“So you’ve said.” Mom throws her hands up. “But you still haven’t told me what you want to talk about.”
Deep breath in. Deep breath out. And repeat. And repeat. Mom and Dad’s impatient looks tell me they would like me to practice the calming breathing after I tell them what’s going on.
“I’m mad at you both that you left me in America when you came back to India,” I say without any warning or warm-up.
Not that I know what I could have said to warm them up to that.
“We thought it would be best if you lived in the US. You would have more opportunities there,” Mom says while Dad sputters.
“Okay. But you could have stayed in New York with us.”
“The company needed us here,” Dad says.
“Fine. Whatever.” I get the exact same responses I got every time I asked in my childhood. “But you could have visited more. Or made me come here more. There’s a lot of vacation days in a school year and we’re all rich enough to get plane tickets.”
They look at each other in silent communication, the kind only possible when you’ve spent the last thirty-five years with the same person.
“And fine. You didn’t do any of that when I was a kid. That was your choice. But I’m an adult now and I can do something if I don’t like our relationship. Or at least try to do something to change our relationship.”
Silence meets the speech I planned for twenty-two hours. Not exactly the reaction I wanted. My parents look at me, both at a loss on how to handle this parenting development.
“So. We should have more family visits in a year. And talk more on the phone. Or text. I can teach you about emojis. And GIFs.” I keep talking because the silence is a little too much to handle.
But then there’s more silence. To fill the silence, I contemplate reciting Charles De Gaulle’s speech to the French to rally them to fight Nazis. The same speech I had to memorize for French class and never forgot.La France a perdu une bataille! Mais la France n’a pas perdu la guerre!
Actually, that’s kind of applicable, Charles. I lost the battle of my childhood, but I can still win the war now that we’re all adults.
Before I can get into the speech, Mom speaks.
“It was hard.” Mom’s voice is low and she’s looking at the same mural that I painted over. I wonder if she remembers me playing there, or if she just likes the pretty painting.
I keep looking at her, hoping she elaborates.
“To leave you every time. To know we wouldn’t be tucking you in at night or making sure you had a good breakfast. Or watching you learn and grow and laugh and cry. Especially making you feel better when you cried. Being with you for a short amount of time reminded us of everything we were missing, so we limited the time we came. To make it easier for us. Not that it ever did.”
“Then why didn’t you just take me with you?”
“We felt you would have better opportunities if you were educated in America.” Mom has an answer for everything.
“Then why didn’t you stay?”
Mom stays silent at that one and starts to tear up.
Dad chimes in, slumping in his chair and looking more tired than I’ve ever seen the man. I guess it’s easy to hold it together when you only see someone for a few weeks a year. “That’s my fault. I love our home in India and I didn’t want to move. We did because it made the most sense for the business. Then we had you, and it made more sense. But after a few bad experiences with strangers he had hired to run Loot years after we all left, Kabir asked us to take over the headquarters. But you were in the middle of the school year.”
He takes off his glasses and rubs his own eyes. I would never say it was because he was crying, because the man has been made of stone every time I cried when they left, but his face is suspiciously wet now.
“We were going to move you after the school year, but when we came back to get you, you looked so content with Priya and Ajay, and all your other friends. You were so excited about Halloween even though it was summer...you were going as a pink ranger.”
I remember that year. The cousins, some friends and I planned to have a group costume as the Power Rangers. It was a good Halloween. I don’t know that it was worth losing my parents over.
But Dad’s not done. “You seemed so settled and happy. And like your mom said, it was a better opportunity for you to be educated in New York. Our job was to safeguard your, Priya’s and Ajay’s legacy here.” Dad reaches for Mom’s hand because she hasn’t stopped crying. “It seemed so logical at that time.”
Mom can barely get words out, but she chimes in. “And then it was too late. You didn’t need us because we were never there for you. And every time we saw you, we were reminded that you didn’t need us. You reached for Chachi every time you needed anything, because she was the one that was always there. Even when I was there.” Mom tentatively reaches out to hug me and then strengthens her arms around me when I don’t pull away.
It feels really good to be hugged by my mom, so I wrap my arms around her as well, not ready for this hug to end any time soon.
I inhale deeply and smell chai. I remember how addicted to chai Mom is...needing about six cups to get through the day.
