That night I couldn’t fall asleep. Carrie was emotionally spent and fell into a deep slumber. I lay in bed for a long time, thinking about what she had said and about how she had been carrying the burden alone for a few weeks. I thought about love and the role it played in relationships. Arranged marriages were based on loyalty, commitment, and shared family values. I’d always thought that wasn’t enough by itself. That happiness required Western love. Now, I wondered if maybe the Indian way was enough. I felt like everything I knew—or thought I knew—was being tested.
38
Carrie was still asleep when I woke up the next morning, so I quietly crept out of the room, wanting her to get as much rest as possible from the burden she’d been carrying. I made my way across the street to the vendors and began perusing the candies and confections. In a straw basket that the sales boy handed me, I collected an assortment of Milka and Cadbury chocolate bars, Smarties, sugar-coated fennel seeds, and tamarind candy. It wasn’t the sour gummies or licorice ropes that Carrie sustained herself with typically but was the closest Ahmedabad could offer to give her a taste of home. Carrie lived off candy, and in her short time in Ahmedabad, her sugar intake was the lowest I’d ever seen.
I noticed two young children loitering nearby, watching me, their clothes smudged with dirt and their expressions wishful as I filled my basket. I looked down and felt guilty that I could easily put whatever I wanted into it and have it billed to my family’s monthly account. I grabbed four more chocolate bars before letting the sales boy tally my items and add it to the ledger. I stepped out of the shop and handed the older of the two children the four chocolate bars. His eyes bulged as he took them from me. His little sister looked wide eyed as he handed her one. I wondered what these children’s stories were. How had they ended up in the life that they now led? My childhood challenges in America paled in comparison to what so many children in India dealt with for much of their lives. I considered whether these were the types of families Anand Uncle’s foundation helped.
When I returned to the bungalow, Carrie was sitting up in bed and scrolling through her phone.
“Sleep okay?” I asked.
She nodded. “Surprisingly so. Felt like I was in a coma.”
I sat on the bed next to her. “Unburdening that extra weight may have helped. When it comes to emotional stuff, better out than in, right?”
She looked at me sheepishly. “Not sure any of us are good at that. Maybe that’s what makes us good lawyers,” she said. “Being dead inside seems like an asset to the trade.”
“Maybe,” I said, laughing. “But I’m hoping to become less good at that. Never too late to learn to be human. Maybe we can encourage each other to share the stuff that we are so used to burying.”
She looked at me. “Sharing isn’t my forte.”
“Nor is it mine. But I hear this whole life thing gets harder the deeper we go into adulthood, so now feels like the right time to make a change. Pretty sure life isn’t done handing us shit yet.”
She laughed. “Doesn’t seem like it.”
“But before we have to tackle the next challenge,” I said, dumping the contents of the plastic bag onto the bed between us, an impressive and colorful array of candy and confections that would have rivaled any great trick-or-treat haul, “I got you a breakfast of champions!”
Her eyes lit up as she reached for a purple Dairy Milk bar. “Perfect timing. I was worried my emotions were a symptom of the withdrawal I was having! This should lock everything back up nice and tight.”
I swatted her playfully before going to get myself some khari biscuits. A breakfast of sugar was Carrie’s thing, but definitely not mine. As I walked toward the stairs, I found the door to my mother’s room slightly ajar, and I poked my head in to ask her if she wanted me to bring her chai or biscuits on my way back. She sat on the bed, sifting through some photos. The box next to her was different from the ones I’d seen in Indira Mami’s locked cabinet.
“What are those?” I asked, joining her.
Her lips curled into a nostalgic smile, as if by holding the photo she could transport herself back to that moment. “Indira Mami found these pictures of you and Biren from when you were little. When we lived in this house.” She handed one to me. “Isn’t this funny?”
It was an image of Biren and me when we were five years old. It was the infamous photo of us wearing matching little girls’ chaniya cholis, mine red, his yellow. We both beamed into the camera, him a head taller than me even then. Even at that time, our parents had joked about our arranged marriage, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d known at that young age that he was gay.