got to go back now. I’ll call you again. Send me email . . . lots of email. I like to read.”
He said he loved me again before I hung up. A gloom settled upon me. I didn’t have the raw guts to tell my family about Nick. It was not to protect them from pain and hurt, it was to protect myself. I was afraid that if I told them about Nick, they wouldn’t love me anymore. I was afraid that if I didn’t tell them and went back, Nick wouldn’t love me anymore. It was not a fair bargain. I could keep either Nick or my family.
I cried all the way back to Thatha’s house, feverishly wiping my tears with both my hands.
Dinner was boisterous as Thatha talked about how we could have a double marriage. “What do you say, Priya, you and my Sowmya getting married in the same mandap?” he asked, slapping a hand on his thigh.
I scooped out some mango pappu from a steel bowl onto my plate and mixed it in with rice.
“Nnayi?” Sowmya held up a small steel container with clarified butter and I shook my head. I should never have come to India—I was convinced of that. Now I had more problems than I could solve.
“Priya? ” Thatha questioned. “What, Amma, you don’t want a double wedding? ”
“Maybe we should just have one wedding in one mandap,” Ma said as if it was all a done deal and she didn’t want Thatha to get the wrong idea. When her daughter would marry, it would be in her own mandap; Sowmya could get her own.
“Let’s not count the chickens before they hatch,” Lata said and for once I was thankful. “Anand, pass me the rasam.”
Anand and Neelima were sitting next to each other and they had been quiet ever since dinner began. He looked up at Lata and then at the rasam and took a deep breath.
“Lata, did you say Neelima would have a miscarriage when she told you about her pregnancy?” he asked, a small quiver in his voice betraying the straight face he was trying to wear.
Silence fell so soundly that the echo of voices past crashed against the steel glasses standing on wobbly feet on the Formica table. Anand’s fearless voice clamored to rise above his usual calm, comfortable, fearful, and almost silent voice. He was not one for confrontations, that was why he told the family about Neelima after they had married.
“What?” Lata asked, her hand covered with mango pappu lying listlessly on her plate.
Anand was silent for a minute. I could see his Adam’s apple bob in and out—his nervousness had tentacles that reached out to everyone in the room.
“Anand, we don’t need a fuss now. Lata didn’t say anything,” Ammamma warned, not wanting to witness a fight.
“There is no fuss,” Anand said and stood up as if towering over everyone at the table would make it easier for him.
Nanna, who was sitting next to me, lifted his eyebrows in query. I shook my head. I knew what Anand was about to say, though I wondered if he had the courage to go through with it.
“Ever since Neelima and I got married, you all have been treating her really badly,” he began.
“Badly?” Thatha demanded, his voice thunderous. “What nonsense! You are imagining things.”
“Not nonsense, Nanna,” Anand said, his voice for once confident as it measured up against his indomitable father. “Neelima is my wife, she deserves respect. If as a family you all have decided to ill-treat her—”
“No one is ill-treating her, Anand,” Lata interrupted him. “I was simply telling her to be careful. The first trimester is always a delicate one. I don’t know why she misunderstood what I was saying.”
Neelima started crying softly. It was partly the tension in the room and partly because her hormones were raging. “I am sorry,” she whispered.
“No, I am sorry,” Anand said, sitting down to hold her hand. Such display of emotion between couples was not commonplace in our family and again I felt envy raise its head inside me. They loved each other, they were married, they were going to have a child; I was in love with a man who had the wrong skin color and nationality, I was living in sin with him and I had just lied to him.
“I keep sending her here”—Anand looked at Thatha when he spoke—“so that you will accept her. You will get to know her, see what a wonderful person she