She doesn’t look surprised. “I kind of suspected that he must have, at some point. What did he say?”
“He said that the aunty at the kopitiam drinks stall was trying to poison him,” I say. “It scared me and I stopped going there. It was only a lot later that I realised it probably wasn’t…true.”
I see from her face that this was worse than what she’d anticipated. After a beat, she nods and looks away. “I wonder how many people figured it out,” she says. “But I guess not many of my friends ever met my father.”
“That was why though, right? You never had many people come to your house…because of your dad?” I say.
Nithya nods again. “I don’t know when that became a rule, it was just something we always did. My mother was so worried that people would find out, so Karthik and I became worried too, I guess,” she says, staring down at the couch and picking at some fraying fabric on it. “Makes you wonder what all the worrying was for if something like this could happen.”
“You couldn’t have known,” I say, wondering to myself if that were true.
She half-shrugs and appears to grow pensive. “Sometimes I think, I can’t believe he did this, there’s no way we could have ever imagined that he would do this, that’s not the person we know,” she says, slowly. “But other times I’m like, why the fuck was this guy even around us growing up? How could we not have seen the danger? Why did we tell no one?”
Her sudden anger shocks me. I stay silent, almost waiting for the anger to turn on me.
She meets my eye now. “And that’s why you can’t write anything about his sickness in the paper,” she says.
“What?” I say. “Sorry, I don’t understand.”
“I don’t want you to write anything about what you know of my father’s mental illness in your article,” she says, mock-exaggerating the words I’d used, as though it were just my crazy opinion.
My mind searches desperately for a way to get back on a less antagonistic footing with her, while also feeling the failure of my current assignment looming not far ahead. “I, uh, understand, but I mean, as you know, that’s a very big piece of this current…puzzle,” I say, cringing at my own fumbling. “Maybe if you could tell me why you don’t want me to write that, we could try to—”
“Why isn’t it obvious?” she cuts in, and her irritation at me is evident. “We protected him for so long. We kept his secret for so long, because my mother wanted to, even after the separation, even after it became clear he was getting worse. And maybe it was the wrong thing to do, but we did it. If it comes out now, it’s like we did it for nothing.”
I look down at my notebook and don’t say anything. I realise with a shock that I’ve written SCHIZOPHRENIA in tiny, block letters in the top corner of my notebook page. But my knowledge of it is worth nothing unless she says it. I understand what she’s telling me, while at the same time thinking, Yes, you did it for nothing. You did it for worse than nothing.
I suppose my face must be transparent if both Gary and Nithya can read my mind today.
“I know we did it for nothing,” she says, and her voice sounds strangled. “And there are a million things I would change about what we did with his sickness if I could go back in time, but I can’t. If it were up to me, Jess, I would have told everyone a long time ago, I would have made sure he got medication from the start and stayed on it, I would have wanted help from friends, family, neighbours, everybody. But my mother never, ever wanted anyone to know, even after he moved out. It was her way of caring for him, and despite what anyone thinks, he loved her for it. And now that she’s gone, that’s the only thing we can still do for her—continue keeping it a secret.”
“But Nithya,” I say, feeling corrupt, somehow. “It’s not going to remain a secret forever. The police will get a psychiatrist in. It’ll come out during the trial. It’s probably going to be his defence.”
“It won’t be his defence,” she says, sounding short. “He barely knows he has it.”
“Nithya, they already know,” I say, trying to sound gentle and not desperate. “The police already know there’s something not quite right with him. They will definitely have him undergo psychiatric testing, and it’ll come out in court that he has schizophrenia.”
She freezes and stares at me like I have just struck her across the face.
“You have no proof that he has that,” she says in almost a whisper. “You can’t write that. You can’t write something that you only know back from when we were kids.”
I choke out the words Gary wants me to say. “I have no proof, you’re right. But I know. And the police will know soon enough, and then everybody will know. But if I tell the story, I’ll tell it in the best and kindest way, Nithya. If I don’t, then we don’t have any control over the way other people are going to tell it.”
I see her eyes take on more hurt than coolness. “So this is why you came?” she says.
“Nithya, my editors know,” I say. “They just asked me to confirm it.”
“So you agreed?” she says. “How could you?”
“I didn’t have a choice,” I say. “It’s my job.”
“Your job,” she says bitterly. “When you got here, I knew it was your job, but I stupidly thought it was just half-job. I thought you were still half-journalist, half-friend.”
She looks away and sighs. “I think you should go,” she says.
“Nithya, I’m so very sorry to come here like this,” I say. “I feel so bad and I never wanted to come. But please believe me when I say I would write this story in the most sensitive way. I would let you all read it beforehand, even though we’re not really allowed to do that, and it’s not something other reporters would do if they broke this story.”
“But if we read it and we didn’t like it, you wouldn’t change anything, right?” she says. “You wouldn’t take out things we didn’t want you to say.”
“I would try my best to make changes in order to make you more comfortable with the story,” I say, but the look on her face makes it clear she doesn’t quite believe me.
“You won’t take out any mention of his mental illness, even if I ask you to,” says Nithya softly. “I just asked you, and you won’t do it.”
