Trail of Broken Wings (6 page)

“Yeah, our baby sister. You have to take care of her after I’m gone, OK?” A desperate plea for even an insincere acquiescence. Whenever Sonya was ill, Marin had been pulled from her junior-high classes. The nursery school would call to say Sonya had vomited again. Marin would wait in the principal’s office, her arms resting on a stack of her assignments for the rest of the day. Her father would summon her with a honk from the parking lot, the used, pea-green station wagon coughing as it waited. The office secretary offered a small wave each time, a smile to conceal her sympathy.

“Whatever. Anyway, you’re coming back all the time. Right?” The first vulnerability Trisha has shown, Marin thinks. “Things won’t change?”

“It’s a little far for that. It’ll be hard to come all the time.”

“Why do you have to go live with him? Why can’t he live here?” Sonya demands. Their bravado gone, they stare at Marin.

“Those are the rules.”

“Whose rules?”

“I don’t know,” Marin snaps. “Daddy found someone for me to marry, and I’m marrying him.”

“You don’t even know him,” Trisha reminds her.

“I met him when we got engaged.”

“He could have the cooties,” Sonya interjects.

“Sonya, you’re too old to think cooties are real.”

“He could have AIDS.” Trisha starts to brush out her hair. “In science, we just learned that India has the fastest-spreading rate of it. He’s from there. He could have it.”

“Trisha, we’re from there too. And we don’t have it, do we?”

“I’m just saying. You should ask him.”

“I’ll ask him after the wedding.”

“That’ll be too late. You get it from sex.”

“Gross.” Sonya’s eyes widen. “I know about sex. It’s this.” She makes a circle with one hand and uses her finger to go in and out.

Marin smacks her hand gently. “Don’t do that again.”

“Why don’t you call and ask him?” Trisha admires herself in the mirror. “If he has it, then you don’t have to marry him.”

“I’m not allowed to call him.” Marin looks away.

“I don’t want you to go,” both Sonya and Trisha say at the same time.

Marin’s eyes shut as she pulls both sisters in tight, her childlike arms around their young bodies. “I know.”

RANEE

She wakes at the first sign of light, which slips through the curtains, teasing her like a gentle feather. Though only a sliver, it brightens the room. A reminder that no matter how much she welcomes the quiet of the night, the day will always follow. Today feels different. She lies still in bed, listening for the reason why. Yet again, she reminds herself that he is not in the house, waiting for her. Her mornings always started with dread. Sure that no matter what time she awoke it was still too late. He always seemed to be up a few minutes before her, angry that his breakfast was not ready.

Once she stayed up all night, counting the minutes until it was proper for her to slip downstairs and begin making chai the way he liked it. At four in the morning, her heavy lids had demanded just a few minutes of closure. She had acquiesced, promising herself only ten minutes of sleep, and woke with a start three hours later when he grabbed her leg.

Ranee knew fear gripped Brent back then. He was afraid of this new world that even after decades still felt foreign to him. Working every day among strangers and colleagues who asked why he smelled like garlic and onion, staples of Indian cooking. Demanded to know
why his lips held a sheen of yellow around their rim. When he explained he started his morning with turmeric milk, they laughed and said milk was for kids. This was America and here a man took his coffee black. They brought him a cup and insisted he down the bitter liquid. Every morning after, he filled a mug with it and let it sit on his desk to appease anyone watching.

Brent yearned for the familiarity of India, of living among those who looked like he did and spoke the same language. He tried once to bring a tape player to work and listen to Indian songs with headphones. When the jack accidentally fell out, the songs blared through the office. Teased for hours afterward, he slipped the tape player into his desk drawer and never brought it out again. Brent had lost his life in hopes of making it better. It was a gamble he regretted always.

Ranee shakes the memories away. Those days are behind her. She allows the thought to sweep over her. As it does, she remembers the reason why today feels different. Her daughter is home. Asleep down the hall, in her childhood bed. A prickle of tears as a smile tugs at her lips. Her family finally together again. She wonders at the road Sonya has traveled. Ranee surrendered her own love of adventure when she was married off at the age of eighteen. Her father was sure he had found a good man for her. It did not occur to him to ask if she thought the same.

As she sits up in bed, the covers slip down to her waist. Her hair falls to her shoulders. Peppered with gray, it frames her petite face. Her long eyelashes cover her eyes as she closes them in quick prayer. It’s been her habit to start every morning the same way. A few seconds to ask God to protect her children, as she was unable to. The first time was two months after Marin was born. Brent had taken Marin from her arms when she cried for milk. He insisted she was better off with his mother, who lived with them. She knew how to discipline children, he said. Years later, Ranee wanted to ask if his mother had been the one who taught him.

Finishing her prayer, she slips carefully out of bed, her legs covered with the bright orange flannel nightgown she still wears. She bought it years ago at a discount store in hopes it would dissuade him from demanding sex every night. It hadn’t worked, but did help to keep the chill at bay afterward. Making her way gingerly to the bathroom, nothing rushes her faster than she wants to go. Once there, she stares at the woman she is now. Older, bruised in places that no one can ever see, but wiser. One piece of knowledge had always eluded her, that life is not what happens to you, but what you make happen. It seems so simple to her now. Yet for years she fell to the floor in tears when she heard her daughters’ cries, begging to find that very answer.

She reminds herself again that the past is just that. No matter that every room still holds his scent, the echo of his voice. He is not there. But the walls house his ghost, forcing Ranee to look over her shoulder when she is alone. She dresses quickly, suddenly wanting the company of her youngest more than she wants to savor the freedom of her time.

