"It"s really difficult to make any money with these pyramid scheme things. It"s a scam, Mom," Abhay said. "Only people at the top make anything. They get you to pay them for these samples, and then you"re stuck. And when you do make a sale, everyone else above you gets a cut."
"I will not listen to negative talk. Anyone will make money who works hard."
"Why are you doing this, Mom? I thought you liked your job."
"I want to follow pa.s.sion," Mom said.
"Your pa.s.sion?" He"d never once heard his mother use this word. He"d been trying to prod Rasika into stating her pa.s.sion, and here his own mother, who had a very nice path to follow, had suddenly found some crazy desire.
A door opened down the hallway, and they heard a faint, insistent drumbeat. His sister Seema listened, very quietly, to a rhythm and blues station from Cleveland. He was surprised at her musical choices. She was six years younger than him, eighteen-thin, shy, and almost friendless, as far as he could tell. While they were growing up, he hadn"t paid much attention to her. But he knew her enough to notice she"d changed while he was away, becoming more odd and reclusive. Then the door closed again, and the house resumed its tomblike silence.
"Education is pa.s.sion for me," Mom said. "Learning will be fun with the games. Look. They come with video. Kids will love video." Mom set the appropriate boxes in front of him as she spoke. "Letters . . . numbers . . . addition . . . spelling. Even geography."
"There are so many educational games out there already."
"These are different. Children will self-teach. Child watches video and learns to play. Game is self-correcting. See?" She opened a box and displayed the game board, cards, and playing pieces. "While mother is cooking, child will be learning."
"What kids need is more time with their parents, not more time watching a video."
"What you know about raising children? Anyway, parent can play with child. Very versatile these games."
She must have picked up these words-self-correcting, versatile-at her sales meetings. Outside the dining room picture window their neighbor, Mrs. Tully, was taking an evening walk with a tiny terrier on a leash. Abhay had a crush on her daughter, Mich.e.l.le, during high school. He could still picture her long, dark-blond hair. He"d sent her a "secret valentine" cupcake during the student council"s fund-raiser and had asked her to several school dances. Mich.e.l.le never spoke to him, not even when they were waiting for the school bus together at the corner.
"So, Mom-have you set up any parties yet?"
"Almost. This close I am." Mom held up two fingers a centimeter apart. "At least I think you will support." She set her pen down. "Seema is embarra.s.sed because mother is trying something new. Your father does not want me to keep things in dining room. Where should I keep? Everyone else has own s.p.a.ce. Your father has whole room for home office. I have no place. Kitchen is my place, yes? No more."
Abhay had no idea his mother had ever felt resentful of her role within the family.
"You said I should do this," Mom said. "Now even you are against."
"I suggested you get into a pyramid scheme?"
"You always said, "Mom, don"t let Dad push you. You are smart. Get life of your own." " Without her fake smile, she looked more like the mother he remembered from his childhood. "So lonely I was, after you left. Your father was upset because you went to that place. You will never come back, I think. And then Linda at work said there is this company and invited me to meeting. Dad was against, but I remember what you told and I went."
Abhay did remember telling his mother, occasionally, not to let Dad get her down. Dad was ten years older and had a Ph.D. in physics, while Mom had only completed two years of college. Dad sometimes ridiculed her for her lack of understanding of investing, her lack of interest in current affairs, her confusion around scientific topics like electricity and bacteria and molecules.
"I want to show I can also do something important," she said.
"If it makes you happy, I guess I"m happy for you," he said.
His mother stood and started stacking the game boxes. "How is Rasika?"
"Fine. I guess she"s meeting an eligible bachelor tomorrow."
His mother clicked her tongue. "I don"t know. So well Sujata has done. Rasika is not at all smart, and look at her-making all money, driving around in Lexus car."
"I think Rasika is actually very smart, but for some reason she tries to hide it," Abhay suggested.
His mother waved away this reasoning. "Even Pramod, his test scores were not so good as yours, and now almost finished with medical school he is. What do we do wrong? Your sister stays in room all the time now. Your father is telling about medical school or engineering or computer science. Such high scores she got on SAT exam. But she will not talk. I only wish she will take more interest in appearance. I tell her, Seema, you must smile and speak nicely. My best I have tried."
