The Vibrant Years(38)

Her mind strayed to Alisha. Bindu was hungry for an update on how her date had gone the previous night. Before Ashish had shown up, Bindu had sensed the tiniest spark of excitement in Alisha about this dating thing. That poor woman really needed something nice to happen to her.

Bindu threw a look at her son. He’d made his declaration about her not needing to make rotis for him and then gone back to his phone. She tried not to let the prickle of annoyance grow. He was her only child, and of course she was happy to see him. It had been two years since he’d abandoned his family. So it had been two years since she’d seen him. They talked every few weeks, but it was the longest in her life that she’d gone without seeing him.

Contrary to popular belief, Bindu had tried to stop him. Karen Menezes had called her incessantly after he left, telling Bindu to be a good mother and appeal to her son to forgive Alisha for whatever she’d done.

Karen was exactly the kind of woman Bindu had spent her life avoiding. One of those women who believed themselves too genteel, too pious, too virtuous (yuck, that word), too everything for lesser mortals. She had sided squarely with her son-in-law in the divorce, making it even more impossible for Bindu to not side with Alisha.

Bindu had tried to get her son to see that all marriages had their ups and downs. Staying when the going got tough was the only secret there was to a long marriage. What she’d really wanted to do was scream at him that he was a lucky bastard to have Alisha and Cullie, and he was being an idiot. But somehow, with Ashish she couldn’t stop being the compliant Bindu she’d been with Rajendra. The mother who’d had to be sensitive enough for both parents. The mother who was always compensating.

I deserve to be happy too, Ma, he’d said. Why does only Aly get to chase her dream? What about my dreams?

Maybe past generations were wise to decree that the dreams of two people could never both be important in a marriage. They were opposing forces, and opposing forces always tore things in half.

You were lucky to never want anything more than a family and a home, he had said to Bindu as he filed for divorce. And look at how well you did it.

It had been one of those moments that had hammered Bindu like nails in a coffin, slamming into focus all the things she’d allowed to die. All the things she’d had to hide from him. For him. As always, she’d buried the hurt where she couldn’t feel it.

The day Alisha signed the divorce papers, Bindu had sat next to her daughter-in-law filled with an indescribable rage and told her that she wasn’t going back to India with her son.

Please don’t leave me, Alisha had said with the exact kind of vulnerable hope with which Cullie used to ask if she could sleep in Bindu’s bed when she had nightmares. Just until all of this makes sense.

For as long as you need, Bindu had answered.

Bindu checked on the fish curry one last time. Realization wafted through her like the nuanced but unmistakable aroma that signaled that the coconut in the curry was perfectly cooked. For someone who worked so hard not to appear disruptive, Alisha never backed away from the things that were important to her. Her ability to identify what she wanted to dig in her heels about was uncompromising.

Why had it taken Bindu so long to see this?

Bindu, on the other hand, for all her gregariousness, had spent her life focused on the small, unimportant things to compensate for never being able to ask for anything truly important.

The lid dropped from her hand and clanged on the pot. She leaned on the countertop, strength draining from her in a rush.

Ashish finally looked up.

“You’ve been kneading that dough like it’s responsible for everything wrong in the world,” Ashish said, his boyish smile displaying the one crooked tooth that Bindu had loved so much when he was a boy. “Do you need help with it?”

Bindu had the urge to laugh. It might have been the first time in her life that her son had asked if she needed help.

She was about to kick herself for being so happy with the fact that he had offered when he put down his phone and washed his hands. Then he pulled the plate of half-kneaded dough away from Bindu.

A rush of love washed over her, and she didn’t even know why.

“What time is your appointment? Don’t you need to get dressed for it?” he asked as Bindu gawked at the deftness with which he started kneading the dough.

“I’ve lived by myself for two years, Ma. I had to learn how to make my own rotis.”

Actually that was not true. In India you could easily hire someone to make rotis for you.

“People change,” he added without a hint of smugness.

Do they? she wanted to ask, but then she saw herself in the mirrored surface of her refrigerator, and the question fizzled on her tongue.

“What else did you learn?” she asked instead, tidying up the mess from cooking.

He met her eyes with something suspiciously like regret. It was eerie how much like her he looked. “That Aly was right. Following your dreams isn’t easy, but it is the one thing you owe yourself.” Was that look he was giving her accusatory? She’d never stopped him from following his dreams. Had she?

“Working on the concert circuit was amazing.” His golden-hazel eyes lit up, and somehow they were so much more beautiful on him, so beloved. But the passion in them was new.

Why are you back? She couldn’t ask that without having to get into the Richard situation.

For all her joy in seeing him, alarm bells sounded in Bindu’s head.