The Vibrant Years(82)

“This is delicious,” Alisha said. “You should eat too before it gets cold.” Then she turned to Cullie. “Did you guys break up?” Sneaky sneaky Alisha.

Cullie let out another heartbreaking laugh. “We aren’t ceramic vases that had been baked together, Mom.” She yanked the central bone of the pomfret from its perfectly fried flesh. “You have to be together to break up.”

“Tell us what happened,” Ashish said gently and then pushed Cullie’s hair off her forehead.

There was so much pain on her face that Bindu had the urge to hunt this Rohan boy down.

“It was never about me,” Cullie said, sliding a horrified glance at Bindu. “I’m so sorry, Binji. I swear I had no idea.” Now she threw her arms around Bindu and started to sob in earnest.

The ugliest sensation stirred in Bindu’s chest. She pulled away from Cullie. “What are you trying to say?”

“He was here looking for you.”

Cold dread stabbed across Bindu’s skin. With every shred of acting skill she had ever gathered, she dropped a mask of calm over her face. “I thought you said his name was Rohan.” Even as she said it, her mind unraveled what couldn’t possibly be true.

Rohan could not possibly be Oscar’s grandson. A shaking started deep in her belly. Her gaze flew to Ashish. He was staring intently from one woman to the next. The ABCs of my life, he’d loved to say. Bindu suspected they’d found Cullie a C name just so he’d get to make that declaration.

The glazed intoxicated look was gone from Alisha’s eyes, replaced by rage. Everyone seemed to have grasped that this was worse than anything they’d expected. But they didn’t know the half of it.

This could not be happening.

Bindu couldn’t faint. She couldn’t throw up. She couldn’t move.

“Binji. I’m so very sorry.”

“Stop saying that. This is not your fault.” Bindu’s voice was wild. The terror in her heart was wild. “You can’t go near him. You understand. Not anywhere near him.”

“I know. I would never let him hurt you.” Cullie was studying her with some alarm. They all were.

“Why would he want to hurt Ma?” Ashish said, and everything started to move in slow motion.

Cullie sniffed and squeezed her temples. “He thinks his grandfather was in love with Binji. Apparently the man left some journals documenting their relationship. He was some big shot filmmaker back in the day.”

“Oscar Seth.” It felt strange to say his name out loud in front of her family. “He’s Oscar Seth’s grandson,” Bindu said.

“The old Bollywood star?” Ashish asked.

Silence fell between them like a curtain, plastic pushing up against her nose. Bindu struggled to breathe.

Ashish turned the strangest look on her. “How did you know?”

“Binji?” Cullie exchanged a matching look with her father. “How’d you know it was Oscar Seth? I never said his grandfather’s name.”

The three of them were staring at Bindu now. It struck her that they were her entire world. Outside of them, not a single thing mattered. And she was about to lose them. But how could she not tell Cullie? Not with what all of this might mean for her.

Alisha poured her a glass of water, and Bindu drank.

“I acted in his film when I was seventeen. And we . . .” She cleared her throat. “We had a relationship.” She looked at Ashish. “It was just before I married your father.”

Ashish dropped into the chair next to Bindu. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. Her son was never at a loss for words. He had never looked at her this way.

He pushed off the chair again and started pacing.

Alisha patted Bindu’s hand. “You acted in a film with Oscar Seth?” She sounded impressed.

Cullie stroked Bindu’s shoulder. “You were seventeen?”

They both looked at her like they had no idea who she was. And she didn’t have the words to bridge that gap.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Alisha, of the hard questions, asked.

If Bindu could find her voice, she might have tried to answer. But before she could, the answer dawned on Alisha’s face. Her gaze slid to Ashish, and he stopped pacing.

“Oh God,” Ashish said, understanding draining his face of color.

There was no escape left. They knew.

“Beta . . . I swear . . . I never meant . . .” Bindu pushed her face into her hands. I was seventeen, she wanted to say, I was alone, but the excuses wouldn’t come out.

“I need a moment.” Ashish’s voice was unreadable. When she looked up, his face was unreadable. Turning his back on her, he made his way onto the lanai.

Bindu wanted to follow him, but she couldn’t move. Alisha and Cullie were frozen too.

All her life Bindu had been grateful for how much like her Ashish looked. Now she wished she had a sign. Rajendra’s nose, Oscar’s eyes. Anything. But there was nothing.

Finally, she followed him into the lanai. Silence wasn’t going to help them get through this.

“I never meant to hide something like this from you,” she said when he didn’t turn around, didn’t acknowledge her. “But I didn’t know what else to do. How do you tell your child you don’t know who his father is?”