I know you try, but it’s not enough. I’m sorry. Her eyes had brimmed with tears and accusation.
Rico’s own lack of sadness at those words had felt like a hole inside him. Then there had been the relief. The worst part was that Myra had seen the relief and it had multiplied the accusatory hurt in her eyes.
What you feel for me is fondness, not love. Love hurts. I can’t hurt you, no matter what I do.
She had been right. He liked being with her, but losing her hadn’t shattered him. He hadn’t asked her why it was important for her to be able to hurt him. Truth was, nothing had hurt him in a very long time other than winning and losing matches.
Sitting up, he pulled out his phone. Before he could think it through, he texted Myra. Did I say Congratulations?
Maybe he should’ve cared what her fiancé thought about Rico texting her in the middle of the night, but Myra wasn’t a bone to fight over and Rico certainly didn’t give a shit about a man if he didn’t trust the person he was with. Myra had insisted they stay friends. He was friends with all his exes. The friendship had always been the best part of the relationships anyway. As was proven by the fact that he was godfather to Ryka’s baby girl, a commitment he took very seriously and an honor he was grateful for.
There was only one ex he hadn’t stayed friends with.
Myra’s response buzzed in immediately. Several times. Aren’t you in America? Isn’t it three in the morning there?
Zee’s bachelor party’s just getting started.
She sent him a smiley face followed by a few dancing-lady emojis, beer mugs, and, inexplicably enough, monkeys.
Are you happy? he wanted to ask her. With this new guy?
Because he wanted happiness for her.
We set a date, she texted, before he embarrassed himself by asking that question. September 30th in Tuscany. You have to be there.
Of course. I’m happy for you.
I know.
Dots danced on the screen as Myra typed more, then erased what she’d typed. For a long time he stared at the phone as dots appeared and disappeared but no new text came in.
Zee shouted Rico’s name from the dance floor and the guys raised their glasses to Rico across the room.
The room in Nevada.
Right next to California. Where Rico had been the unhappiest he’d ever been in his life. But also where he had still known how to be happy.
His best mate gyrated around the dance floor. Zee’s Punjabi Indian half always showed up in his dancing. He turned everything into a bhangra, shoulders popping, feet thumping. The wild beat of the dance captured Zee’s joy perfectly. He knew how to be himself without shutting any part of himself down. He knew how to be with someone he loved without holding himself back. He hadn’t lost that ability.
The skin under Rico’s brace itched. They couldn’t get the darned thing off him soon enough.
He imagined the freedom of having his body back. Of being able to run and bend and move. For all the pain and discomfort, the surgery was going to give him that.
He raised his glass to his wildly dancing teammates. Maybe it was time to stop wishing for things to happen magically and do the work to fix what was keeping him from what he wanted. A family, love, the ability to feel. Maybe it was time to finally leave Ashna Raje behind.
Chapter Four
Ashi hated the idea of being left behind. There was this thing that happened in her chest when Mamma was about to leave, like giant hands were crushing her ribs. The need to stretch her neck and gulp air pushed at her, but she couldn’t move because she was hiding.
Hiding behind curtains was never the smartest idea, but Ashi had found that you could hide anywhere without the fear of being found when no one cared about looking for you.
Still, she shrank into herself in her little alcove in the bay window of Baba’s den.
“I will never let you use a child to tie me down.” Mamma’s voice had a way of getting deeper when she was angry. How many times had Ashi heard her mother say that the stereotype of the shrill woman had to be broken? That it was something the patriarchy used to prove us too emotional to care for ourselves? “Not that this marriage needs more deadweight to suffocate me.”
Ashi’s hand tightened around the curtain that hid her from her screaming parents. Actually, they weren’t screaming, at least not yet, just hissing at each other in those muted whispers that adults used when they wanted to scream but couldn’t.
“How can you say such a thing? How can you look at Ashi’s face and think such a thing?” Baba sounded how he always sounded around Mamma—nothing like himself but like a spoiled child who was trying to sound grown-up.
Ashi loosened her grip on the fabric. Having the curtain collapse on her head would certainly give her away. If Mamma and Baba knew she had heard them, she’d never be able to face them again. The shame of knowing that her mother had never wanted her was bearable only so long as no one knew that Ashi knew. Shame had a way of multiplying when other people saw it. It made you naked and gross.
“This isn’t about Ashi. Stop trying to use her. You put us in this situation. And now I get to make all the sacrifices. I get to be the mother who disrupts her life yet again, and you get your excuse to go off the rails and do what you do,” Mamma said in her deepened voice. The slit between the thick velvet curtains exposed her in slivers, making her look as though she were being reflected in a broken mirror.
“In the end, that’s all you want,” Mamma continued. “To be His Highness Bram Raje, free to do whatever the hell your rotten heart desires. Don’t pretend you care about Ashi. Anyone with half a brain can see that you only want her here so you can make me look bad. Everyone knows that the child babysits you more than the other way around. She’s twelve, Bram. Have some shame!”
“You’re abandoning your twelve-year-old again and you want me to have shame? At least I’ve never left her.”
“Is getting drunk and passing out not abandoning her? Your brother and his wife had to take her in and you want me to have shame? This is the problem. You should have married a stupid woman, or at least one who lapped up your overentitled crap.”
“If I’m such a bad father, you should stay here and protect her from me.”
Mamma’s hand went to her forehead, her gold bangles crashing together on her wrist. Even in America Mamma never bothered to remove her bangles or the big red bindi she wore in the center of her forehead. She always dressed like she was in the Sripore palace, no matter where she was. Always in her starched white saris, with her waist-length hair in a bun at her nape. She didn’t care about fitting in or about not looking foreign, the way Ashna did when she dressed for school every day.
“How low can you fall, Bram? When will you stop using people this way? I don’t leave her here with you, God knows I’m not that heartless. I leave her with Shree and Mina. Your brother and his wife are better parents to her than either one of us anyway. I’m the one who has to make the choice between my child and my work. You don’t. You get to have both. You don’t lose anything. Men never do. Your hands always stay clean.”
“I lose you. I want you. And I don’t get to keep you. I love you.” Baba’s slurring always got more pronounced as these arguments escalated and their voices got louder. The glass of scotch on the table between them wobbled as Ashi’s vision blurred with tears.