a part of. There was no escape from the unhappy home for her. Whereas Shyamal had an engineering career he had built over many years, and Sattik and I had college and our careers to look forward to, she had nothing of the sort.
When I was growing up, my mother had trouble containing her frustration on a day-to-day basis. Sometimes she would snap at the flip of a switch over something minor—say if a radio was too loud or a room was too messy for her liking.
Other times, Bishakha’s frustration went to a darker place. She would take out her anger on Sattik and me by creating an exceptionally cold dynamic in our childhood home. Coming home from school was like coming back to a roommate who you knew didn’t like you; it wasn’t bad enough to transfer rooms (or schools!), but you had to wait until graduation.
A therapist I saw once—not Sleeping Jerome—told me his theory about people and relationships. According to him, there are three types of people. There’s Type 1, who grows up with some sort of childhood trauma or currently lives within an emotionally challenging environment, which creates an emotional hole in that person. He or she will spend his or her life trying to fill that hole. That’s why people might settle for being in relationships they shouldn’t be in or putting up with unfortunate behaviors from significant others. There’s Type 2, who has those same deficiencies and that same hole, but will protect the hole rather than trying to fill it. The Type 2 won’t get close to anyone, and anyone who tries to get close will be pushed away. Type 3 is the well-adjusted person, who may have experienced trauma or may have come from a foundation of love and warmth, but knows in any case how to properly give and accept love.
Bishakha is a Type 2. She pushes people away. She pushed me away by frequently saying that she didn’t feel anyone in the world loved her, then going to her room and shutting the door (literally and figuratively). When she was feeling her worst, she made cutting remarks designed to create distance between us. She is, overall, a kind person who has struggled with showing it consistently.
The ultimate expression of warmth among loved ones or friends, outside of saying “I love you,” is “How was your day?” I realized that recently, thanks to Wesley. She always inquires about the mundane goings-on of my day, which shows a level of investment in me that would leave a great gap in my life if it no longer existed. On an emotional level, some of the most intimate moments I have had with her resulted from our sharing the dumbest things about our lives, not just the big events.
Bishakha never asked me about my day when I was young, nor did I ask her. Shyamal never asked me, and I never asked him. Bishakha and Shyamal never asked each other. Same goes for Sattik with each of us. The Deb family household would have been so much different if we asked each other to run down our respective days, just like my friend Shaun’s family did. Instead, the four of us lived in four corners of the house, finding our own outlets for our sadness and clawing at the outside world begging for release.
My family’s struggles all came to a head in eighth grade, when I was thirteen. Shyamal, Bishakha, and I were on our way to a family friend’s house. And as was characteristic for my father, he got lost. It led to an argument between my parents, which was also normal. But something seemed different about this one. Bishakha and Shyamal were viscerally angrier. My mother was shaking and crying. My father slammed his hand on the steering wheel. Over what? His getting lost? It all seems so silly now. If Shyamal used GPS, would our family have been fine?
When we got home, my mother locked herself in her room.
She stayed there for approximately six months.
I barely saw her for the rest of eighth grade.
She only came out of her room to occasionally make herself food or go to her job at Drug Fair, the pharmacy where she was a cashier. We were all isolated, but this was a level unprecedented in our household. Suddenly Shyamal was thrust into the role of being my primary caretaker. He began cooking and cleaning the house, in addition to his engineering career. It was only