“Nithya,” I try again but she cuts me off.
“You think you’re being a friend by telling our story in the most sensitive way? Why don’t you be a friend by not telling our story at all?” she says and it’s clear that she’s seconds away from tears. “Why can’t you all just leave us alone?”
I open my mouth to protest, but there’s only so long you can argue for something you don’t even believe in. I can’t think of what else I could possibly say, so I stay silent and look down at my hands.
After a little while of this, I slip my notebook back into my bag. There’s really nothing left for me to do now but leave. Leave an old friend who feels betrayed, leave to go back to editors who will see this as yet more evidence of my lack of talent.
Nithya notices me putting my notebook away. “Do you remember how we became friends?” she says, not meeting my eyes.
I nod, even though she’s not looking at me. “In Miss Wee’s Primary 3 class.”
“No, how we became friends in the class,” she says and finally locks eyes with me. “I had a secret, and you figured it out. But you kept it to yourself.”
My face feels hot. “The crocodile farm,” I say. This has nothing to do with that, I want to say to her.
She nods. “And I know all you figured out was that I wasn’t attacked by a crocodile, or whatever. But you didn’t tell anyone anyway, and you let me enjoy that popularity,” she says. “But for some reason, in my head I felt like you had figured out even more, and you were keeping that a secret, too.”
“I don’t understand,” I say. “You thought I had figured it out about your dad? On the first day of Primary 3?” “I know, it seems silly, but that’s just how my mind worked at that time. We went to that farm because someone told us that crocodil
e soup could cure schizophrenia,” she says, going back to not meeting my eyes. “It was about a year after we found out what it was that was making him act like he did. For years, my father refused to take medication for it, so we did things like this. Gingko biloba. Fish oil. Amla berries. Then it became weird stuff like crocodile soup. And even as a kid I knew my mother didn’t want me to tell anyone.”
“So because you couldn’t tell anyone the full story of the crocodile farm, you felt like you were keeping a secret about your eye injury,” I say, understanding.
She nods again. “Yup. But I convinced myself that you knew, I guess, so I could feel like I wasn’t keeping secrets from one person,” she says. “I know. Stupid.”
“It wasn’t stupid, it makes a kind of sense,” I say and take a deep breath. “And it also made no sense for me to come here today like this. I’m so sorry, Nithya.”
She sighs as if resigned. “I know. And like you said, it’s all going to come out anyway.”
“Yes. But when it all comes out, you and Karthik should feel free to hate the person who invaded your privacy and published this one secret your whole family fought so hard to keep for so many years,” I say. “I don’t want to be that person.”
“Really?” Nithya says, looking at me warily. “You’ll just not do your job?”
I let myself look around the house properly for the first time and nostalgia hits me squarely in the chest. “I know I haven’t seen your mother in years. But I will miss her,” I say quietly. “And I know this is the worst way for us to reconnect. But I hope when you forgive me, we can do it right.”
I stand up, and just then Karthik opens his door. He steps out, looking like a cornered animal. “Hi, Karthik,” I say. “I was just leaving. And I’m sorry for what my colleague did to you.”
He stares at me for a minute silently. I wait for him to either retreat or look angry. I’d forgotten how socially awkward he was, but can’t decide if a smile would disarm him or be inappropriate. I settle for a small one, and after a beat, he gives me a small smile back. “Okay,” he says.
Nithya stands up too. “Give me your number,” she says. “And thank you.”
I reach for a business card and write my mobile phone number on the back. “Sorry this is so impersonal,” I say.
We stand there again, unsure what to do, made a little worse by Karthik still wordlessly watching us from the threshold of his room. I impulsively give her a quick hug and move away before she or Karthik decide it was the wrong thing to do.
“So I guess we’ll be hearing from a couple more reporters then,” she says as she unlocks the gate.
“Probably,” I say. “Feel free to treat them way worse.”
She laughs a little and then becomes serious. “So you’re not going to write anything at all from what I just said?” she says. “Nothing at all?”
I can see from her face that I have the near-miraculous opportunity here to regain the trust I just threw away.
“Nothing at all,” I say.
*
I walk to the main road in front of Nithya’s block of flats, my heart and stomach locked in a peristaltic battle. The entire day might have been better if I had never gone to her house, but I still have hope that I’ve somehow emerged not having been a bad person. But the task of informing my editors still remains, and as I check my phone, I see three missed calls and several text messages from Gary, telling me he’s still in the office if I have a story I can file tonight. I debate going home and calling him to tell him, but it would be better to get it over with in person tonight.
A sea of green lights approach as though to aid me: an abundance of empty taxis. Must be my lucky day, I think, mentally rolling my eyes. I hail one and get into its icy interior, the air-conditioner turned to full blast and the windows almost fogged up. I tell the driver where to go.
“So late still working ah, girl?” says the cabbie, clearly energetic and closer to the start of his shift than the end.
“Yeah,” I say. “Uncle, can turn down the air-con?”
I pull out my phone again to text Gary to tell him that I’m on my way back to the office. I don’t want to call him and have to answer questions.
Just then, a text message comes in from a number I don’t have saved on my phone. It reads: “Karthik and I will both talk to you. Tomorrow morning. If you still want to.”
