half agonized over whether it was real and if his decisions could tip her enough to be hospitalized. “What new medicine? Is everything okay?”
“It’s fine,” she said.
His father jumped in on speakerphone, talking over her. “Now she’s on twice the dosage. And no salt at all. No salt in the food. I have to add my own salt.”
Of course, that would be his father’s concern. Not enough salt in the food.
“Well, I’m glad you called back. And I’m glad you’re okay. There’s something I wanted to discuss with you.” He resisted saying, Again and for the last time.
“We also wanted to talk to you. September tenth,” his mother said, as if that should have some significance.
Rishi racked his brain. Not a birthday, not an anniversary. “Is it Diwali?” he asked, thinking maybe they would do something for the holiday.
“No,” his mother said with a teasing sort of tone he hadn’t heard in a long time. Rishi’s heart joined his stomach in that pool of dread. When his mother’s voice teased and sounded so joyful, it was only about one thing. “Your engagement ceremony.”
She’d said it like it was the most exciting news of the century. Like she had planned an elaborate surprise party for him and had just jumped out of a cake. How could this be happening? He was just there.
“Amma,” he said and then sighed. The conversation he’d been planning out in his head became much more complicated now that they’d planned a date. His mouth opened in rebuttal, but what could he say?
Think of what happened last time, he told himself. Your mother clutched at her chest because you wanted to cancel a simple family visit. He took a deep breath, a calming breath. His heart beat against his chest like it wanted to get out and punch something. “Amma, what did you do?”
“Both families went to our astrologers yesterday, and when both astrologers said the same date, we knew it must be fate.”
“Fate?” Rishi asked dryly.
Fate was Emma coming to India. Fate was her finding Rishi to be on the team. Fate was throwing the both of them in Cochin together.
Fate was not two astrologers matching dates. It couldn’t be.
“Now, I know you are not excited about getting married now. But that will change. You and Radhika can keep talking and meeting and getting to know each other. It’s so convenient you’re in the same town. You know, just getting coffee together, not visiting each other’s homes,” she said, cautioning him, as if that was her biggest concern.
“I told you I wasn’t ready—”
“Her family offered your father a job, and he starts work on Monday! This is also the good news! Now you don’t need to send us money anymore. You can save it for you and Radhika and your family. Then we’ll find a good match for Dharini. You’ll both have lovely weddings, and we’ll finally have our children settled.”
This was crazy. Was his mother’s desire for her children’s marriage making her blind to what her son wanted? What he needed?
Rishi’s body sagged against the counter. The milk boiled, and his body, on autopilot, combined it with the coffee. He put in an extra spoonful of sugar, stirring, watching the vortex created by his spoon as it spun around the mug.
“Rishi, are you still there?” His father’s voice echoed through the phone.
But Rishi couldn’t feel anything. He was already working through how to get out of this. His mouth opened to say, No, to say, Cancel it, to say, Tell them I refuse, and each time he pictured his mother clutching her chest on the bed. What could he do? Talk to Radhika himself? Would his father lose his job then? His mother sounded happy for the first time in years. And all at Rishi’s expense.
He had to sort it out. Emma had found him Radhika; maybe she could help him find a way to rid himself of Radhika. He shook his head at the irony. He’d have to talk to her. Explain what had happened. She’d seen the solution to reconciling his parents with his brother. They’d do that. Then, together they’d work out a plan. Everything they’d done together had been successful. Ending this engagement would be successful too.
“I have to go,” he said and then hung up the phone.
“Who was that?” the sleepy, half-moaning voice behind him asked.
Rishi’s stomach tumbled on itself. “Let me make you coffee first.” He poured some coffee into a new mug and added the rest of the milk. He had no idea how the hell he was supposed to start this conversation.
CHAPTER 34
Something was going on. She could feel it.
Emma rubbed her eyes as she stepped into the kitchen. The humidit
y in the air wasn’t just from the steam wafting off the milk; it came from Rishi too. Like energy was pulsing off him.
His gestures were jittery as he searched around the counter for the sugar, which was right in front of him. His hands shook as he handed her a mug of coffee.
