“How can it be as simple as love, Reema? When it’s really deciding between him and my parents’ health? I can’t make that choice! It kills me to be away from him, like my heart has holes and is deteriorating. But it kills me to turn my back on my parents, too. I had to choose. And my heart would’ve broken either way. Look at what happened to my mom last time. How would she survive that again? I can’t do that to her.”
“That wasn’t your fault. It was the gossiping, your aunts.”
I turned toward her, my back rigid, and hit the pillow in my lap with balled fists, white knuckles, tears brimming, my skin flaring hot. “Of course it was my fault! I did that to her. I’m supposed to protect my parents, and instead I put her in the hospital.”
“It wasn’t you.”
I was shaking out of control when I replied, my voice cracking, “It was the stress and ostracizing and cruelty she received because of my actions. When she collapsed, it didn’t matter if their attacks were racist or uncalled-for or wrong. It didn’t matter if I was young and didn’t know how to stand up for them. The only thing that mattered was that it got to her, it hurt her, it damaged her. That was the scariest time of my life and it would’ve never happened had I not dated Daniel. So yes, it is my fault.”
Suddenly, my face was wet with hot tears, my entire body quivering with sobs.
“Shh. Shh,” Reema whispered and crawled toward me on the couch, pulling me into her.
I rushed to wipe the tears from my face. But there were so many, falling and vanishing into Reema’s collar, that I couldn’t keep up.
I shuddered, trying to compose myself. “None of this matters because the fact is that I did what was best for my parents. And I would do it again if I had to.”
Chapter Seven
That evening, I’d managed to pull myself together long enough to get to mandir in time for the weekly Sunday program. I wasn’t so into religion that I conducted classes or dances or performed in plays or anything of that nature. Heck, I didn’t even care to set up for things, and cooking? My reputation as the only woman around who couldn’t cook rice preceded me. That, along with my history of having dated Daniel, clung to me wherever I went, so the judgmental looks continued.
It was daunting. Draining. But leaving the community wasn’t a simple thing to do. It meant cutting ties with a lot of people, family even. It meant not being invited to gatherings and feeling more awkward than usual at festivities. There was no separation of religion and culture here. Community was either all in or not at all.
I couldn’t break my mom’s heart that way. My parents loved this place. They felt this was their entire connection to being Indian. When my fois had seen me and Daniel six years ago, holding hands and kissing in a park, they had swerved into vicious-beast mode. Not to “protect my name,” but to tear my parents down. They were, in the nicest words possible, the most heinous aunts imaginable. Papa’s sisters were nothing short of witches, if not, well, a much stronger word that rhymed with “witch.”
My fois would be here tonight, since they were as devout as they were hypocritical. No wonder they were so close with Liya’s assaulter. Frankly, I hoped they all got what was due to them.
I slipped off my shoes at the main entrance and walked across cold marble floors.
There were plenty of things I enjoyed here. Seeing friends, detaching from everything going on outside of these doors, meditation, seeing my parents and their friends, the rise of my mom’s auntie squad, appreciating shimmering décor, festivities, and food. Mandir was like life, a mix of joy and hardships.
As I searched the room for Mummie, I spotted one of my aunts.
My body turned rigid and fraught at the sight of Kanti Foi in the distance, merrily greeting people and chatting with the younger girls. She taught Gujarati class and dance class and led the girls in plays. She also worked seven days a week. Where did she find the time to gossip?
Part of me wanted to be polite, to show that she had no effect on me. A larger part wanted to drag her onto a stage and play a PowerPoint presentation of all the horrendous things she’d done. There were so many. The presentation could take hours.
It would begin with how she tried to turn Mummie into a servant in India when my parents had first married. Papa was still in college then and away for most of the day while Mummie had succumbed to a life of servitude, of cleaning and cooking for the rest of the family, taking her meal last if there were leftovers, and starving if it meant making sure that I’d eaten when I was a small child.
The presentation would chronicle how bitter Kanti Foi was toward my dad, dragging his name through the mud when he was nothing but sweet and kind and wanted to be a positive aspect in the community. In fact, his favorite saying was “Don’t focus on negativity, but instead be a positive force.”
Then we’d move on to how terribly the fois treated my mother, inciting eruption-worthy levels of anger in my dad. They always spoke badly of Mummie behind her back, twisting her words and actions. In order to be friends with Mummie, an auntie had to have a strong backbone to take the lashing. Which was why my mom had a small but mighty squad, whom I was eternally thankful for.
Of course, the presentation wouldn’t end there. Because when Kanti Foi had seen me with Daniel, she didn’t take me aside and lecture me on how improper it was for a girl to date an American, or to date at all, as was the custom in my family. She didn’t talk to my parents to intervene in order to “save my reputation.” Nah. That wasn’t how Foi played her game. She went straight to the gossip mill. Whatever naive admiration I’d had for my aunt had been shredded the day I walked into mandir and was hit by an agonizing, blaring abundance of hate, racism, and gossip.
I’d never felt more helpless because I’d made things worse by standing up to my fois in a culture where respect for elders was prime. I went from being a “slut” to being a disobedient disgrace.
Liya had been my rock. Reema was my buffer. Sana was my calm. And somehow Brandy hadn’t forsaken me and her grandparents hadn’t abandoned me. They didn’t know the entire truth, and I didn’t deserve them.
My cousin twirled in her new outfit, the princess of the mandir. She had it all: beauty, brains, friends, respect, and an unsullied reputation. She was being pursued by a nice guy, a dentist at that. He walked up beside her and smiled, his hand brushing her lower back in an imperceptible yet forbidden touch, considering where we were. She flirted and tapped his chest.
If having had physical intimacy with Daniel made me a “slut,” then well, I supposed we had two sluts in our family. But she was Kanti Foi’s daughter. She was untouchable. I wouldn’t wish upon anyone what Foi had put us through, but well, I was also sort of petty. It took everything in me not to lash out at Foi and expose her daughter. Eye for an eye.
Yeah. Pettiness wasn’t becoming. Anger wasn’t kind. But accountability was needed.
Ahead, Mummie chatted away with an auntie. Mummie stood out in a vibrant red-and-green salwar kameez that brought out the amber hues in her eyes. She was one of the few older women who rarely wore a sari. Everyone in the auntie legion around us wore nice silks and chiffons in the wraparound style, while my mom was decked out in loose trousers and a long top. Like mother, like daughter. Pants to the end.