Now that Auntie Anjali has gotten the stove going, the area near the kitchen is starting to warm up, despite the cold trying to seep in from outside. Rachel brushes a strand of hair from her forehead with the back of her hand in an effort to cool down.
The sight triggers a memory from our earlier days. When we met, we both lived in the dorms of John Abbott College on the west end of the island of Montréal. The dorms were small apartments with two bedrooms each, with two people to each bedroom.
My roommate Eric and I, both with new girlfriends, had a deal.If there’s a tie on the bedroom doorknob, you don’t go in.So when Rachel and I had rushed to my bedroom in giggles, only to fall across a tie on the doorknob, we’d decided to cook together instead.
But I can’t overstate how shitty the tiny kitchens in the dorms really were. As was our hand-me-down equipment. Twentyminutes later, the curry I was lovingly teaching Rachel to make was on fire.
“Remember that time we nearly burnt down the dorms in our first year at John Abbott?” I ask Rachel as I start to cook the rotis, my voice hopeful.
Rachel sets down her knife and hands her bowl of chopped veggies to Anjali. “Oh my God. No. I blocked that from my memory.”
A… joke? Is Rachel really joking with me?
“No one was more traumatized than Eric and Tracey,” I add.
“I was pretty traumatized at traumatizing them.” Rachel’s eyes go wide as she speaks. “Imagine if the roles had been reversed. I would have been mortified.”
We’d managed to put out the fire, but not before we triggered the dorm-wide fire alarm, forcing everyone outside… including Eric and Tracey, who were still in the middle of whatever they were doing in the room.
I scoff. Rachel looks at me in surprise.
“The roles would never have been reversed,” I explain. “Those two never touched the kitchen with a ten-foot pole.”
A laugh erupts out of Rachel—a real laugh. Something tight insight of me finally unwinds. That bubbly sound is more soothing, more healing, than any drug. It’s almost distracting enough to make me burn the roti, but I’m of sound enough mind to flip it just in time.
We finish up as Anjali rushes to our side to inspect our progress. She beams at us like a proud parent and nods approval at my perfectly rounded rotis.
“Perfect!” she declares, sweeping the finished rotis into a basket. “Everyone, dinner’s ready!”
A chorus of voices echoes back, and suddenly the cabin is filled with a scramble of feet and a tangle of arms reaching for food. The small dining table is overcrowded with the basket ofrotis, the steaming pot of Aloo Wadiyan, and bowls, glasses, and utensils for everyone.
Rachel and I barely make it to our seats before the onslaught begins. The twins argue over one specific roti—because, of course, they can’t just each decide to grab another one—while Surinder defends his samosa-hating position against Jocelyne’s playful insistence that he’s no brother-in-law of hers.
In the middle of it all, Rachel eats quietly, looking down at her bowl without making eye contact with anyone else. Our knees briefly bump against each other under the table when we both reach for a roti. She freezes, then smiles to herself and keeps eating.
As lunch unfolds, my mind works at a hundred miles an hour. I’ve got to find something… some way to show her how much she means to me.
And I can’t wait until we’re back home.
An idea sparks in my my brain. I’m not sure if it’ll work, but suddenly, I can’t wait to find out.
Chapter 23
Rachel
As the family disperses after lunch, Martine pulls me aside with a concerned look that immediately makes my stomach churn.
“I was hoping I could talk to you,” she says.
I’m watching the twins as they race around the snow with Surinder, Jocelyne, and the cousins. They didn’t waste a second getting dressed to go back outside after lunch. Their laughter echoes through the windows, and it almost makes me want to join them instead of facing whatever Martine has in store for me.
“Uh, sure,” I say, trying to sound less reluctant than I actually am.
The sound fades as I follow her upstairs towards the bedrooms, my pulse a deafening metronome in my ears. Martine holds the door to her bedroom open for me and gestures with an open palm, like she’s inviting me to enter a therapist’s officeinstead of a small guest bedroom with no seating except for a bed.
“Everything okay, sweetie?” she asks as I walk past her.
Her voice is softer now, but I know better than to be fooled by it.
