The Taste of Ginger(18)

There was no point saying everything would be okay. If they lost the baby, we both knew it wouldn’t be.





9


The afternoon had crept into dusk. Most of the relatives had filtered out and gone home, promising to pray for our family that night and return the next day. They offered to have their servants bring food.

“It’s not necessary.” My parents delivered the expected response as though reading from a script.

But we all knew people would send food anyway. It was custom. Not adhering to it would have been unfathomable, like giving a cash gift in an even amount.

With everyone gone, the room was quiet. Dad and Neel had gone to Dipti’s room. Virag Mama and Indira Mami were speaking with the hospital director. It was just my mother and me. She dropped into the chair across from me and rubbed her temples.

“What did your job say about coming here?” she asked.

“They were understanding,” I lied, wondering what the Warden thought of the brief I had emailed him before landing in Ahmedabad. If he needed changes, I wasn’t sure how I would find time to revise it with everything going on.

“How long will you stay?”

“As long as Neel needs me.” I hoped that Dipti and the baby would be back to normal as soon as possible. The longer I stayed, the more tenuous my hold on my job would be.

My mother nodded while her lips curled into a small smile. “It is good for him to have you here. You two have always been close.”

I slumped low enough in my wooden chair to rest my neck on the hard back. “I only wish I’d been here when it happened.”

“These things are up to Bhagwan,” she said, gesturing toward the skies. “We cannot control it.”

While I appreciated her attempt to absolve me of any blame, I wasn’t quite ready to let myself off the hook. “If I had come with you guys for Hari’s wedding, I’d have been here when this happened.”

I’d have gotten to speak to Dipti before she fell into a coma—tell her how much Neel needed his new family even though he pretended not to need anyone. He and I were the same in that regard. The combination of our Indian parents teaching us to never show “weakness” and us feeling like outsiders when we immigrated caused us both to develop hard exteriors—with everyone. But once we let people in, it was hard to let go and imagine a life without them. I’d felt that way about Alex and was certain Neel felt the same toward Dipti even though he’d never be able to express it openly.

Fatigue swept over me while my mother and I continued to sit in silence. I pondered our conversation. Something was different about the dynamic between us. The edge I’d come to expect from her had dulled. Maybe she felt calmer in India—the place she’d always considered home. Or maybe she was just too damned tired to fight.

“Did you open your birthday card?” she asked in Gujarati a few moments later.

I opened my eyes when I heard her voice, once again aware of the dingy surroundings in the hospital waiting room.

I shifted in the hard-backed wooden chair, afraid she was going to bring up the dreaded topic of Alex.

Her plastic chair creaked as she readjusted.

“I should check on Neel,” I said in English, thinking back to the message in my birthday card, not ready to delve into those issues, whatever they might be.



In the hallway, I noticed a tall, lean figure striding toward me. My face broke into a huge smile. Relief washed over me, and I dashed to meet her halfway.

“Thank God you’re here!” I said, giving Monali Auntie a huge hug and inhaling the familiar smell of cinnamon and cloves.

“Look at you! You must be exhausted.” She held me at arm’s length, examining me as if it had been years rather than weeks since she’d last seen me.

I’d forgotten I was still wearing the baggy jeans and wrinkled sweatshirt I’d worn on the plane. “I came straight here.”

“I can see that.”

She’d come over with my family for Hari’s wedding, and I knew that as a de facto member of our family, she wouldn’t be far from the hospital during this time. She had always been there for me, helping me cope with everything from a scraped knee to fights with my parents to my breakup with Alex. Seeing her was enough to calm some of the anxiety.

“Have you seen your mother?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I mumbled.

She looked at me sternly. “This is not the time for any unnecessary drama.”

I met her eyes. “I know.”

She scanned the hallway behind me. “Oh, have you met your friend yet?”

“Which friend?”

“You know, Biren.”

I creased my forehead, trying to place the name.

She slapped me on the back. “Come now. His father is the president of the electric company in Ahmedabad. You remember. They do lots of charity work. Anandbhai has a foundation and helps women and children in India get out of abusive living conditions by finding families in the West to look after them.”

Nothing registered, and the charity work sounded like something I would have remembered had I known it.

“Oy, you! You have a memory like a goldfish!” She flicked her hand. “You used to play together as children when you lived here. My God, trying to separate you two was like trying to part the sea! I saw his mother here earlier. Maybe they went home.”