"Don't be sorry." She wipes her hands on a towel and moves around the island toward me. "This is what aunts are here for. Cooking and sharing stories." She takes the rolling pin from my hands and sets it aside. "You know, I remember what it was like to be newly married."
I gather up the overworked dough, pressing it back into a ball.
"There's a lot of hunger and excitement," Dar continues, adding seasoning to the pot on the stove. "But there's also a learning curve, one that can make two people who are madly in love feel like they're speaking different languages."
She rounds the counter to join me, her shoulder brushing mine as she starts forming her own piece of dough. The simple intimacy of it, cooking side by side, makes my throat tight. This is what I've been missing. What my mother should be here to teach me.
"Speaking different languages is giving us more credit than we deserve," I say quietly, dividing the dough into smaller portions.
"Is it?" She glances at me sideways. "I see the way that man looks at you, the way he watches you when you're unaware. You're the center of his world, Asha. He came here for business, but do you know, since we discovered our connection, he hasn't brought it up once?"
My hands still. "No. I didn't know that. I assumed?—"
"You assumed because he was learning our ways that he was talking shop." She shakes her head, reaching for more flour. "He hasn't. And you want to know why?"
My eyes meet hers. "Why?"
"Because he's letting you lead. Someone in love will never hold you back. They won't douse your flame to make theirs burn brighter." She places her hand over mine, stilling my nervousmovements. "You're his fuel, Asha. Without your happiness, this means nothing."
That's one way of looking at it. The other is that he married me specifically to land this deal. He has to play by my rules now more than ever. I hold the cards. Or at least I thought I did. However, hearing Dar's perspective, threading her words with the things he's said and the way he touches me, how he looked this morning…it has me questioning my fear again. That old, familiar fear of abandonment. The one that's had me pouring everything into my studies and work, into anything that busied my mind, anything that kept me from feeling. Because feelings never worked out for me. And now, here I am, terrified I'm catching them for the one man my father always told me not to.
"Then why doesn't he just say that?" My voice comes out smaller than I intended because I didn't mean to say the words aloud.
She smiles, that patient smile of someone who's lived longer, loved harder. "Because he's a man. Men rarely express what's on their hearts the way we want them to. Sometimes you just have to know. He wouldn't have chosen you to be the person by his side, the mother of his children, his forever, if you weren't everything he wanted."
My hands go clammy instantly at the wordschildrenandforever,spoken in reference to me and Trigg. I wipe them on my apron and reach for the tequila she poured earlier.Well, at least she thinks this is all very real.
"We definitely aren't having kids anytime soon," I say, taking a drink and welcoming the burn.
"That's not always in our control." She laughs. "Rohan was a surprise. In fact, I'm pretty sure he was conceived during angry sex."
I cover my mouth to avoid spitting out my tequila, choking on laughter and liquor.
"Don't be shy." She waves her hand dismissively. "I'm sure if your mother were still with us, she would be having this conversation with you. We can learn from the women who came before us, watch how they made things work, how they weathered the storms." She rolls out the last piece of dough. "It doesn't mean we walk the same path, but sometimes we see that we're not as alone as we think we are. And sometimes what we think is failure, what we think is rejection, it's just love. Messy, imperfect, human love."
I watch Dar's hands as she works, wondering what it's like to have that kind of certainty. To know someone that deeply.
"What do you and Santiago do when you disagree?" I ask.
My father never remarried. He's never even had a serious girlfriend. I know he hasn't been celibate, but if there are women in his life, they aren't anyone he's kept around long enough for me to meet. I've never watched a love story unfold. I've never witnessed the mortar it takes to keep the walls standing.
"We talk," Dar says simply, turning to check the dal, stirring slowly. "Even when it's the last thing we want to do. When we know it might hurt, we talk. And then..." Her voice trails off with a knowing smile, implication hanging in the steam-filled air.
"Right."Makeup sex. I take another drink, feeling the warmth spread through my chest. "I don't think I need help with those details."
She laughs again, and the sound makes me ache for something I can't name. For the mother who should be here. For the father who used to be present before secrets carved him hollow.
"Talking," I murmur, more to myself than to her. "It seems so obvious."
And though I feel like it's what I was trying to do this morning, I was also letting my own insecurities get in the way.My fear of being too much or not enough. My terror of opening up only to find there's nothing on the other side but empty space.
But what if there isn't empty space? What if there's just...him?
I start forming the samosas, folding the dough around the spiced potato filling. The kitchen is warm now, almost too warm, and I can feel sweat gathering at the base of my neck.
"Dar," I say slowly, pressing the edges of a samosa to seal it. My heart is suddenly pounding. "Can I ask you something?"
"Of course."
