be mean,” Sowmya said sternly. “You don’t know what she has been through.”
I shrugged. “Does it matter? So she has been through hell, I understand, but I don’t see why she should keep coming back here for more of it.”
“Because Anand wants me to,” Neelima said, and wiped her tears with the sleeve of her red blouse. “He keeps making me come here so that his parents will . . . accept us. But they don’t, do they? Priya is right, Sowmya. They just don’t want to.”
“It takes time,” Sowmya said solemnly.
“How much time?” Neelima demanded sarcastically. “We have been married for over a year now; I am going to have a baby soon. How will they treat my child?”
“You may have a son and Lata may have a daughter,” I said, trying to lighten the atmosphere just a little.
Sowmya and Neelima smiled.
“How about your parents?” I asked. “Are they okay with Anand?”
Neelima nodded. “They like him very much. They even tried to get friendly, but they don’t want to have anything to do with my parents. We tried, you know; we called them all to our house so that the parents could meet and everything. But they didn’t even come, called at the last minute making up an excuse about some water problem in the house. My mother was so upset and my father . . . bless that man, he told me to be careful and that he would support me through anything.”
Sowmya glared at her. “Meaning?”
Neelima stuck her hand inside the pink bucket and laid out the remaining fistful of mangoes on the muslin and started to spread them.
“Neelima?” Sowmya persisted, and Neelima threw the last piece of mango down forcefully.
“Just that,” she retorted angrily. “Your parents treat me like garbage and mine treat him so well. If things don’t work out and if Anand persists on making his parents happy, what choice do I have?”
I was shocked. Divorce! Was she talking about divorce and being a single mother?
“But I am pregnant now,” she added, and then shook her head. “Anand and I are very happy together.”
Sowmya was pleased with that answer. “My parents will come around.”
It was a hollow promise. They would finally, someday, accept her, but she would always be the woman who stole their sweet, little, innocent boy.
“Let us get out of here before one of us gets a sunstroke,” I advised the duo, and we went downstairs to cook lunch.
Lata and Ma were already in the kitchen chopping vegetables, talking about a wedding they had attended a couple of weeks ago.
“She was fat . . . so fat,” Lata was saying. “And he . . . What a catch!”
“I heard that they gave thirty lakhs in dowry, and that was just hard cash, plus a new Honda,” Ma said conspiratorially.
“Thirty lakhs . . . So much money they have and they bought her a nice husband with it,” Lata shrugged, and they both looked up at us when we entered the kitchen.
“Can I help?” Neelima asked politely, and was immediately shooed away. She didn’t cry this time; just twirled around and asked Sowmya to show her the new saris she had bought at a sari sale last week. I sat down on the floor next to my mother and looked at the vegetables in steel containers that were strewn around.
“There is half a coconut in the fridge,” Lata informed me. “You will need it for the avial.”
I got the coconut out and attached it to the coconut scraper and churned the metal handle. Thin coconut slivers started to fall into a steel container.
My mother got up to leave. I knew she was not happy that my grandfather wanted me to cook. I didn’t know when I joined a race with my mother, but I felt like she charted everything that Thatha said on a scoreboard and the score today was: Priya—one, Ma—zero.
“My back hurts,” Ma complained unconvincingly, even as she rubbed her hand on the small of her back. “I will go rest with your Ammamma. You can take care, can’t you?”
I made an assenting sound but didn’t look up from my coconut.
“She is unhappy with you,” Lata said, as she brushed an errant hair from her perfect, heart-shaped face.
“She’s always unhappy,” I said sulkily, and she laughed.
“You have to eventually get married,” Lata said. She pulled a flat block of wood toward her and tugged out the folded blade that sat on it. She leaned her perfectly pedicured right foot on the