The Candid Life of Meena Dave(81)

She shook her head. “It’s just that the label is a first for me. I’m not sure I can live up to it.”

“We can figure it out as we go along.”

She gave him a lopsided smile. “I’ve passed up so many opportunities to have friends, have relationships.” She chewed on a bite. “I want people in my life.” There. She’d said it out loud. “I want that continuity, where every conversation isn’t the first conversation. Inside jokes, memories that you revisit years, decades from now.” She shrugged. “If there’s a handbook on how to do that, I’d read it cover to cover.”

“Why now?”

“This place, this building. You,” Meena said.

He reached out his hand, put it over hers, and squeezed.

Instead of blinking back the emotion in her eyes, she let the tears fall. “You deserve someone better.”

He smiled. “So do you.”

She nodded. Accepting that it was within her control. She only had to reach for it, not let fear of loss drive her actions. The butterflies fled, and her stomach reminded her that she hadn’t eaten anything all day. With her hand clasped in his, she picked up a slice with her other hand. “Even not-great pizza is good.”

“It’s the perfect food.” Sam grinned. “But when you have a great slice, it’s heaven.”

“The third Friday of each month was pizza night,” Meena said. “My dad would pick it up from this place on Main Street on his way home, and I’d set the table. My mom would divide one can of Coke into three glasses and dilute it with ice because an entire can was too much sugar for one person.”

“Smart woman.” Sam tapped the side of his head. “Though she was probably never hungover.”

Meena laughed. “No. They weren’t big drinkers. Not that I saw, anyway.”

“Tell me you’ve had an entire can of Coke in one sitting,” Sam said. “It’s very important that you’ve defied your parents in at least this one thing.”

She shook her head. “Not yet, but I’m willing to try.”

“I’m willing to deal with the aftermath of your sugar rush. It’s the best hangover cure on the planet.”

“Despite what happened the day after Thanksgiving, I’m not a big drinker.”

“Ah, when you tried to kiss me.”

“When I invited you to kiss me.”

“Hmm,” Sam said. “I remember it differently.”

She finished off her slice and reached for another. “You would.”

“You’re smiling.”

“Being here, with you, it’s a good feeling.”

He released her hand and patted his belly. “I’m stuffed.”

Between them, they’d eaten half the pie. She didn’t want to ruin the contentment but needed to tell him the rest of it. “I’ve decided I don’t want to know who my birth mother is. It’s better to keep things as they are.”

He leaned forward, his hand on her knee. “Are you sure?”

She nodded. “I spent a lot of time wrestling with Neha’s motives, whether she’d done this intentionally to toy with me or if it was a way to pit the aunties against each other. I won’t know Neha’s true intention. Regardless, I have a home now. I’d be a fool to turn it away, turn the people here against me.”

“Perspective,” Sam said. “Maybe now is when you need it.”

She nodded. “I like being here, living across the hall. And the aunties, they’re not my enemies. They’ve been kind to me, and I projected motive onto them. Whoever it was made a choice to give me up. A choice to not want me in their life. I can live with that. I have lived with it. I had a great mother. I was loved by her and my father. Even though they’re gone, it’s enough to have had them for as long as I did.”

“You don’t think whoever it is knows about you?”

Meena shrugged. “Maybe. Very likely based on the little carrots I’ve dangled in front of them. But I started it and I’m ending it. I’ll leave it be and hopefully get back to some semblance of friendship with the three of them.”

“It might not be that easy,” Sam said. “You will still wonder. You’re innately curious. You’re a journalist.”

“Maybe.” Meena considered. “But I’m also great at avoidance. It’s my superpower.”

He tugged her hand and pulled her up, wrapped his arms around her. She clung to him, breathed in his scent, soap and wet dog. This was enough. She leaned back and he let her go.

“Do you know the aunties have a bet about our relationship?” Meena asked.

He grinned. “They bet on the temperature on the first day of spring. I don’t recommend getting in on it—they’ll fleece you.”

She laughed. Together they cleared their plates and put away the pizza. Not ready to leave, she asked if they could watch his favorite James Bond movie. She curled into his body, and he played with a thick strand of her hair. When the movie ended, she decided to leave. She wanted to sleep in her own bed, in her own home, by herself tonight. To accept it as hers. To view it as both her history and her future.

She gave Wally a few rubs, then gave Sam a kiss before heading back to her apartment. Without the books, the living room was even more open, less oppressive. Tomorrow she would figure out how she wanted to decorate. It was time for Neha to be laid to rest.