ONE
April 2016, Mumbai
I take a cautious sip. Tasnim Maasi pours half her cup into her saucer and sucks the tea down in one long, loud slurp. She pulls up her orna, which slid from her oiled hair to her shoulders, tucking the gauzy fabric around an ear to keep it in place.
It is going to happen today; this afternoon. Maasi’s life is going to change irrevocably. Will she think that her favourite niece has turned traitor?
I cannot stop this moving train. What good will it do to announce the crash? After all, Maasi can’t get off at the next stop. Instead I sit on the edge of my beloved aunt’s couch, scalding tea burning my tongue.
Maasi appraises my full cup, raises her right eyebrow. I shake my head.
“Still too hot.”
“You should do it like me.” Her lips upturn into a mischievous smile as she empties the rest of her tea into her saucer, and a wisp of cardamom steam rises in front of her face. With a slight tremor, she lifts the saucer to her lips. “See?” she says proudly, as though chai drinking is a competition. She doesn’t spill a single drop.
“All right.” I tip my teacup to my saucer and chai dribbles onto her glass-topped coffee table. I pat the spill with a tissue. “Sorry.”
“Anything wrong, Sharifa? You are quiet today.”
I meet her gaze. Her eyes are a chesnut brown, and shinier than they used to be. These are my eyes, too, and the eyes of my mother, my cousin-sisters, and our daughters.
“Haa, Maasi. I’m sorry. I’m very sorry. There’s something I need to tell you.”
The doorbell tangs and, the coward I am, I am relieved. I inhale courage and wishfully think that I can be loyal to Maasi and my mother, my cousin-sisters, and our daughters all at the same time.
Later, when I share my day with my husband, Murtuza, he will ask me, “And what about you? What’s being loyal to you?” I will not know the answer, won’t even be able to make sense of the question.
Maasi rises, but I gesture for her to stay seated. Instead, I stand to unlatch the door.
TWO
August 2015, New York City
While I scan the sale racks, Zee bumps around the nearby plus-size section yelling, “Mom — this one!” every minute or so. I suppose little kids think all ladies’ sizes are the same. I yell back, “Thanks, but no!” The two of us are probably driving the sales-woman crazy with our bellowing.
I show her a polka-dotted dress with cap sleeves, the sort of thing I might have worn in the classroom on a hot September day. Its asymmetrical hem is whimsical, yet age-appropriate. Most years, I’ve done this shopping while in countdown-to-Labour-Day mode, both anticipating and dreading my return to work at Morrison High School. But I gave my resignation two weeks ago, and the year stretches ahead like a flat and deserted highway.
Last year, when Murtuza and I first considered spending his academic sabbatical in India, I applied for a much-needed unpaid leave while he investigated Mumbai teaching gigs. The same week my request was declined, he received an opportunity to teach the graduate course he’s been designing in his mind for years. Lenore, my vice-principal and mentor, suggested I quit, recover from my burnout, and work for her educational consulting business after Murtuza’s sabbatical. So here we are — Zee and I — searching for a dress I can take on our trip to India.
“Pretty,” Zee assesses, pushing a strand of her short hair behind her ear. Recently she’s begun to have opinions about the clothing I set out for her each day. Last week she rejected half of my choices, so today I’ve encouraged her to make her own selections. She’s wearing a yellow top with an emerald skirt and aquamarine socks, which doesn’t look as bad as it sounds. Me, I’ve matched my beige blouse to a pair of brown shorts. My sandals are a shade in between.
I try on the dress, Zee’s appraising eyes upon me. She cocks her head, her bangs falling into her face. “Mom, it fits, it looks good. But buy it in red, not black.” Her tone is slightly mocking, like a makeover show host’s. The sales clerk rushes to fetch one, taking orders from a girl just turned seven.
Later, on our way to the food court to share an order of Wong’s lemon chicken, Zee stops me at Forever 21. I protest but change my mind when I notice one of my students, Farah, behind the register. She just graduated, and used to walk the hallways like a fashion model. A few months ago, Principal Pereira stopped to scold her for showing too much cleavage. I’d disagreed with the judgment but couldn’t contradict Pereira. Farah reached into her backpack to layer a sweater over her blouse, but it was off again by the time she reached my classroom.
“Mom, look at these!” Zee points out a ten-dollar rack of frilly skirts. “Can I get one? You can get one, too, and we can match!” I call Farah over and she helps us find a size zero that fits loosely over Zee’s straight hips. Not even their largest size, a fourteen, can pass over mine.
“I just bought a size twelve dress at JC Penney,” I complain.
“Yeah, our sizes are super small. Sorry.” Farah shrugs.
“You can still get yours, Zee. It’s a good price.”
“No,” she pouts, “not if you can’t wear a matching one.”
“We’ll look for something while we’re in India,” I console, glad that my daughter still wants to look like me, at least sometimes.
In the evening, Murtuza and I meet on the couch for the married person’s evening ritual: TV. Along with a nightly bowl of microwave popcorn, we’ve been putting away two episodes of The Mindy Project after Zee is in bed. We guffaw and cringe in the same places; we are diasporic South Asian children of immigrants communing over the embarrassing life of a diasporic South Asian child of immigrants.
While the credits roll, Murtuza leans over, kisses my neck, and says, “Shall we turn it off now, or watch another episode?”
“Sure, Murti, we can turn it off,” I say, sensing his preference. After all, it is Saturday and 9:00 p.m. I’d prefer to hit play, to be distracted by someone else’s awkward world, but I appreciate my husband’s good-natured and consistent initiative-taking. My friends and I talk about our lacklustre sex lives and waning libidos, and I feel like I’m the lucky one amongst us. At least we can say we are still doing it, rather than being in couples’ therapy because we aren’t. Or breaking up because we aren’t. Or having extra-marital affairs because we aren’t.
I’d never cheated in my life, neither on a test nor a time sheet. When my naturopath directed me to eliminate sugar, dairy, wheat, and caffeine last year to improve my immune system’s functioning, I followed her instructions, to the letter, for sixty days.
How to make sense of the affair, then? It was just over four years ago, when Zee was three. Ian, a guy I once slept with, friend-requested me on Facebook. I recall experiencing a twinge of something, a flutter in my belly I could have interpreted as a prescient warning. I brushed away the sensation and thought, Nah, it’s just Facebook, and it’s been ages since we last saw each other. Plus, I’d heard from a friend in common that he’d moved to England. I thought we’d share a few likes, perhaps a little lurking. No problem.
At the time, I couldn’t admit to myself that it was cheating. There were no secret liaisons in two-and-half-star motels we’d paid for in cash. No late-night phone calls. No sexy photos. Leave it to me to have an affair without ever really having an affair.