“Hi,” she said. He looked well.
“Hey.”
“How’re the kids?”
“Rowdy. How’ve you been?”
On her exhale, she said, “Ramesh is back.”
“I heard.”
“Has he come to see you—to buy from you?”
Karem shook his head. “Nope.”
“I guess he really is sober, then,” she said.
“I wouldn’t be sure about that.”
She squinted. “Meaning?”
“I don’t trust him, Geeta.”
“But I should trust you?”
It was his turn to narrow his eyes. “Meaning?”
It wasn’t a simple matter of her transferring her faith in Karem into Ramesh. She didn’t trust either of them. But his light implication that she was being fooled or was capable of being fooled—hell, that she was a fool—smarted. That, coupled with the knowledge that Karem had kept secrets from her, made her feel doubly duped.
“You knew Ramesh was blind, you said as much—I just didn’t think anything of it then. Plus, you’ve always talked about him in the present tense; everyone else said ‘hato’ or ‘tha.’ Which means you knew he was alive. You knew where he was all this time and never said one word to me.”
From the other side of the counter, Karem sighed, his shoulders sinking, and she was forced to release her pocketed hope that she’d gotten it wrong.
“No. Geeta, I swear. Okay? I saw him once in Kohra, over a year ago. Bada-Bhai called all his men over because he thought Lakha—you remember the Rabari woman?” Geeta nodded; she doubted she’d ever forget seeing the woman be slapped in Bada-Bhai’s kitchen. “Well, she and their son had gone missing. We went looking for her and I saw Ramesh at the house.”
Which finally explained Bandit’s immediate and unequivocal distaste for Ramesh; he’d met him before.
Geeta asked, “Did she say why she ran away?”
Karem was surprised but answered readily, keen to return to her good graces. “Lakha? Bada-Bhai’s wife abused her. She said she wasn’t running, just hiding. Geeta, listen. I didn’t talk to Ramesh or anything, I just saw him and Bada-Bhai mentioned he’d gone blind. And then he was gone again, and didn’t say anything because Bada-Bhai’s pretty adamant about his workers keeping their mouths shut. And I swear, this was way before…us.”
Geeta shook her head at Karem. “Qualify it however you’d like, but you know you should’ve told me. Otherwise you wouldn’t need qualifiers in the first place.”
His sigh was heavy but he nodded. She noticed he wore his earring again. “Fair enough. Don’t trust me. Not until I’ve earned it back. But don’t trust Ramesh either, okay? He’s far from having earned it.”
What Karem and others—even Saloni—didn’t know was that she wasn’t a discarded wife tricked into forgiving her louse husband. She was just waiting for the right moment to play her hand. If she was civil to Ramesh in the meantime, it was only because, whatever else, she admired the discipline sobriety required.
“I don’t trust him,” she told Karem. “But it’s not like he can get up to much; he’s blind.”
“Isn’t that offensive? Having lower expectations for the blind?”
She glared at him. “We’re not back to jokey just yet.”
“Sorry,” he said, as subdued as a castigated Bandit. “I still want us to be friends.”
“Me, too, I just need some time to sort things out.”
“Like how you feel about Ramesh?”
Geeta was quick to correct him. “No, but I need to be careful. I can’t legally kick him out, and everyone here feels sorry for him.”
Karem shrugged. “Not everyone.”
“Most of them do. I mean, the guy’s blind, Karem. You said yourself, that’s rock bottom.”
“But he’s been blind. And still, he stayed away. Why come back now?”
It was not, Geeta thought as she walked back home, an unfair question. Which was why she pulled the bottle of clear rum—the one Saloni had impelled Karem to deliver—from the forgotten back corner of her provisions and tucked it near the canister of loose tea Ramesh reached for every morning. Was there a difference between a test and a trap? Maybe just what one hoped the outcome was.
Whether it was overkill or insurance, Geeta adjusted furniture akimbo, watching Ramesh as he tripped over the chair left here, the bucket placed there. He walked with the authority of someone who’d memorized and depended upon a layout, and each time Geeta saw him stumble, shame shrouded her. But the most despicable she felt was the night Ramesh asked, over their plates of potato curry, “I never expected you to trust me overnight, Geeta. And you’re due a bit of revenge. So move all the chairs and buckets you want. I deserve it. But sabotaging me?”
“What?”
“I found the bottle. Like you meant me to.”
“Oh. I…” Though she was scrambled about her motivations for her test-cum-trap, she was also mildly triumphant. “Wait, how did you even see it? You—”
He tapped his nose.
She deflated. “Oh.”
“But why?”
“I—I’m not sure what I was trying to prove. That you haven’t changed, maybe.”
“I said I don’t drink anymore, not that I’m not tempted to. That’s how addiction works. I try to keep myself away from temptation because I accept that I’m powerless. So what you did…” Ramesh shook his head. “It wasn’t kind.”
“You’re right.”
“I understand you’re angry with me. And that doesn’t just go away because I’ve changed. I hurt you so much for so many years.” His unfocused eyes swam with tears. “Sometimes I’m grateful I’m blind just so I don’t have to actually face you. Cowardly, huh?”
“I—”
“I came here to make amends. But I don’t think you’re ready.”
Surely she was a better person than this? Confusion writhed fiercely inside her and her guts felt like a wrung dishrag. She didn’t want to live with him, but that didn’t mean she had to ruin him, turn him back into the monster he’d been. “I—I’ll get rid of it. It was wrong of me.”
“Thank you, but that’s not necessary. I’ll move tomorrow.”
His words were so sad, so surprising, so lacking in censure that it prompted more self-loathing. Instead of basking in the relief of freedom, she found herself blurting, “Why?”
“Geeta, I can’t risk my sobriety by being around someone who wants me to fail.”
“I don’t—”
He held up a hand. “I can be blind, deaf and dumb, but I can’t drink again. My sobriety is everything to me. Without it, I’m nothing.”
“I’m sorry.”
He gave her a rueful half smile. “It’s just disappointing, is all. I was finally discovering how wonderful you are, finally able to appreciate you as a person. This past week with you has been great. It made me believe what they told us: when you stop drinking, things start falling into place.”