The Taste of Ginger(15)

Still, I willed her to wake up. The longer she was out, the worse her chances of recovery. And the less likely it was that the baby would survive. I thought back to how I’d felt when Neel first told me about the baby. He could hardly contain himself. I said and did the right things to match his excitement. But while I was happy for him, I was sad for me. Things were changing again. They had started when he met Dipti. The dynamic had shifted from Neel and me being a team to Neel and Dipti, leaving me on my own. With a baby, that divide would only grow deeper, and I’d fall even lower on the priority ladder.

Even though Neel and I had adjusted to America differently—he being able to adopt the right facade in social interactions but keeping Indian traditions at his core, while I internalized the new American customs as I adopted them—we had always remained close. We were the only two people in this world who shared the exact same experiences, and our bond was both resilient and forgiving.

When he met Dipti, I didn’t blame him. It wasn’t his fault that his life was moving forward while mine was standing still. A few years later, I met Alex. I had been a late bloomer, given that my parents had forbidden me from dating all through high school. By the time I got to college, I was still awkward and shy around boys, and my parents still insisted that I focus on my studies until I was ready for marriage. So it wasn’t until I was twenty-eight that I met Alex, my first real boyfriend, and he quickly grew into someone I loved as much as Neel. I began to understand why Neel had to shift priorities when Dipti entered his life.

Now, the thought of losing the baby was devastating. During the past few months I’d accepted the inevitable change that was coming and was happy to be its only foi. Between Neel, Dipti, and me, the baby would have the stable, loving, and financially secure American childhood that Neel and I hadn’t. I could only imagine that losing a child would be close to the way I would feel if something ever happened to Neel. I shuddered at the thought.

Dipti had to wake up. She just had to.

I tentatively reached for her hand. It was colder than I expected. “You have to get through this,” I said, hoping she and the baby could hear me.

The sterile room was surprisingly quiet, given the number of people rushing back and forth in the hallway. The only sounds were the beeping of the monitors and compression from the machine her breathing tube was hooked up to. I stared at everything my brother held dear, afraid he might lose it all. A framed photo of Krishna Bhagwan hung above Dipti’s bed. I clasped my hands together and found myself praying for the second time in days. I prayed that Dipti and her baby would pull through this and go on to lead long, healthy, happy lives. The alternative was unthinkable.

My stomach began to churn. My parents had to be nearby. Seeing them, particularly under these circumstances, would be difficult. Not enough time had passed for the anger, resentment, and guilt to fizzle. If I was still bothered by it, I had no doubt that my mother was too. If there was one thing I knew, it was that Varsha Desai could hold a grudge.

Despite my best efforts, the exhaustion of traveling was catching up to me. I found myself drifting off. The melodic beeping of the heart rate monitors lulled me into a hypnotic state. My head became heavy and fell toward my chest, forcing me to jerk it back to wake myself.

“It’s okay to sleep,” Neel said when he returned and found me nodding off. “I’m going to be up anyway. I need to monitor what the staff is doing to make sure nothing slips through the cracks.”

Virag Mama retrieved a hospital-grade blanket from the nurses’ station. It had the same scratchy consistency as the blanket I had used as a barrier to prevent direct contact with the man next to me on my flight. I pulled it over my shoulders and fell into the comforting darkness that was waiting to catch me.



I’m not sure how much time had passed when I awoke to nurses rushing into the room, flinging me away from Dipti’s bedside. The heart rate monitors belted out an alarming sound. The numbers on one machine were declining. 68. 64. 57. 49. 40. 37.

There was a whirl of activity in the once-peaceful room. Neel’s eyes were as wide and shiny as the thali Indira Mami had been using to hold the flowers for the garlands. Nurses speaking rapid Gujarati pushed him back. They were talking too quickly for Neel and me to understand what was being said. Neel resisted, trying to force himself forward. One of the nurses injected a clear liquid into Dipti’s IV line.

“How many cc’s did you give her?” he barked in English.

No one responded to him, but the numbers began to creep up. 43. 45. 49.

Medical staff called out orders. Virag Mama forced Neel from the room, presumably at the direction of one of the nurses. I was hazy from sleep but tried to extricate myself from the mayhem in the room. Seeing an opening, I stumbled past a nurse and made it to the hallway. The noises from inside the room faded as she closed the door. I fixed my gaze on the floor and steadied myself by resting my hand against the textured yellow-tinged wall. It was rough against my palm. Eyes downcast, I slid my fingertips along the cool plaster, taking only two steps before I smacked into someone rushing toward the room.

“I’m so sor—” I stopped cold when I realized I was looking into my mother’s dark-brown eyes.





8


Shocked from the chaos, I mumbled a quick hello. I had no idea what else to say to her, so I turned back to find Neel. He was leaning against the wall, breathing sharply. Water. I would get him some water. From over my shoulder, I saw my mother put her hand on Neel’s back. She told him to be strong. No matter what happened, whether someone had died or whether as kids we were too scared to stay home alone, she always told us to be strong. Maybe sometimes it was okay to let go and allow someone else to take care of you, okay to be vulnerable. That was something I’d learned from Alex.