I didn’t mind my mother’s annual India Center puja. I got to play the role of dutiful daughter and my parents got to pretend it was true. I went every July, like the lie was a small one. Betina and I gave each other one weekend a year to walk out of our lives – work, kids, money, chores. We had rules: the apartment couldn’t look like it was ransacked by small mammals (mine), the kids couldn’t watch a whole season of Magic School Bus (Betina’s), no STDs, no indiscriminate spending, and whatever we broke was ours to fix. Honesty wasn’t among them.
But eventually, children complicate things. It was a Thursday evening, Betina and I cleaning up after dinner while Jambi filmed a Dracula spoof on my phone, forcing the twins to hang upside down from their beds, tongues lolling. He was a struggling reader, and Betina insisted he needed a specialist, while I assured her he just needed time. Meaning, it shouldn’t have been a surprise when he appeared in the narrow opening of our kitchen competently reading my mother’s texts aloud. “Nani is asking what time you’re arriving tomorrow.”
“What was that?” Betina asked. She stopped moving, letting Jambi know he had her full attention.
“Nani says, ‘Bring two Indian outfits because after poo-ja is lunch.’ What’s poo-ja?”
I continued scraping undercooked garbanzos off a plate as if I hadn’t heard. It had already been a long day, and I was looking forward to a glass of merlot and Netflix. Weeks of my data upended because pigeon FS2546 – Stella – (my tech named them, though you weren’t supposed to personalize research animals) had decided to stop identifying the correct mycoplasma. Trial after trial she turned her stubborn, feckless beak and stared blankly.
“You’re visiting your parents?” Betina asked. “That’s where you’re going tomorrow?”
“I want to go!” Jambi said.
Dev was crying in the other room, a deep bellied animal sound. Lana said something about how his head was just fine.
“I thought we don’t ask questions.” My brain had stopped working.
“What’s a poo-ja?”
“Jambi said poo!” Lana called from the bedroom.
“It’s a religious ceremony,” Betina explained, now scrolling through my messages. “Apparently your mother goes every year.”
◆
Betina spent Thanksgiving and Diwali with my family, and I spent Christmas and Easter with hers. Until the kids arrived, visiting my parents was an exercise in silence punctuated by passive aggressive comments. Which meant we invariably spent more time in Queens, preferring her family’s overt disapproval. Betina laughed when her aunts prayed for her salvation, as if they were tired children bawling about a choice in footwear. We visited her grandmother for Sunday dinners, and Betina salsaed with her uncles at quinceañeras. I watched in awe.
Amil Vora was not my invention. My mother created him for the benefit of her vast network, conjuring up a small destination wedding and frequent business trips to explain his general absence. I thought of him as Mr. Vora, a presence not unlike an austere but essentially harmless piano teacher, someone I could hide from Betina with impunity. He was, after all, my mother’s screen, not mine, a fair justification for not telling my wife.
Over the years I contributed to the invention, gave Mr. Vora hobbies and promotions, food allergies (wheat and chocolate) and phobias (large gatherings and spiders). He loved pujas and was always so sorry to miss them. I assumed that in time I’d divorce him or become a sudden, tragic widow. Then, hopefully, I’d never marry again.
It was a path not just of least resistance, but also of the least harm done. I was a coward, yes, but a compassionate one. I lied out of love.
◆
“It’s a weekend. My weekend,” I said. We were in the alcove that made up our cramped bedroom, our preferred place to fight.
“Take next weekend,” Betina said. She was sitting cross-legged on the bed, her posture impeccable.
“That’s your weekend.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Betina.”
“I don’t think you want me there.”
“Of course that’s not true.”
“How is it not true?”
I took a deep breath. “Because I always want you there,” I said. “And everywhere.”
She laughed but not in an I-think-you’re-funny way. “You’re hiding.”
“I’m not.”
“You hiding us.”
“It’s supremely boring, you know. All that chanting and too much incense. One aunty or another droning on too long with her nasal singing.”
“Then why do you go?”
I shrugged. “The priest gives out sacred sugar cubes.”
“I read recently that discomfort is a positive emotion. It sparks creativity. I’ll forward it to you.”
“Fake news.”
“Anu.”
