Where the Lotus Flowers Grow (21 page)

“In Jaipur.”

She arched her brow. “Why there?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

She nodded. “Are you here for good? Amira will be thrilled.”

“I’m leaving the day after tomorrow.”

“Oh,” she said, her mouth tilting downward. “You weren’t even going to visit me?”

A million arrows of guilt pierced me all at once. “I’m sorry, Divya. I missed you…I did. But I thought seeing you would be like…revisiting my past. I convinced myself forgetting everything, even the people I loved, would help me survive.”

“Did it?”

“No. Seeing you doesn’t make me sad. It makes me remember there are people who love me. I’m so sorry, sister.”

“There is nothing to forgive,
didi
. Nothing at all.”

I smiled brightly as my guilt disappeared. “You look beautiful.” I fingered the intricate border of her sari.

“I told you I’d wear pink every day.”

“And pray to Ganesha.”

“Yes, I do that, too.”

“When I was in Jaipur, I would go to the Hindu temple and do the same. I also closed my eyes and thought of Amira whenever I heard the bells signaling the Muslim call to prayer.”

She nodded. “Amira and I put up Christmas trees. We exchange little gifts. I think the three of us imprinted on each other. Maybe we should make up our own religion. Something to teach all of the hateful people of the world that we are not so different.”

“I doubt it will work.”

“I missed you so much.”

“You’re not angry with me?”

“We are sisters, our bond stronger than blood.” She cupped my chin. “I will always welcome you home.”

I gestured to the graves. “Thank you for taking care of them.”

She straightened. “I loved Hannah, too, Mary. So did Amira. We take turns coming here. This isn’t an obligation. It’s a duty for us. An honor.”

“I know.”

The gold of her
mangalsutra
glinted against the sun, and red sindoor powder colored the part in her hair, the sacred Hindu marks of a married woman. The fact that she led a normal life filled me with a surge of happiness for her and hope for myself. “Congratulations. Tell me about him.”

Her radiant smile took my breath away. It was an expression I’d never seen on her. “I’m blessed, Mary. He’s a wonderful man. You’ll come to my house for dinner tonight and meet him.”

“I can’t.”

“What rubbish? You must. I’ll invite Amira. So much has happened, Mary.” Divya clapped her hands. “Amira wrote a book.”

“I read it.”

“What did you think?”

“I’m not sure. A part of me is upset. She took our tragedy and made a profit from it.”

“She changed our names. All the profits benefit a charity that helps young girls.”

I felt ashamed for not knowing that. “It was a good book. She managed to make it sound hopeful despite the subject matter. I loved her description of Hannah as the girl who brought light to the darkest places.”

“Yes, I thought it was very apt myself. We’ll all catch up tonight.” Divya’s determined expression made it difficult to argue with her.

“I’m sorry, Divya. I want to see the both of you and meet your husband, but I’m here with someone. He doesn’t know about my past.”

“Who?”

“A man I met in Jaipur.” The statement sounded simple, but thinking of the right words when it came to Liam was difficult.

“I see. Is he…is he…?”

“He is a very good man,” I answered the question before she asked it.

“Bring him with you. I want to meet him.”

“We’re not together like that. We are temporary. He’s traveling on business.”

She shrugged. “Whatever he is, I’m grateful to him for bringing you here. Come, no?”

I had made her and Amira my sisters. Actually, Hannah had since that first day we spoke. We’d lived through hell together. We were stained with the Devil’s mark, and we’d each worked through it in our own ways, but a deep friendship had formed between us. I couldn’t leave Bombay without seeing them.

“I’ll be there.”

“Bring him, too. As your sister, I have to approve of any man in your life, temporary or otherwise.”

Liam

I hated seeing her distressed. I wasn’t sure if it was me accompanying her, or the invitation itself. Mary had fidgeted the whole way to her friend’s flat. We stood at a door that was decorated with a lemon and lime garland. She clutched the box of sweets we’d brought. I had suggested a bottle of wine, but Mary thought sweets were more appropriate, though she admitted she hadn’t been invited to someone’s house for dinner since she was a young girl.

She opted for a more traditional outfit tonight. She took my breath away in the purple and gold sari. I wanted to slowly unwrap the yards of fabric covering her. Her dark hair cascaded in rich waves down her back.

