Unaccustomed Earth

On the phone, Deborah admitted something that surprised my mother: that all these years she had felt hopelessly shut out of a part of Pranab Kaku's life. "I was so horribly jealous of you back then, for knowing him, understanding him in a way I never could. He turned his back on his family, on all of you, really, but I still felt threatened. I could never get over that." She told my mother that she had tried, for years, to get Pranab Kaku to reconcile with his parents, and that she had also encouraged him to maintain ties with other Bengalis, but he had resisted. It had been Deborah's idea to invite us to their Thanksgiving; ironically, the other woman had been there, too. "I hope you don't blame me for taking him away from your lives, Boudi. I always worried that you did."

My mother assured Deborah that she blamed her for nothing. She confessed nothing to Deborah about her own jealousy of decades before, only that she was sorry for what had happened, that it was a sad and terrible thing for their family. She did not tell Deborah that a few weeks after Pranab Kaku's wedding, while I was at a Girl Scout meeting and my father was at work, she had gone through the house, gathering up all the safety pins that lurked in drawers and tins, and adding them to the few fastened to her bracelets. When she'd found enough, she pi

My mother told Deborah none of this. It was to me that she confessed, after my own heart was broken by a man I'd hoped to marry.

A Choice of Accommodations

From the outside the hotel looked promising, like an old ski lodge in the mountains: chocolate brown siding, a steeply pitched roof, red trim around the windows. But as soon as they entered the lobby of the Chadwick I

"Here," Amit said, pointing to the town. "There's the lake, see? The one that sort of looks like a rabbit." "I don't see it," Megan said.

"Right here." Amit took Megan's finger and drew it firmly to the spot.

"I mean, I don't get how the lake's supposed to look like a rabbit."

It had been a long drive from New York and Amit was in the mood for a drink. But there was no minibar, and no room service. The two double beds were covered in flowery maroon quilts, and across from them, a wide dresser held a television set at its center. A small paper pyramid sat on a square table between the beds, listing the local cable cha

They were here for Pam Borden's wedding, which was to take place that evening at Langford Academy, a boarding school where Pam's father was headmaster, and from where Amit had graduated eighteen years ago. There had been an option to sleep, for twenty dollars a person, at one of the Lang-ford dorms, empty now because it was August. But Amit had decided to splurge on the Chadwick I

Amit unlocked the sliding glass door and stepped out onto the balcony, a strip of cement containing two plastic chairs. The Northeast was in the middle of a heat wave and even up in the mountains it was sultry, but the purity of the air, with its sharp scent of pine, felt restorative. He was unsettled by how quiet it was. No little girls' voices calling out to one another, no reprimands or endearments coming from Megan. The car ride had been the same, Megan asleep, the backseat empty even though he kept looking in the rearview mirror, expecting to see his daughters' faces as they dozed or quarreled or chewed on bagels. He sat down now in one of the chairs, which was not very comfortable. He felt cheated. "I can't believe they charge two hundred and fifty dollars a night for this," he said.

"It's crazy," Megan said, joining him. "But I guess they can get away with it, given that we're in the middle of nowhere."

It was true, they were in the middle of nowhere, though he did not feel the same way. He'd known, without having to review a map, which roads to take after exiting the highway, remembered which direction the town was in. But he had never been to this hotel. His parents had not stayed here for parents' weekends; when Amit was at Langford they had lived in India, in New Delhi. They hadn't made it to his graduation, either. They'd been pla

He looked out at the hotel grounds. A pine tree growing directly in front of their balcony obstructed most of the immediate view. The pool was small and uninviting, surrounded by a chain-link fence, with no one swimming or sunbathing on its periphery. To the right were the te