My Last Love Story (9 page)

I flapped my hand to catch his attention.
Save me, my hero.

“No,
beta
. Sofia went out with friends straight from work, and Sana is getting ready. We’re having dinner at Waseem’s house.”

Zayaan’s youngest sister, Sana, was engaged to Waseem Thakur, the prescreened, fully approved—by Gulzar Begum—Khoja from East London.

“That’s nice,” I muttered.

She began a familiar lament about her older two children who refused to bring her similar solace. She’d blamed me for Zayaan’s single status for a long time, even after I’d married Nirvaan. She’d blamed me for a whole lot worse twelve years ago. I’d believed her then. I’d been too young, too frightened, and too confused not to succumb to the authority of an adult, and she’d taken advantage of it.

I wasn’t that naive anymore. If I chose to blame myself now, it was in full cognizance of my own actions.

Nirvaan came into the kitchen, grinning like a shark, as if he enjoyed seeing me tortured.

Dog.

On cue, Zayaan’s mother brought up Marjaneh, the perfect bride for her perfect son, and I pounced. A dog was so much shark fodder.

“Oh. Here’s Nirvaan, Auntie. He’s dying to talk to you.” Grinning, I shoved the phone into his hands but not before I heard the gasp.

Narrow-minded, judgmental creature that she was, I’d shocked her by my word choice. Too bad, but I’d quit dancing around the word
death
and its variations a long time ago. When cancer lived in your home, inside your husband’s body, there was no avoiding the word or state.

“What the hell, Simi?” Nirvaan whispered as he pinched my butt. He was a trooper though. He pressed the receiver to his ear, and with innate flair, he began to charm the devil out of Zayaan’s mother.

My husband could sell fur to a bear for a profit without much effort. I left him to it and resumed the breakfast preparations.

“You’re coming for the party, Auntie. No excuses,” he said after a whole lot of rubbish conversation.

Hearing him, I wilted like a week-old rose. Much as I’d hate Gulzar Begum raining on my parade, I’d have to suck it up. After all was said and done and forgiven or not, she was Zayaan’s only living parent. Sure, guilt was the forerunner in that relationship, and she took immense advantage of her son’s feelings. Zayaan’s father and brother were dead. Zayaan was the only male left in his family. His mother knew just where to drive in the screws. But I also knew Zayaan loved his mother and thought the world of her. He’d want her at his thirtieth birthday bash—and Marjaneh, too.

I wilted some more.

Zayaan came into the house, a prayer book pressed between his arm and torso. He went into his room, and within seconds, he came out empty-handed. He gave me the evil eye, letting me know that, deep in conversation with Allah or not, he’d heard every word I’d said to his mother, and he was aware of every negative vibe flowing between here and London.

I wasn’t sorry for any of it or for the way things were between us—they couldn’t be any other way—yet an apology jumped to my lips. I bit it off and poured yellowy batter onto the heated waffle plate instead.

Fifteen minutes later, the mama’s boy hung up the phone and joined us on the deck to consume three ice-cold waffles. He ate them without complaint.

Nirvaan wouldn’t have been so obliging. He would’ve fed the floppy waffles to the seagulls and demanded a reorder from the house chef. And because Zayaan hadn’t complained and he always defended me to his mother, I brewed him a consolation cup of double espresso. As apologies went, it was unremarkable, but it made him smile.

A long time ago, my whole existence had revolved around Zayaan’s smile.

I took a deep breath, and on a ten-count exhalation, I let the past fade from my mind. I bent and kissed my husband. He was my life now.

Next order of the day, the guys dared me to a Jet Ski race, and lots more pixels were added to the Jaws
album.

Kamlesh Desai was a one-man riot with a deep-chested guffaw he was unafraid to overuse.

It was easy to see where Nirvaan had gotten his energy and charm even though the father-son duo looked nothing alike. My father-in-law was a small, spare man with a big mustache and a full head of hair. Even as he pushed toward sixty, it was a natural jet-black. He swore that the daily application of a hibiscus-infused coconut oil was the secret to his hair’s health. He kept it parted to the left and combed it several times a day in an offhand unconscious manner with a small maroon comb he carried in his wallet at all times.

I loved my father-in-law’s little quirks. I could watch him for hours and never get bored. For such a petite man, he had a king-size personality and an even bigger heart.

Compared to her husband, my mother-in-law was a mouse. She was quiet and serious but in no way timid. My in-laws were equal partners in life and in business. You picked up on it immediately from the moment you met them. They reminded me so much of my own parents that I sometimes found it impossible to be around them without getting emotional. But the same also made it easy for me to love them.

I used to tease Nirvaan that the only reason I’d married him was because I was madly in love with his father. And since I couldn’t have my main man, I’d settled for his gene type.

“Your uncle just can’t sit still,” my mother-in-law muttered, shaking her head at her husband who was expelling his inexhaustible energy rather loudly into a karaoke mic.

Smiling at my gyrating father-in-law, I winced when the surround sound suddenly blared off-key and filled the house with shrill maniacal bleats. Besides enthusiasm, he had zero singing potential.

It also amused me that my mother-in-law never addressed her husband by name, not directly, not even when she spoke of him in context. It was always “your uncle” or “your daddy” or “Mr. Desai” or “my husband” or “that man,” if she was angry with him, but never simply “Kamlesh.” It was an old Indian custom—I supposed, a sexist one in guise of respect—which forbade a wife to call her husband by his given name. I had no idea why my mother-in-law still practiced it.

