Sabina stood. “We’re agreed. We will be neighbors and nothing more. I hope you can keep your word.”
“I will. If you tell Uma and Tanvi all of it.” Meena wanted to have meaningful relationships with the other aunties. She couldn’t do that with a secret like this.
“I can’t,” Sabina said. “They will never forgive me.”
“I am not going to close myself off to them. I also don’t want this hanging over my head. It’s your secret, not mine.”
Sabina gritted her teeth.
“Your choice.” Meena gave her an ultimatum. “This is the only thing I’m asking of you.”
“Can we come in?” Tanvi poked her head in. “Sabina, I didn’t know you were here. I sent you a text that we were coming down here.”
Meena looked up as Uma and Tanvi rushed in.
“We brought chai.” Uma waved the thermos.
“I have cookies.” Tanvi held up a plate. “What’s going on?”
Meena shrugged and picked up a cookie. “What are you guys doing here?”
“We need you to settle a bet,” Tanvi said.
Meena smiled. “Whoever had March twelfth for Sam and me to become boyfriend and girlfriend wins your bet.”
Uma whooped. “I had March tenth. I win.”
Meena laughed as Uma did a small victory dance. They chatted. Sabina and Meena with the other two but not with each other. If Tanvi and Uma noticed, they didn’t let on. Before the aunties left, they complimented her apartment and then themselves in the photos.
Meena closed the door behind them and left it unlocked as she went to her worktable. She had photos to edit, emails to respond to, and a schedule to make for upcoming assignments. Later she would go over to Sam’s and they’d order takeout and watch a movie while Wally snoozed on the rug. Next week Huck would join them. They would go to pub trivia. She was settling in, and it felt good. Right.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Four days later Meena was in downward dog when Uma and Tanvi barged into her apartment. A thermos and a Tupperware in their hands. There was concern on their faces. She came out of the pose, and before she could fully stand, she was enveloped in a hug by Tanvi. Uma stroked her arm.
“What’s going on?”
“We’re so sorry,” Tanvi said. “We should have tried harder to figure it all out.”
Meena pulled out of their grasp. “What are you talking about?”
“Sabina told us everything.”
Meena exhaled, relieved. She didn’t know what she would have done if Sabina hadn’t.
“Come sit.” Tanvi pulled her to the table. “Are you hungry? Have you eaten?”
“She’s a grown person.” Uma opened the plastic container. “Let her be.”
“I just want to take care of you,” Tanvi brought mugs from the kitchen and poured chai.
“I’m fine,” Meena assured them. “We’ve reached a truce of sorts.”
Uma snorted as she shoved the container of parathas toward Meena.
Tanvi patted Meena’s arm. “I’m not fine. I’m angry and upset. We missed so many months with you.”
“You didn’t,” Meena said. “You’ve been taking care of me. And I don’t need much.”
“I’m angry that she’s being a bitch,” Uma grunted. “She should have dealt with all of this better. You deserve more.”
“It was her choice,” Meena offered.
“Not about her choice.” Uma took a paratha, folded it in half, and shoved it in Meena’s hand. “For her secrets and for trying to get rid of you.”
“I can’t do anything about that.” Meena took a bite, if only to please Tanvi.
“It’s not you.” Uma went to the kitchen and rummaged around in the pantry. She brought over a plate of cookies. “Did you make these?”
“I’ve been practicing.”
Uma bit into one. “Too much baking soda.”
“Thanks for the tip.”
Tanvi sipped her chai. “We’re mad, and it’s going to take time. She should have come to us. Instead she relied on Neha, trusted someone so . . . so, well, you know.”
“At least she helped Sabina through it all,” Uma said.
“And held it over her head,” Tanvi added. “Made Sabina her personal servant.”
“She wrote me notes.” Meena wanted them to know the whole of it.
The aunties looked confused. Meena went to the drawer of her worktable and pulled out the envelope of notes. One of the few things she’d kept. She didn’t consider them Neha’s, but her own. The three women scanned them.
“What a mind fuck.” Uma shook her head.
“Tell me about it,” Meena said.
“I didn’t know this was happening to you.”
“That’s on me. I wasn’t exactly an open book.”
“You weren’t even a closed book,” Uma said. “Just a series of Post-it Notes.”
“Did Sabina tell you about the father?” asked Tanvi.
“Neha did.” Meena took another sip. It needed sugar, but then she remembered that it was always Sabina who added sugar, so she drank it plain. “And Sabina filled in parts.”
“She told us he was Neha’s cousin,” Uma said. “His name was Akash.”
“He was very attractive.” Tanvi took a paratha, rolled it up, and dipped it in her chai before taking a bite. “I remember. You come from good genetic stock. At least on your father’s side.”
“I had wanted it to be you.” Meena put her hand on Tanvi’s arm. “When I learned that one of you could be my birth mother.”
“Oh.” Tanvi’s eyes welled up.
“What am I?” Uma jabbed her thumb into her chest. “Chopped liver?”
“She’s the nicest one.” Meena shrugged.
“I really am.”
“So what does all of this mean? With Sabina. I don’t want you to stop being friends,” Meena said. “I also want to join in, be a part of the events here. I might even attend another post-Thanksgiving day of fun.”
“You do know that we’re all family,” Uma explained. “In our culture there is no cousin; we don’t even have a word for it in Gujarati. It’s brother, sister, niece, nephew. That’s how it is in the building. Sabina is our sister. We’re angry, but we will work it out.”
“How long is that going to take?”
“We have a process for this,” Uma said. “If one of us does wrong, they get put in friendship jail. The time is arbitrary, based on the offense. Sabina is going to be in there for a long time.”