Swimming Through Clouds (A YA Contemporary Novel) (18 page)

I immediately made up my mind not to let tonight’s menu ruin
my time of dreaming with my mother. After carefully lining my shoes in the
closet in their assigned spot, I ran to find Mom in the kitchen drying dishes.
She put the last of the tea cups behind the glass cupboard when I caught her in
a squeezing hug from behind, as my backpack fell to the floor with a thud.

“Mommy! You’ll never guess what I learned today?”

“Math? How to read? More math?” Jesse came up from behind
panting. Did his sarcasm have anything to do with the fact that I ignored his
plea to “wait up” the whole way home? I continued to ignore him.

“Jesse. Talia. Clean up and finish your homework. Then get
at least half your chores done before dinner. Chop-chop.” Mom spoke toward the
kitchen window. Always on the lookout for Dad’s impending and dreaded arrival.

“Mommy, can I tell you a secret?” I whispered into her waist
now that she had turned to face me. My hands clasped around her tiny waist,
praying she might agree. To deviate. Just this once.

“Jesse, run along.” Jesse released an emphatic huff and
shuffled up the staircase to his room.

I moved away from Mom to sit at the kitchen table. “What is
it, Talia? You know your Dad does not—”

“Mommy, sit down. I know Dad’s rules. Just sit and listen
for a minute. I have some big news and then some bigger news.”

“Homework first T! You know the—”

“Mommy, that’s what I’m trying to tell you! I have no
homework tonight. Mrs. D., I mean Miss Cook, gave us a homework pass, just for
today!”

“Well, why didn’t you say so?”

“Mommy!”

“Okay. If that’s the big news, tell me the bigger news, and
then get your chores finished.”

“Mommy, Miss Cook got engaged!”

“That’s nice.”

“Mommy! Because she’s engaged, she’s getting married, and
she’ll wear a long white dress, and there will be flowers, and dancing and,
and, and...” I sounded like my teacher. “And her name will change. We have to
call her Mrs. D. in September.”

“That’s nice Talia. If that’s all you wanted to tell
me—”

“Mom, there’s more.” I took a deep breath. “I want to get
married. Someday. Not now of course. But I want a ring. I want to wear a pretty
dress. I want to dance with a nice man who loves me and carry a large bouquet
of purple lilacs. l love the smell of lilacs.”

Mom stared off to the kitchen window silently.

“What is it, Mommy?” Why wasn’t she happy? Laughing? This
was exciting news after all.

“Baby T, you should go and clean your room now.”

“Did you even hear a word I said, Mommy? Mom? Weren’t you
excited when Daddy gave you a diamond? When you picked your colors? Didn’t you
wear a pretty, long, white dress?” Come to think of it, I never saw any
pictures of my parents’ wedding. I guess I never thought to ask.

“Mommy, can you show me a picture of your wedding? Please! I
want to see your dress.”

Mom gulped like she had just swallowed a golf ball. “I don’t
have any.”

“Why not?”

Instead of answering my question, Mom rose from the table,
removed her apron, and hung it over the door handle, grabbed my right hand, and
said, “Come on! I don’t have any wedding photos, but there is something I can
show you. I have one picture of myself when I was younger that I can show you.
But you have to promise me that you’ll never breathe a word of this to your
father. Or even Jesse. Can you do that? Can you keep a secret?”

“Let’s pinky promise, Mommy! Kids at school do it all the
time. You just do like this...” I wound my pinky around hers and then continued.
“I promise to keep your secret if you keep mine. I don’t want Dad to know that
I want to get married. I just don’t think he w—”

“Needs to know.” Mom finished my sentence and rubbed her
chin atop our entwined fingers. “Pinky promise, it is.”

Then we raced up to her room. I followed on her heels. Jess
looked busy in his room as we scurried past.
Perfect
. Mom closed her bedroom door behind me
when I stepped in. Then she knelt down by her bed to remove the corner of her
sheet nearest her pillow. After which she unzipped the mattress cover just a
tad. She reached into the space between the mattress and box spring until her
arm disappeared.
What was under there?

