The Weight of Heaven (15 page)

“No, no. Fingernails.” He held out his chewed nails for them to

inspect. “I biting my nails. Ma says it makes a tree grow in your

stomach. Maybe that’s why I’m eating all the time.”

“That’s just an expression,” Ellie started to say and then thought

better of it. For all she knew, Edna probably did think her son had

a tree in his belly. This was a country where the lines between

metaphors and reality, fact and fiction, were virtually nonexistent

because strange, improbable things happened all the time. She remembered the first time she’d visited Bombay—she’d seen a cow,

an elephant, a snake, and a monkey in the streets on the very first

day. And all these animals coexisted peacefully with the mechanical

animals—the Jaguars and the Dodge Rams and Ford Mustangs—

parked on the street. Edna was forever telling her strange stories—of

how her aunt once saw a crocodile and a cow fall out of the sky while

it was raining; how, when she was a little girl and traveling with her

father in a bullock cart on some rural road at night, they had seen a

cobra in the middle of the road. They had stopped, and before their

very eyes, the cobra had turned into a beautiful woman who disappeared into the nearby woods. If one of her patients in America had

told her this, Ellie would’ve tested him or her for various mental

conditions. But here in India, she was learning to take such things

in her stride, was beginning to realize that reality was more multidimensional than she had ever suspected in Cleveland or Michigan.

She pulled out a sandwich and handed it to Ramesh. “Will this

tide you over until lunch?”

Th e We i g h t o f H e av e n 1 0 3

He cocked his head. “Tide me?”

“It’s an expression,” she said again. “It just means—”

“Time and tide wait for no man,” Ramesh intoned slowly. Ellie

thought he looked like nothing so much as a wise owl at that moment.

The boy turned toward Frank. “Have you heard that saying?”

Frank was poker-faced. “I think so,” he said. “A few times.”

After a few minutes, he got up and lifted off his T-shirt, blocking the

sun for a moment. “Speaking of tides, how about a quick swim?”

He tagged Ramesh. “Last one in is an elephant’s turd.”

Ramesh threw the last of his sandwich into his mouth, squealing as he scrambled to his feet, tossing sand onto the blanket. “
Ae
,

you cheating,” he yelled after Frank, who was running toward the

shoreline. Unbuttoning his blue cotton shirt, he began to follow

Frank, looking back at Ellie. “He cheating, Ellie.” He hit the water

a few seconds after Frank did.

Ellie dusted the sand off the blanket and then sat with her hands

across her knees, looking at the two of them frolicking in the water,

splashing and dunking each other. Even from this distance she could

hear Ramesh’s yelps of delight and Frank’s deep laugh. He’s happy,

she thought with wonder and realized she had tears in her eyes. It

had been so long since she’d seen Frank like this, young, carefree,

and genuinely joyous. The sullen, cautious shell of a man that he’d

turned into the night that Benny had died seemed to have been cast

away, as if the waters of the Arabian Sea were baptizing him in a

new faith. Never mind that this faith was rocky, that it was built on

a foundation as unstable as this sand that shifted below her. Never

mind that this new religion that he was finding was being led by a

nine-year-old boy who belonged to two other people who, despite

their short, abrupt manner with him, loved him very much. That

the nine-year-old belonged to a father who was already uneasy with

what he saw as a usurpation of his powers and authority, who sensed

in Frank a challenger to the unconditional love he expected from his

son.

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And suddenly Ellie felt something darken the sun, as if a shadow

had leaned across it, and she became acutely aware of Benny’s presence. Her stomach dropped and, unable to help herself, she looked

to her right, knowing that Benny was sitting right there. But when

she looked, there was nobody on the red and green blanket, just the

sandals Ramesh had kicked off before heading for the water. Still,

she couldn’t shake off the feeling that Benny was right next to her.

“Ben?” she whispered, staring straight ahead now, not knowing

whether Frank could see her lips moving from this distance but not

wanting to take the risk. “You here, Benny?”

There was no answer, just the low hum of the universe, which

always seemed more audible on clear, cloudless days at the beach.

The afternoon air shimmered like cut glass. But even as Ellie felt

foolish, she couldn’t let go of the feeling that, like her, Benny was

watching the antics of the man and the boy in the water. Her heart

ached for her dead son. Did he believe that his dad was replacing

him with another boy? Did he feel forgotten, ignored, neglected?

Did he feel—
dead
? Or was he aware of how sharply, excruciatingly

alive he was in their minds and lives? Did he know that they thought

about him a hundred times a day, that each of them had a picture of

him beside the bed that they kissed first thing in the morning? That

there were certain foods that they could not eat to this day because

they were his favorite foods, that neither one of them had eaten a

watermelon or Chinese fried rice since his death, that they turned

off the radio if “Yellow Submarine” or “Octopus’s Garden” came

on, that they never entered a Nike store because that was his favorite

brand of shoe?

Ellie felt her throat tighten as another thought struck her: Did

Benny, oh, dear God, did Benny hold her responsible for his dying?

Did he think—as Frank had occasionally let slip he believed—that

she had been a neglectful mom? That he would still be alive if only

she’d rushed him to the ER at the first sign of fever? Did he blame

Frank for being away in Thailand, convinced that his pragmatic,

Th e We i g h t o f H e av e n 1 0 5

eagle-eyed father would’ve spotted the danger signs faster than his

more relaxed and easygoing mother? Oh, but what about the scores

of times when she’d nursed her boy through fevers and sore throats

and head colds while Frank was away? How could she have possibly

known that this time was different? She’d followed the doctor’s instructions—she’d put the wet rags on his head, given him the baby

Tylenol, brought him a Popsicle for his sore throat, checked his temperature every two hours. And more: she’d put on some soothing

music on the portable CD player in his room, opened the windows

to let in some fresh air, sat holding his hand and telling him how

much she loved him. Did he remember all this? Didn’t he remember

this? That she’d only left him after his fever was down to normal

and he was asleep, his sweet chest rising and falling gently as he

breathed? That his skin was smooth and flawless, without any of

those purple blossoms that would bloom just a few hours later? That

his eyes were shut and he was smiling in his sleep as he often did

when he was having a funny dream? That he had his fingers locked

together across his chest as he slept and she’d noticed the perfect fingernails and as always, her heart had swelled with love at the sight of

those tiny, smooth hands, brown as a small loaf of bread?