She mixes the Bengal gram flour, adding fresh garlic, mint leaves, and chopped spinach. The oil starts to boil on the stove. Scooping two fingers full, Ranee drops the mixture slowly into the heated oil so as not to burn herself. She repeats the process again until all the batter is gone, leaving the bowl empty. Once cooked, she gingerly removes the
pakoras
individually and lays them on a paper towel to help soak up the grease. Removing the frozen mint chutney from the freezer, she runs it under hot water to thaw it. From the pantry she pulls out a tin can full of
ghatiya
—chickpea flour fried into twists. She adds a dollop of mango chutney to the plate before cutting strips of green pepper and washing the seeds out.

The chai starts to boil over on the stove. She lowers the flame under the soy milk mixed with fresh ginger and cumin. From the refrigerator
she removes two
methi na thepla
, one of her favorite childhood foods from her home state of Gujarat. Whole-wheat flour combined with fenugreek leaves and other fragrant spices. When the girls were young, she would add minced garlic and bell peppers to get some greens into their diet. As they got older, they began to love the flatbread as much as Ranee did. It became Sonya’s favorite; she begged for it every weekend.

Ranee methodically sets the table perfectly for one. Just as she hears Sonya making her way to the kitchen, she pours the chai into a cup. “Good you’re up. I have breakfast ready. Your favorite,” she says, presenting the plate with a flourish. “Methi na thepla.”

“I don’t like thepla,” Sonya says, looking confused. She glances at the elaborate meal. “That was Marin’s favorite. I always liked roti best.”

Ranee searches her memory, as a vague picture comes into focus. A young Sonya at the table. She’s right; it was Marin’s favorite. Sonya would always push the thepla away, asking instead for cereal. If Ranee insisted she eat Indian, then Sonya demanded a plain wheat flour roti, which she could roll up and pretend was a pancake. Now Ranee glances around the kitchen, suddenly unsure. She tries to understand how she could have forgotten such an important detail. “I’ll make you something else.”

“No, it’s fine. This is wonderful. Thank you.” To emphasize her point, Sonya dips a piece of the thepla into the chutney and takes a bite. She wipes the mango jelly off her lip before taking a sip of the chai. “You didn’t have to do all of this.”

“Of course I did. You are home,” Ranee says, as if that explains everything. Returning to what makes sense—what comes naturally to her—she starts to clean. With a dry sponge, she wipes the table clear of crumbs that have yet to fall. She pushes in chairs that have not been touched and rearranges the placemats. It is a table for eight. Ranee bought it the day after Brent fell into the coma. He rarely allowed her to entertain the whole family at once. Now, Ranee will have the
freedom to do as she wishes. “I thought we could go visit some aunties. They have been asking about you.”

In the Indian community, aunties are women friends of the family. No blood connection required. Over the years, the practice offered Ranee some sense of comfort. With little to no family in the States to call her own, she appreciated the semblance the moniker afforded.

“All these years, they say to me, ‘Ranee, where is Sonya? She is always on the move, that one.’ ” Ranee laughs, an insider on the joke. “I tell them, ‘One day, you will see, she will come home. Where else can she go?’ ”

“There’s a whole world out there, Mom.” Sonya pushes away from the table, her food barely touched. “I imagine there’s someplace that would want me.”

“But this is your home.” Ranee glances around, seeing the home as if it were brand new. In a way it is. The past, no matter how definite, does not have the power to determine the future. The proof is standing right in front of her. How many days had she walked the halls, passed Sonya’s room, wondering if it would ever shelter her daughter again? Now, Sonya is here, eating the breakfast she has made. There is no flinching at the sound of his footsteps or cringing before he speaks. There is no fear, and that in itself is proof that they are free of him.

Ranee ignores the sound of laughter that reverberates in her head. It mocks her for believing she has escaped. A fugitive is never free. Though he lies unconscious in a coma, miles away, his memory still smothers the air she breathes. Part of her knows it always will.

“This has always been your home,” Ranee argues.

Sonya opens her mouth but no words come. She stares down at her food and fiddles with what’s left. “It was never my home,” she says quietly. Glancing around at everything familiar, she asks, her voice rising with anger, “Did you convince yourself it was yours?”

Her comment—and her anger—cause Ranee to stagger back, her left arm reaching for the counter for support. Images of India and her
homes there dance in front of her eyes. “In my first home,” she starts quietly, “I would run along a water bank as the servants washed our clothes in the mouth of the river.”

Never having heard any stories from Ranee’s childhood, Sonya stops drinking her chai to listen. “What was it like?”

Ranee pauses, thinking back to that time. “Free.” She would throw pebbles into the water, earning her a scolding from the servants who watched her. “My mother had five children before me and four after. I was raised by servants who earned a few cents a day.”

“I never knew that,” Sonya murmurs.

No, she wouldn’t have
, Ranee thought, never having shared any of her childhood with her daughters. “Do you know my first memory of life?” When Sonya shakes her head no, Ranee begins her tale. “I was three, maybe four. I was running after a bird but it refused to be caught.” They share a quick smile with one another. “I stepped on a nail. It pierced my foot, went right through the arch.”

“Mom,” Sonya’s voice fills with pain at the image. “What happened?”

“I cried.” Blood had dripped everywhere. Dropping her face into her hands, she had sobbed, sure that the sound would carry and bring someone to her aid. But she had ventured too far. Only trees and the sway of the wind kept her company. “In the distance I was sure I saw my mother stop and stare at me. It was the last thing I remembered before I fell unconscious.”

“Was she there?” Sonya asks.

“I never asked. A servant found me and took me home.” Ranee takes a deep breath. “This home is the only one I have.”

“You could sell it.” Sonya starts to clean up. She scrapes all the food into the garbage can before rinsing the plate in the sink. “It’s very large for one person.”