I started at the bottom of the pile and reread the twenty-two cards already stacked in the order in which I’d received them. Each had a similar handwritten note: Happy Birthday, Preeti. You are a good daughter. We love you. Dad and Mom.
I smiled as my fingers glided over the embossed tennis racket on the front of the card from my fourteenth birthday. That year I had earned a spot on the varsity tennis team. My seventeenth year I graduated from high school, and all my parents’ friends had come to the ceremony to stand in place of our relatives in India. At twenty-eight I met Alex at the firm’s annual holiday party, where he had been part of the waitstaff. The card from that year was a simple one with a basket of flowers on the front and a poem about daughters inside.
After reading through the old cards, I held the pale-green one that had arrived on the morning of my thirtieth birthday last month. I’d convinced myself that whatever was written in the card would make me feel worse, so I’d tossed it into the box, unopened.
The cool paper of the envelope felt smooth against my fingertips. Concerned with preserving the card in as pristine a state as the others, I used the very edge of my fingernail and ripped a slit into the top, one millimeter at a time, until there was a clean opening. I pulled out the card, and a check fluttered to the carpet beside me. Two hundred fifty-one dollars with Happy Birthday written on the memo line.
This time in addition to the standard message from my dad, there was a separate note from my mother.
Preeti,
I know how you feel, but this is for the best. You’ll see. Trust me.
Mom
Trust her? I squinted, angered by her last sentence. As I sat on the floor leaning against my smooth bed linens, I wondered how my mother—the woman who focused more on her traditions than her daughter’s happiness—could possibly have understood how I had felt after Alex and I had broken up. The suffocating feeling of wanting to be the dreamer who could throw caution to the wind and follow her heart, but knowing deep down that I was the practical, steady person my parents had raised me to be. At the end of the day, no matter how much I fought against my nature, the fear of instability they had raised me with had prevailed. I had been right not to open her card before.
“Sorry I’m late,” Carrie said as she pulled her red hair into a ponytail, revealing the small gold hoop on the top of her ear, a remnant from her punk days at boarding school. She smoothed her thick bangs onto her forehead. They were cut in a severe straight line falling just above her eyebrows, giving her an edgier look than the average attorney.
“I built that time in,” I said, slipping my carry-on into the back seat.
Carrie was what I called “punctually late.” She always turned up fifteen minutes after the agreed-upon time. Fifteen minutes. On the dot.
As I slid into the passenger seat, I detected the faint smell of cigarette smoke that always clung to her skin and clothes.
She paused with her hand on the gearshift. “I’m sorry about what’s going on with your family.”
“Thanks,” I said, focusing on the empty sour-candy wrapper that crinkled as she nudged it while switching gears. “It’s a lot to process, but I know they will be fine.” My jaw stiffened in determination.
She pulled away from the curb and drove toward the highway. Given the late evening hour, there wasn’t much traffic on the southbound 405. She swerved in and out of lanes, passing cars like a taxi driver in Manhattan, sometimes tailgating so closely that my foot pumped an invisible brake.
“When do you think you’ll be back?” she asked.
“As soon as humanly possible. Once I know Neel and Dipti will be okay, I’m on the first flight back. The Warden’s probably going to fire me if I’m not.”
“Don’t worry about him. The billable hours will still be here when you get back.” She pounded on the horn when another car tried to cut her off.
It was easy for her to say, but I’d always worried about my place at the firm more than she had. I’d never expected to be given the same latitude as my white peers. I chewed on my bottom lip as I stared out the window at the familiar street names on the exit signs. I could recite every exit on the 405 between the 101 and 10. In thirty-six hours, I’d be in a city where I wouldn’t be able to drive because the streets were chaotic with the animals roaming through them and the lack of any city planning. The handy GPS application on my phone would be useless because there weren’t official street names or addresses, and it would be pointless to type in the pink house next to the tea cart at the Jodhpur intersection.