“Oh my God, Ba! Stop!” Daniel was all kinds of crimson, much to the amusement of his sister and mother. “How do you even know that word?” Even his father had cracked a small smile.
Annika wasn’t sure what surprised her more: Daniel speaking Gujarati or Ba knowing the phrasebooty call. She was blushing, but she managed to keep smiling and looking at Ba, all the while wishing there was a hole she could disappear into. She did not, however, miss the twinkle in Ba’s eye.
“What?” Ba asked innocently. “It’s a question.”
“Well, I think he brought me here to meet you because I caught him doing garba and bhangra like a boss at that wedding last weekend,” Annika said. “But now that I’ve met you all, I see that he’s been holding out on me.”
Ba chuckled. “He always liked fooling people. Look at him—dark brown hair, green eyes. No one would suspect he had an old Gujarati grandmother.”
“Aw, Ba. You’re not old.” Daniel gazed upon his grandmother with such love and affection that Annika almost didn’t recognize him. She’d watched a lot of things play upon his face, but this kind of love hadn’t been one of them.
She laughed again. “I am, but don’t think I’m too old to knock sense into you. About time you came to see Charlie.”
The affection he had for his grandmother never left his eyes, but his face went blank, as surely as if he had put on a mask to cover whatever emotion his nephew elicited.
“Why haven’t you seen Charlie for a while?” Annika was puzzled, but the atmosphere in the room had again gone from jovial to something hard yet delicate. No eyes met hers, and certainly no one looked at Daniel. No one except his father, who scowled and shook his head. What didn’t she know?
A car door slammed, and it seemed to break the trance. “That’s Michael with the replacement cake.” Emma nodded at the smashed cake next to the sink. She smiled widely, as if to remind everyone that they were at a birthday party.
The family jumped on her suggestion with more than a little bit of gusto. Everyone, it seemed, needed to be involved with getting the cake ready for cutting. Even Ba rolled farther into the kitchen and started looking for candles. Everyone except for Daniel. He kept his distance. Still with his family, but just at the edge.
Annika sidled over. She’d find out about the nephew later. She had a more pressing question. “So, one-quarter Indian, huh?” She raised an eyebrow. “And Gujarati at that? Daniel Bliant, you’ve been holding out.” She nudged him with her shoulder.
Thankfully, his tension seemed to slip away, and he pursed his lips at her, amusement replacing the pain in his eyes. “No one ever believed I was part Indian. Especially other Indians. But Ba lived next door my whole life, and I was raised by her as much as my own parents.” He shrugged. “I would tell people, but they wouldn’t believe me. It used to piss me off, until my grandparents told me that maybe I should show people who I was instead of telling them. So I did.” He caught her eye. “I still do.”
“So you decided to show me who you are?”
“Well, I don’t hide who I am. It’s just...people know you’re Indian when they look at you. For me, they have to investigate further.” He met her eyes. “The opportunity presented itself, so...”
She held his gaze, while something definitely more than friendship passed between them. Daniel Bliant was trouble.
“There’s more, Annika. I want... Ineedto be honest with you.” His words and the look on his face set something churning in her belly. “What my family keeps dancing around...” Before she could think too much about it, the moment was broken by the sound of Daniel’s phone chirping.
Daniel sighed and reluctantly reached into his pocket for the phone. Whatever he saw there caused him to furrow his brow.
“Everything okay?” Whatmore? What did he need to be honest about?
He shook his head. “Probably not. It’s my ex-wife. She wants to see me. Says it’s important.”
Ex-wife? Daniel had beenmarried? What else didn’t she know? Was that what the bourbon was about? She looked around and watched as Emma cut a piece of cake. She might as well have been cutting another piece of the puzzle that was Daniel’s life. Was this themore? She forced her face into a neutral expression. She did not, after all, have any real claim over him. “You were married?” She couldn’t keep the surprise from her voice.
“Yes.” He nodded and looked back at her, apprehension in his eyes. “I wasn’t trying to keep that from you, I swear—and we’ve been divorced for three years.”
“Does she ask to see you often?”
He frowned. “Last time she got in touch, she wanted to tell me she was getting married. So, no.” He glanced at his watch. “We have time for cake. No big hurry.”
Annika’s heart sank. She was getting more questions than answers here. And shewantedanswers. All of them.
SHEANDDANIELtalked nonstop on the way back to her apartment. She learned about his experiences growing up, and how they were similar yet different from her own experiences. He was proud of his Indian roots and felt a great deal of frustration having to prove his heritage to Indians and non-Indians alike. He could have just let everyone believe he was white. It would have been easier.
“But I couldn’t have done that. It was like hiding a part of myself—as if I was ashamed of that part of me. I wasn’t. I’m not.” He sighed. “I just got tired of the arguments. And I found that seeing was believing. So now I show.” He grinned, clearly proud of himself.
“Yeah, you do,” Annika chuckled. “Meanwhile, I was always just trying to fit in. I wasn’t trying to ignore being Indian, but keeping my Indian side separate so I could be like the other kids.”
“Did you? Fit in?”
Annika shrugged. It was the classic immigrant story of straddling two cultures. Speaking Gujarati at home, learning how to make Indian food, going to temple, studying. But at school she spoke English, played soccer, and ate peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches.
