“Can you at least tell me this?” Eric asks, jarring me back to the present. A muscle jerks in his jaw. “You knew about my past, the loneliness . . .” He pauses, hurt. “Why didn’t you want a child?”
“Because they always get hurt,” I finally answer, the truth searing me.
I sit in front of Mama’s house, the engine idle. I stare at the front door for what feels like an eternity, too afraid to go in, but more afraid not to. Thoughts haunt me, tugging at my brain. I try to push them away, desperate to forget, but they refuse to go. Now, it says. Now it is time. I shake my head, but time is not my friend or my ally. If it were, then maybe I would have more of it.
I finally step out of the car, the metal casket no longer providing me a reprieve. I don’t use my key, the house suddenly feeling like a stranger’s home instead of mine. I ring the bell and wait, sure that Sonya will be in at this time of the evening. I ring again. And again, my fingers sitting on the bell.
When Eric left the house, disgusted with me, I followed, jumping into my car, all the packed boxes left in the foyer. I could feel him watching me from his car, his love turning to hatred, two sides of the same coin, each emotion a worthy opponent of the other. I drove straight here, needing answers and sure that only Sonya could give them to me. What I can’t remember, she must. As if the floodgates have been opened, I can see her sitting on my sofa when she came to say good-bye. He plays the loving father. You let him. Her words repeat in my head, her eyes searching mine for a sign of recollection.
“Trisha?” Mama answers the door. “What are you doing here, Beti?” She steps back, motioning me in, but I stand rooted to the same spot.
“Is Sonya home?” My hands are shaking. “I need to speak to her.”
“No,” Mama says, staring at me. I imagine everyone doing the same thing, trying to understand the train wreck I have become. “What’s wrong, Beti?”
“When will she be home?” The sun is getting ready to set. The mosquitoes have begun to bite. As a child, I was always their target, my skin swelling with welts. “Because you are so sweet,” Papa would say.
“It’s late.”
Mama takes my hand, ushering me into the house. I allow her to do so, too weak to lead myself. “Soon. Come, we will have a cup of chai and you can tell me what has happened.”
I want to laugh. Her solution to everything, as if chai can fix the world’s woes. Yet, hadn’t I done the same thing? Offered Sonya a cup of tea when she came to say good-bye. Included a bag of hot cocoa in Gia’s gift basket. I wonder how many other habits of Mama’s I have made my own. When did I become her reflection and Papa’s creation?
“No chai,” I murmur, searching. The cries that have been muted until now are suddenly loud, searing me with their desperation. I watch in slow motion as Mama walks into the kitchen, pours the cup I refused, and sets it in front of me. I can barely make out the steaming milk or decipher what she is saying. Without a word to her, I walk out of the kitchen and toward the stairs.
“Trisha.” Her yell breaks through the barrier, but I ignore it, other voices louder. She follows me, her breath on the back of my neck.
I say nothing to her, climbing the stairs quietly, lost in another time, another place. My fingers grip the bannister, each step harder than the last. Reaching the top, I walk down the hallway, my hand sliding alongside. I reach my room first, flinging the door open. It is the same as I left it years ago. The last time I spent the night here was the day before I got married. That evening, everything seemed possible. The only thing missing from my life was the presence of my little sister, but I wouldn’t allow that to mar my good day. I had two dresses laid out on my bed, my red sari and a white wedding gown. Both I had spent hours shopping for, insisting everything be perfect for when I married the perfect man. No matter that Eric was white and older. He loved me as I deserved to be loved.