She did. She remembered all of it. The single, strangled cry from

Benny that had woken her out of a deep sleep so that she was in his

room before she could even remember waking up. The turning on

of the night lamp and the horrific first discovery of the rash. The

sweaty, disoriented look on Benny’s face. The terrified phone call to

Dr. Roberts. The longest five minutes in the world waiting for him

to call her back. She had already used those five minutes to get out

of her nightdress and into clothes, knowing that Dr. Roberts would

ask her to take Benny to the ER. The shakiness of her hands as

she dialed 911. The cool, calm efficiency of the paramedics. Riding

in the front of the ambulance—despite her pleas, they wouldn’t

let her ride in the back, where they’d already started Benny on an

IV—and watching the Mott Children’s Hospital building looming

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like a spaceship in the night as they approached. The resident doctor

talking to her, asking her questions, barking out orders at a nurse,

asking her to page Dr. Masood, the infectious disease specialist. Dr.

Masood had arrived a short while later. After Ellie had answered

all his questions, he had touched her shoulder lightly. “We will

do our best for your son, Mrs. Benton. We are running some tests

right now. But I’m ninety-nine percent sure this is meningococcus.

There’s nothing you could’ve done to prevent this. So I want you to

understand, you did nothing wrong.”

Ellie wished she could say those words to Benny now, plead her

case while at the beach on a blindingly bright afternoon. But the

strange thing was, she could only feel Ben’s presence if she looked

straight ahead at the water. If she glanced in the direction where she

was sure he was sitting, she felt nothing, saw only the blanket and

the sun shimmering on the grains of sand that Ramesh had deposited

when he’d tossed his sandals off. Besides, no time now to explain anything because Frank and Ramesh were climbing out of the sea and

heading toward her, shaking their heads to shake off the water, looking like two happy dogs as they did so. With every step they took, the

sensation of Benny being nearby left her. Now they were almost upon

her, and even though the wetness had darkened Frank’s blond hair,

she noticed how it glistened in the sun, took in the long, angular face,

the big, wide grin, which was also her son’s grin. The grin took her

breath away because for the first time she saw what others had always

commented upon—Benny’s strong resemblance to his father.

But no time now to ponder this because Ramesh’s wet, dark

body was shivering uncontrollably despite the sun. She threw him

a towel, but Frank grabbed it and roughly rubbed the moisture off

the boy’s slender body before wrapping it around him. When they

sat down, Frank kept his arm around the still-shivering boy, occasionally rubbing his back to breathe more heat into him. The gesture

reminded Ellie of Frank bathing Benny when he was a toddler. Ben

hated baths, used to scream holy murder every night when Frank

Th e We i g h t o f H e av e n 1 0 7

carried him into the tub. But once he was in the water, he would

settle down and splutter with laughter as he splashed around. Father

and son would inevitably look like they’d both had a bath, as a soaking, dripping Frank would rub his son down and then carry him in

his towel into his bedroom to change into his pajamas.

Ellie marveled at how effortlessly Frank was performing the

same task with Ramesh. For the past two years, she had believed

that Frank was the one stuck in the muddy cesspool of grief, that

she was the one who was coping with the death of their son. Now,

she wasn’t sure. While she sat on the beach talking to her dead son,

Frank had found a new son to love.

Something of her shock at this last realization must have showed

on her face, because she saw Frank stiffen as he said, “He’s cold.”

She heard the defensiveness in his voice, as if her husband was fighting back some unspoken accusation.

“I know,” she said mildly. Smiling at Ramesh, who sat beaming,

oblivious to the sudden tension, she added, “And they say the perfect meal after a swim in the ocean is—potato chips.”

“Yessssssssss,” the boy said, and they all laughed. Frank had a

habit of pumping his fist and exclaiming every time he scored a point

at basketball, and Ramesh had picked up the gesture from him.

“Hey, I’m hungry, too. Can I get something to eat?” Frank

said.

Ellie smiled. “Who are we kidding? May as well break into the

food right now.” She rummaged through the picnic basket, taking

out each of the dishes Prakash had packed for them. “Wow. Prakash

must’ve thought we were taking half of Girbaug out on the picnic

with us.”

Ramesh suddenly slapped his knee and squealed with laughter.

“Half of Girbaug,” he said. “You’re funny, Ellie.”

Frank and Ellie eyed each other quizzically. “It’s not
that
funny,

Ramesh,” Frank said finally. “Now stop laughing or you’re gonna

choke on your sandwich. “

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But that only made Ramesh laugh even more. “Ignore him,” Ellie

murmured to Frank. “Best thing to do when they get like that.”

Ellie’s hand touched something squishy at the bottom of the

basket. Removing the small piece of wrapped aluminum foil, she

unwrapped it. There was the lime pickle relish that Ramesh had requested from his father.

“My dada didn’t forget,” Ramesh yelled with delight. The boy

opened up his sandwich and spread the relish on top of the chicken

salad. Then he took a big bite.

“Ugh,” Frank and Ellie said simultaneously.

“Hah?” Ramesh said.

“Ramesh, that’s gross. How can you ruin the taste of the chicken