I plaster on another smile. “Yeah! Absolutely! Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Oh, I don’t know …” She draws out the words and plays with her salmon-coloured headscarf. “Well, I do know, but I didn’t want to say anything at first.”
She sits on the bed and taps the spot next to hers in an invitation.
An invitation I really don’t want to take.
But I promised myself I wouldn’t rock the boat while I was here, so I sit. And I try to remember that once upon a time, this woman and I were closer than I’ve ever been with my own mother.
“It’s just that…” Martine pinches her lips. “Well, you seemed a bit distant today.”
“Did I?”
I know I did.
“Is everything all right with you and Karan?”
“Yes, everything’s fine.” The lie tastes bitter on my tongue.
“You know…” She looks towards the door, as if she’s worried someone might walk in and overhear. “Karan is a bit like his father.”
I think about how Karan’s helping with the dishes, and how I doubt Surinder even knows how to turn the dishwasher on.
I keep this thought to myself.
“Oh?”
“Yes. He can be such a workaholic sometimes!” She laughs a little, shaking her head like she’s just said something charmingand self-deprecating. “It can be difficult to find time together when he’s so focused on other things.”
“Yeah, it is difficult.”
Martine squeezes my hand. “But after thirty five years of marriage, I’ll tell you this… sometimes you have to compromise.”
I take a deep breath to resist the urge to pull my hand away. Or scream.
“I know.”
“Especially in interracial families who come from different cultures. It’s all about understanding each other’s needs. I remember how hard it was to make our lives fit at first, but compromise led us where we are today. One of those compromises was accepting his need to be a provider. And him being a provider also meant his work was important.”
I want to roll my eyes. Martine may be Québécoise like me, but from what I know of her family, they were a lot more traditional than your average Québécois family. She was all too happy to be the nurturing homemaker who submits to her husband and his parents. She was all too happy to get married.
It wasn’t the same for me. I didn’t care either way about marriage, like many Québécois. We got married because Karan proposed. And I happily went along with his parents’ plan for a hybrid Québécois-Hindu ceremony because I love all sides of Karan, and had no special attachment to the white wedding dress so many North American women dream of.
All that mattered was that I married the love of my life, so I was all too glad to adorn the beautiful red and gold Lehenga.
But Karan was never the work-obsessed man he is today. That man was born from the parental pressures Martine and Surinder have put him under. He’s not the man I married.
Or was he always there somewhere, hidden underneath the surface?
“Women these days have so much to deal with,” Martine continues. “So many expectations. It’s like society expects you to take on the role of husbandandwife.”
She smiles with her teeth, causing me to brace myself for the blow I knew was coming next.
“Have you considered… quitting your job?”
My jaw falls to the floor.
“Excuse me?”
