The house was empty when she returned. Only the strains of Pandit Ravi Shankar’s sitar played on their Bose surround sound system. She peeped out of the kitchen door, into the yard.
“Cyrus?” she called.
He didn’t respond. She scanned the tree house. She thought she heard faint voices from up there. Then she caught sight of a sari pallu through the window—a splash of yellow inside their fantasy place—inside the love nest Cyrus had built for Tara and Cyrus.
She quickly walked back to the family room, taking the couch, sitting upright, tossing her purse and Ruth’s brownies carelessly on the floor. She crossed her arms across her chest to stop its shivering, to stop the complete loss of control that was building inside her, the urge to run up the tree house with her chef’s knife and plunge it into the woman who had dared to violate her private space.
He walked in alone after some minutes had passed, looking his usual ebullient self. They had stretched like hours, the minutes she had waited for him. Again and again, weirdly, their own private conversation about making little stars, a conversation they’d had in the tree house, had played in her mind, like a stuck recorder.
“Hey, I didn’t hear you come in. Munmun just left.” He stooped down to give her a peck on her forehead. “How’s my girlfriend, Ruth?”
She resisted the urge to strike him. “What was Munmun doing in our tree house?”
“She said she was dying to see it.” He sat beside her, draped a casual arm around the back of the couch, fingers touching her arm. “I didn’t think you’d mind.”
“Really, Cyrus? The tree house is our personal space. Why would you take her up there?”
“You gave Devika and Samaresh a tour the other day,” he reminded her.
That was different, she wanted to tell him. You did not feel threatened by their visit. “Do as you please,” she said instead, picking up her purse and the pack of brownies. She heard him say sorry, that he didn’t think she’d mind, that he’d never take anybody else up to their tree house ever again.
She let him talk to her back, as she walked with purpose to the kitchen sink, and dumped Ruth’s brownies into the trash can under it.
Chapter 25
She was vaguely aware that she had been there, in the blackness, for a while. She thought she heard her name being called out. She opened her eyes, tried to move, but her body was tied down to the bed. She heard Amma’s voice near her head. Then she appeared, young, her face bright, yellow sari pallu blowing in the wind.
“Tara, forgive us, angel. It’s time for us to leave,” she said. She wasn’t alone. Cyrus was with her. They were on the train that was pulling out of Mangalore station. They waved at her, her young Amma and the present-day Cyrus. She tried to catch a glimpse of their faces as she ran behind them, but it was so dusty. No, it was not dust, it was smoke, huge gusts of dark smoke, billowing into her eyes. Not again, she cried. She had to stop them. Tara struggled with all her might to open her eyes, but they were shut tightly. She had lost them again.
She woke up with a start. She was alone in her pretty bedroom, gasping, wet with sweat. The smell of fried eggs filled her with relief. It was a Monday morning, and Cyrus was probably downstairs fixing breakfast. Her hands shook as she pushed her damp hair out of her face, as she rubbed her face. She had not had an episode of sleep paralysis since she had left Sanjay.
She cleaned their house all day, because she could not write, could not come up with story ideas. Her nightmare had seemed so real, as did the fear appended to it. But what bothered her more was the fact that it had come back again, invaded her cozy world. She missed the calm of her two years at Sanctuary Hills, where she had rebuilt her life from scratch; where she had firm control over her thoughts, her feelings. Where every day had been about taking a step forward. She wondered now if she had rushed into another relationship before she was ready for it; if she should have given more time for her lacerations to heal; if she should have enjoyed a bit longer the bliss of being self-sufficient, self-worthy.
She fell prey to overthinking as she dusted the blinds, the thoughts returning even as she attempted to push them away. Had Cyrus been faithful to his two former wives? He had been so casual about breaking up with his girlfriend, Giana. Why have a girlfriend if she meant nothing to him? How many other women had he scored with? How easily he had adopted the American dating culture, while she had not so much as gone out with a guy until marriage. They had such different attitudes about sex.
She paused to gaze out the window, to psychoanalyze her dark thoughts—were they justified, or was she overreacting? She simply couldn’t tell; she wasn’t an outside observer. She contemplated having a conversation with him. But what was she going to say? That she didn’t like him enjoying another woman’s company? She didn’t want him to play the role of Jahan? She wanted Munmum out? All these options meant ruining the fundraiser. So unreasonable. She sounded like a basket case jealous wife even framing those questions in her head.
On Friday, he called her at four o’clock to tell her he had to stay behind for happy hour with clients visiting from San Francisco. She watched an entire Bollywood movie that evening without seeing a single scene. Was it really clients from San Francisco or the Odissi dancer who occupied vast tracts of her mind these days? That night, when he stretched an arm out to hold her, she moved away, rolling over, her back to him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I am tired,” she replied.
In the darkness, she felt the gentle pressure of his warm hands move across her strained shoulder, down her back. “Does that feel good?”
“Go to sleep, Cyrus,” she said coldly. “Good night.”
Her eyes misted as she became aware of the invisible wall between them, slicing them from one to two separate individuals. She avoided him in the morning, getting out of the house before he returned from his yoga session at Unity church. She headed to Macy’s at Perimeter Mall, where she spent hours pushing clothes in the clearance racks forward and backward, ultimately buying a bright red blouse she knew she would never wear.
For the rest of the weekend, and every weekend thereafter, she stayed out of the house. She met the sound and light technician at the food court of the Indian mall, went over to the press off North Druid Hills to get delivery of the flyers. She drove all day long, stopping at every Indian temple, grocery store, and restaurant, dropping a handful of flyers at every location or attaching them to glass doors or walls as other event organizers had done. Fortunately, she had designed the flyers herself. It was the faces of the children the fundraiser would benefit that smiled back at her; not the stars of the show holding hands.
He had become aware of the shift, the night she had moved away from him. “We miss you at rehearsals; please stay a while,” he implored several times.
“I have things to take care of,” she told him the first time. The other times, she ignored his request. “Is something wrong?” he asked her again and again. When she merely shook her head, he tried hard to lighten the atmosphere with his banter. Let’s meditate together, he suggested. Every time, she came up with an excuse.
On a Wednesday, just ten days before the show, he called from work to tell her that he had heard from Munmun. She wanted to adopt some of their children. He hadn’t conveyed the news casually. She had detected a certain preparedness in his speech, as if he had known she might not take kindly to the news.