“Believe me, It’s awful. You’d hate it.” The sounds of educational apps wafted in from the living room. “Plus, it’s not like my parents don’t know you’re my wife and these are our children. They’re the ones who matter, right? We don’t need to parade around in front of their judgmental friends.”
“But I love judgmental friends.”
“Really. I’m sparing you.” I used my hard voice without meaning to.
“Oh that’s what it is. I didn’t realize.”
Betina’s anger was generally quick to burn. Raised voices followed by tense lowered voices and then silence until we put the kids to bed with excessive care, making it even more obvious that we were fighting. A morning of transactional communication and then a laugh over Lana’s use of the word “actually.” I’d apologize. She’d accept my wrongness – a squeeze of my shoulder, a kiss of my hand. Status quo restored.
This time she took a deep breath and exhaled forcefully through her nose. It flared. A metallic taste filled my mouth like an afternoon hangover. I tried not to move. She kissed me goodnight, a dry mirthless kiss, which was terrifying.
◆
Friday morning, Betina woke up cheery and prepared to teach her 8:00am class. I decided to take the day off. I emailed the lab to reduce Stella’s pellet ration and canceled the nanny, got Lana and Dev to clean up their room, and ensured Jambi was ready for soccer (it was summer vacation and Betina didn’t believe in camp) – all without having to be asked. I didn’t wear the sweatpants Betina warned me against, the way the waistband cut into my soft middle. I tracked water bottles and snack tins and fashioned a healthy, colorful meal from whatever we had in the fridge, as if domestic atonement could neuter the temple discussion by evening.
Betina usually texted to make sure everything was going smoothly when I was with the kids, but there was nothing. I checked for notifications like an addict but my locked screen remained uninterrupted – all three kids looking in different directions, Betina’s hand on Lana’s head, our own heads touching.
When I finally received a text it wasn’t one of her longer messages that began where an in-person fight left off, highlighting my inaccuracies and explaining that I wasn’t a total failure, this in capital letters. I used to dread these measured yet hysterical notes, the amount of scrolling they required. But there, at our cluttered table, kids eating poached eggs with avocado, I longed for a sign of normalcy.
Instead: What should I wear? Maybe one of your mother’s saris.
My mother’s saris?
Betina please.
Your mom can help me drape it.
Let’s discuss.
The wedding sari, how about? The green one with the border. Lana will love it.
The ceremony itself had been lovely – a few close friends and Betina’s sour grandmother, aunts, uncles, and a dozen catty cousins – on a rooftop with city views and hydrangeas. My parents invited no one. Betina and I danced and kissed, and I feigned disappointment at my parents’ secrecy, though in fact I was somewhat relieved. “At least they came,” Betina whispered in my ear.
I stared at the messages and considered outrage. Why upend our plans? My parents were my parents. So what if we didn’t go as a family? So what if they didn’t want her there? It’s not like they’re pretending that I’m married to a man. It’s not like I’m pretending that I’m married to a man. That would be crazy.
But something told me that it was best to send a smiley face. When I got no response, I meekly offered: How about next year?
Jambi picked at a booger. Lana stole avocado off Dev’s plate. A car alarm sounded and three dots appeared on my phone.
Take the kids tonight and pick me up on Sunday before the ceremony. Smiley face with heart eyes. Pack nice clothes.
“Mom, are you okay?” Jambi asked. He held his prize between thumb and forefinger, poised for his mouth.
I nodded and gave a little giggle gasp. We were essentially in outer space and who besides astronauts know what to do out there?
◆
I’d always been a skilled liar. In college, I had a boyfriend who liked jazz and tried to make me like it too, among other things. He was tall with delicate, pianist fingers and it lasted four months. An eternity.
Betina, a dance major, was already brazenly out by then. She wore combat boots and had dark, stormy features that broke open like a cresting wave when she smiled. She tickled my leg under the desk while answering a question about Stravinsky’s atonality in Music Humanities, ending with, “But it kind of sounds like shit.” I cut my hair short, got a discreet tattoo of a pink rose above my left breast (this before every young professional had sleeves), and lived mostly in fear. Though I was hundreds of miles away at my non-Ivy private school known for its independent-minded student body, my mother was watching. Less from above than from a shrub or between the stacks, taking me by surprise. Reflexively, I often placed a hand over my heart in case any of the petals were visible. It would be another full year before Betina and I kissed, her breath sharp and bitter, like the cloves in my mother’s daal.
