Trail of Broken Wings (41 page)

“We try again. Go slow, but with the intention that our family remains intact.”

Raj finally stands, coming around to face her. After so many years of marriage, of having and raising a daughter together, they stand as strangers. “Why?”

“What do you mean?” Marin demands.

“Why now?” Raj asks. He shakes his head, knowing her better than she thought. “You didn’t like Gia’s decision, so now you rethink the strategy, right? Is this really what it comes down to?”

Marin contemplates denying his accusation, screaming at him for thinking she is capable of such callousness. But he has caught her off guard, his assessment too accurate to negate. “I can’t lose her, Raj,” Marin finally says, after a long pause during which they both seem to stand on a cliff that is crumbling. “She’s all I have.”

“You had me,” he says so quietly that Marin would have missed his words if the room weren’t deadly still. She doesn’t respond to him, doesn’t give his declaration its due. He appears to wait for something, but when seconds tick by and only silence continues to fill the room, he sighs. “What do you propose?”

“We keep living in the house, together.” They can return to the way they were, three souls coexisting under the same roof. “We help get her through this.”

“What about school?” They are negotiating now, a divorce settlement without the legalities. “That’s not something I will budge on.”

The control Marin was so sure she had starts to slip away again. Her instinct is to lash out, demand to know why Raj can’t see what the school means for Gia’s future. But the battle lines have been drawn, and Marin is on the wrong side of them. “Can we table the final decision for later?” Marin asks.

“I’ve contacted some private tutors,” Raj says, surprising Marin. “She can finish the school year out at home. I’ve also scheduled tours of the local schools. That way, Gia can have some options if she decides she wants to return to a school setting.”

“Her résumé may suffer with the homeschooling.” Marin tries to get him to understand. She can start to feel her dreams of Harvard or Yale slipping away. “She won’t have access to the types of activities she has now.”

“I’m not particularly concerned about her college right now. The priority is keeping her alive, and her wanting to stay that way.”

Marin wants to argue, but his face is set. Any argument will fall on deaf ears and may impede the delicate negotiations they are in. “Fine. Let’s agree to take it day by day. When she’s stabilized, let’s revisit the situation.”

TRISHA

I have lost count of how much time has passed since I learned the truth. Days blend into night. The only way I know the difference is when Sonya goes to sleep and awakens. She keeps a tight schedule, something else that is different from the girl I knew. As a child, she used to be the last one to wake up, as if facing life were too much to bear. At night, she was the last one to sleep, fearing what the night could bring. I used to mock her for such thoughts, believing it a sign of immaturity. Now I wonder if she wasn’t on to something, if she knew the true danger Papa represented, while I lived in my own world.

I try to put as many pieces together as possible. None of them fit with the image of the father I loved, the man I adored beyond reason. Last night, I had a dream that we were dancing on an empty dance floor. A father-daughter dance at my wedding. But soon the floor changed from white to red. When I looked down, my red sari—the traditional garb for a wedding—had changed to a white wedding gown, and the front was soaked with blood. I screamed, but he kept dancing, insisting everything was fine. I awoke with a start, sweat lining my body. Sonya stirred at my movement but continued to sleep.

I glanced around, noticing a chair shoved up against the door, locking us in. Or locking everyone else out, I realize. How long has Sonya needed to do that? How many other ways has she needed to protect herself from nameless fears? Shame fills me, knowing my sister has been suffering in indescribable ways while I lived in comfort. But it was all a sham, a smoke screen I created to hide what had happened to me.

I have never really lived, never fully allowed myself happiness. There’s so much about myself I have never understood. I love pickles but hate cucumbers. Pictures of nature fascinate me, but I can’t stand camping. Give me fresh tomatoes any day to munch on, but tomato sauce on pizza makes me gag. I love children, but the thought of having one scares the hell out of me. I have never bothered to dissect the reasons I am the way I am—just accepted myself with an openness others lack. But as thoughts of the assault start to filter through along with images of a baby, I begin to wonder how far the pain of my father’s act reaches. Curling into a fetal position, my hand cradling my stomach, I feel myself falling into another fitful sleep.

Mama brings me an early dinner of one my favorite meals—
pani puri
. Puffed balls of fried wheat are popped open at the top and filled with potatoes, lentils, mint chutney, and onions. Topping it off is yogurt and sweet brown chutney. It is one of the few indulgences I could never resist, eating fifteen to twenty puris in one sitting. She sets the plate down in the normal place—by my bed—and strokes a hand across my hair. Assuming I’m asleep, she starts to walk out when I call her name.

“You’re awake,” she says, sounding surprised.

“Yeah.” I sit up in bed, avoiding looking into the mirror that hangs nearby. “I have been for a few hours.”

She says nothing, coming to sit by me instead. I scoot over, making room. She fits easily alongside me, her body smaller than I remember.
Her hand next to mine, I see the wrinkles and the frailty I have always glanced over before. “I have been worried, Beti,” she murmurs.

“I know.” I lay my head back against the headboard, feeling the knots in my hair. I ventured into the shower once or twice but found even that to be too exhausting. “I’m just . . .” I try to find the words, but instead a tear falls silently down. I wipe it away quickly only to have another follow suit. “It’s just hard.”

“Do you remember?” she asks.

“Just flashes, here and there.” I am thankful it’s not more but ashamed for being so. “I see myself walking down the hall afterward. Trying to find someone. But I don’t remember the actual act, what he did to me.” I rub my head, hoping to jog my memory. “But that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Somewhere in my mind there’s a memory of it.” I yearn to pull it out, like a rabbit from a hat, and make it disappear forever. “Part of me always knew the truth. I just couldn’t see it.” My voice cracks, terror lining every word. “What if I don’t get better? What if this”—I motion to myself and around me—“is all I am?”

