no longer denied.
She did not think her husband was handsome. Rishi was just four inches taller than she, thin, but with a muscular body that seemed at odds with itself, never still, never quite coordinated. His nose was prominent, and a mustache made it seem larger still. He had wiry eyebrows over round eyes. When he smiled, his large, perfect teeth were an eruption against his bronze skin.
Rishi was a kind man, grateful for everything he had. Many times a day she reminded herself that she was lucky to have married someone who did not mistreat her, that indeed, she was lucky not to have a critical mother-in-law, or a father-in-law who insisted his son and daughter-in-law grovel like servants. Rishi’s aunt and uncle were not interested in becoming part of their lives. Although they had retired to Orlando, they had visited only once since the marriage eight months ago. They had not been impressed by the apartment where she and Rishi had lived at the time, and they had departed after one night for a long visit with their real son in Ft. Lauderdale.
Now she couldn’t stand to watch her husband gazing into the refrigerator. She moved past him and pulled out one of the fruit drinks she had bought at the specialty grocers. As he watched, she poured it over ice and served it to him, then went to finish dinner preparations.
“Have you had a good day?” he asked.
“Not as good as it might have been.” She took a spoonful of beans and put it on a plate to taste. The recipe came from an American women’s magazine, but as usual, the dish lacked flavor. She began to assemble and add spices as they talked.
“Did you go into town?” he asked.
“The bus came right on time.” She listed her activities.
“Then you accomplished everything you set out to do. And that doesn’t make you happy?” He sounded genuinely curious. For Rishi, finishing a list of projects was as good as a day at Disney World—to which he compared everything.
Talking about death as she prepared dinner seemed unlucky, although Janya tried not to be superstitious. She told him succinctly what had happened and her part in the events of the day.
She ended her recital. “It was very sad. He died alone. No one to be with him or help him on. No one who even knew he was gone until we arrived. Strangers tending his body. Is that the way of things here?”
“No, the way of things is people dying in hospitals surrounded by machines and nurses who don’t know them.”
She shuddered.
“I’m sorry, I made it sound worse than it is,” Rishi said. “People are often surrounded by family, too. And doctors and nurses try to let them pass with dignity.”
She didn’t feel much better. When she died, she wanted the people who loved her right there. She did not want to die in a hospital bed alone and unloved. And she certainly didn’t want to die as Herb Krause had, waiting to be discovered by the very people who had ignored him in life.
“This has upset you,” Rishi said.
Like many people in his field, he was not good at understanding feelings, but tonight her husband was stretching to accommodate her. She was grateful, but sad he had to work so hard.
Darshan, the man she had nearly married, would have understood how she felt immediately.
Since it was necessary, she tried to explain. “I wish that I had done more for him while he was alive. He seemed like a kind man….” She bit her lip, but then she decided to go on. “And lonely, Rishi. We could have been more interested in his life.”
Rishi looked confused. “Why do you think he would have wanted that?”
“Because he was a human being with no one else nearby who cared.”
“What about his family?”
“I don’t know if he has one.”
“I didn’t know.”
“But that would be the crux of the matter, wouldn’t it? That we didn’t know. That we made no attempt to know.”
“You’re upset because you found him. That would upset anybody. But his happiness was not your job.”
“Then whose job was it?” She plunged on. “I have decided to take care of his plants.” The moment the words escaped her lips, she wished she hadn’t said them. Rishi would not understand. And she didn’t want to explain anything else.
“He had plants?”
Exasperated because he saw so little, she sounded harsher than she meant to. “How could you not notice? All over his yard. In