“You don’t have to stay,” she said.

“You don’t want me here, do you?”

“No…I mean yes, I want you here.”

What was I doing here anyway? Our agreement was a fortnight. It didn’t include meeting friends. But I would be lying to myself if I didn’t admit we’d broken through thresholds that suggested our relationship was only a tawdry affair. Still, she held back. She wanted space. I was a man peering through the slits of narrow blinds she controlled. I hated it. At the same time, I didn’t want to push so hard that she pulled away from me…again.

“I’d love to meet your friends, but if you’d prefer, I’ll return to the hotel and send the car back for you. If you believe they’ll judge us, or you for being with me, I won’t put you through it.”

She shook her head. “I would not be friends with someone who’d pass judgment on me.”

“Then what’s your problem? Are
you
judging us?”

I saw it then. I thought she was embarrassed about us, but there was fear in her eyes. Now I had no choice but to stay. I would have left her if it alleviated her stress level, but I could not abandon her in fear.

“The only judgment I have when it comes to us is that it feels good. This…us.”

“Then ring the buzzer.” I gestured to the bell.

She pressed it.

The woman who answered smiled widely at Mary. Then she took a gander at me and stepped back, her mouth dropping. “Mary didn’t tell me you were white.”

Subtle.

“I am?” I asked, feigning a look of shock that matched hers.

She lifted an eyebrow before she broke out into a huge laugh. “Sorry, can we start over?”

“That would be great.”

Mary cleared her throat. “Divya, this is my friend, Liam Montgomery.”

Friend? What did I expect?

“I’m her boyfriend,” I said, stepping over an invisible threshold without invitation.

I was debating asking for a redo when I caught Mary’s smile.

“Boyfriend,” she repeated, or rather corrected.

“Wonderful.” Divya folded her hands and bowed slightly. “
Namaste
. Welcome home.”

Welcome home
, she’d said. Not ‘welcome to our home’—a slight shift in syntax, but a huge difference in meaning.

“Namaste,” I responded.

Mary took off her shoes. I followed suit, taking note of a crystal bowl on the credenza in the entryway. There was nothing extraordinary about it, except for the necklace of patterned cloth beads circling the inside of the dish. They were similar to the ones Mary used as a makeshift rosary.

“You still have them,” Mary said without looking at Divya. It was as if their friendship surpassed the normal pleasantries.

“I pray with them every day. They are my mala, after all.”

“My rosary,” Mary said, fingering the beads.

“My subha,” a third girl said, appearing in the doorway. She wore a long dress with a colorful scarf wrapped over head and draped around her neck. I remembered it was called a
hijab
.

“Hello, Amira,” Mary said.

“There she is. The lost daughter returns.”

The anger radiated off Amira with such intensity that we all got a smattering of embers.

Mary embraced her. “I missed you too, Amira.”

“How are you, sister?” Amira asked, her voice losing its serrated edge.

“Better now, yaar. Better.”

Amira turned toward me. “Who is he?”

“Mary’s boyfriend,” Divya said. She put her arm around Amira.

“Boy friend.” She’d separated the singular word.

“Boyfriend,” I corrected.

“Come inside before you let flies in,” Divya said, practically dragging Mary into the living area.

Divya lived with not only her husband, Virkram, but also his younger sister, Sita, and Vikram’s parents. I caught the parents’ names during introductions, but didn’t dare try to repeat them because I would royally screw up the pronunciation.

“You can just call them Uncle and Auntie,” Vikram said, clapping me on the back. “And I’m Vik.”

Mary handed them the sweets. I glanced over at their well-stocked bar and whispered, “See, told you we should have brought wine.”

“You brought us wine. What kind?” Vik asked with excitement. Either I wasn’t very discreet, or he had the hearing of bat.

“Actually, we weren’t sure what your preferences were, mate.” I gestured to the bar. “I see you’re a scotch man.”

He nodded. “Nothing like a good scotch. Let me pour you a tumbler.”

He had the good stuff. Chivas Regal twelve-year. I decided to have a case of Chivas Royal Salute sent to him. Nothing said “thank you” like a bottle of forty-year-old scotch.

“You’re British,” Vik stated.