“He doesn’t trust me with anything.” Mom lowers her voice
like she doesn’t want the walls to hear. “I don’t even know where he keeps all
our birth certificates, passports, and such, but there’s one thing I saved.
Your dad has no idea I have this. Here it is.” Mom pulled her arm back, her
hand holding a thin, faded magazine.

“Quickly. Come sit next to me on the bed. I’ll show this to
you, and then I have to hide it again before your dad comes home.”

She flipped it open too fast for me to read the cover. From
the pictures, it reminded me of the kind of magazine you found by the grocery
check out. The colors were faded and there were very few words on each page,
just numbers under each lady’s photograph. The woman on the first page was a
young Indian model wearing a poppy red sari and lots of gold jewelry—even
a dainty chain ran from her nose to her ear. Her heavy black eyeliner created a
dark and mysterious gaze.

Mom began flipping the pages carefully, and gorgeous women
who looked similar to my mother plastered the fragile paper, wearing bright
colors, sitting on sandy beaches, lying on intricate rugs, and poised in
complicated dance positions.

“Mommy?” I needed to ask a question. “Is the picture of your
wedding dress in here?”

“Not exactly. Hold on. Here it is.” Mom smoothed the page
open and leaned back for me to take in the picture her hand rested over.

“It’s you! Mommy! You were a model?” I didn’t wait for an
answer. Now my hand caressed the page of a young teenager dressed up like she
was invited to attend a fancy dinner at a royal palace. “Mommy, you’re
beautiful! Where’s this blue dress? I mean sari. Do you still have it? Do you
still have all these sparkly blue and silver bracelets?”

“They’re called bangles.”

“Do you still have this pink lipstick? I’ve never seen you
wear it. And these sparkly silver high heels with rhinestones? Where are they?
How old were you, Mom?”

I read the digits $500 underneath her photo in my head.
“Mom, did your sari cost $500? That’s so much money!” My eyes squinted to read
the small blackened word under the price, still faintly visible through the
ink. “
Es-cort
. Mommy, what’s an escort?”

Mom shook her head and moved her hand to cover the word. “I
thought I... That’s nothing. They just spelled the word
skirt
wrong. Yeah. That’s all that is. A
mistake. They made a mistake.”

“Mommy?” Why did she sound so unsure? “Why would they charge
$500 for a skirt? Unless there were rubies hidden underneath it. Because
there’s nothing fancy about a sari skirt.”

“Yes, Baby T. The jewels lay under the skirt.” Mommy
exhaled a long sigh.  

Then she moved to close the magazine, but my hand bookmarked
the spot. “Wait. Can I look at it just a moment longer. I want to remember you
as this beautiful queen. In case I never get to see this again, just let me
look at it for a few more seconds.”

Reluctantly, Mom opened it back up and said, “Okay. But only
for two seconds.”

“I bet this is why Daddy fell in love with you! Did he buy
you these fancy clothes? Did Daddy marry you because you looked beautiful in
this picture, Mommy?”

Mom took another deep breath, and her silence made me turn
from the picture of her to gaze up into her face. Tears began to gather at the
ridges of her eyes. “Yes, sweet T. Something like that. Your dad bought
me—I mean, brought me—to live out his American dream. He told me I
fit perfectly into his plan, so he married me. But...” Her voice faltered. “But
there was nothing fancy about it...”

And with that, the magazine collapsed shut. Vacation over.
Time to file the past away. We scooted off the bed, and Mom carefully returned
her secret back beneath the mattress while I stood guard at the bedroom door.

Mom’s words made no sense to me. I lay down to sleep that
night thinking of a beautiful, older Mommy dressed in sky blue, wearing silver,
her long hair glistening in the sun. How did you find her, Daddy? And why
didn’t you buy her the sari? Wouldn’t you want her to wear something pretty for
your wedding day?

I made a childish vow to find a sari like that when my day
came. Forget white. I would wear a sky blue sari and silver bangles on my
wedding day. Mommy would walk me down the aisle, wearing a matching sari. I
began dreaming of my husband that night. I had never thought to name him. Until
tonight. His name shall be Lagan Kumar. Remembering how Lagan told me what his
middle name means, I giggle to myself. Prince Lagan, it is.

