one I sent for your birthday last year?”
“Nate took that,” Nanna said. “And I am fine with this. So . . . did Nate say anything . . . about his girlfriend?”
“No,” I lied smoothly. “Why?”
“Well, we would like Nate and . . . you . . . all our children, to understand that we are open to hearing the truth,” Nanna said, subtle as the chili powder in Ma’s pickles.
“Really?” I said, as we walked toward a sugarcane juice stand close to the vegetable store.
“So . . . do you have a boyfriend?” Nanna asked.
I ignored his question.
The light from the setting sun was still illuminating the skies; it wouldn’t get dark for a while and in the summers it never really got pitch dark. The sky always looked a little blue, even in the dead of the night.
“Amma, want one?” the sugarcane juice vendor asked, holding a glass filled with frothy greenish brown juice.
“No, no,” Nanna said. “No ice. Two glasses and wash them properly.”
As if washing the glasses would make any difference whatsoever to whatever germs and bacteria we would ingest with the juice. I knew I shouldn’t, but it was too tempting, just like the goli soda had been. I could taste the sweetness of the juice; the long-forgotten memories came rushing back to my taste buds and the desire to take just one sip became irresistible.
“More ginger,” I told the vendor, as he went about his business.
“So, do you?” Nanna asked again.
“Do I what?” I evaded on purpose.
Nanna made an irritated sound.
“Is that why Ma asked me to go with you?” I questioned bluntly.
“Don’t change the subject,” Nanna said. “Tell us if you have a boyfriend. If you do, we will accept whatever . . . I mean as long as . . . you know . . . he has to be suitable.”
“And what if he is, say . . . a sardar?”
“A sardar?” Nanna asked, the terror in his voice palpable. “Come on, Priya, have a heart.”
I sighed. A Sikh would at least be Indian.
“So you wouldn’t accept any boyfriend.”
“We would, we would,” Nanna said hurriedly. “I mean . . . you should at least tell us why you are stalling. You are twenty-seven and we would like to see you married. Play with some grandchildren.”
Nanna was a sucker for children. When he built the house they were living in, he insisted that in all the bathrooms the latch on the outside should be slightly lower so that his grandchildren would be able to open the bathroom door to go inside and the latch on the inside should be slightly higher, so that the children would not be able to lock themselves in.
He had also purchased a beautiful wooden rocking chair. “Babies cry and if you rock them they stop crying and go to sleep,” he would say.
He had been waiting for grandchildren for as long as I could remember and I felt sorry for him and guilty because children had not figured in my plans yet. I knew I would have children someday and I wanted to have children someday, but it was one of those “yeah, I also want to go to space” kind of thing you reserved for the indeterminate future.
“Nanna, I’ll marry when I’m ready,” I said, fearful now of telling him anything about Nick. If a sardar was going to give him heart palpitations, an American would give him a seizure.
“But you have to be ready sometime, Priya,” Nanna said wearily. He gave the sugarcane juice vendor fifteen rupees and picked up his glass of frothy juice.
I tentatively sipped mine and sighed in pleasure. “This is what I really miss. This and chaat.”
Nanna drank his juice in two gulps and set his glass down. “We are not going to eat any chaat. Sowmya is making a nice dinner. Your favorite, mango pappu.”
I finished my ganna juice slowly, savoring the taste through the last sip. As we started to walk back I quietly waited for Nanna to say whatever else he had to tell me before we reached Thatha’s house.
“We are staying here tomorrow. I am taking the day off,” he said over the sound of honking cars, sidestepping trash on the pavement.
“I know, I brought a change of clothes. I’m planning to sleep on the terrace tonight like Nate and I used to when we were kids,” I said.
Nanna held my hand tightly in one hand and a plastic bag with the coriander and curry leaves hung from