“Did your parents beat you?” she asked on maybe the 20th night I wasn’t sleeping over.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said and continued to dress. “They’re pacifists.”
“Look at you.” She sat up and the sheet dropped, revealing her small, disc-like breasts. “Sneaking around behind their backs. Like this is a preppy bisexual phase.”
“I can’t rest with another body in bed,” I said and pointed to her chest. “Those don’t help.”
Betina tolerated me for a time. An inexplicable phenomenon, like crop circles. Until she tired of my semi-closeted state and spent her senior year with a German woman twice her size.
Years passed. I succumbed to an MD PhD program (the MD for my father). I also entered and exited relationships like clothing at the Gap, never getting past the basics. If my mother invoked shaadi.com, I vaguely mentioned a research assistant or waxed on about the diagnostic potential of pigeons.
I missed Betina. When I found her again she was waiting tables at an unsanitary East Village café and dancing in music videos. I promised a full character upheaval if she’d take me back.
“Let’s invite your parents to dinner,” Betina said.
“My mother is a horrible guest. She’ll judge all the food.”
“Who do they think you have sex with?” Betina asked. “You’re 30. It can’t be comfortable to consider you a virgin.”
My father once asked me if I was sexually active. I was brushing my teeth at the time. Our eyes met briefly in the mirror before we both looked away. His funereal voice. My unequivocal denial. The obvious fact that he assumed it was with boys.
“I imagine they try not to think of it at all,” I said and made reservations at a North Indian restaurant with a strict timetable.
“No public displays of affection, okay? It’s not done. My parents haven’t touched each other since I was in high school,” I said.
My mother arrived with a stricken expression, her mouth a clamp. By way of greeting, she scanned Betina from head to toe. Betina complimented my mother’s taste in footwear, asked her to order for her, and smiled through the silences. I wanted badly to take her hand under the table and also feared she might take mine. My father made awkward statements about the spiritual importance and financial impracticality of the Arts. In a grave voice, the one he reserved for inappropriate questions, he asked, “So, you are roommates?”
Betina looked at me and beamed, while my mother closed a fist around her napkin. I took a sip of my mango lassi and wiped the film from my lip.
On the train home she held on to my sleeve. “Why didn’t you tell them?” she asked.
“Believe me, they didn’t want to be told.”
“But they asked! You’re not giving them a chance. They deserve honesty. We could have cried together.”
“Honesty? Ha! Their game is denial, hiding behind some fantasy of who I am. It’s why we talk about weather. Don’t you see? It’s obvious that they know.”
“That’s not the same as telling.” Her voice was quiet. I took a deep breath and prepared myself for her next Teutonic girlfriend, postcards of them frolicking in cerulean oceans.
Instead she squeezed my arm. “At least we’ve taken a step.” I exhaled and moved closer so I could feel her leg against mine. I promised to take more steps, all the steps in the world, and she nodded sleepily. The roar of the train receded and there was just us, floating in a bubble.
◆
“Nani!” Jambi said and rushed out to hug my mother. She was quick to smile as he disappeared in her blue kaftan. Above his head she glared at me. The twins clamored around my father.
“You should have called,” my mother said.
“What’s wrong with spontaneous,” I said. “A surprise.”
My mother scoffed. “I don’t like surprise.” She smiled at Jambi. “I would have made the bread you like.”
Jambi smiled slyly at his siblings. “Nani makes my favorite, not yours.”
“Nani makes my favorite, not yours,” Dev whined. My mother gave him a sinking look.
Jambi placed his collar in his mouth. “Mom, Jambi’s spitting again,” Lana whimpered.
“Jam, please,” I said.
“Let him be,” my mother said. My mother always knew, without knowing, that Jambi was my egg, the twins were Betina’s. Though they all looked more like their ethnically ambiguous sperm donor. My mother’s thinly veiled preference for our eldest should have incensed me the way it did Betina, she was right about that, but it mostly made me tired, like I was pushing a heaving object uphill, an object I didn’t quite understand the purpose of.
