He stared at her hands for a long breath, then met her eyes again. “I went to India.”
What? She sat up. That she hadn’t expected.
He smiled. An all-out smile. He’d loved taking her by surprise. Well, success, Emmitt!
“To Mangalore, and Goa. Worked at restaurants there. Really immersed myself in the local cuisine. Worked up the best tan of my life.” His eyes soaked up every emotion flitting across her face as though it gave him life.
Her heart thudded, blood pumping into parts that had lain bloodless for so long.
It had been over a decade since she’d been to India, but all through school, her family had visited Mangalore every two years like clockwork. She’d loved the lush green of their family’s land by the ocean, the red clay roofs of the sprawling plastered brick houses with their verandas and courtyards. The gray blue of the ocean breaking against black rock.
But she’d also hated the humid heat, the constant pressure of everyone’s focus. The constant commentary on what she wore, her American accent, the darkness of her skin, how she sat, how she walked. Scrambled rules she understood and yet didn’t understand. Amma’s criticism and nagging, fueled by other people’s opinions acquired a blazing new force when they were there. And unlike here on American soil, in the land of her parents’ birth, Ayesha hadn’t known quite how to fight her mother on it. She’d felt oddly silenced there.
Had that been practice for how she felt now, for what she’d turned into?
“What?” he asked.
“You know how I felt about traveling to India with my parents.”
He nodded. “You should go now. It might be different now that you’re grown up. The differences might make more sense.”
A spark of annoyance lit her up, a pilot light rekindling. “Are you mansplaining and whitesplaining my relationship with the land of my ancestors to me?”
“I was, wasn’t I? Sorry.”
“But you went.” Something about that made it hard to breathe. “Why?”
“Ajay and I.” He paused, letting her absorb the sound of Ajay’s name, testing how it sat between them now. “You know we planned on starting our restaurant chain.”
“You’d always talked about taking a trip together.”
“And you’d always said you would never go with us.”
Anything to do with the restaurant hadn’t been her thing. That had been between Emmitt and Ajay. And Amma.
“How long were you there?”
He paused as though preparing her for his answer, knowing what it would do to her. “Five years.”
She sucked in a breath. “Oh, Emmitt.”
“I hadn’t planned on staying that long. But I couldn’t bear to come back. It made me feel like I was still with Ajay. With you.” She didn’t have to ask how his parents had taken it. He’d only say that they had barely noticed. His parents had divorced when he was in fifth grade, and they’d both remarried within the year and started new families, leaving Emmitt to shuttle between two homes, both of which he’d felt unwanted in.
Ajay had been his family. Her brother’s huge heart had embraced every person who came into his sphere as his own. But Emmitt had been the brother of his heart.
Don’t ever hurt him, okay? He’s not made of rocks and lava like you, Ajay had said to her after Emmitt had confessed to loving his sister.
She’d chased Ajay around the house in a rage. Aren’t you, as my brother, supposed to tell him you’ll kill him if he hurts me?
He won’t. But you could break him.
In the end, Ajay was the one who’d broken them all.
“How’s your mother?” Emmitt asked, one finger touching her hand, so much tentativeness in the gesture.
Amma had loved him, too, the way she’d loved anything that meant something to Ajay. Emmitt had been a part of the family, but only so long as he didn’t think he could “set his sights” on her daughter.
“She’s fine. Altered. Not the Amma she used to be.”
His finger stroked the back of her hand. “Are you like this with her too?”
“Like what?” Why had she even asked?
“Compliant. Unable to say what you feel.”
Again, spot on, Emmitt. “She’s been through enough, don’t you think?”
“And you think silencing yourself erases what she’s been through?” She’d forgotten how, for all his gentleness in the face of her fierceness, he’d never let her get away with shit. The rock to her waves.
“Maybe not. But it doesn’t make her life harder either.” She smiled then.
“What?” His eyes hypnotized words out of her.
“I can’t remember the last time Amma and I fought.”
He fake-gasped. “No screaming matches? What do the neighbors do for entertainment?”
“Were we that bad?” She flipped her hand over, and he slipped his fingers into hers. So easy. Yet so potent.
The chaos of doubt she’d been feeling calmed at the rightness that settled inside her from the mere fit of their hands.
“Actually, you two were amazing. I never met two people who were so unafraid of losing each other. So confident of each other’s love.”
Her hand tightened around his. Suddenly she was naked. Exposed to him in ways no one had ever seen her.
“We’re afraid now.” She hadn’t realized until this moment quite how terrified she was of Amma’s unhappiness. She’d been tiptoeing around Amma for seven years, and he’d seen it without even seeing them together.
He pulled their joined hands to his chest. “Is that what Dr. Cervix is about?”
A laugh escaped her. “How did you even know that we were being set up?”
His expression shuttered. Too fast.
“Emmitt?” Oh God! Suddenly she knew why he was here. She let his hand go. “Bela! The traitor.”
He took her hand again. “I came back from India six months ago. I’ve been working at Raaga in New York, relearning the restaurant business here. I’d been trying to figure out how to make my way back to Naperville. To you.” Emmitt the Wall never minced words. He didn’t know how to.
“And Bela’s been helping you plot your return.”
His thumb drew circles on the back of her hand. “When Mrs. Gupte and your mom started talking about inviting this guy to the wedding, Bela called me in a panic.”
“She’s supposed to be my best friend.”
His sapphire eyes went dark, so dark. “Exactly.”
She tried to tug her hand away. “Everything is different now, Emmitt.” Then she pushed it back and tightened her grip, the push and pull mirroring her emotions. “Amma deserves to have at least one of her dreams fulfilled.”
“And she dreams of you spending the rest of your life talking about dilation?” That smile. That smile.
“I’m sure the man has other skills.” She wanted to smile back, but her lips wouldn’t do it.
“Like teaching you how to dance?” He sounded angry, and she was a terrible person because it made her heart swell. It also made her want to soothe him.
Unable to stop herself any longer, she scooted closer to him. Their legs intertwined, he leaned into her. She cupped his jaw.