When Devils Sing(52)
“Because Ajay didn’t want anyone to know until it was a done deal. Not even me. He didn’t tell me about it until it was dead in the water.” Kiran added softly, meeting her gaze, “He wanted to make you proud, Neera. But he couldn’t make it work in the end.”
Neera looked away. She felt her mental tabulations shifting. A narrative falling a little more into place. Ajay had gone into debt the year before he died, and then he took his own life. “It’s more than just the money. Wiley threatened us. He gave Nanaji an ultimatum that night. Said he had to pay off his debt by the Fourth or…”
You and your family may end up just like that son of yours.
Realization crossed Kiran’s face. “Wiley’s the one who started the fire,” she whispered. She was quiet for a long moment, until she finally commanded, “I don’t want you going anywhere near that man again. Is that clear?”
Weighted silence passed between them.
“What’ll happen to us?” Neera realized she hadn’t tempered the fear in her question, because Kiran looked at her now, her forehead creasing in a heavy line.
Her mom moved back to the vanity, spreading cheap lipstick across her mouth in an uneven line, her hand shaking ever so slightly. “I’m gonna … I’ll figure something out.”
“Okay,” Neera said, her throat going dry. Whether her mom admitted it or not, it was obvious to her everything was on the line.
Kiran fixed her with a level gaze. “You can’t end up like me, Neera.”
Neera flinched. She still hadn’t told her mom she wasn’t going to college in the fall. She’d gotten her financial aid estimate a few months earlier—it didn’t even cover her full tuition, let alone on-campus housing. Or meal plans. Textbooks. Money to get by while she was meant to take classes five days a week. But all Neera said was, “I know. I won’t end up like you.”
It was an old agreement between them. One Kiran repeated like a mantra. And Neera wasn’t lying, exactly. She wasn’t going to end up like her mom, like her grandparents. Like Ajay. She was going to make it, and she was going to do it her way—with the thing she loved the most: music.
They all thought being a musician was unrealistic because of Ajay, because of their narrow ideas of success, but Neera knew the truth. Their dreams were just as fanciful as hers.
Satisfied by her answer, Kiran continued to get ready, but the room felt too small now. They kept dodging around each other as her mom searched for her phone, her hairbrush, her shoes. Neera sat on her bed, trying to stay out of the way. She picked up her guitar and lightly strummed the strings.
Kiran eyed the Yamaha as she tied her nonslip work shoes. The edge of a tattoo peeked out from beneath her black socks—Ajay’s full name written in Punjabi, wrapped around her ankle in delicate Gurmukhi script. Neera averted her eyes, staring down at the guitar strings. The tattoo had suddenly appeared a month after Ajay’s death, but Neera could practically count the number of times her mom had said his name aloud, since his death, on one hand.
“Don’t practice that in here, all right?” Kiran finally said, eyes still sharp on Neera’s guitar. “I know you’re excited about the competition, but it doesn’t change anything. The walls are thin.” She grabbed her keys, then whirled out the door.
Once Neera was alone, she opened her guitar case, reaching again for that smiling photo of Ajay and Nanaji that she’d tucked within. This time, Neera closely studied the building behind them. The date on the back matched the same time frame her mom had given about Ajay’s bar. Could this building be the defunct Blind Bucks? If so, why did Dawson Sumter have a key chain from it?
She pulled out her phone, writing up a lengthy text to Isaiah about what her mom told her about Ajay’s business venture. She ended it with: Blind Bucks—please find whatever you can on it, then put her phone on silent.
Neera glanced at the clock. It was only seven—Nanaji didn’t wake for the front desk night shift until seven thirty. Her mom’s warning still echoed in her head, but if she just played really softly, she could maybe get a good hour of practice in.
Neera shuffled into the tiny bathroom and shut the door. The tile made for a decent sound barrier. Like moths to a flame, her fingers found the steel strings, sliding against them, carving out a melody in the quiet of the bathroom. Her shoulders unclenched, her limbs grew warm and languid.
Once more, the “Three Brothers” folk song came to her, seeping into her practice. Like a forgotten prayer, Neera sang the words Ajay had taught her, the chords he’d practiced with her when she was little—for hours, days, weeks until she got them right.
They say
You meet the devil
At the crossroads
Down in Georgia
When there ain’t no options left
Neera always remembered Ajay on hazy summer afternoons, the Yamaha resting across his knees, crooning and smiling down at her. The details of his face lost in the blur of warm, dusty sunlight. She only remembered her uncle as a memory, a feeling, but not a person. A moment in time she clung to as the years passed.
In these memories, he sang the “Three Brothers,” not just as an obsession but as a warning.
Be careful of the devils
Down in Georgia
There ain’t no coming back
From the pact