She was a modern woman. She wore Western clothes, even shorts on occasion, though never for family or religious functions or in India. She was a workingwoman, had been for more than half of her life. My in-laws had come to America, leaving their six-year-old daughter and two-year-old son with their parents, to build a better life for their family than they’d had in India. They’d come in search of the American Dream and found it.

Kamlesh Desai had worked at gas stations and grocery stores while Kiran Desai had cleaned houses and cooked for people until, between them, they’d saved enough money to invest in a California highway motel. Still, they’d worked three jobs each, pouring their savings into their first motel and then another and another. Eventually, they’d quit the other jobs and focused their energies on expanding their motel business. Once their green cards had come through, they’d brought their teenage children to LA and settled down there.

My in-laws were self-made, hard-working people, even now.

So, it baffled me that my mother-in-law still held on to an antiquated custom in a country she, too, refused to call home. My own parents had addressed each other by name and a whole slew of endearments, including
bawaji
and
bawiji
, which most simplistically translated to
Parsi man
and
Parsi woman
.

My in-laws were different from my parents in so many ways, but in the ways it counted most, they were exactly the same. Family meant everything to them.

“Simi,” Nirvaan bellowed from six paces away, “you’re up.”

“Khodai save me,” I groaned under my breath. But I set the knife down on the cutting board and washed my hands in the kitchen sink before dragging my feet into the living room.

I was not a nightingale. I was more like a crow when it came to singing, but the whole family had to participate in the stupid karaoke competition, and no one was exempt. If the lot of them wanted to listen to me caw, who was I to deny them the pleasure?

I plucked the mic from Nirvaan’s hands, stuck my chin in the air, and belted out a not-too-passé Bollywood hit song, “You Are My Sonia.” Luckily, one could not hear one’s self sing.

Torture complete, I mock-bowed and marched back into the kitchen with consolation applause ringing behind me.

Dinner wasn’t for another hour even though my mother-in-law and I had been toiling by the stove for some time. The guys had come in from their evening rides exhilarated and not the least bit tired. After showering and settling in front of the TV to watch the news, snacking on some fried munchies and non-alcoholic beers before dinner, my father-in-law had had the brilliant karaoke idea. His vivacity truly knew no bounds.

If you knew Indians at all, then you’d know of their obsession with their music, especially filmy item numbers. If India as a nation had a passion, it was singing. Dancing, too, but I believed singing more. Indians could break into a song at the drop of a hat. You didn’t even have to ask twice. We were a loud, hectic people, and our music reflected our passions.

When it was my mother-in-law’s turn to be center stage, I took over watching the stove sizzling with pots of mixed vegetables, kadhi—the sweetened curry version native to Surat—and boiling rice. We were having a full Gujarati
bhonu
this evening, and the kitchen was puffing out spicy steam like smoke signals for the hungry.

The guys kept flitting in and out of the kitchen to taste and steal samples. Zayaan hovered by a plate of steamed fenugreek muthias—dumplings—awaiting a final garnish of oil and spices. I raised my rolling pin, daring the muthia
thief to try his luck under my watch. He did and didn’t even flinch when I smacked his hand. He shoved a huge dumpling into his mouth, grinned roguishly, and turned about to praise the current singing sensation.

“
Wah! Wah!
Mummy, you’re amazing.” Whether he was praising her singing or cooking was anyone’s guess.

Either way, my mother-in-law was the star of the night. She sang not well but in tune and with the right amount of emotion. She’d chosen to sing a
ghazal
—a melodious poem—from the movie
Umrao Jaan
. The lyrics spoke of a couple falling in love and learning to trust one another.

We clapped for her long and hard, as she deserved. Zayaan whistled, and my father-in-law hooted and gyrated his hips again. Nirvaan lifted his mother off her feet and spun her around, making her giggle like a toddler on a merry-go-round. My mother-in-law wasn’t prone to laughter like her husband and son, so when she did let loose, it was like the sound of rain pattering over the Thar Desert.

I loved watching my husband with his parents. There was so much love within their family. They all had such big hearts, as big as their laughs. They were passionate, joyful people and…

Khodai, are you watching them? Are you really going to destroy this gorgeous family? Snuff out their joy, their laughter?

My heart rolled with the pain that was now a part of me. I took a deep, deep breath and released it at the count of ten. I stared at the kadhi as it rose and bubbled in a slow boil, stirring it around and around so that the spiced yogurt and chickpea gravy wouldn’t burn and stick to the bottom of the saucepan.

My mother-in-law gently nudged me aside, an accomplished smile on her lips. I stepped to the side. I didn’t know what she saw on my face, but her smile faltered and then faded.

“Simeen…
beta
…” she said my name as if it hurt her throat to say it. She touched my back with her aging yet strong hand.

That was all she did. She touched me, and I wanted to wrap my arms around her and cry forever.

“Come. Come now. It will be all right. It’s all in God’s hands.”

We lingered over dinner, enjoying the food, the conversation, and holiday island ambience, while savoring each other, as God knew there wasn’t much else we could do.

The only time my father-in-law sat still was during meals. He ate as he lived—with gusto. His eyes brightened with interest when I served him the first sample of my mother-in-law’s latest gourmet experiment—chocolate rasgullas
.
My father-in-law was partial to Indian sweetmeats while the guys had requested a chocolate dessert to go with dinner. She’d combined both requests and—
voilà
, as the French said it. She’d made the rasgullas—which were sweet milk-based balls soaked in sugar syrup and were traditionally from the Eastern shores in India—from scratch, using organic milk, cocoa powder, and brown sugar. We tried to limit our use of processed foods in this house and strove for chemical-free freshness in all things. Every little bit helped Nirvaan, we liked to believe.