We walk side by side up to the wooden door, carved with intricate traditional designs. Inside, a small cloakroom holds a couple of pairs of shoes, sandals and sneakers. I slip off my own and add them to the mix, my tote bag anddupattaswinging off my shoulder. The thin scarf is a translucent baby blue complement to my whitekurta, a long-sleeved tunic top, and matching palazzo pants, loose trousers that flutter slightly in the wind.
‘Go on,’ I tell Darien.
He gives his freshly shined white Dunks a look of longing that makes me chuckle, but uses his feet to slip them off beside my slippers. I toss mydupattaover my head, throwing one loose end beneath my chin and behind me, before pushing the door to the temple itself open.
Themandiris generously air-conditioned and an entire section of it open to the outside, making it both a good and bad thing that Darien has a hoodie and sweats on. Maybe it looked different at first, but inside, it’s beautiful. The interior pillars and rafters are strung with fresh flower garlands, the high ceilings painted with murals of gods and goddesses amid myths I recall from my childhood.
Ahead of us is an expansive hall, with brightly coloured statues of deities all around us. We cross the hall together to reach themurtisat the altar of the temple, ornately dressed idols with delicately painted features standing beneath a gold-gilded awning. Each idol is dripping with orange, yellow and pink cloth and gold jewellery. In the centre is Amman, one of the primary patron goddesses in the south of India. To one side of Amman, a group of three stands beneath an arch of carved wood: Shri Ram, Sita and Lakshman, my family’s patron deities. Both Ram and Lakshman hold gold-gilded bows, the weapons with which they fought to win back Sita, wife of Ram, from the demon king Raavan. Far off to the right side of the hall is another altar for Draupadi and the Pandavas from the Mahabharat, with amurtifor Shri Krishna as well.
There is no lack of lore about the gods, lore that we grew up consuming even as Indo-Guyanese kids raised Hindu. Stories of gargantuan labours and epic battles, good against evil and brother against brother. But my favourites were always the love stories. The gods and goddesses would literally move heaven and earth for one another, the gold standard of the purest kindof love. Ram and Sita, Krishna and Radha, Shiva and Parvati. I liked to think that was not completely myth, at least before last year.
A table at our side is laid out with shiny silverthaalplates, fruits and nuts,diyacandles in clay pots, and flowers. I take athaalfor our offering, and arrange the flowers, food and candles around it. I light a match. It sparks up right away, and I touch it to the wick of eachdiya.
‘I hate to ask,’ whispers Darien, touching my arm lightly, ‘but what, exactly, are we doing?’
I pick up thethaaland bring it to the altars with care, stopping at the rail separating the devotees from themurtis. ‘Making our wishes known.’
Darien’s brow furrows as he follows my gaze to the idols. ‘Our wishes?’
‘An offering for healing.’ I shield the flickeringdiyas, trying my best to keep their burgeoning flames intact. ‘For you.’
As I begin to circle thethaalbefore the altar, mouthing theaartidevotional under my breath, my hands shake, and I feel my eyes start to well up. This is the first time I have come to the temple on my own, without Sonia. I remember her making these offerings, doing theaarti, and following her motions. I swallow on a throat as rough as asphalt. I know what’s compelled me so strongly to return, despite knowing the pain I face whenever I tread on memories of my sister. With every memory, I continue to rip open a partially healed wound, the hole where my heart used to be. But as I offeraarti, I project my questions in my prayers.Why? Why have you brought winds of change into my life now, when I am out of options?
A near silent sob leaves my lips, bouncing off the ceiling of themandir. Thethaaltilts dangerously in my unsteady grip, threatens to fall.
But then another hand holds mine, levels the silver platter.
Darien.
He meets my eyes wordlessly. And he guides mythaalwith his right hand, thediyasburning like stars in an otherwise dark night sky. I watch his arm make the careful, controlled movement, muscles flexing to hold up the heavy platter. It’s like earlier that week – it isn’t something he notices. His gaze is only on me, one of concern, brow furrowed, big brown eyes full of worry.
He doesn’t probe my grief, asks not a single question. He just stays, until I’m ready to set thethaaldown at the feet of the Ram-Sitamurti, and then he turns to me. His fingers skim my arm as he takes the end of mydupattaand brings it to my cheek, brushing away my tears.
I keep it together the entire walk out the temple, all the way to the car. I don’t have it in me to hold myself up any more than that.
I lean in to Darien, and I squeeze my eyes shut. He wraps his arms around me, smooths down my hair. He keeps me close, his chin resting against my forehead, my cheek to his chest as I release every emotion I have felt since getting here and since before then, and I know he knows what it is like.
He doesn’t owe me words. I have everything I need.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Darien
‘He held up a ridiculously heavy plate yesterday with only his bad hand. I think the steering shouldn’t be much different at this point. Once we build muscle, we’re on the right track,’ Shantal says to Celina the day after we return from the temple.
The air between the two of us, Shantal and me, holds a lot more electricity after that. The kind of moment we shared out there at the temple wasn’t one that you can fabricate. I didn’t have to say anything, do anything. I guess I just … felt it. I might not know exactly what’s had Shantal so preoccupied, the secrets I can just barely make out dancing behind her eyes when I look them dead-on, but I felt it so, so deeply.
Nevertheless, her big mouth spilling this newest development – the plate, that is – happens to be the cause of all my pain and suffering to come, because Celina doesn’t let up once she hears that I’m able to move, not even when we travel to Japan for the next race.
‘We’re getting that arm back in commission. I don’t care if it means I have to pull Shantal from the team and sit her down in front of you for you tomove,’ she grumbles as she brings us dumbbells, picking up one with which to demonstrate the exercise. ‘Let’s do rows. Keep it easy, just pull up. I want to see those movements before I put you back at the wheel.’
I complain and groan through it all, arm exercises that last the next two weeks with an aim at bringing memory back to my muscles. Shantal comes in and out of my training sessions, and she sits down in front of me without having to be pulled away by Celina. She lies down on her belly across from me, props her chin up on her hands, and meets my eyes as Celina spots me through my first push-ups post-accident. She encourages me, murmurs kind words, acknowledges my struggle at every turn. At the beginning of it, I can barely manage to curl a dumbbell. By the fifth day, I’m somehow starting to bench again, even if it’s with Shantal taking part of the weight from above me.
Celina decides I’m finally ready to get into a simulator back in Rio at the end of those two weeks. It’s like being a baby learning to walk again, figuring out how to get around. She is permitted to be present, but it’s only me behind this wheel. Me, my own trainer and, naturally, Demir overseeing the ordeal.
‘You’ve gotten plenty of low-weight practice in. We’re on the most realistic setting on the steering now,’ Celina explains. Her brow creases as I tug on my balaclava and helmet. She gives the side of the helmet a double-tap. ‘Be smart.’
With her help, I lower myself into the simulator set-up. I know this cockpit like the back of my hand – Shantal tailored it to match the car exactly, and now, so will the weight on the steering. The seat is just like the one on my Heidelberg, designed to fit me exactly. As perfect as it is all meant to be, it feels foreign.
