Settling down on the edge of my bed, I stare at the emptiness around me. How many times did I crave to be away from here, this room, this home, this life? The nights I covered my face with a pillow, hoping to muffle my tears as sounds echoed through the house. I would crawl out of bed and lock the bedroom door, both guilt and fear warring within me.
“Do you have everything?” Mom opens the door, shocking me out of my reverie. Her weathered fingers clutch the doorknob. She doesn’t cross the threshold between the hallway and my room, choosing instead to maintain the false distance the line helps to create.
“Yes,” I murmur. “Thank you.” She never checked on me before. Maybe she was too afraid of what she would find. “Good-night.”
She waits and for just a moment we stare at one another, both quiet. Nodding, she returns, “Good-night.”
I lock the door after she leaves. Taking the desk chair, I nudge it against the doorknob. It is the only way I can sleep at night. It is the only way I know how to stay safe. That and to keep running. Because as long as you keep running, they can never catch you. Never get caught. Never, ever get caught. I repeat the words to myself as I lie down on the bed, searching for the peace that sleep will bring, finding none.
MARIN
Marin watches, her eyelids lowered to slits. The Indian community members mill about, painting her feet with traditional henna for her upcoming wedding. Intricate designs with no significance but patterned to exact detail. Aunts and uncles are gathered, their excitement palpable in the evening air, as younger cousins, with years before their turn to marry, study the scene. They try to understand the joy now and the grief tomorrow. The tears will flow from Mummy; Trisha and Sonya will cling, wishing that it was them instead. And if not, why was she leaving them behind?
Marin had no choice. It had been decided by the date of her birth and the family to whom she was born. She had perused suitors’ résumés here and there. Once, she had voiced her opinion. Tossing a résumé down in disgust, she said under no condition would she spend her life with that person. The picture was of a man who she was sure had yet to complete the evolutionary cycle. But it was not an issue. He did not have siblings with graduate degrees. He was not a viable candidate.
“Give me your hand, Beti,” Marin’s aunt cajoles, calling Marin her own daughter. Lines of age cover her face. “Your feet are finished.”
“What?” Marin does not hear. When her aunt fails to answer, Marin questions, “Masi?”
“Beti.” Her fingers encircle Marin’s forearm, resting inches above a deep indentation. Dead blood rings Marin’s tan wrist. Pity spills from her aunt’s eyes. “What happened to you, child?” The wedding paste simmers, forgotten, in a pot beside her.
Marin wrenches her hand away, shaking her head. Speaking the story will make it real.
He lies there, multiple tubes keeping him alive. Marin counts five in all. One in his nose, another down his throat, yet another in his arm. A machine tells her that his heart is still working, sixty beats per minute. She watches the lines on the monitor, the rhythm indicating all is as it should be. Each piece of the whole working together to keep a human being alive. The engineer in Brent would be impressed at the systematic functioning.
There are no flowers in the room. None of them thought to bring any. Cards from well-wishers fill the room. The majority of the Indian community reveres him. They adore him, see him as an example of the true American dream. Having come to this country with nothing, he raised three daughters to have everything. All while teaching them how to be proper, respectable women. They owed him their lives.