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I was smiling when I knocked on my parents’ front door. The power was still off and the doorbell was useless. I was fully expecting Nate to open the door and was surprised to see my father, red-eyed, looking slightly sloshed at his doorstep.
“Na
“I was hiding, but everyone seems to find me,” he said, and stepped away from the door.
“Hiding in your own house, Na
Na
“Have you been drinking?” I asked, as I smelled whiskey in the air.
“Not really,” he said, and pointed to Nate who was lying on a sofa sleeping, despite the heat. “We just drank a few pegs of whiskey last night.”
“A few pegs?” I picked up an empty bottle of Joh
“Well, after the first three pegs we lost count,” Na
Na
“How’re you feeling?” I asked lamely.
“Hung over,” Na
Father of the Bride
When Nate was little he had lots of ear infections. They plagued him until he was almost four years old and caused him such pain that to this day he remembers the earaches with fear.
I used to sit with him when he was a baby and sometimes even cry with him. Once, when I was nine years old, I couldn’t watch Nate suffer and wished I could take some of his pain on me. I asked Na
Na
Save enough for retirement at sixty years of age (two more years to go; clock is ticking, tick-tock, tick-tock).
Be a good father.
Avoid fighting with Radha.
Get Priya married before she becomes an old maid.
Die in a painless way.
Na
He was very proud of me. Even when I was in high school and I would win silly awards for elocution or debate, he’d be on cloud nine, calling his parents in whichever country they were to tell them what a wonderful daughter he had. He would even call Thatha, who he rarely phoned, to gloat.
If I asked him for anything, his answer would always be “yes,” regardless of whether he could comply with my wishes or not. “If your Na
“When you were a baby,” Na
Na
“The boy can’t handle his liquor,” he a
“So you both got nice and drunk… Do you do this often?” I asked, and picked up the day’s newspaper to fan myself. “How can he sleep in this heat?”
“Your Ma keeps asking me to get a generator and an AC. I think it’s too decadent for us simple folk,” Na
“If it wasn’t this hot, I’d suggest coffee,” I said, furiously fa
“Your Ma is looking for you,” Na
“Na
“No, no, Priya Ma, you did what your generation always does, stab us in our hearts,” Na
“I was trying not to hurt Adarsh’s feelings,” I said. “And he was quite forthcoming about his ex-relationship with a Chinese woman.”
Na
Before I could answer the ceiling fan began to whirr again and we both sighed in relief. “Someone needs to be shot for cutting power off like this,” Na
As he pulled the cotton kurta that was plastered to his skin away from it, I contemplated how much I should tell him. Even as the thought came to me I decided that I had done enough filtering and that now was not the time to shield him or anyone else anymore.
“It has been working out for three years, Na
Na
“Yes,” I said, and curbed the impulse to fall on my knees and apologize.
Na
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t feel the need up until now to tell us about this important person in your life? Even when I asked you to your face you didn’t tell me. Why? What’s to hide?” Na
They were all valid questions and I realized then how much I had botched this entire a
“I was afraid,” I told him frankly. “I’m still afraid that you all don’t love me anymore, that you hate me. But there’s nothing to hide… I mean, he’s a good man. He loves me, he takes very good care of me. And he wanted to be here, he didn’t want to do it this way. I want you to know that this is on me. I made the mistake.”
Na
“Nicholas, Nick. He’s an accountant with Deloit & Touche. He… What else do you want to know?” I asked.
“His family? What’s his family like?”
“They’re good people. His father passed away five years ago. He used to coach football at a high school in Memphis, that’s where Nick was born and raised. His mother, Frances, is a pediatric nurse; she works with children who have cancer at St. Jude’s. It’s a big children’s hospital in Memphis. He has a brother, Douglas, Doug, who is a sous-chef at a very trendy restaurant in New Orleans.” I gave him the list.
“How did you meet him… this Nicholas?” Na
“We met at a party,” I told him. “A friend of mine knows a friend of his kind of thing. We met and we started seeing each other and… Na