The Taste of Ginger(9)

First, I studied American television shows after school, trying to mimic the accents. Our parents only spoke Gujarati to us in the home when we first arrived, so Neel and I would practice our American accents with each other in hushed whispers out of their earshot. Having been born into India’s upper caste, we could easily tell which students were America’s equivalent of upper caste—the white ones—and we found ways to connect to those students. Neel began helping them with their math homework, using that time to befriend them by showing them that he liked the same TV shows, sports, and foods as them. Convincing them that even though he looked different on the outside, he was the same as them on the inside. Once we’d transitioned, we avoided the other Indian immigrants who came through the school, remaining quiet and avoiding eye contact when the other kids teased them. To come to their aid would have meant giving up some of the ground we had gained. They would have to find their own way to be American, just as Neel and I had found ours.

My mother’s need to preserve our Indian heritage by interacting only with the immigrant Gujarati community outside of our schooling undid all the hard work we’d put into fitting in. It infuriated me, but I’d never had the courage to tell her, because on some level, I was still that little girl in India who had been taught at an early age never to challenge her parents.

Now, as I stood in my bedroom clutching my orange tank top to my chest—something that was bare shouldered and far from sober—I winced, thinking about how many fights she and I had had over clothing, knowing none of them had been about the clothes. There was no need to add another argument to the list.

I turned my small suitcase upside down, the contents falling into a pile on my bed. I pulled out everything sleeveless, replacing the items with simple cotton long-sleeved shirts and modest dresses that fell below my knees.

Satisfied that the new contents of the suitcase would have passed my mother’s scrutiny, I zipped it shut.

Pausing with one hand on the cold doorknob of my bedroom and the other hauling my bag behind me, I checked my watch. Carrie was supposed to be here in five minutes, which really meant twenty. I couldn’t shake my mother’s reaction upon learning I hadn’t opened her birthday card. I let go of the suitcase and knelt on the floor by my bed, dropping my head until I felt the scratchy carpet fibers brushing against my cheek. Peering into the darkness beneath, I saw the old shoebox.

I lifted the lid with the care of an archaeologist unearthing a centuries-old artifact. Lying on top was the unopened pale-green card. Every birthday, I received a card from my parents with a check or cash inside. During those childhood years when money was tight, it would be eleven dollars. When things got better, it jumped up to fifty-one, and at its peak it hit two hundred and fifty-one, an amount that represented a tiny fortune to my parents. Knowing I could earn that money in a couple hours, whereas they would work for days, I told them they didn’t need to send me anything, but they insisted.

I started at the bottom of the pile and reread the twenty-two cards already stacked in the order in which I’d received them. Each had a similar handwritten note: Happy Birthday, Preeti. You are a good daughter. We love you. Dad and Mom.

I smiled as my fingers glided over the embossed tennis racket on the front of the card from my fourteenth birthday. That year I had earned a spot on the varsity tennis team. My seventeenth year I graduated from high school, and all my parents’ friends had come to the ceremony to stand in place of our relatives in India. At twenty-eight I met Alex at the firm’s annual holiday party, where he had been part of the waitstaff. The card from that year was a simple one with a basket of flowers on the front and a poem about daughters inside.

After reading through the old cards, I held the pale-green one that had arrived on the morning of my thirtieth birthday last month. I’d convinced myself that whatever was written in the card would make me feel worse, so I’d tossed it into the box, unopened.

The cool paper of the envelope felt smooth against my fingertips. Concerned with preserving the card in as pristine a state as the others, I used the very edge of my fingernail and ripped a slit into the top, one millimeter at a time, until there was a clean opening. I pulled out the card, and a check fluttered to the carpet beside me. Two hundred fifty-one dollars with Happy Birthday written on the memo line.

This time in addition to the standard message from my dad, there was a separate note from my mother.

Preeti,

I know how you feel, but this is for the best. You’ll see. Trust me.

Mom

Trust her? I squinted, angered by her last sentence. As I sat on the floor leaning against my smooth bed linens, I wondered how my mother—the woman who focused more on her traditions than her daughter’s happiness—could possibly have understood how I had felt after Alex and I had broken up. The suffocating feeling of wanting to be the dreamer who could throw caution to the wind and follow her heart, but knowing deep down that I was the practical, steady person my parents had raised me to be. At the end of the day, no matter how much I fought against my nature, the fear of instability they had raised me with had prevailed. I had been right not to open her card before.



“Sorry I’m late,” Carrie said as she pulled her red hair into a ponytail, revealing the small gold hoop on the top of her ear, a remnant from her punk days at boarding school. She smoothed her thick bangs onto her forehead. They were cut in a severe straight line falling just above her eyebrows, giving her an edgier look than the average attorney.