on those days, odd movements she noticed from his mother – the way she nodded occasionally as if agreeing with some hidden discussion, how she would shiver or shudder abruptly.
Mrs Dixit also thought a lot about her husband’s childhood – what actually had he told her? He was always so unforthcoming, shutting down her questions until she’d finally stopped asking. He had lived in a house of boys and noise and domineering parents. Naveem had wanted his own bedroom more than anything else, a place for his possessions so they wouldn’t get broken or stolen by one of his siblings. Four boys, what that must be like! But then Mrs Dixit imagined four Henrys and it didn’t seem so bad. Quatre, she heard Henry say in her mind.
There were many more visitors now. The Dixit women, of course, the father popping in during the evenings to hover about, the brothers too – and their wives, and their children. Why hadn’t Mrs Dixit seen them previously, when Naveem was in the hospital before? They must have stayed away, or always come later in the evening once she’d gone home.
Mrs Dixit regretted the way she’d almost tried to avoid Naveem when he’d first been in the coma. Now, she stayed for the entire day. It was a relief to no longer sit in the car in his parents’ street, worrying and not knowing his condition. Sick as he was now, at least she could see Naveem with her own eyes. His extended family didn’t speak to her either, although they acknowledged her with a raised eyebrow, or a polite nod of the head, the smaller children gawking at her unashamedly.
Mrs Dixit couldn’t help taking sidelong glances at the kids – is this what her child might have looked like if she’d been able to have them, she thought with a pang. They resembled Naveem in the curve of the cheekbones, the bright expressive eyes, their natural inquisitiveness. They would enjoy the model trains, she felt sure, and then she experienced a sadness that these children had never known their uncle, that no inquisitive child had shared his fascinating hobby. Perhaps the model trains weren’t about his childhood at all, but about lost fatherhood? She had reflected on this idea for a full two days, brimming with love for her husband. There was time for this type of thinking now – normally, Mrs Dixit would have pushed these thoughts away for being too painful; now she held them mindfully. The silence helped at times, but often it loomed heavily around her in the room and she wanted to clap her hands or make a strange animalistic screeching noise just to break its spell – and after this sensation had passed, she would feel wild and unbalanced at the intensity of this compulsion.
Other regular visitors included Mrs Rampersad, of course, who muttered derogatory things under her breath that the older Mrs Dixit must hear – and was mostly relegated to waiting in the hallway so as not to cause a scene. The younger Mrs Dixit was glad to have her there, however. It was immeasurably better knowing someone really did have her back.
‘We need to corner the woman,’ Mrs Rampersad had spluttered, ‘demand an apology. Get it in writing that they won’t try a similar thing again, when he’s well.’
But the reality was he wasn’t getting better, and everyone, on some level, knew it. The nurses, in their newly hushed and respectful way, no longer jolly and boisterous, struck dumb too. The doctors who stared gravely, and made private notes, and bobbed their heads when they left, averting their eyes. The woman who came to do physiotherapy was the only one to burst this bubble. ‘Come along now,’ she said in a broad Nigerian accent as she rotated Naveem’s spindly wrists. ‘Show me how to do it.’ But of course, he never did.
There was one final regular visitor. No, not Mrs Dixit’s sister – she was still very busy with the house renovations, and the new windows, and a dining table being delivered, although now she often dropped off Henry after school at his insistence, where he would sit on a chair beside Mrs Dixit, his feet swinging adorably as he worked on his homework.
The visitor was Shelly, the doctor’s daughter, who came to silently (and sometimes not so silently) cry. Mrs Dixit enjoyed Shelly’s visits, because she liked the girl, but also since she seemed to ruffle the older Mrs Dixit’s feathers, and