The red lights of her car driving off into the night.
I’d never left my room. I couldn’t have hurt her.
But my father was blind drunk, his inhibitions gone. He wasn’t functional enough to have consciously thought up a way to screw with my head. I’d somehow damaged the carpet. How? Why couldn’t I remember anything of the incident?
“Likely because it never happened,” I muttered, and got to sweeping up the rest of the glass. “You’re taking the word of a man so drunk he’s drooling while he snorts like a pig.”
Yet he’d sounded very rational when he’d spoken about my mother’s lover. On the other hand . . . maybe he’d had no idea who he’d been addressing with those final words. Could be he thought he was talking to my mother. After all, I have her eyes, her smile. If that was true, he’d just accused my mother of staining his precious rug.
That made a hell of a lot more sense than any other explanation.
If only my mother wasn’t bones. Then perhaps we’d know if blood had been involved.
A scream.
Red lights in the darkness.
But if my mother had been bleeding heavily enough to have necessitated the removal of the rug, how could she have driven off so smoothly? No, wait. I kept forgetting she’d been found in the passenger seat. Someone had driven her. But if it had been my father, how had he gotten a bleeding and badly wounded woman in the car so quickly? Even weak, she’d have fought, made noise. He definitely couldn’t have carried her—my father had never been buff enough to pull that off, especially in such a short time frame.
Or was I remembering it wrong? Had there been a longer gap of time between the scream and when I actually got out of bed?
I knew how I could find out.
Putting the dustpan to the side—there was no way I could get up holding it without spilling the glass to the floor again—I maneuvered myself onto the knee of my good leg, then used the cane to haul myself upright. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked.
Leaving my father drooling in the armchair, I made my way first to the kitchen.
I was hungry.
“Ari, I knew it’d be you rustling about in the kitchen.” My mother’s ghost trailed in after me, her silk dressing gown open over a spaghetti strap nightgown in black with red blooms. “My hungry beta.” Ruffling my hair. “Sit, I’ll make you a sandwich.”
My mother hadn’t been the most domestic person, but she’d loved to cook for me. My eyes stung as I slapped butter onto a couple of slices of bread, then found the ham and cheese and tomato. She’d have turned up her nose at my shoddy construction.
“Use the best cheese, Ari. And thodi si relish. Throw in a pickle but only with the correct flavor combinations.”
Some of the best memories of my life are of being with her in the kitchen late at night. She’d been . . . gentler in those nighttime hours when it was just me and her, no masks or pretenses. Once, she’d thrown together a pizza from scratch—adding fresh green chilis and crushed garlic because “otherwise it will have no flavor”—and chucked it in the oven. While it cooked, filling the kitchen with scents that made my stomach rumble, we’d played a card game she’d learned as a child. I’d pretended to be bored, but I’d been . . . happy.
Plain old happy.
“I love you, Ari.” She’d always kissed me on the cheek before I headed off to bed. “Tu meri zindaggi hai. Always remember that.”
My throat was thick as I stuffed the sandwich into my mouth. No point trying to carry it upstairs. Instead, I ate it without tasting a bite, then drank an entire bottle of Coke.
“All that cheenee.” My mother shaking her head. “Think what you’re putting into your body.”
“Should I switch to vodka?”
I’d thought I was such a smart-ass, such a fucking wit, but I’d do anything to have my mother alive and nagging me about my soft drink and sweets habit.
Bottle empty, I threw it in the recycling bin, then went upstairs to find some answers.
15
My father had never cleared out my bedroom. I’d expected him to erase all signs of my existence the day I moved out, but he never had, not even after marrying Shanti. I’d never asked him why, but today, I was glad of it. Because I had a giant walk-in closet that