“I have to make 200 kati rolls before Sunday,” my mother said.
“We could help?” I said.
“That’s unlikely.” The kids ran into the house and she watched them go.
“They’re excited.”
“You’ll have to tell them not to talk about it.”
“You can say her name, Mom.”
“Or Dad can stay home with them.”
She was calling my bluff. My father kept the beach house, now their permanent residence, immaculately maintained and poorly updated, like a small town museum of little historic significance. The fruity chandelier in the foyer, the mauve carpet upstairs, the faux-wicker sunroom furniture all in mint condition. The kitchen tile – blue sailboats and happy little anchors – was scrubbed clean down to the grout.
“Fine,” I said.
She strode toward the kitchen like she didn’t hear me. “You also don’t have to come. You can be sick this year.”
It was a gut punch and she knew it. Maybe no one thought Mr. Vora was real. At best they probably considered me an unmarried spinster. The kids would certainly upend things, but truth was, I didn’t hate the pretending. Like a vestigial tail, it was hard to let go.
◆
At dinner, my mother slipped the first paper-thin roti to Jambi, an honor usually reserved for my father. The twins yelped in high-pitched unison.
When it was my turn, I split my flatbread and gave half to each. “Just rice for me.”
My mother paused. Drew herself up to her full five-foot-two. “Just rice? What is happening to you?” She glanced at my middle. “Roti is not your problem.”
I took a breath and held it in my throat. It was only 6:30. There were still several hours left in my self-imposed restriction on checking messages. Betina was probably at Soul Cycle. Or the Juice Factory. Or watching a subtitled film in a theater that smelled like old socks. There was still time enough for her to change her mind before catching the train to Old Saybrook on Sunday morning.
My father eyed my children’s crumbs falling to the floor.
The kids raged and settled and raged again, like parabolas. I’d brought winter pajamas for Lana, none for Dev, and the polka dot ones Jambi hated. My mother served ice cream and though other, more neutral flavors sat in the freezer, i.e. vanilla, she only took out the pistachio that Jambi preferred. If Betina were here, she’d have whisper-yelled at my silence.
The kids liked to sleep in the finished basement. They pretended it was rustic, like glamping. As a result, bedtime required two sets of stairs, which I climbed slowly with a hand on my back.
“This is not good,” my father said from the ground floor. “You need to use your knees.” He stood with his arms crossed over a middle taught as a drum. Retired for years, he still ordered his day. Two hours at the gym and then a visit to the local allergist’s practice where he provided support of dubious importance or a trip to the library for “professional development” on weekends. “At your age I never had back pain. All this hunching you do. Like you’re going to jump inside the computer.” He clucked his tongue.
I directed a small town of technicians and Ph.D. students. I published articles. People asked me for advice. But to my father it was the easy way out. No emergencies. No night or weekend calls. Low demand job was what I once overheard him say, a touch of sadness in his voice.
“I work with pigeons, Dad.”
“I’m just telling you.” He opened his mouth like he wanted to ask me something. I pressed my tongue to my left canine hard enough to leave an impression.
“I want Nana to tuck me in!” Lana called out from below. Out of habit, I did not wish my parents a goodnight. Betina found this callous, and maybe it was. But to start now would embarrass us all.
◆
Saturday morning brought rain and wind. My mother was pleased.
“Shark attacks,” she said to Jambi, who sulked over a bowl of cereal.
Jambi stared at her, wide eyed. “Did someone’s leg get chewed off?”
“We’re more likely to be struck by lightning,” I said.
My mother raised an eyebrow. “That also is a problem.”
For a smart woman she was surprisingly susceptible to forwarded WhatsApp messages recounting unlikely disasters and questionable medical advice. I could have said something to this effect, but some comments were ultimately a dead end.
I sighed and made myself a smoothie. Power greens and chia. Frozen blueberries and strawberries. I composed the beverage carefully – washing and using any spinach that fell in the sink, taking just enough blueberries and then twirling the bag into a tight bun. My mother fished the strawberry tops out of the trash, shifting around crumpled plastic wrap with her pinky finger. She cut the minute slivers of red berry around the green stems, washed them furiously, and popped them in her mouth.