I read and re-read the text and my fingers freeze over the keys on my phone. My eyes feel unfocused and my brain doesn’t trust itself.
“Still cold ah, girl?” says the cabbie.
I shake my head, both as an answer to him and to get myself out of my reverie.
Tentatively, I type back. “Yes. If you’re sure. What changed your mind?”
The answer comes back in a minute: “Crocodiles.”
The taxi turns right onto the highway. Not many cars are out and I can tell the taxi driver is enjoying going fast.
It happens within seconds: A taxi going the other direction drifts into our lane right in front of us and I see its headlights and the faces of the other driver and the passenger beside him. The blare of the car horn rips through the taxi as I shield my eyes with one hand and grip my seatbelt with the other. The tires make a screeching sound I’ve never heard in my life and I feel the seatbelt strain as my body is jerked to the left and then to the right. The horn is still ringing in my ears as I realise the driver and I are still in the taxi together, intact, unhurt, moving forward with nothing ahead of us.
The cabbie’s hands are shaking and mercifully a shoulder lane appears where he pulls over. He puts his head on the steering wheel as I take a deep breath and stare straight ahead. I turn in my seat to look behind me expecting to see a crash, but the other taxi is a speck, almost out of view. I realise that instead of pushing down hard on the brakes as many people would have done, my taxi driver had swerved into the lane of oncoming traffic and then swerved back into his to miss the other taxi narrowly.
He’s crying a little now and I put my hand on his shoulder. “Thank you, Uncle. You saved our lives.”
He looks up and his face is wet and red. He lets out a string of what I assume are Hokkien expletives. He gets out of the taxi and takes a few pictures of the stretch of road and the location markers around it on his phone before getting back in. “That idiot. I’m going to LTA to find his license plate from the video cameras and then I will sue him,” he says.
“Are you okay to drive?” I say.
“Yes, yes. We’re almost there. Nothing happened to me, right? But I’m going to sue him. We can both sue him, girl.” He looks at me. “Why you like never react, like that?”
“I did,” I say quickly. “I was very scared.”
But the truth is that I did not, and as the taxi driver starts driving again slowly, I can still feel it, that lack of reaction. Even having survived it, I can’t say I knew at that moment that I would be okay. I saw the headlights of a vehicle coming towards me in a head-on collision. I heard tires screeching and horns blaring, and I had covered my eyes and gripped my seat belt almost reflexively. It makes no sense that I didn’t react as the driver did, and I sit in his back seat, feeling numb.
Three more texts from Gary come in, of course, and I don’t read them. The cabbie keeps looking at me in the rear-view mirror. He sighs and shakes his head often, and I do the same when I catch his eye, but it’s clear he knows I’m performing the motions for his benefit.
“What do you work as, girl?” he asks finally, after five minutes of driving in silence. “Why are you working so late?”
“I’m a reporter,” I say. And then, on a whim, I add: “Crime reporter.”
“Ah,” he says. “That’s why.”
I nod, and almost laugh. “That’s why,” I say and it strikes me as both absurd and true at the same time: that perhaps the chief benefit of this job is that when death finally does come for me, I will be largely unsurprised.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to Epigram Books for takin
g a chance on me. Thanks in particular to my editor, Jason Erik Lundberg, for mentoring me in 2014 and telling me to send him my collection manuscript when I finally had one; also for always enjoying my stories so whole-heartedly and making sure I knew it.
Thanks to all my friends who read my many drafts over the years—Steph Barnett, Yasmine Yahya, Magdalen Ng and Bailey Morton. A special thank-you to Mun Yuk Chin for bringing her professional eye and personal enthusiasm to “Regrettable Things”.
To all of the VONA/Voices fellows for fiction in 2016—thank you for being so generous with your encouragement and advice. A special shout-out to Sharda Sekaran and Darise JeanBaptiste for your willingness to help me with my stories at extremely short notice and the thoughtful, detailed suggestions you gave me despite the deadline I gave you! I am so lucky to have writer friends who treat my stories like their own.
A huge, impossible-to-overstate thank-you to Tayari Jones, for your sharp story sense and incisive feedback that completely changed my title story, for teaching me so many things about fiction writing in a short time, and for how firmly you’ve been in my corner ever since we met. I am so grateful to you!
Thanks to my parents-in-law, Charley and Sara O’Hara, for giving me your laptop when mine stopped working and literally ensuring this book got finished. Thank you for always supporting my writing every chance you had!
Thanks to my dad, Durai, who first told me the Tenali Raman stories that inspired “Tenali Raman Redux”.
Thanks to my little sister Rubhi, the inspiration for my very first short story, in which a perfect and oft-maligned older sister is finally vindicated when her younger sibling is not allowed to go to the seaside. Sorry about that…
Thank you to my mom, Vara Hariharan, for being a smart and intuitive beta reader and an even fiercer fan of my work. She holds on to things I wrote when I was five because she believes she can sell it as “juvenilia” one day. I’m thrilled that this book will be officially launched during her 60th birthday week, which means it counts as her birthday present. Right?
Regrettable Things That Happened Yesterday Page 13