Nandini and Ranjit moved to America, where they both redid their residencies in order to practice. The first years were spent in a studio apartment in downtown Baltimore. Their car was broken into three times, and they slept on a mattress in the middle of the floor. After their thirty-six-hour shifts at the hospital, they would eat milk and cookies for dinner.
There weren’t many Indian families in Baltimore yet, and they couldn’t afford frequent phone calls to India, so Nandini wrote letters to her mom, sisters, and friends. She waited for their replies to arrive in sky blue envelopes that were coated with India’s damp and earthy scent. Sometimes she cried out of pure loneliness.
It started slowly; or maybe it was there all along. Ranjit was the first member of his family to have a furnished apartment. It was understood that he and Nandini would pay for everyone’s sandwiches at Subway and all of their nieces’ and nephews’ Six Flags tickets. When Nandini’s sisters moved to America years later, they sent their kids to stay at their house for months at a time. You’re better at keeping them in line than I am, they’d say, as if the compliment insulated the imposition.
Nandini’s position as one of the only three doctors at the family medicine practice allowed her to manage everyone’s healthcare. She could see people as her patients, had access to medication samples, and was home by seven every night. But she knew, just before Ronak was born, that she was ready for another job. Working in primary care had become corrosive. She wasn’t getting through to patients or practicing in the manner she envisioned. Maybe she could work at a teaching hospital, where she could conduct research and present at case conferences.
Ranjit held up his palm before she could finish. His family needed her to have stable hours. Nandini went over to their homes on a daily basis, to drop off cholesterol and samples of high blood pressure medication, examine a new rash on someone’s leg, or refer someone to a specialist. She knew Ranjit wanted to marry a doctor so she could take care of his family, while he could focus on being a surgeon. They were both doctors, but she was the one who handled any family health concerns, managed their children’s schedules, and took care of the housework while he could focus on becoming a boss, the owner of a practice. Even professional ambition could become a vector for subservience. The women in his family talked behind her back, wondering why he settled. But her job, their dependence on her, kept them in line toward her face.
All around her, Indian women in America were leading parallel lives. Becoming friends with their husbands’ friends’ wives. Crouching over stovetops while the men sat at the table, waiting to be served. Ironing button-down shirts from the clearance rack at Marshalls. Wiping down the kitchen counters and packing food into Tupperware containers after a party.
Nandini knew she was in a better position than other women. Ranjit was even-tempered and easygoing. A man who let both of their pasts recede into oblivion. They treaded through garden-variety marital issues: control, money, time.
By the time Ronak was born, she and Ranjit had established an understanding where she thought love would be. He became president of the local Indian American Association and was encouraged to think about the national position. They had guests stay over multiple times a week. They were interviewed in the local paper for embodying ideal Indian values. It was possible to start over, she realized, the days of her first marriage sometimes visiting her in faded flashes, as though they were memories within memories.
Ranjit had given her too much to be grateful for. Whenever she questioned her life, she forced herself to think about something else, but the doubt always lingered in the corner, its arms outstretched, waiting to be picked up again. She had two selves: one going through the daily motions, another that was always elsewhere. Over time, she realized it wasn’t Ranjit’s fault that their marriage felt like a dress that never quite fit. It was their marriage’s fault.
Nandini told herself she wouldn’t be one of those wives, like her mother or sisters. When the time was right, she would pursue her goals. She couldn’t accept the possibility that her aspirations were larger than her capabilities, that she would have to downsize her dreams and accept an ordinary life. No, once her duties were fulfilled, she would move on from all of this.
But everything changed after Simran. Ranjit’s family gossip about her no longer mattered. Nandini would be damned if her daughter suffered from a fate that resembled her own.
After a certain point, she forgot where her life ended and Simran’s life began. During the teenage years, she realized there were many Simrans: the one who was her best friend, the one she emotionally relied on, the one she worried for, the one she needed to guide. They slipped in and out of these roles with a simple mixture of words, intonations in opposing directions. It was only Simran who knew the lies Nandini told others, the truths she told herself. They exchanged glances across the table when Ranjit’s family was over. They laughed when Ranjit and Ronak couldn’t boil a pot of rice.
As much as Nandini liked to think of herself as an evolved mother, improved from the generations before her, she knew there were certain mistakes she repeated.
There were occasions when she considered telling Simran about her first marriage. Late at night after Ranjit and Ronak had gone to sleep and she and Simran sat in front of the television. On car rides back from school.
The confession lingered on her tongue but refused to enter the air in front of her. Even as a mother, she couldn’t be sure that her daughter would still accept her, if she revealed all of herself.
And now she had failed her, just when she thought things were in place. She thought she did everything right, but it didn’t matter. People always blamed the mother when kids weren’t doing well.
Maybe she should have stayed home more.
Maybe she shouldn’t have been so exhausted, so distracted.
Maybe she shouldn’t have let parts of herself dissolve, until there was nothing left.
Ten
Simran
The hospital reeks of rubbing alcohol and latex. Nurses rush in and out to check on the Nani’s pulse or tighten the white blood pressure cuff around her twiglike arm.
There’s a fluorescent tube light over the bed that gives the entire room a jaundiced tint.
Simran rests her head against the bed. Fiddles with her dupatta. Watches the clock on the faded wall. Tick, tick, tick.
Some amount of time later, Nani stirs under her sterile blue blanket and sits up in bed, noticing her surroundings. “What happened?”
“You weren’t waking up,” Simran says, afraid that if she clutches Nani’s hand too tightly, it’ll snap.
“I was tired,” Nani says, her voice barely audible over the monitor, with its continuous mountain-like designs that Kunal taught Simran represent heart rate and rhythm.
“It wasn’t just that,” Simran says.
“Ugh.” Nani presses her hands to her forehead. “I have a headache.”