Unable to find the number to call for wine tonight, though, she would have to content herself with rum. She poured herself a glass. Sipping, Rachel missed her mother, Ruth, with a sharpness that felt like physical pain. Rum was Ruth’s nightcap; she drank a glass, with ice, before bed on the weekends. Sometimes, when Rachel was alone in Brooklyn, she would call her mother on a Friday night and she would have a glass of wine with Ruth over the phone, in separate cities, a hundred miles away from each other. They could never do that now that Rachel was in India. It was morning for Rachel when Ruth was having her rum, and morning for Ruth now, as Rachel was comforting herself with alcohol.
Rachel wished she could call her mother. Ruth would just be sitting down to breakfast, the ten minutes or so that she took to eat every day. She could picture her, in a brightly textured sweater and knit pants, perfect for Philadelphia in October and for a woman who was always cold. But she knew if she called her mother too much, complained too often, Ruth would urge her to just come home.
She had married Dhruv so quickly, agreeing to love and honor and obey and move to India all in one go, changing her whole life in minutes. She had told her family, her friends, everyone she knew, that she knew what she was doing. To admit doubt now, to waver, that would be defeat. So she could only tell her mother good news, only talk about how great things were, how good Dhruv was, how kind Swati was to come get them settled in. That was how she would choose to see this, a temporary act of kindness, a stopover for Swati on her road to freedom. She had no problem with Swati’s decision to leave her husband; she knew nothing about the relationship beyond what Dhruv had said, so why should she? She only disliked where that decision had led her mother-in-law geographically.
Her mind raced to the logistics once again, thinking about the things she would need to buy to make their houseguest comfortable. What would Swati want to eat? She was a vegetarian, which in India also meant no eggs. Would she want something traditional? Would she want the lentils they had bought for dal, or a different kind? Would she want to make her own roti or did she like rice more? Everyone Rachel met drank milk, which she thought was bizarre because they were all adults, but would Swati want milk? Rachel was exhausted by all that she didn’t know, couldn’t plan.
Perhaps it was just some marital tiff, some fight that had gotten out of hand. She hadn’t thought that Swati was a dramatic person, but this must be some sort of episode. Rachel hadn’t known the right words, hadn’t said the right things, that was all.
Perhaps, she thought morosely, that would always be the case here. Dhruv had taken a three-year contract in Mumbai, with the thought that if they liked it, loved it, he would extend it, stay forever, maybe. But now the thought of that, which had been exciting, an adventure even, was depressing. Years and years of her life never saying the right thing, never knowing what was happening around her—could she live with that? Did she want to?
The door opened, and her husband walked in. For a moment she smiled at him, savoring the sight of him. His hair was ruffled and his tie loosened, sweat dripping down his temples. She loved him after work more than she loved him before work. Before work he was polished, professional, but after work he was hers. Always reserved, he would let go of things after the office, displaying anger, frustration, affection, in little bursts. She loved that; that was the part of him she craved the most and got the least, especially since they had moved. Unguarded emotion was rare from him, and therefore it was precious.
You were the one who thought happiness shouldn’t be a finite quality, a voice inside her whispered. He was looking at her happily, smiling at the rum in her glass, pouring himself a drink, eager to toast to the end of a long day. But it wouldn’t be. She wished she didn’t have to tell him, wished she could bask in his happiness for a little longer.
“Honey? There is something I need to tell you.”
Ten seconds later her words were interrupted by the sound of something shattering.
They would, indeed, need to buy new glasses at the rate they were breaking them.
Four
Rachel swept up glass for the second time that evening as her husband paced around their small living room, crushing small pieces into powder, making her job harder. She wanted to stop him, but there didn’t really seem to be a point to trying. Energy crackled through him; if she had touched him, she would have sparked. And besides, she couldn’t blame him for not taking this well. What was a good way to take this, really?
Dhruv’s first conclusion was that his father was beating his mother, and his second was that Vinod had cheated on Swati. Either way, he had betrayed her fundamentally, hurt her deeply, Dhruv was certain, and he was furious. Rachel asked him questions about Vinod; how likely were either of these things? She had met him only once, her father-in-law, but when Dhruv had talked about his parents in the past, he had always described his father as gloriously average, frustratingly morally upright in a country of bent men, and that his worst quality was an inability to adapt to new routines. Her father-in-law had drunk his tea by six thirty a.m. every day of Dhruv’s life, and the idea of tea at six forty-five, or even seven, was blasphemy to him. Dhruv had always said his father was like a mechanical man, and content to be so. That didn’t really correspond to the wife-beating adulterer Dhruv was so ready to paint him as. Yet here Dhruv was, ready to get on a plane to Kolkata and confront him, checking flights as he peppered Rachel with questions she didn’t know how to answer.
“I promise, she didn’t seem upset, Dhruv. I mean, she was upset, but not . . . traumatized, or anything. She seemed determined. No, I promise, I didn’t see any bruises or anything. Do you think your father would do that? He didn’t seem like a violent man to me, did I miss something?”
As she asked, Rachel reminded herself that she really didn’t know her in-laws well at all, certainly not well enough to speculate on their behavior or pasts. She had never met them before that brief visit to Kolkata, so her only real sense of them had come from speaking with Dhruv. She had asked before they got married why his parents had decided not to come visit them in New York. They had money, she knew, but Dhruv could have paid, and it seemed like the sort of thing people did when their child got married, or even just when their child lived in another country. But Dhruv had told her his parents had no interest in America. Rachel had wondered, if they had no interest in America, what interest would they have in her?
“I didn’t think so. I’ve never thought so. I’ve never even seen my father slap someone.”
A rather low bar, Rachel thought, but she said nothing. “Dhruv, why don’t you just wait until your mother wakes up in the morning and talk to her? I don’t know what she’s thinking, and no one can tell you but her.”
“I’m going to call Papa,” he said, still determined.
“It’s midnight. Will he be up this late?”
“I don’t give a fuck about disturbing his sleep!” Dhruv rarely cursed, and Rachel knew his anger was vibrating out of him violently. She wanted to hug him, hold him, but he would have hated that. Touch wasn’t comforting to Dhruv. Come to think of it, she had never had to comfort him before and wasn’t really sure what would make him feel better. He had always been so solid, so steady. Now he seemed like a lost child, angry at the world for letting him go astray.