The Art of Inheriting Secrets(108)

“She was very afraid of him. It’s all over her paintings.”

“If he hurt her, that makes sense,” Mrs. Malakar said, sitting down next to her husband.

My throat grew tight, and I had to look away to stop the visions of my artistic, eccentric, kind mother being hurt in any way. I swallowed and met his gaze, prompting, “She came to you?”

Harshad took a breath, looked at his wife, who gave him a slight nod. He nodded. “She found Roger trying to burn poor Sanvi’s dead body, and she killed him. Stabbed him with gardening shears.” His eyes filled with tears. “Many times.” He shifted, cleared his throat. “She came to me for help. There was no one else she could ask.”

A place in my throat tightened, choking any words I might have thought to utter. The scene played itself in my mind. The fire, the man who’d gone over the edge, my mother’s long-suffering fury suddenly snapping. I covered my mouth, afraid of what I would say.

“You’ve known Sanvi was dead, all this time?” Samir asked, his voice shocked.

“It was not a choice I made lightly.” The grief of his long-ago loss weighed on his shoulders. “I loved my sister, and I wanted to kill him myself.”

Again, he wiped one hand against the other, Lady Macbeth. “But Caroline had already done it for that crime and all the others she suffered. If I had told the police where Sanvi was, they would have found Roger, and Caroline would have gone to prison. That didn’t seem right to me.”

I hated to ask the question, but I suddenly knew it was true. “She was pregnant, wasn’t she? With me.”

“Yes.”

Behind me, Samir stepped close and settled his hands on my shoulders. I asked, “Was Roger my father?”

“No. But I don’t know who it was. She never told me that.”

I briefly closed my eyes, both relieved and weary. If Roger was not my father, who was? Could I find him?

But I also realized that if my mother had been pregnant with me before she’d left England, I was a full year or more older than I thought I was. Already forty.

I carefully did not look at Mrs. Malakar.

Gently, Samir said, “Finish the story, Dad. She needs to hear it all.”

“We buried the bodies in the garden and moved roses to cover them. I came back and told my mother, and she agreed that Caroline should not be punished. We never told my father. He would have wanted anyone, everyone punished for Sanvi’s death. He didn’t . . . know all of it.”

“All of what?” I asked, but it was hard to speak.

“My mother and your grandmother. Their love affair.”

I glanced up at Samir. “You knew, all this time? We found some photos—they’re very explicit.”

“When I was a child, I saw them kissing. I was only six or seven, maybe, but I knew that women didn’t kiss that way.” He shook his head. “All of their lives, they hid.” As if he came back from a very, very faraway place, he raised his head. “It was Roger’s discovery of their . . . affair . . . that caused so much pain. He blackmailed your grandmother into marriage, and my mother was furious and married too. And then your mother and I were born, and—” He spread his hands. “They were so lonely, the two of them, without each other.”

It seemed I’d been weeping for months, and there could be no more tears in me, but this brought a fresh onslaught, an ocean’s worth of emotion, rendering me speechless. The tears flowed down my face, and Mr. Malakar nodded, pushing a box of tissues my way.

“I know,” he said.

“Dad, I’ve been so worried you would be upset if you knew,” Samir said.

“Your generation did not invent the world, son.”

Emotions continued to pour through my eyes, through my nose, and I bent my head at last, hiding. “Give me a minute. I’ll be better soon.”

My poor mother, lost and locked and caught in the middle of so many currents. She’d even left behind her lover, for my sake. “My mother,” I said and wept the more.

“Leave us alone,” Mrs. Malakar said.

I was aware of them leaving, but I couldn’t raise my head, couldn’t stop crying. It was as if all the happiness in the world had been sucked out, and I heard a wail escape my lips. Mrs. Malakar’s hand fell on my back.

“I miss her so much.”

“She’s always with you. A mother never leaves.”

I kept my head down, unable to stop my hiccupping, ridiculous outpouring. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know . . . why . . . I just can’t . . . stop.”

“It was time to weep,” she said calmly. Her hand moved in a slow, easy circle between my shoulder blades.

So I let it be time. I cried for my grandmother and Nandini; for Sanvi, stolen and lost so young; and for my mother, who had carried this burden with her for all of her life and never breathed a word of it.

At last, I lifted my head. “She went to America, and she was happy,” I said. “She left it all and became someone else.”

She gave me a cup towel, and I mopped my face. “It was brave. I didn’t know this story. I only sensed there was something between my husband and your mother. I thought they might have been lovers.” She shook her head, brushed hair from my wet face. “Women have ever had to pay for the crimes of men.”