I had almost forgotten that Manu had preceded me as Shruti’s date. So, he had avoided her for a few hours on a dance floor. Some part of me ached to tell him he had no idea how small his unkindness had been in the scheme of things. Another part wanted him to keep self-flagellating, so everyone would share the blame.
“You didn’t do much,” I managed.
“That was exactly the problem, wasn’t it?”
He reached into his backpack and pulled out a plastic Kroger bag full of knockoff Hallmark cards. Teddy bears and hearts and flowers. I’m sorry, in our thoughts, condolences. None of the language of the brown parents who had been squeezing out their inadequate explanations. Here was white procedure, American custom, and in it, relief.
Manu left me with a pen and a card—a mournful chocolate lab on a white backdrop beneath a cursive phrase: sympathies—as he went over to distribute the others. There was some groaning as he shut off the television, but it was replaced by the scratching of pens.
“Do we know how she did it?” Kartik whispered.
“K,” Manu snapped. “How could that be relevant?”
“I just don’t know shit about any of this,” Kartik huffed. “What am I supposed to say?”
“I’m writing that they’re in our prayers,” Aleem said.
“Man, but you’re Muslim. What if they don’t want to be in your prayers?”
“I think they’ll understand, dude,” Abel said softly. “It all goes to the same place.”
My grip on my pen faltered. I didn’t want to write to the Patels; I wanted to write to Shruti. I had an urge to write backward in time, into the past, to run to OHS and shove a note in her locker, the way we used to communicate with girls in middle school—Circle yes/no if you want to be bf/gf. Now: Circle yes/no if it was/wasn’t my fault. Manu was gathering the cards. He stood next to me and sealed each one in an individual envelope. I still had not written anything.
“They might not even open them, Neer,” he said. “Do it so you can say you’ve done it.”
I clicked my Uni-ball over and over. I pressed it to the paper. Manu had given me a glossy card and a too-inky pen; the words bled. Dear Mr. and Mrs. Patel—I didn’t remember their first names to write So-and-So Auntie, Uncle. Dear Mr. and Mrs. Patel, I am sorry for your loss. Shruti was an incredible person, smart, funny, and a really good friend. My whole family is thinking of you both and Hema. NN.
“Write your full name,” Manu said, but I was already licking the envelope.
The guys had turned Grand Theft Auto back on, and the roar of an animated car at 120 miles per hour filled the basement.
Abel shouted, “Fuck!” and Kartik yelled to shut up, his mom was upstairs.
Manu dug in the Kroger bag and handed me another card. “Anita was sometimes really nice to Shruti. Can you have her do one? I just have to get these to Isha’s mom tomorrow.”
“I haven’t really talked to her,” I said.
“Try.”
I took it. It was one of the postcards you got for donating to the World Wildlife Fund.
“My mom said to use up these, too,” he said.
On the front were a rollicking polar bear and her cub running across a slab of ice. A sheer blue cloudless sky framed them. The year of debating climate change made me think of their habitat melting away in long cold trickles.
* * *
? ? ?
On my last evening before leaving for East Lansing, I snuck over to the Dayals’ when my father thought I was packing upstairs. He was semi-dozing over a textbook at the breakfast table, some continuing education. My mother and Prachi were on a Target run, buying extra-long twin sheets and a shower caddy and other dorm supplies. My mother was insisting on taking new purchases to the temple to have them blessed by a priest who specialized in educational consecrations, so they’d be out awhile.
The Dayals’ lights were on, and music played inside. The door was unlocked. Milling in the foyer were people I didn’t recognize, fobby-looking thirtysomething guys, white men and women, a young black couple. Pranesh Dayal was holding forth in the dining room, drinking red wine. He wore a key-lime-green summer button-down that stretched round his middle.
“Just came back to finalize all this moving business,” he said to his conversation partner. “It was getting a bit much for Anjali, she settles for any old amount, can’t be so generous when people are out to take you for all you’re worth.”
Pranesh Uncle’s eyes fell on me. “Anita’s in her room, Neeraj. She’s sulking.”