“Guilty. I’ve been living in the States for the past twelve years.”

“Cricket or football?” he asked.

“By football, you mean soccer?”

He tilted his glass toward me. “You really are Americanized.”

I laughed. “Quite right, mate. But to answer your question, rugby is my game.”

We launched into a conversation about sports, which veered into politics and business. Everyone spoke English, probably for my benefit. I glanced around for Mary, who was having a serious talk with Amira and Divya. Her eyes met mine as if she knew I was staring. She smiled. Not the carefully guarded smile she usually wore. No, this smile was radiant and happy.

“You sound like Thor,” Sita said. She was around sixteen. Either she had something in her eye or she was winking at me. “Look a bit similar, too, except for the darker hair color. Not that it doesn’t fit you.” Definitely winking.

“Thank you?”

“Who is Thor?” Divya asked.

“Oh,
bhabhi,
try Hollywood for a change.”

“Why? What’s wrong with Bollywood? Bollywood doesn’t teach you to flirt with another woman’s man.” Divya pursed her lips and pinched the girl’s earlobe in jest.

Usually, a baby’s cry was not a pleasing sound for me, but right now, I rather appreciated how it shifted everyone’s attention. “This is who I wanted you to meet the most, Mary,” Divya said, coming out the bedroom with a fussy toddler on her hip. “Mary and Liam, this is our son, Manoj.”

“He’s beautiful,” Mary said.

I agreed. As soon as Divya put him down, he tottered over to me in the drunk man’s stagger that was adorable on children, but not so much on adults.

“Hi there,” I said, drawing down to his eye level. He must have mistaken my face for a drum because he smacked each side of it with his chubby hands.

“Manoj!”

“Quite all right,” I told Divya. “Hello mate, we’re gonna be friends, right?”

He jumped up and down, clapping his hands in agreement.

“See, Manoj likes Thor,” Sita said, a look of satisfaction on her face as if she had somehow proven a point.

“Thor,” Manoj said, but he couldn’t quite sound the
T
so it came out more like “whore.” Some children are born beyond wise. I had no doubt Manoj was one of them.

Despite Divya and Vik’s corrections, he called me “whore” all night, making me look bad in front of my girl. She did her best not to encourage him or giggle, but her face flushed each time the little tyke did it. It didn’t matter, though. Manoj captured everyone’s attention. We’d stop talking whenever he brought out a new toy or said something. When Mary played with him, all her layers fell away. They sat on the floor together, building a stack of blocks. She asked him about each of his toys, listening with rapt attention as if he were giving her the secrets to life.

“Hope you don’t mind vegetarian food,” Divya said, setting a silver platter in front of me. The platter had several small silver bowls lining it.

“Not at all. This is a
thali
, right?”

“That’s right. You’ve done your homework.”

“Mary’s been teaching me. It looks delicious.”

“Licious whore,” Manoj agreed.

Manoj and his grandparents had already eaten so they retired early. I thought the little tyke was adorable, but I was relieved to have a break from his name-calling.

I looked down at my plate. I didn’t consider myself a foodie, but I enjoyed a good meal as much or possibly more than the next bloke. Divya had cooked up a feast. We ate our fill of the spicy eggplant curry, and the flavorful stew of potatoes and peas. When the heat level rose a bit too high for my English sensibilities, there was a cool mint yogurt with cucumber to quench the fire.

“How did you two meet?” Amira asked, her eyes focusing on me. Innocent question or the beginning of an interrogation? I wasn’t exactly sure.

“At the Wilshire hotel in Jaipur,” Mary said.

Divya turned to Mary, her eyebrow arched. “You were staying at the hotel?”

“I was working there.”

“In management?” Amira asked.

“As a maid,” Mary said.

“What were you doing working as a maid?” Amira prodded.

I probably should have stepped in six questions ago. I missed Manoj and his timely ability to deflect tension with his interruptions.

“It doesn’t matter what she was doing there,” I said. “I’m just grateful she was there.”

Amira wasn’t impressed. “What are your intentions?”

I had no fucking idea.

“Amira!” Divya said, using the same chiding voice she used on her child.

“We should know. She’s our friend.”

Mary was the one who answered. “Amira, do you think I’m a dimwit?”

“Of course not.”