We went to the temple to help set up. No one would be there except Birju, the priest. My parents were Jains, not Hindus, and not naturally religious, but the going trend among their friends was to donate to spiritual causes. The India Center’s expansion to a larger building only happened after my mother reserved a sizable section for a motley crew of life-sized deities and faux-marble columns. The annual puja was one of the Center’s biggest fundraisers, of which half the proceeds went to a dubious charity in a remote Gujarati village. I once tried to investigate what exactly this organization did, but only found a vague, orthographically-challenged mission statement about empowerment.
The kids immediately scooped up handfuls of cubed sugar that served as god-anointed food. Birju sat bare-chested on the floor and fussed over golden bowls filled with different colored legumes. He approached us with an air of resigned condescension, like a teenager weary of explaining technology to parents. He functioned as both caretaker and resident florist, though it was a mystery as to where he slept. He seemed to hate children.
“Madam,” he said, addressing my mother. “No more ghee for diyas.”
“What about the puja kits I ordered?”
Birju grimaced. “Useless. Not enough to light a birthday candle. We need a big fire!”
My father muttered something about burning the place down. He busied himself with a task that required little human interaction.
The main deity was Vishnu, flanked by Jain tirthankaras, all 24 of them. Laxmi and Ganesh got their own vestibules and Shiva was tucked into a corner. All of them were decked out in crowns and Christmas tinsel. I recognized scraps of my mother’s old saris. A large, liberty bell replica hung from the ceiling.
Everyone seemed to have something to do. Birju continued to examine the legumes. My mother set up folding chairs at an alarming rate. Jambi placed programs on them. The twins ran around the columns.
Tomorrow, I was supposed to pick up Betina at the station and walk through those doors, probably holding hands, Betina deliberately making eye contact with whomever she could. A confused ripple would run through the crowd. My parents would ignore me for the rest of the day. Perhaps the rest of my life. I’d look around quizzically at the mention of Mr. Vora.
That was the best-case scenario.
My phone buzzed.
Now is always better than later. Followed by a clock emoji.
“Is Mama coming tomorrow?” Jambi asked.
A charged silence filled the room, like a make out scene on family movie night. Really it was a kindness that Betina had left it up to me to tell them.
My mother unfolded a chair and slammed it to the ground.
“She’s teaching,” I said.
“Not on Sundays.”
“Sometimes she does.”
“No. She doesn’t.” Two defiant black orbs peered up at me.
“Yes, she does.”
My mother was now furiously scrolling through her phone. “Look at this. Such a sad story.”
“I’d rather not,” I said.
“Whole family, poof. Gone.” She looked at me with woeful eyes. “Bears.”
“Mom.”
“Left food out at the camp site. Didn’t listen to the alerts. Such people.”
Jambi fidgeted with a program, dog-earring the corners. “Bears?” But then, unwilling to be dissuaded, “She should come.”
It was essentially a gift. A chance to come clean. Mr. Vora be damned. He was a burden, a weight in the back of my head, and had taken on the proportions of truth. Sometimes, I fantasized about explaining it all to Betina. The depth of my cowardice. The insurmountable obstacles to overcoming it. How funny it all was, if you took a step back. I’d point out Mr. Vora’s poor taste in clothing and his emphysemic laugh. Isn’t he so silly? Perhaps there was a time when Mr. Vora could have become our inside joke, our personal Apocrypha. But we were well past that.
If we left early enough, the kids and I’d be halfway to Nova Scotia by the time Betina arrived. Halifax was supposed to be nice this time of year. In a day or two I’d be considered a fugitive. But until then, it could be a vacation.
My mother squinted at her phone as if consuming other people’s tragedies could take her somewhere else.
A pain shot up from my heel and landed in my stomach. I’d have to call in sick on Monday and the day after that and the day after that. We’d have to sleep in seedy, single story motels off the highway. Eat breaded cheese and drink diner milkshakes for protein. Swim in over chlorinated pools surrounded by black fences. I could never do it.
“Some day I’m sure she will.”
◆
I went about the rest of the day with surprising equanimity. Meals were had, fights were mediated, sets of teeth cursorily brushed. It’s what I imagined both serial killers and their victims doing before the main event. The basicness of it all would later stand out.
