One
Samira jiggled her key in the lock the same way she’d done over twenty years ago, when she came home from school. It felt strange to let herself into her childhood home in Dandenong, the heart of Melbourne’s southeast ethnic hub, especially after having lived in California for so long, but her mom never heard when anybody knocked. Kushi would be in the kitchen with the stove exhaust fan on full blast to absorb the cooking smells while watching Hindi news on high volume or listening to jangling bhangra music.
The ancient lock finally clicked, and she turned the key and knob simultaneously, bracing for the inevitable. Her mother may not have seen her for five years, but Kushi would pretend like nothing had happened, and the first order of business would be finding her another husband candidate—despite being partially responsible for Samira fleeing her home city a decade ago after her mom’s first choice turned out to be a lying, cheating sleaze.
During their frequent phone calls, she didn’t have the heart to tell Kushi to leave her alone. The few times she’d been firm with her mom over the years resulted in crying jags that went on forever or guilt trips insisting Kushi would be dead before she held a grandchild.
Samira had no intention of getting married now or anytime in the near future and certainly not to a guy of Kushi’s choosing, some Indian doctor or lawyer straight off the plane from Chennai or Kolkata or Delhi who’d insist she be proficient in cooking him aloo gobi and parathas and rava dosa but could barely turn on a stove himself. Been there, done that, had the divorce decree to prove it.
Dad had been her buffer, and she missed him every day. Ronald Broderick, the quiet academic who’d traveled to India on a gap year and fallen in love with Kushi Singh, a progressive student of architecture in Mumbai but originally from Melbourne, ensured Samira had grown up a hybrid of two cultures: with her dad’s laid-back American spirit and her mom’s traditional Indian values.
She’d always managed to tread a fine line between both, never telling her folks about being bullied at school for being a “half-and-half” or a “mongrel.” Born in Melbourne, she was Aussie through and through. She loved Australian rules football and Vegemite and couldn’t let a week pass without a Tim Tam Slam, but she felt just as comfortable eating with her hands and attending Indian dances at the local town halls. The best of both worlds. Now with her dad gone, she felt increasingly stifled by her mom’s maneuverings despite the Pacific Ocean separating them.
The fragrant aroma was the first thing she noticed as she pushed the door open. The comforting familiarity of onion, garlic, and ginger being sautéed in ghee, along with ground cumin, coriander, turmeric, fenugreek, and garam masala, filled the house. The smell permeated everything, from the curtains to the blinds, and had for the last forty years since her parents moved in. Growing up, her mom had whipped up Indian feasts for people living on their street, and their house had been filled with Sudanese, Sri Lankan, and Lebanese neighbors. Since her husband’s death, Kushi rarely mentioned them. All she could talk about was the disgrace of divorce and her only child being three years off forty without procreating.
“Hey, Mom, it’s me,” she called out as she slipped off her sandals at the door and padded up the hallway to the kitchen. Her fingers trailed along the ancient wallpaper, gold-embossed elephants on a cream background, the instinctive reaction the same as when she’d been a child cavorting up this hallway after school.
Back then, she’d been eager to get to the kitchen, knowing her mom would have plenty of snacks laid out on the tiny wooden table tucked into a corner. Mango lassi, the sweetness of the fruit combining perfectly with the tart homemade yogurt, carrot halwa, and almond barfi, the Indian sweets made predominantly from milk and sugar she could never resist.
Today, her footsteps slowed as she neared the kitchen. Guilt tightened her chest. She’d stayed away too long. She blamed her mother for too much. She felt like a failure despite kicking ass with a booming physical therapy practice in Los Angeles.
She’d felt the same sense of inadequacy five years ago when she’d last set foot in here, and it looked like nothing had changed.
When would she get past this?
Rubbing her chest, she took a few calming breaths and invoked patience. Her mom would never change. She had to deal with it.
With three strides, she entered the kitchen and spied Kushi by the stove as expected. While Kushi tidied the spice rack she would’ve raided to create her culinary masterpieces, it gave Samira time to study her. A few extra pounds graced her mom’s five-foot-two frame, smoothing out the scant wrinkles that creased her face, lending her an ageless quality Samira hoped she would inherit. A new shade of gray streaked her glossy black hair, which was woven into a thick plait that hung halfway down her back. And her signature gold bangles adorned both wrists, jangled as she hummed a vaguely familiar Bollywood hit.
Samira loved the musical clinking of those bangles. It signified warmth and peace and calm: Kushi all over. Except when she was meddling in her love life.
“Hi, Mom.”
Kushi glanced up from the stove, her face easing into a beaming smile that made Samira’s eyes sting and her throat tighten.
“Just in time, betee. I’ve made your favorites.” She bustled toward Samira, her voluminous sari billowing like a giant blue shade sail before enveloping her in a hug.
Samira wrapped her arms around her mom and lowered her head to kiss the top of hers, fragrant with coconut oil, a smell that never failed to invoke comfort, a smell of home.
Samira knew her mom begged for blessings from Shiva, Lakshmi, Vishnu, Durga, and whatever other Hindu deities would listen to her to keep her safe and happy, because Kushi told her during phone calls that went on forever. Though she’d never admit it, those phone calls kept her grounded. If only Kushi could lose the obsessive focus on her unwed state, their relationship would have a better chance of repairing.
She missed her mom. Missed the closeness they’d shared in her childhood. Back then, her mom had been her champion, her best friend. Then Kushi had pushed her toward Avi, and everything had imploded.
Hating how thoughts of her ex-husband infiltrated every interaction with her mom, she lowered her arms.
“Hope you’re hungry, betee.” Kushi released her and waddled back to the stove, where she removed pot lids with a flourish. “Rasam, spinach with paneer, and okra curry.”
Samira’s stomach rumbled, and saliva pooled in her mouth. No meal came close to her mom’s home cooking. “Let me help.”
She ladled rice onto two plates, then dished the delicious food over it and poured the rasam into a cup. She had loved drinking the fragrant Indian broth flavored with tamarind and spices this way ever since she’d been a kid.
However, they’d barely sat at the table and Samira had taken a sip before Kushi said, “I want you to meet someone.”