As she searched the grounds for him, Ayesha imagined herself running around wild haired, calling his name. Cathy from Wuthering Heights, a ghost who’d lost her mind to an impossible love. Then the sound of his laughter reached her. She chased it, rounding the corner to the industrial kitchens at the back of the property. The aroma of spices and fresh bread baking hooked into her taste buds and heightened the hunger inside her.
“You just saved us, Amit,” she overheard Raj Uncle say as he pumped Emmitt’s hand. “Total disaster averted.”
“It was nothing,” Emmitt responded, voice heavy with feeling. “How could I let Bela and Eddie’s big day be anything but perfect?”
Ayesha found her hand pressed to her heart.
“Oy! There’s the lovely maid of honor!” Raj Uncle exclaimed.
Emmitt turned, relief flooding his eyes as they met hers. His gaze did a smitten sweep of her body, from her exposed shoulders to the bare curve of her waist. Yes, she’d dressed like Old Ayesha, unable to don the modest sari New Ayesha had planned on. She’d dug into the forgotten recesses of the closet she’d once been obsessed with.
When Amma had seen her, instead of critical she’d gotten teary eyed. If the good doctor was to be credited with this, Ayesha couldn’t care less. Because heat and longing flooded Emmitt’s speaking eyes.
He was wearing an apron over a deep-blue raw silk kurta and a hairnet. Eyes still locked on Ayesha, he pulled it off, and hair flopped across his forehead.
In the periphery of her vision, Ayesha barely registered Raj Uncle leaving to join the guests who’d rushed to the food like starved herds.
Then they were alone, and he was pressing her against the wall and their lips were meeting. Hungry. Seven years of hunger hungry. A night of restless dreams hungry. A morning of searching for one glimpse hungry.
Their kissing was long and rough, deep and gentle. A coming home. A falling into place.
“Ayesha.” He breathed her name. A prayer. A wish for an impossible thing.
“I couldn’t find you,” she said, fear digging claws into her heart.
“I’m sorry.” His voice was ragged, his eyes soft with love. “The pav order for the pav bhaji didn’t come in, and Dr. Gupte needed someone to shuffle the staff so they could help me make two thousand pav.”
Bela’s perfect day would have been ruined without the buns that went with her favorite vegetable mash.
The whole weight of what having him back meant hit her at once, the impact almost knocking her down. “Why are you making this so hard? How will I let you go if you do things like this?”
“You’re not letting me go.” The purpose in his voice shook away what was left of her reverie.
“I have to. You promised you’d give me what I wanted.”
“That is not what you want.”
“It doesn’t matter what I want!” Suddenly anger was a flood inside her. She was hot with it. Her life was not her own. It would never again be. This, what she’d had of him, would have to be enough.
She disengaged from his arms, but the pain in his eyes stabbed her. “Don’t do this, Emmitt. Don’t hang on to the past.”
“It’s not the past. And I’m not the only one hanging on. I’m just the only one willing to admit that I don’t have a choice in the matter. I never have.”
“You do have a choice. Don’t you see? If we were meant to be, what happened to separate us would never have happened.”
“Is that what this is? You punishing yourself so you can make sense of what happened to Ajay?” He was so comfortable saying her brother’s name. Amma and she hardly ever said it.
What happened to Ajay was never going to make sense. “I can’t do this. Don’t make me choose between your happiness and Amma’s.”
“What about your happiness?”
Her laugh tasted bitter in her mouth. For someone who could read her thoughts, couldn’t he see how she couldn’t be that selfish anymore?
“No. You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to make this about your amma’s happiness. You most certainly don’t get to make this about my happiness.”
“Then what is it about?”
“This is about you, Ayesha!”
“You’re right. It is. I’m the one who doesn’t know how to do this. How to be with you without losing everything.”
He pushed a curl that had sprung free of her updo behind her ear, eyes too gentle, voice too gentle, touch too gentle. “Everything?” he whispered. “Tell me what that means.”
She wanted to shove him she was so angry. But brutal exhaustion made her limp. Her father’s smile, her brother’s laugh. The joy she’d taken for granted when she was with them. The safety she’d counted on. Thinking about it made strength drain from her limbs.
He cupped her elbow, steadying her. “You asked me to leave once, and I left. I thought it was the only way to ease your grief. To give you some sense of control. I told myself I was doing it for you. But I wasn’t. It was my own grief I couldn’t bear. My guilt for still being here when Ajay was gone, still having you, having all the things he loved. In the end, I had to face that I would never be happy—never even be truly alive—if I kept running from myself.”
A nauseated feeling churned her insides at his insinuation. “You think I’m being a coward.”
“You’ve lost the people you loved most. I would not call your fear cowardice. But it is fear. And guilt. That’s not what Ajay would have wanted. Not from me and not from you.”
“But Ajay’s not here, is he? To tell us what he wants.”
“But we’re still here, baby.” He wiped the tears she didn’t realize she’d been spilling. “I’ve spent the past seven years trying to figure out why the hell I’m on this earth. And all I’ve been able to figure out is that whatever my reason for being is, I don’t want to find it without you. My existence only makes sense when I’m with you, Ayesha.”
Her heart felt like a letter left out in the rain, ruined, unsalvageable.
“Neither of us will ever be who we want to be without the other. You know this. We’ve tried running. We’ve tried removing points of weakness by pushing away love, by crushing our dreams, swallowing our words. The pain of what we lost is still here, isn’t it? And the fear of losing again is impossible to live around. The only way is to make peace with it. Sometimes I imagine Ajay laughing at us for sticking our heads in the sand.”
She could hear it now, her brother’s hyena laugh, as though nothing in the world was funnier than what was cracking him up in that moment.
Emmitt seemed to hear it too, because he smiled. “Ajay was the happiest person I’ve ever known. He loved fiercely. He never let fear guide him. He lived. Honestly, wholeheartedly. Imagine if he hadn’t, how much worse of a tragedy his death would have been.”
The truth in his words was like the sunshine bearing down on them. Harsh enough to burn skin. But there was another truth she couldn’t ignore. “You know what would make the tragedy worse? Leaving Amma with no one.”
He cupped her cheek. He couldn’t stop touching her. She couldn’t stop soaking it up.
“Have you considered that maybe you’ve already left your amma with no one? I can’t imagine that this shell of yourself you’re trying to be is the daughter she worked so hard to raise. I can’t imagine that you being miserable is what your amma wants.”