CHAPTER
TWENTY

Tuesday
morning, I don’t notice my burnt arm until I finish brushing my teeth and the
hand towel brushes it as I wipe my dampened face. It doesn’t sting. I partially
unwrap my arm. It still looks bubbled, blistered, and discolored. But it doesn’t
burn anymore. As if my arm is infused with anesthesia or maybe my brain is? Am
I awake or still dreaming? I pinch my good arm to make sure.
Ouch!
Odd.

Running through my morning tasks, I stop whenever the wall,
the sheets, the counters, or anything, makes contact with my forearm—the
burnt arm—and it feels fine. Numb really, like it fell asleep, but
without any pins and needles. I find a loose, green, long-sleeve shirt to throw
over my lighter green tank and call out to Jess to say goodbye.

He doesn’t respond, so I drop my pack at the door and run by
his room to make sure he hears me. He’s not lying in bed or sitting in his
chair. He’s standing! Holding one side of the bed railing and one side of his
chair. His arms shake like vibrating harp strings. I hold my breath as I watch
from the doorway. He’s trying to walk. Jess is trying to walk! My brain screams
silently as I run up behind him and nearly knock him forward, squeezing him
with all my might.

“Jesse! You’re
gonna
walk again. I
just know it. You are so
gonna
walk again!”

“Your. Arm?”
 

I let go, and he moves to sit down in his wheelchair.

“I have to run, or else I’ll miss the bus.” I have to give
him another hug. So I do. He looks at my arm in surprise. “Oh. My arm is fine.
What can I say? Bye. Love you. See you after school.”

“Okay.” I can hear Jess speak as I leave the room and race
to the front door.

“
Byeeeee
!” I yell through the
house as I lock the front door and sprint for my bus stop. Doesn’t help that
I’m wearing extra layers on this hot May afternoon. Remembering the letter, I
bet the temperature in India this time of year has even the cows sweating. I
board the half-empty bus and find an empty seat, relieved that I made it and
thinking of how I’ll tell Jesse about the letter.

On the ride over, I think about the pleas of my faraway
grandfather. The rice fields. Mom not seeing her parents for over a decade. And
the shock they must have felt when they found out she died. When no one came to
Mom’s funeral, Jess and I just assumed that we had no relatives. To think there
were family members, two people out there, who actually wanted us. The thought
of living in a small hut on a rice farm with homemade bread sounded like a
resort compared to all I’ve ever known home to be.

When I enter school, the hallways seem less busy. I walk
over to my homeroom and slip into an empty classroom just as the bell rings.
Ms. Miller looks up from her magazine and rolls her eyes.

“Of course you would show up. One always does.” She talks
into the magazine she’s reading, then she looks up at me with an odd
expression, like I’m a green cat. “Did you forget to check your calendar,
dear?”

“Excuse me?” I stop organizing study cards for AP History to
field her question.

“Senior Skip Day.” She’s back in her magazine. She flips a
page and keeps talking. “It’s today. You are a senior, right?”

“Oh that.” Sheesh.

“You want to take a walk around the parking lot?” She
genuinely wishes I weren’t here. “You know you don’t get marked absent today.
It’s your one freebie. Sure there isn’t any place you’d rather be?” She looks
up again, and if eyes could push, I’d be halfway out the door.

I rise and look out the window, wondering where I should
camp out for the next seven hours. Shuffling out of homeroom, back into the
barren hallway, I wonder what Lagan is doing today. Returning to my locker
without a plan, I unload my textbooks. Maybe I’ll find a free computer in the
Library and Google rice farms in India. Try researching my grandparents’ names
online to see if I can find any additional information. So many details missing
from the letter I shouldn’t have read. Then I’ll leisurely wait around the
cafeteria with hopes that Lagan might show up for lunch. Slim chance, but worth
the effort.
Let’s face it,
I tell myself,
I
have nowhere to go.