“You know this is not the life I want for you,” he said.
“I know,” I said evenly, not wanting to start a fight before he left for America.
“You get this stubbornness from your mother, you know?”
“Maybe.” All of us were stubborn, my father included, so the truth was that I could have gotten it from anywhere.
He lowered to the bed. “It’s not because I don’t want you to be happy. I don’t want you to have to struggle for money the way your mother and I have. A good job like yours takes away that stress.”
“I know, but money comes at a price. And I won’t be reckless. What you don’t understand is that we grew up differently from you. Neel and I learned to grow up without a safety net. We didn’t have the prestige of the family name like you and Mom had when you grew up in India. You never thought about money and finances when you were a kid because you were here. You never had to worry about it until you went to America. But Neel and I thought about it all the time. We had to fight for everything, and we know if we screw up, there’s no money coming from anywhere else, except maybe each other.”
My dad looked surprised to hear me say that. I could see him mulling over the comparisons between our childhoods.
“That fire in you comes from her too,” he said.
I’d never heard either of my parents compliment my passionate streak. I had always assumed that to them, it was the reason I couldn’t be the obedient Indian girl they had wished for. It was why they said I walked like an elephant.
“Then you should know I’ll be okay. I’ll fight to make sure I never go back to the life we had when we got to America.”
He smiled at me, pride in his eyes, and I basked in it.
“You are strong like her,” he said.
“I wish she knew we’ll be okay if we stay here alone. We don’t need her to babysit.”
Dad sighed. “Did you ever think she needs this for her?”
I opened my mouth to speak but then paused. I hadn’t considered that.
“I moved her from India too soon. I know that now. In our culture, first you marry, then you date, then you fall in love. I thought a fresh start was what the family needed to grow together. To bond us together in our family love without the distractions and obligations that come from society in Ahmedabad. I didn’t know how hard life in America would be for us. Especially for her.”
I wanted to ask him more about the difficulties of our life in America during those early years, but we had mere minutes before he had to leave for the airport, rather than the hours it would take to unlock those stories. I knew that conversation would be one for another time when I was back in our home near Devon Avenue.
His knees creaked when he stood up. “Take care of her.” He patted my leg.
“Who’s going to take care of you?”
I couldn’t imagine him doing all the cooking and cleaning. Even on days when my mother was away, she made sure there was food in the freezer, portioned out and vacuum sealed, that my dad could reheat.
“Don’t worry about me.” He smiled as if he had a secret. “Varsha likes to feel needed, but I can handle myself.”
I’d never heard my father speak about my mother with this level of affection. He was a man of few words, so the ones I’d heard most were when my parents were shouting at each other about some foolish thing like buying the wrong kind of milk or shoveling snow off the driveway.
His demeanor reminded me of when he’d quietly handed me the money for my eighth-grade field trip. That time he hadn’t said anything, but his actions spoke volumes. I felt the same way today. It seemed I was never too old to have my parents surprise me.
20
The next day, we were all exhausted from saying goodbye to my father at the airport in the middle of the night. Neel and my mother were sleeping in, and when Indira Mami was busy in the kitchen making lunch, I crept back to her closet and flipped through the photographs we’d placed back in the wardrobe until I found the one I needed. Then I walked to Monali Auntie’s flat, which was just five minutes away. She and Kamal Uncle had done well for themselves after immigrating to America, much better than my parents had fared. Kamal Uncle’s investment business sailed, and they were among the class of NRIs who could afford to keep an apartment in India for their yearly visits.
Her place smelled of mustard seeds, cumin, and lentils—homemade dal. It was familiar and comforting. My mother had taught her how to cook. The two had been as close as sisters while growing up in Ahmedabad, but my mother managed to do everything a step ahead of her, including marriage. Before Monali Auntie’s wedding, she came to our house in Illinois and learned to cook and do laundry, chores that servants in India had done for her until that point. I imagined it was challenging for my mother to watch her best friend’s family rise financially, while it seemed no matter how hard my parents tried, they could not get ahead.