“Why do you have to make me coffee first?” she asked. She took a sip, then spat it out, dribbling it back into the cup. “Rishi, the milk’s curdled.” The slightly putrid taste made her recoil.
“Sorry, I . . . uh . . . I hadn’t actually drunk mine yet.” His mug clattered on the countertop, and he took the cup from her hands.
Emma shook her head, her brain as jumpy as Rishi’s incessant movements as she got a new carton of milk from the cupboard. “Reserves,” she said, rinsing out the pot.
Rishi got quiet, and a fizziness bubbled up in Emma’s stomach. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
She’d felt this intensity before. Like a spark of genius before a code fix materialized in her mind, or the day when her phone had buzzed and she didn’t want to answer it, knowing, just knowing, her grandmother had died. She couldn’t handle the palpable energy in her tiny kitchen for much longer. And the way Rishi was acting didn’t portend the best of news.
“Yes, but I’m just not sure how to begin.”
She looked over her shoulder. He leaned against the counter, arms folded, thumbing his lip, staring into space.
Like chemicals deciding what to do when they were mixed together, she thought the particles between them were ready to explode. “I think it’s always best to just say it,” she said, although she wasn’t sure she meant it. It seemed like something you were supposed to believe, supposed to say in this kind of phony calm.
“You remember Radhika?” he asked.
Radhika. A photo, a résumé. A sinking feeling in her stomach. “The unfortunate result of an even more unfortunate algorithm?” she asked with a weak laugh.
“Yes,” he answered, and he ran his hand through his hair. “My parents . . . before you and I ever got together, I had sent them . . . I mean, they had contacted her parents . . .”
“You don’t have to recap what happened.” Rishi was stumbling, and she didn’t like the idea of why he might have been. “What’s going on? You just went home and spoke to your parents, and they were stopping your marriage-search stuff.”
He looked up at the ceiling. “Yes.” He paused. “But then my mom had to go on bed rest, and Radhika’s family came over, and I told her I wasn’t interested, but they won’t listen to me.”
“Radhika’s family came over?” Could she have heard that right? Emma’s heart was sure to explode as it pounded against her chest. Rage funneled through her body. “Wow, you somehow forgot that small detail.” How much else had Rishi left out?
Apparently everything that was important.
“I didn’t want to upset you. I was hoping to spare you some of the drama.”
How could Rishi want to spare her the drama? They shared everything—work, food, their bodies, a bed. How could she have been so foolish? She could see the beautiful Radhika, waltzing into Rishi’s parents’ house, their minds blown by her credentials, her good looks. Radhika, overjoyed that she’d found a man like Rishi—handsome, qualified, smart, hilarious. Emma was going to be sick. “Spare me? You lied to me.” She shook her head.
“I didn’t lie to you. I just left out some details so our time together wouldn’t be ruined.” He took a step toward her, as if he would hug her.
As if she would let him. Emma raised an arm, blocking him. She froze. Our time together. Did he really just say that? As in, limited time together before I leave you to get married. Her worst fear had come true. How could someone who was supposed to be so smart, such a good coder, be a complete idiot in matters of the heart?
Something seized in her chest. Maybe karma was a real thing. She’d broken Jeremy’s heart, and now Rishi was breaking hers. Crumbling it into tiny pieces with each word. Each word that said, You should have known better, Emma. You should have expected this. In fact, you did, didn’t you? You just wanted to ignore the reality of your situation.
“What are you trying to tell me exactly?” She was trying not to cry because she didn’t even need him to answer the question, really, did she? Now it all made sense. He was just biding his time.
“I don’t know. I’m not sure how to explain it.”
“Let me try. You’re getting married to Radhika. Is that what you want to say?” Emma tried to stay strong, but the weight of what she’d just said had her leaning over the counter, clutching her face in her hands.
“Sort of, but I don’t want it to happen. I want you.”
“Why, so you can just prolong our affair before you get married to her?”
“I had no idea they were going to call me this morning and tell me that they’d set a date for the engagement ceremony. I didn’t expect them to just arrange this marriage with the other family without talking with me first. In one day!”