After the kids went down, I re-stuffed the duffel bags and Ikea satchels. The sea was a restless patter. With the window open you could smell the salt and seaweed, like the scent of pastries. My parents had kept the house even as its value diminished, even as others sold. It had lost its posh potential though it wasn’t firmly middle class either, just floundering somewhere in-between. There was no taming the sea here; no matter how many dunes they dredged. I felt an unexpected tenderness for the place, like it too had succumbed to its own fanciful self-deceptions.
I was careful with the trunk latch, pushing it shut rather than slamming. The car dipped and recovered from the weight. I rid the back seat of pistachio shells and damp, ribboned tissues and crushed goldfish crackers.
“Where are you going?”
I jumped. She was at the top of the stairs that led to the house. Blue kaftan billowing around her. A moment later she was next to me, like she had wheels instead of feet.
“We’re leaving tomorrow.”
“Why the rush? You could have loaded the car tomorrow after the puja.” She eyed the inside as if on official business. “Dad would have helped you with so many bags.”
“I’m perfectly capable.” The moonless sky was sparklingly clear, swept clean.
“You don’t pack sensibly. Come inside now. You’ll catch cold.”
“In a minute.” I stared at the dark, unrelenting sea. The houses at the other end of the cove were blacker than the night sky, like shadows. “Why Vora?”
My mother shrugged. “Why not? It’s a good name.”
“You know, it’s ridiculous.”
“Of course you’ll come home after the puja.”
“The name. The story.” The goldfish crackers in my palm were turning into hot mush. “If you’d just told everyone from the beginning, they’d be used to it by now. People can be conditioned, like pigeons.” It was Betina’s line.
“People are not like that.”
“Maybe we can say he died.”
“Don’t talk that way.”
“Eventually we’ll have to say something.”
“Let them think you’re divorced. Who cares?”
“Betina wants to come to the temple.”
“We can take her next time.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
My mother’s eyes went wide. “What do you mean then?”
I felt like running around the carport with my head thrown back, laughing and crying in succession. “I mean, she’s coming. Tomorrow. I’m picking her up from Shore Line East.” My face was hot but my ears hurt the way they did in the cold.
My mother twisted the end of her kaftan around her index finger. An effort traveled across her features and converged on the two worry lines between her eyebrows. I rubbed my matching one. Over the years, she had perfected her reticence, but occasionally a drop of warmth leaked through. She used to make a show of her affection at parties. Lipstick marks on my cheeks, surprise hugs from behind. The time I almost drowned, ducking under waves until the ground disappeared. The next wave probably would have pushed me to shore, but she came in after me.
Her lip quivered. Another daughter might have steadied it.
“Your friend can come. That’s fine. She can sit in the back. Just don’t talk to her.” She smoothed her hair, as if righting a mistake.
My friend. “Sit in the back?”
“Anu, you have to explain it to her. Make her understand.”
“I can’t. I can’t make her understand.” I don’t understand. I’ve never understood. My eyes flooded with tears.
“Don’t cry,” she said. “We’ve given you everything. Let you do whatever you want.”
“Do whatever I want?” I had become an echo.
She shook her head. “No.”
“You can’t stop it, Mom. It’s happening.”
“You have no regard for your parents?”
“No, I do not.” It was a salty lie and she knew it. She could see how it hurt me to say it, she could see inside as much as she could lock me out. I swallowed my tears with effort, and I like to think that with equal effort she must have swallowed hers. They were probably still there inside her, swimming upstream. We were not like other people for whom sincerity came naturally and easily to the tongue. Her face quivered again then settled. Her kaftan shimmered under the florescent light of the carport as she walked away. She held it closed at the neck with a fist.
I texted Betina goodnight and placed my phone in the glove compartment. The next day I bribed the kids into staying home with their grandfather and ignored the hurt on their faces. At the temple, Birju chanted shlokas over an assault of incense. My mother closed her eyes and sang out louder than usual, her arm brushing mine as she swayed. I leaned in, too, so we could keep touching accidently, knowing that my phone was ringing, that the messages were coming in rapid succession and then less frequent, like someone bleeding out, the gush followed by a trickle.
Somehow, Betina would get there.