“Truth is supposed to set us free, isn’t it?” Shobi said.
A small laugh escaped Mina. “Is it just us or does everyone have past lives they struggle to share with their children?”
There was another long beat of silence. How far they had both come from two young royal bahus smoking on a secret balcony. Unlike Shobi, Mina had navigated everything with such grace. She’d held her family together without damage. Then again, she had been blessed with a life partner who loved and respected her. Shobi thought about Omar and the familiar pang of longing for Ashna to have been his squeezed inside her.
“We haven’t had common lives, that’s for sure,” Shobi said, “but they haven’t been unique either. Marital rape is hardly rare.” All those years of managing it, but anger still bled into her voice when she said the words out loud. “There’s just too much Ashna doesn’t know. I have no idea where to start. It doesn’t help that she romanticizes Bram so much.
“‘Your father raped me and then I stayed with him for eighteen years because he threatened to take you away from me.’ How do you say those words to your child?” How did you say the million other things that wove around that truth? Were there even words to explain all the things she would have lost if she’d walked away from what being married to him meant or for having made that bargain.
“Maybe she doesn’t romanticize Bram quite as much as you think. She saw his fall far closer than the rest of us,” Mina said sharply.
No one had realized quite how bad things had gotten with Bram. It was the most widely known fact about alcoholism, that it made you excellent at hiding things. They should have looked harder, but they’d missed the extent of it. Ashna was the only one who’d borne witness, who had shared responsibility in his secrets, because her mother had failed her.
“She might be stronger than you think,” Mina said.
“I don’t know.” Why should the onus of strength fall on Ashna? Hadn’t she seen enough? “She’s not like Trisha or Nisha, she doesn’t have their spirit.” Which was Shobi’s fault, of course. “She’s too fragile, Mina. How can I do it when she’s finally holding herself to—.”
Mina held up a hand. She was the one who noticed the sound first.
Shobi spun around.
There she was, Ashna, looking like someone had crushed her ribs with their bare hands.
Mina was the first to speak. “Ashi, hi, beta. How long have you been standing here?”
Ashna was staring at Shobi, devastation in her eyes. “Long enough.” Very slowly she turned to Mina. “Do you think I’m weak too? Does everyone just tiptoe around me?” Her voice was barely a whisper, but she might as well be screaming.
Mina stood and went to her, but Ashna scrambled back. “No!” she said more loudly, and turned back to Shobi.
She was shaking, every tendon in her neck stretched. For all her effort she couldn’t make words.
“Beta . . .” Shobi said.
“No! Please.” A long silence stretched before, finally, she spoke. “Remember that deal we made? You wanted us to talk. Let’s start with this. How was I born, Mom?” Her voice broke on the word Shobi had cherished like a dream.
“I’m not sure what you’re asking me.” Shobi kept her voice strong, because old habits were hard to break, and because she had no idea how much Ashna had heard.
“You know exactly what I’m asking. If you hated Baba from the very beginning of your marriage, then how was I born?” So Ashna had heard the worst part, then.
Words stuck in Shobi’s throat. This wasn’t how she’d wanted Ashna to find out. Actually, that part, the cruelest piece, she’d never wanted Ashna to find out.
Ashna laughed. “My entire life I’ve tried to figure out your marriage, to piece together the ugliness from overheard fights where you tried to destroy each other with words. Now it all makes sense. That’s why you never wanted to be around me. I . . . I was the ugliness in your marriage.”
“That’s not true. Ashi, listen to me. I—”
“No. You don’t have to lie anymore. Why did you even have me? Is that why you had to marry him? Oh God.” She gasped for air.
Shobi looked at Mina.
“You answer me. Why are you looking at Mina Kaki for help? Why does she have to do all your dirty work for you?”
Shobi went to Ashna, even as she scrambled back, until her back was pressed against the swirling railing of Bram’s bloody staircase. “Mina’s done the best part of my work. She got to raise you.”
“No, Mom, not now. Don’t. Manage. Me. Just be honest with me. No more lies.”
“Okay,” Shobi said. “Okay, so here’s the only truth that matters. None of this is your fault.”
“Stop it. Stop saying that. Will everyone please just stop saying that. It is my fault. How can it not be my fault? I’m the product of . . . of . . . God, Mom, if you stayed in a marriage like that for me, then it is my fault.”
“No, it isn’t. It’s Bram’s and my fault. Mine because I didn’t know how else to do this, because I wavered when I should have been stronger. And his, because . . . well, because he was him. And society’s fault for teaching him that it was his right because he was a man and a prince, and God knows what other unearned privilege.”
Ashna pressed her hands to her ears, tears dripping from her beautiful, tortured eyes. Shobi thought she knew what it meant to hurt, but she couldn’t have imagined this pain.
“I don’t give a shit about society. I don’t care. How can you make this about your damn crusade against the patriarchy?” She turned and looked at the door, as though gauging her distance from it. “You’re right. I don’t have the strength for this, for more lies. You were both right after all. I am too weak.”
With that she walked to the front door and out of the house.
“Ashi, beta, come back,” Mina called after her, following her to the front porch.
Ashna spun around and faced Mina. “You wanted me to stop believing the easiest thing to believe. There, you got your wish.”
Shobi stopped next to Mina. “I know this isn’t easy. But hear me out, please. Just give me a chance to explain.”
Ashna threw her head back and made a sound that broke Shobi’s heart.
“It’s okay,” Shobi whispered, but Ashna heard her, because she wrapped her arms around herself. “I’m not leaving, Ashna. I’m sorry I did before. No matter what happens, I’m never leaving you again.”
Ashna’s arms tightened around herself.
“Come inside, Ashi,” Mina said.
Mina’s voice unfroze her where Shobi’s had not. She turned her desperately helpless eyes on Mina. “I can’t. Please. I can’t be here right now.”
Shobi and Mina watched, as Ashna made her way down the driveway and stood there staring at the house Bram had built.
“I’m sorry.” At long last she looked directly at Shobi, horrid guilt in her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I just need some time. Please.” With that she walked away, legs unsteady, a baby learning to stand, a toddler learning to walk, a teenager backing away from a parent.
Shobi sat down on the front step, wishing she could burn down this bloody house Bram had put more thought into than he’d ever put into the child who’d loved him. “How did I let everything go so terribly wrong?”