Here was the mother he knew! "It"s not your fault, Mom." How could he explain to her that his situation wasn"t a tragedy? And that Rasika"s situation was not necessarily a success?
She patted his arm. "At least you are home. Now you can go graduate school. Never too late it is. Try again if you don"t succeed first time. Never give up. You talk to Dad about graduate school, OK? He went to sleep early today. Tomorrow you talk. He will advise you."
Abhay nodded. Maybe he ought to talk to his father, man to man.
"I put food away already," she apologized. "For some time I kept out. When you did not come, I put in fridge."
"That"s OK, Mom."
"Can I heat something for you?"
"Don"t worry about it."
"No worry." Mom bustled into the kitchen. He heard her open the fridge door. "Rice I have, and mixed vegetable kurma. And rotis. You like rotis with kurma." Her voice sounded hollow, coming from inside the fridge.
He didn"t feel like having her serve him and hover around, asking questions. On the other hand, he was hungry. And he did want to reconnect with his mother. He followed her into the kitchen and served himself from the containers she was taking out of the fridge. While his plate was rotating in the microwave, his mother started drying and putting away the dishes in the drainer. He said, "Let me do that later. Sit down with me while I eat."
His mother seemed stunned by this invitation. She stood in the middle of the kitchen, towel still raised.
"Can I make you a cup of tea?" he asked.
"No, no." She laughed. "I will not drink tea now. Some water I will have." She ran the faucet and filled a gla.s.s for herself.
Once they were seated, Abhay scooped up some kurma with a piece of roti and asked, "How did you decide that you wanted to marry Dad?"
"Only eighteen I was when I got married. My parents said he is good man, so I said yes. Yogurt you want?"
"I"ll get it later." He mixed a bit of rice with the vegetables. "How could you agree to marry him? You"d only met him a week before the wedding, and after the honeymoon he came back to this country. You didn"t see him again for months, and then you got on an airplane and came here all by yourself to live with a stranger?"
"Our families are knowing each other. They are not strangers."
"You didn"t know Dad."
"All marriages are happening like that only."
"What was it you wanted when you got married? Why did you get married at all?"
"It was expected. And I was-I feel proud that this man, so educated, handsome, coming from America, wants to marry me."
"So you wanted to marry him."
"Of course. My parents did not force. If I did not want, I could say no."
"What was it like when you came to Ohio?"
His mother paused. "It was hard. Before I come here, I think it is like a movie, or TV show-everyone dressed up so nice. Everything so clean and big. Then I come here, and it is so cold. Almost all year it is cold. The snow gets black and dirty. My English is bad, so I am shy to speak and make friends. Even with other Indians I feel shy sometimes. And your father-bad temper he has. I was not used to that."
"He"d yell at you?"
"He does not shout. He is quiet, but angry. He wants me to be smart. I am not. He wants me to cook all kind of dishes. I know only few at that time. So he thinks he married stupid girl."
"He said that to you?"
His mother nodded. Abhay was outraged. How could his father have treated his innocent mother so poorly? He ripped off a large piece of roti, used it to gather a pile of kurma, and chewed furiously. He saw, out of the corner of his eye, his mother wiping her eyes with her fingers. Once he"d swallowed, he asked softly, "Did you ever regret marrying Dad?"
"Sometimes."
"Did you ever"-he hesitated to ask this-"did you ever think about leaving him?"
"My mother wanted me to try longer."
"You told her?" Abhay"s eyebrows shot up.
"I wrote to her after few months. I said I want to come home."
"Did you tell Dad? Did he know?"
She shook her head. "My mother"s advice I wanted first, before telling."
"If you had gone home, would you have gotten a divorce?" Abhay couldn"t believe he was having this conversation with his mother.
His mother shrugged. "I don"t know. I was not thinking. No one got divorce then. Divorce was always woman"s fault. That is how society considered. No one would allow their son to marry divorced woman."
"You were so miserable," Abhay said slowly, "that you were going to risk returning to India and living as a single woman for the rest of your life, just to-"
His mother shook her head. "Too young I was. I did not think. My mother said, you stay one year, and then we will see. And then I start taking cla.s.ses. Typing, bookkeeping. I meet friends. Then it was OK. I managed. You see, I found out his secret-when he is worried, he becomes angry. So, then I could say, what you are worried?"
