Fifteen Lanes - S.J. Laidlaw Page 0,99
I cautioned. “How long would we live with you?”
“I’ve never married, Noor. The idea of deferring to a man never sat well with me. Having my own children, on the other hand, is something I’ve always wanted. I like you, Noor. I have a feeling you and I are not so different. And, of course, I’ve been smitten with Shami from the moment I met him. Now that I’ve met Aamaal, I can see you’re an irresistible lot, you Benkatti children. I’d like to become your guardian. What do you say?”
It was a week beyond that before the legal work was completed and we came home to this apartment. I laughed when Usha-Auntie, Karuna-Auntie’s sister-in-law, showed us to the bedroom we now share and apologized that all three of us would have to share a room, and Aamaal and I would both sleep in the lower bunk. It took her weeks to accept that, to us, everything about the way they lived was luxurious.
Finished on the toilet, Shami goes to the sink to wash his hands. I stand up to supervise. He isn’t thorough if I don’t keep an eye on him. Karuna-Auntie follows us back to the bedroom and climbs up the ladder to tuck Shami in and kiss him good-night. I switch on my night-light and pick up my Biology textbook. In two weeks I’ll write the medical school entrance exam. With three doctors constantly testing me, I’m confident I’m ready, but I enjoy studying, which is lucky as it’ll be another seven years before I’m fully qualified.
Karuna-Auntie leans down and plants a kiss on my forehead. “Sleep is just as important as study, Noor,” she whispers. “Don’t stay up too late.”
“I won’t.”
She walks out, leaving our door slightly ajar. I stare at the page in front of me but my mind wanders.
Grace will return to Mumbai soon for her summer holidays. I’m looking forward to being together again. She graduated last year and went home for university. VJ and I have planned a welcome dinner for her.
VJ graduated two years ago and has been a rising star in Indian cinema. Last year he was in a British coproduced movie that was an international hit. When he was nominated for an Oscar everyone said his fame would eclipse his father’s. He went to America for the ceremony. The paparazzi found it quaint that he brought a high-school friend as his date.
All of India watched with pride as Bollywood’s heartthrob won the prize. Since VJ had remained a fixture in our own lives, our whole family was gathered around the television when he took the stage to accept.
He began his speech by thanking his father and mother. Then he thanked us, his adopted siblings. He said his brother Shami had taught him everything he knew about courage; I was surprised to discover we had that in common. I smiled when he said his sister Aamaal had taught him to live life to the fullest. It may have been true, but I’d never known the film star to have any problem living big.
I was nervous when he mentioned me. He said I’d taught him that if the future was not written as you wanted it to be, then you must write your own story. I thought about that for a long time. My life hadn’t been the straight canal to the sea that Ma had predicted, but neither had it been Deepa-Auntie’s mountain river full of unpredictable twists and turns. Many hands had guided my journey, not the least of them Ma’s. I’d had some luck, but more than that, time and again, I’d had help. I couldn’t have written my story without that.
Last of all, VJ thanked his high-school sweetheart, the love of his life, Luca D’Silva. The camera panned to the beautiful boy in the audience who blew him a kiss.
It caused a media storm that went on for months. Some said VJ’s public disclosure would end his career. VJ said it launched it. He’s moved behind the camera now, to tell the stories that matter to him. His father is financing his first film, a documentary on sex trafficking. He and Luca live together. They talk of getting married if it ever becomes legal.
Grace has grown stronger with each passing year. Counseling and finally confronting Kelsey and Todd, the masterminds of her downfall, helped her to move forward, but that was only a small part of her recovery. Grace and I spent her last two years in