“So you found all this passion, and now you want to give it up and come back because you miss us?”
“I’m not giving it up, but I would. There’s a company here who sets up concerts with Indian artists. DesiBeats. They need a sound engineer to run their concerts. I’ve been interviewing with them. I just got the job. I’ll have to travel to where the concerts are, all across the US and maybe Europe. But I can be here and do what I want to do. I’m serious. I want to do better by you, by us.”
Laughter spurted up from the very center of her. She couldn’t stop laughing. Could it really be this easy? Bitter, jealous rage burned through her. “You want to do better now? You walked away. You ended us. And you were right. About everything. About me just not having it in me.”
He grabbed her shoulders. “Aly, sweetheart, what happened? Is it the Meryl interview? Did something happen with the segment?”
All the rage and the sadness inside her bloated and rolled. The shaking started deep inside her. “It’s gone. You were right. I was never going to get my own segment. It was never about whether or not I’m capable of it. It was about timing, about wanting it before the world was ready to let me have it.”
“Oh, Aly.” He stroked her back. “You’ll find a way.”
Now his voice was filled with faith? This was what he’d predicted all along. And now that he had his dream, he wanted to be benevolent?
Before she could push him away with all the force of her frustration, the elevator doors opened on a ding, and they jumped apart because Cullie stumbled out.
Alone.
She doubled over and started sobbing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
BINDU
In the end it turned out that I was the trouble, and like the promise of our first meeting, she’d met me without flinching.
From the journal of Oscar Seth
There’s a sensor built into every parent. A barometer that can gauge the disasters in their children’s lives for intensity. When Bindu opened the door and saw Cullie’s face, she knew that something had seismically shifted in her granddaughter. Alisha and Ashish followed close on Cullie’s heels, their barometers already pinging with her distress.
For a moment Bindu thought Cullie would fall into her arms and break down, but she headed straight for the food Bindu had laid out on the table and picked up a plate. Without a single word, she proceeded to pile a mountain of food on it and dug right in as tears streamed down her face, liberally salting her meal.
Alisha gave Ashish a death glare and mirrored Cullie’s actions exactly, right down to the tears rolling into the food.
“Shouldn’t we wait for our guest?” Bindu said.
Cullie huffed out a laugh. The completely uncharacteristic chortles went on and on, until finally the words “He’s gone” flew from her.
“Can you give us a little more than that?” Bindu asked. If Cullie’s tears had sent the barometer into overdrive, the laughter made it crash past its limit. Bindu sat down next to Cullie.
“This is delicious,” Alisha said. “You should eat too before it gets cold.” Then she turned to Cullie. “Did you guys break up?” Sneaky sneaky Alisha.
Cullie let out another heartbreaking laugh. “We aren’t ceramic vases that had been baked together, Mom.” She yanked the central bone of the pomfret from its perfectly fried flesh. “You have to be together to break up.”
“Tell us what happened,” Ashish said gently and then pushed Cullie’s hair off her forehead.
There was so much pain on her face that Bindu had the urge to hunt this Rohan boy down.
“It was never about me,” Cullie said, sliding a horrified glance at Bindu. “I’m so sorry, Binji. I swear I had no idea.” Now she threw her arms around Bindu and started to sob in earnest.
The ugliest sensation stirred in Bindu’s chest. She pulled away from Cullie. “What are you trying to say?”
“He was here looking for you.”
Cold dread stabbed across Bindu’s skin. With every shred of acting skill she had ever gathered, she dropped a mask of calm over her face. “I thought you said his name was Rohan.” Even as she said it, her mind unraveled what couldn’t possibly be true.
Rohan could not possibly be Oscar’s grandson. A shaking started deep in her belly. Her gaze flew to Ashish. He was staring intently from one woman to the next. The ABCs of my life, he’d loved to say. Bindu suspected they’d found Cullie a C name just so he’d get to make that declaration.
The glazed intoxicated look was gone from Alisha’s eyes, replaced by rage. Everyone seemed to have grasped that this was worse than anything they’d expected. But they didn’t know the half of it.
This could not be happening.
Bindu couldn’t faint. She couldn’t throw up. She couldn’t move.
“Binji. I’m so very sorry.”
“Stop saying that. This is not your fault.” Bindu’s voice was wild. The terror in her heart was wild. “You can’t go near him. You understand. Not anywhere near him.”
“I know. I would never let him hurt you.” Cullie was studying her with some alarm. They all were.
“Why would he want to hurt Ma?” Ashish said, and everything started to move in slow motion.
Cullie sniffed and squeezed her temples. “He thinks his grandfather was in love with Binji. Apparently the man left some journals documenting their relationship. He was some big shot filmmaker back in the day.”
“Oscar Seth.” It felt strange to say his name out loud in front of her family. “He’s Oscar Seth’s grandson,” Bindu said.
“The old Bollywood star?” Ashish asked.
Silence fell between them like a curtain, plastic pushing up against her nose. Bindu struggled to breathe.
Ashish turned the strangest look on her. “How did you know?”
“Binji?” Cullie exchanged a matching look with her father. “How’d you know it was Oscar Seth? I never said his grandfather’s name.”
The three of them were staring at Bindu now. It struck her that they were her entire world. Outside of them, not a single thing mattered. And she was about to lose them. But how could she not tell Cullie? Not with what all of this might mean for her.
Alisha poured her a glass of water, and Bindu drank.
“I acted in his film when I was seventeen. And we . . .” She cleared her throat. “We had a relationship.” She looked at Ashish. “It was just before I married your father.”
Ashish dropped into the chair next to Bindu. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. Her son was never at a loss for words. He had never looked at her this way.
He pushed off the chair again and started pacing.
Alisha patted Bindu’s hand. “You acted in a film with Oscar Seth?” She sounded impressed.
Cullie stroked Bindu’s shoulder. “You were seventeen?”
They both looked at her like they had no idea who she was. And she didn’t have the words to bridge that gap.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Alisha, of the hard questions, asked.
If Bindu could find her voice, she might have tried to answer. But before she could, the answer dawned on Alisha’s face. Her gaze slid to Ashish, and he stopped pacing.