"You figured him out," Abhay said. "Did you-do you think you loved him then?" Again, Abhay was surprised at his bold words.
His mother considered her water gla.s.s. "We do not worry about love all the time in Indian marriage. It is not all about love. He is my husband. I must help him by taking care of house and children, and by cooking food. And I am his wife. He must earn the money. He must take care of me. I felt-before, when I was just married-I think he does not like me. I think, he is angry at me. Then later, I saw that he is not angry at me. He is just angry. And then you were born. He was so proud to have son, and I am happy to have cute baby to play with." She smiled at him fondly and patted his hand. "Why you ask about all this long-ago things?"
"I want to know you as a person," he said. "Not just as my mother."
"Good boy you are." She patted his hand again. "About you he is also worried now. So he is angry. But I know you are smart. Finally, you will surprise him."
After his meal, Abhay shooed his mother out of the kitchen and put away the dishes in the drainer. Then he picked up his backpack from the dining room and trudged past the living room with its white carpeting and shiny white furniture, which no one ever sat on. It always looked cheaply furnished to him, although he knew it wasn"t. Past the family room, which was equally depressing: the usual dirty-looking brown s.h.a.g rug, the sagging brown furniture.
As he walked down the hallway, Seema"s radio grew louder. Some sort of dance tune, sung in a high, cloying male voice almost drowned out by a synthesizer and that crashing, echoing drumbeat every R & B dance band seemed to want to use.
He knocked on her door.
"Who is it?"
"It"s me. Abhay."
The radio switched off, and paper was shuffled. The door slid open a crack to reveal part of Seema"s thin face, and her prominent nose.
"Yeah?" she whispered.
"Can I come in?"
"Why?"
He smelled cloves. Could she possibly be smoking clove cigarettes in her room? Yet it wasn"t smoky. "Come on, Seema. I"ve hardly seen you since I"ve been home."
She disappeared from the door crack, and then the door opened just enough to admit him. The air was stuffy, despite the air-conditioning. This was the smallest bedroom in the house. It had been Seema"s since she was a little girl, and she"d never wanted to move, to switch rooms with Dad"s office, as Mom suggested.
The bed was made-Seema still used an old flowered spread-and there was none of the clutter one would expect in a teenaged girl"s room, none of the clothes bursting out of the closet, or hair dryers and makeup and jewelry scattered everywhere. On top of her neat desk were a tiny radio, a stack of books, and a handmade journal from Rising Star, which he"d sent for her birthday. The walls were bare, except for an outdated calendar she"d had for years showing a photo of two big-eyed fluffy gray kittens.
Seema sat on her desk chair, which she had placed with its back to the desk, as though to guard her books. She crossed her arms over her chest and crossed her skinny legs around each other until one foot was behind the other ankle.
Abhay set his backpack on the bed and sat beside it. He rested his palms on his knees. "What"s up?"
She shrugged.
"How"s your summer been?"
"I took a cla.s.s at Kent State." Without turning away from him, she reached behind her back, tugged open the pencil drawer, picked up something with her forefinger and thumb, and slipped it into her mouth. She started working at it, gnawing it and rolling it around with her tongue.
"What"s that?" he asked.
"Clove. Want one?" She reached behind her back again.
He shook his head. "You just eat them plain?"
"Yeah." She pulled one out and held it on her palm. "They"re like little nails. They"re sweet at first, and then hot. So hot it hurts."
He didn"t know what to say to this. He had noticed, at dinner, that Seema had taken to eating Indian pickled chilies with her rice. Mom warned her every evening-"Not so much, Seema." But Seema didn"t listen. She ate almost nothing except white rice and hot chilies, as if she needed the intense sensation to balance out the blandness of her life.
"Are you looking forward to your first year at Kent State?" he asked.
"It"ll be something to do."
"What"re you taking?"
"General requirements. Calculus, English, world history, biology."
"I heard Dad"s been bugging you about your college major. Don"t let him get to you."
She put the second clove in her mouth.
"What are you thinking you"d like to study?"
She chewed her clove. "Medicine. Or engineering."
"Really?" He raised one eyebrow. "That"s what you think you"d enjoy?"