“How’s that?” Simran asks, wishing she could leave this conversation. This house.
“You’re different from when you were younger. You used to be spunky and outspoken, and now, you’re just so eager to please!”
“That’s not true,” Simran says, resenting not just that she said that, but also that she might be right.
She wishes she could think of something clever to respond to her with. That always happens to her during uncomfortable conversations: in the moment, she freezes and then sometime in the following decade, she thinks of something perfect she could have said.
Mom steps in between them. “Charu, I need to speak with Simran. Now.”
She pulls on Simran’s wrists and guides her into the home office, with its mahogany desk and stone fireplace. There’s a twenty-year-old picture of Ronak and Simran with Santa Claus on the mantel.
Simran puts her hands on her hips. “Oh, so now you’re ready to tel—”
“YOU DROPPED OUT OF YOUR PSYCHOLOGY PROGRAM?”
Fuck.
“Who told you that?”
“Dr. Bond called the house. He was trying to reach you and was surprised I didn’t know what you did. But no, I’m a fool, thanks to my lying daughter. What have you been doing all this time? Obviously not studying.”
Simran keeps her face straight. She will not cry. It doesn’t matter how much confidence she saves up—just a few words from her mother can whittle her down into someone else, into nobody. “I was going to tell you when I came back from India and had figured things out.”
When Simran says nothing else, Mom asks, “WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING, THEN?!”
“I’ve just been figuring some things out,” Simran says.
It’s probably not the best time to tell her that over the past few weeks, in the midst of trying to write articles, Simran applied to a multitude of jobs, including a Starbucks barista, a hostess at Ilili, a candy woman at Dylan’s Candy Bar, and lastly, one of those human sandwiches for Subway. She almost laughs at the thought of her parents explaining the final one. Yes, our daughter went to Columbia and then became two pieces of bread. We couldn’t be more proud.
“Like what?” Mom challenges. “How we sacrificed so much to provide everything for you? What a mistake on our part.”
“I have never taken your sacrifices for granted,” Simran says. “You’re one to talk about secrets. You just dropped the bomb on me about leaving Dad!”
“That is not relevant right now. And my situation is different.”
“How?”
“Because you chose this, Simran. You’ve chosen your career and the person you’re going to marry and, frankly, everything else. Nothing was forced on you, and you were fully aware of what you signed up for.”
“So I’m not allowed to change my mind? Because I’m supposed to just swallow my misery like a real woman? Don’t you want me to do what I want?” Simran yells, not noticing the hush that’s washed over the house.
“Please. You don’t know what you want. You’re a child. You have no idea what it means to build a life.”
Mom turns around, faces the mantel, and avoids Simran’s childhood photos.
“You’re right. I don’t,” Simran says, raising her voice. “But it’s not like you’re easy to talk to. I’ve had to deal with so many things alone! And you think nothing was forced on me? Really? God, all you’ve ever expected is for me to be like you.”
Mom shifts toward her. There’s a brief drop in her face, as though she may be considering this. But then her features tighten again.
Simran opens the study door. It takes her a second to register everyone lined up in the hallway outside: Kunal’s family, her aunts, uncles, cousins, Ronak, Namita, and her dad. Nobody says a word. They just look at her as if she’s some foreign creature they’re trying to identify. Maybe because she is and always will be an outsider. Someone who doesn’t belong. The one to be embarrassed and entertained by.
Mom steps out after her.
“You dropped out of school?” Kunal asks. “How could you do that? And not tell me?”
“I wanted to. I really did. There’s a lot we need to talk about. We just haven’t had a chance.”
He puts his face in his palms, unable to look at her.
“It’s not worth it to throw away your life just to be defiant, Simran,” Dad says, tilting his head downward in the same way he used to when she was little and asked to eat dessert before dinner.
“You think this is some act of rebellion?”
“Isn’t that what it always is with you?” he asks, the calmness in his voice somehow stinging more than anger would. “You’re always trying to prove to us, to everyone, that you don’t have to listen.”
Her dad’s three brothers, each one heavier than the last, stand around him. It’s a running joke that they’re the living version of those Russian dolls that fit inside one another.
“She’ll come to her senses,” Kaushal Kaka says.
Rajan Kaka shrugs. “Maybe not.”
“I’m standing right here,” Simran says. “Please don’t talk about me in the third person.”
“You love psychology. It has everything you need,” says another voice whose owner she can’t find. Should she get a microphone? Stand behind a podium?
“No, it doesn’t,” Simran says. “And it never did. Maybe I can be something else, like a journalist.”
Everyone starts moving toward her and talking at the same time, as though she suggested becoming a stripper. She almost expects a stampede like the one in The Lion King.
What does that even mean, a journalist?
You’ll sit at your desk and make pretty sentences about strangers while your friends actually become something?
You are almost at the finish line for becoming a psychologist. It makes no sense to quit now.
You just need a break. What’s that word you American kids use? Sabbatical!
I thought she was over her nonsense. I told you she was aiming too high. She should have tried for something easier.
Poor Ranjit and Nandini. Just when they thought they could celebrate. . . .
“Look,” Simran says, facing the crowd. Now would be a good time to use one of those power poses she’s read about. “I’m sorry my news came out this way. But I do believe that I did the right thing. And I have to figure out the next steps on my own, in a way that feels honest to me.”