Six months into their marriage, Nandini noticed something in their bank statements. Money was being sent to an address in southern New Jersey every month. When she confronted Ranjit, he didn’t even bother covering it up. Instead, he sat next to her and told her about his first love, a Muslim girl, and how they had had to break things off because her family threatened to disown her. He knew his own family would have never approved of her, so in some sense, the decision was easy, until the girl missed her next two menstrual cycles.
The girl’s family married her off in weeks. She was able to pass the baby off as her new husband’s. They settled in New Jersey, where Ranjit followed so he could visit the baby. The girl’s husband, a rotund fellow who was ten years older than her, worked two jobs: pumping gas and tending the register at Kmart. Ranjit began sending them money every month, which the girl passed off as tokens from family back home. One month after the baby turned five, the entire family died in a car accident.
She shouldn’t have felt betrayed after he told her. After all, who was she to hold someone’s past against them? And as much as it bothered her, she always had to remind herself of what they both needed: a chance to start over.
“How many times are we going to have this conversation?” Ranjit asks.
Nandini squeezes her hands together. “You’re right. My fault. I should be used to us overlooking your past. How dare I ever bring this up?”
“You and I know that we both let things go from the past,” Ranjit says now.
“You can hardly compare the situations!” Nandini says. “I can’t believe you would even mention that now.”
“I can’t believe I thought we may actually have a peaceful night tonight . . . for once,” he says. “But no, things just had to be taken in this direction.”
She wants to laugh when she remembers that tonight is the night she was going to tell Ranjit the things she has been keeping from him for months.
She considers stopping him as he paces toward the kitchen, pours milk into a sky blue mug, and puts it in the microwave. Nandini had observed this part of her husband’s bedtime routine during their first week of marriage, when they were still strangers, waiting for their inevitable intimacy to arrive like a package on the front porch.
But then she glimpses him drinking his warm milk, like a child. There was no use in hurting him tonight. They were too heated already. Her husband may irritate her, but he isn’t vindictive, deserving to be hurt. Her news will have to wait.
She walks up the stairs and slams the guest room door. It is hard to imagine that their first apartment was smaller than this bedroom. They never had heat or air conditioning. When Nandini told the management company about a roach infestation, they told her she was lucky not to have to worry about rats. Their neighbor’s son went missing after school one day. Another was involved in a shooting. Ronak took his first steps in that dump, too young and carefree to notice his surroundings.
Her phone lights up.
Can you talk right now? Is it too late?
She walks into the bathroom and studies herself in the mirror in the way people sometimes do, taking note of fresh shadows and emerging gray roots.
After she dials the number, she sits on the floor and waits for his voice.
She’s finally ready.
Seven
Simran
Kunal’s phone goes straight to voicemail.
“Hey, I really need to talk to you. Call me back as soon as you get this. Please.”
Simran hangs up and curses at herself for leaving the type of vague, ominous message she hates receiving.
She brightens her phone screen and dials Mom’s phone number.
Mom picks up after the first ring.
“Mom, can we talk?” Simran asks.
“Yes.” She pauses. “I need to talk to you, too, Simran. There’s something we should discuss as a family.”
“Uh, about what, exactly?”
“You should come home tonight. Text Dad and me when you’re on the train. One of us will pick you up from the station.”
“Can you be more specific about wh—”
Mom hangs up.
Hours later, she’s at the train station with her Sole Society gray overnight bag, which is stuffed with the essentials: granny panties, Cookie Monster pajamas, Snickers bars, and a decoy psychology textbook in case anyone “accidentally” peeks into her bag, the way Mom used to “accidentally” stumble into Simran’s diaries while she was at school.
Mom is already waiting in her silver Mercedes. Simran stands still and observes her laughing into her cell phone.
She deserves so much better than Simran for a daughter. Each step toward the car emits another truth:
Step: I’m a fuckup.
Step: My career no longer exists.
Step: Kunal and I need to take a break.
Simran knocks on the passenger’s-side window. Mom glances up and shakes her head, the way she used to when Simran would wake her up from her power naps between hospital shifts. Mom’s finger darts to end the call.
Simran climbs inside, tosses her bag into the back seat, and motions to her phone. “You didn’t have to hang up.”
“It’s fine,” Mom says, waving her hand. Simran catches a whiff of the lavender lotion she keeps in the car. “How was the train ride, beta?”
“Fine. Who were you talking to?”
“Just someone from work.”
“Okay,” Simran says, focusing on her mother’s face, her long slim nose, which she inherited, waiting for her to elaborate.
There’s no way Mom can know about school or Kunal, not just because Nani wouldn’t have told her, but because unlike Dad, Mom is incapable of keeping things that piss her, off all to herself. Ever since Ronak and Simran were little, Mom preferred the confront-as-soon-as-possible method, while Dad could let his anger settle down.
They pull away from the station and drive deeper into suburbia, with its tree-lined streets and wide sidewalks. Simran’s parents chose Livingston for its good schools even though it lengthened their commutes to work. They pass her elementary school’s playground. It still has the same green monkey bars and tilted tire swing. Simran thinks back to who she was then. Did she ever see any of this coming? When was the moment that she veered off path?
* * *
— —
Mom starts humming to herself, seemingly unaware that Simran is in the car with her. Her hair is in waves across her shoulders instead of in its usual tired bun. Simran looks at her the way a stranger might. Her slim build, thick hair, and large, almond-shaped eyes. When she was younger and they’d visit the city, men whistled at Mom whenever they passed construction sites. Simran learned how to flip them off.