Emma froze. That couldn’t be real, could it? An engagement ceremony? Rishi took a step closer to her and leaned in, trying to look her in the eye. The milk pot boiled over, thick white foam spilling over the edges.
“Fuck!” Emma jumped up and switched off the gas. She grabbed the pot, and the pain shot through her hand. She jerked her hand off the handle, and Rishi grabbed it.
“Be careful,” he said, examining the red streak across her palm.
She shook her hand out of his grasp. “I’m fine.” Her hand pulsed with the burn, but it was nothing compared to the rest of her.
She had to stop relying on him for help. Or for anything. She should have known better. The only thing she could rely on was work. Her job. She knew this. She knew it better than anything.
Pain pulsed in her hand, under the burn, matching the pulse of an impending headache at her temples. She took a deep breath and looked at Rishi, whose glassy eyes searched hers. What were the words he’d used?
The family. A marriage with the family.
She could feel her eyes narrowing at him even as they began to burn too. Don’t cry. Don’t cry, Emma, not here. Not for him. She rubbed at them, her anger mixing with the hurt. Rishi was getting a new family. One that did not include her.
“I can’t believe this.” She said it more to herself than to him. She should have seen this coming, but her brain had been won over by her emotions. “You told me you were going to tell your parents. That you wanted to explore what was happening between us. And I believed you!”
“Emma, I don’t want to marry her.”
This had been going on for weeks, and she’d shared a bed with him every night since—his arms wrapped around her, their legs entangled. And he’d whispered lies to her with every word and every kiss. The word love had been on the tip of her tongue so many times that the soft muscle was now charred into a frostbitten wound.
And the worst part of it all was that she was shattered inside. Now the tears were coming, aching at her throat, scratching at her nose, and there was no way she could stop them.
She turned around and cradled her face in her hands, elbows propped up on the counter. Her right elbow was in the gooey milk spill, and she didn’t care.
“You expect me to believe that, when just a few months ago I wrote you code to find your perfect woman? And now you have her. And you have a fucking engagement planned!”
“Yes!” He slapped the counter, breathing hard, staring at Emma with insistent eyes. “I do want you to believe it. You should know me better than that.”
She wasn’t going to fall for those eyes again.
If only she could go back in time and not come to Bangalore so none of this would have happened. She wouldn’t have left Seattle, wouldn’t have asked Maria for this job. Wouldn’t have this rock inside her chest that made her heart feel heavier than every other organ.
“Yeah, we know each other so well you’ve been lying to me. Who knows what you want and who you are.”
; “I want you,” he said, walking over to her side, his hand tentatively rubbing at her back. “I’m so sorry. My mother was unwell, and she got upset when I said I didn’t want to meet Radhika’s parents, and . . .”
“Oh, really? That sounds better? Your mom is sick, so you are going to marry someone that meets your criteria perfectly?”
“No, that’s not it. I know it’s hard to understand, but finding her son’s wife is what she lives for. All she can think about is finding this perfect woman who understands her, who she can pass her traditions down to.”
It was all worse than she’d imagined. It wasn’t like someone could convert to Hinduism and just pick up on centuries of tradition, ritual, and language. The shard of a family she didn’t have elbowed its way into her chest. She would never be considered good enough to be an acceptable wife in Rishi’s world. “Well, I think we both know that can never be me.”
“It doesn’t matter. I want to be with you.”
“Yet you’re getting married. Oh, let me guess, is this something you think can happen on the side?” Emma pointed back and forth between the two of them. “Is that what happens when you ‘have to’ get married?” She put air quotes around the words have to and leaned back against the counter, studying him. He hadn’t even tried to defend himself.
“You know what, Rishi, I don’t need to hear any more. Get out of my house.” This was done. Rishi was done making excuses for his excuses, and Emma was done trying to hide her blotchy face from him. She didn’t want him to see how much he’d hurt her.
“You don’t understand. I need to explain. I’m not leaving until we talk this through.”
A sick laugh bubbled out of her. What did he want to talk about exactly? “Just go. There’s nothing to talk about. As far as work goes, I’ll talk to Jas so we can minimize our face time together. Maybe Manuj can be promoted. He’s a superior coder anyway.”
The Marriage Code: A Novel Page 26