“Did I ever tell you the old Hindu parable of the rope and the snake?” Mama asks, facing forward, not responding directly to my plea.

“No,” I say, unsure where she is leading. Mama rarely read stories to us as children. At first she said it was because she wasn’t fluent in English and didn’t want to impede our learning with her interpretation, but years later she admitted to me she had stopped believing in fairy tales; she just couldn’t remember when. “I don’t think you did.”

She pulls her knees up to her chest, almost like a child, and begins to recite the parable from memory. “There was once a man who worked a very long day. He had a hard life, this man. Worked from morning until night in the fields of India without a rest or break to eat. The sun would beat down on his head and, without a hat to shelter him, sweat would pour onto his forehead and down his neck. With little water to drink, it was fortunate he did not collapse from heat exhaustion.

“This man was not a happy man,” Mama continued. “He had no family or anyone to call his own.”

“No children?” I demand, lost in her story.

“No.” She pauses, allowing the information to sink in. “He walked home every day after work filled with despair. His life was worthless, he was sure. One day, his normal route was blocked by a mudslide. The monsoons had just come through, making the road impassable. He hesitated to take an alternate route, for it was said that path was filled with all forms of evil. From bandits to dark magic, the tall tales were plenty. But accepting his providence and whatever may follow, he took it, prepared to face the danger he was sure was coming.”

“Stupid decision,” I say, common sense demanding to be heard.

“Trisha,” Mama warns. “The story?”

“Go on.” I settle back.

“He could barely see. The moon was hiding behind dark clouds, and there were no streetlights. But he continued on, growing prouder of his bravery with each step. Soon he started to feel like a new man, capable of anything. Until he accidentally kicked a large rock. A sound stopped him where he stood. He came face-to-face with a snake. Now this wasn’t just an ordinary snake. It was the king of cobras, and it had been disturbed by this man.”

She pauses while I take a sip of water.

“Their face-off validated all this man’s fears—that his life was worthless, that he was meant to die a horrible death, that only bad could come to him. All of it, right there in the eyes of this snake,” she continues. “As the snake lunged toward him, its teeth bared, the man did what any normal man would do. He ran. So fast that he almost got away. But the man kept his head turned back, watching for the snake as he ran, sure it would keep up with him. Because he did that, he missed the boulder sitting in his way. Hitting his head, he bled to death within minutes.”

“What happened to the snake?” I demand, now captivated by the story.

“The villagers found the man in the morning. A few feet away, they found a coiled rope someone had dropped. There was no snake.”

“Mama,” I say, confused. Before I can continue, she takes my hand.

“Beti,” Mama says, her eyes meeting mine. “What he did to you can never be undone. But don’t let it color your life. Don’t let his actions or his way of living become your truth.” She gets out of the bed and cradles my face in her hands. “You are your truth. You have always been and will always be your own woman. And I couldn’t be more proud of the woman you are.” Slowly bending down, she puts her weathered lips on my cheek and offers me a simple kiss.

“Mama,” I say, stopping her as she starts to leave. “Would you have told me? If I hadn’t come to you, would you have come to me?”

She hesitates, myriad emotions dancing across her face. “I didn’t want to. I wanted to bury it as I believed you had. I wanted you to keep being happy,” she admits.

“That wasn’t your decision to make,” I say, angry that she had assumed it was.

“Maybe not,” she admits, her struggle clear. “But given what he had done and how it might affect you, it was the only decision I thought to make.”

“Did you know?” I demand, needing to lash out. She is an easy target, and I am relentless. “Did you have any idea when it happened?”

She drops her head, clasping her hands together. Slowly she shakes her head. “I knew he was capable of causing great heartache, but what he did to you . . .” She shudders. Raising her head, she meets my gaze. “You have to believe me—I had no idea. If I had . . .” she stops, unable to finish the sentence, both of us left to wonder what she would have done. A man who held all the power—what were we supposed to fight him with?

I believe her. Maybe there were clues, but both of us had been desperate to ignore them. At some level, a moth has to know the flame will engulf it and try to avoid it. “After you learned the truth, were you going . . .” I falter, pausing before I ask the next question, fearing her answer. “Were you going to stay with him?”

“No,” she says, her answer sure, without any hesitation. “But he would have made it difficult for me to leave.”

“Then I guess it’s a good thing he’s dying,” I say.

“Yes,” she agrees. “It is a good thing.”

MARIN

It is Gia’s sixteenth birthday, a momentous occasion for every teenager. Marin decided to throw her a party, inviting all her former friends from the school. Gia has taken Raj up on his offer to leave school for a while. During the week, Raj brings Gia to a therapist and waits outside while she reveals her secrets to a stranger. Marin never offers to drive or go along. She does not stop them, but she certainly doesn’t support Gia’s going, even though she herself suggested it. That was just for leverage in her negotiations with Raj, and she was angry at him for insisting Gia needed outside intervention. Marin still believes they would have been able to handle it within their small circle. Having done that in her childhood, there is no reason to do it differently now.

After their discussion in the office, she and Raj talked no further about separating or about Raj and Gia leaving the home. Everyone seemed to understand that such a step couldn’t be undone, and besides, no one had the capacity to deal with such an event. They were all emotionally drained, with nothing left in the well to draw from. Instead, they each escaped to their separate rooms, using the main parts of the house to coexist in.

Except for Gia’s therapy appointments, she spends the majority of her days in her room, accompanied by either loud music or complete silence. Sometimes Marin stands outside the door, waiting for permission to enter, to talk to Gia. It never comes, so Marin never enters.