I glanced around, noticing a chair shoved up against the door, locking us in. Or locking everyone else out, I realize. How long has Sonya needed to do that? How many other ways has she needed to protect herself from nameless fears? Shame fills me, knowing my sister has been suffering in indescribable ways while I lived in comfort. But it was all a sham, a smoke screen I created to hide what had happened to me.
I have never really lived, never fully allowed myself happiness. There’s so much about myself I have never understood. I love pickles but hate cucumbers. Pictures of nature fascinate me, but I can’t stand camping. Give me fresh tomatoes any day to munch on, but tomato sauce on pizza makes me gag. I love children, but the thought of having one scares the hell out of me. I have never bothered to dissect the reasons I am the way I am—just accepted myself with an openness others lack. But as thoughts of the assault start to filter through along with images of a baby, I begin to wonder how far the pain of my father’s act reaches. Curling into a fetal position, my hand cradling my stomach, I feel myself falling into another fitful sleep.
Mama brings me an early dinner of one my favorite meals—pani puri. Puffed balls of fried wheat are popped open at the top and filled with potatoes, lentils, mint chutney, and onions. Topping it off is yogurt and sweet brown chutney. It is one of the few indulgences I could never resist, eating fifteen to twenty puris in one sitting. She sets the plate down in the normal place—by my bed—and strokes a hand across my hair. Assuming I’m asleep, she starts to walk out when I call her name.
“You’re awake,” she says, sounding surprised.
“Yeah.” I sit up in bed, avoiding looking into the mirror that hangs nearby. “I have been for a few hours.”
She says nothing, coming to sit by me instead. I scoot over, making room. She fits easily alongside me, her body smaller than I remember. Her hand next to mine, I see the wrinkles and the frailty I have always glanced over before. “I have been worried, Beti,” she murmurs.
“I know.” I lay my head back against the headboard, feeling the knots in my hair. I ventured into the shower once or twice but found even that to be too exhausting. “I’m just . . .” I try to find the words, but instead a tear falls silently down. I wipe it away quickly only to have another follow suit. “It’s just hard.”
“Do you remember?” she asks.
“Just flashes, here and there.” I am thankful it’s not more but ashamed for being so. “I see myself walking down the hall afterward. Trying to find someone. But I don’t remember the actual act, what he did to me.” I rub my head, hoping to jog my memory. “But that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Somewhere in my mind there’s a memory of it.” I yearn to pull it out, like a rabbit from a hat, and make it disappear forever. “Part of me always knew the truth. I just couldn’t see it.” My voice cracks, terror lining every word. “What if I don’t get better? What if this”—I motion to myself and around me—“is all I am?”
“Did I ever tell you the old Hindu parable of the rope and the snake?” Mama asks, facing forward, not responding directly to my plea.
“No,” I say, unsure where she is leading. Mama rarely read stories to us as children. At first she said it was because she wasn’t fluent in English and didn’t want to impede our learning with her interpretation, but years later she admitted to me she had stopped believing in fairy tales; she just couldn’t remember when. “I don’t think you did.”
She pulls her knees up to her chest, almost like a child, and begins to recite the parable from memory. “There was once a man who worked a very long day. He had a hard life, this man. Worked from morning until night in the fields of India without a rest or break to eat. The sun would beat down on his head and, without a hat to shelter him, sweat would pour onto his forehead and down his neck. With little water to drink, it was fortunate he did not collapse from heat exhaustion.
“This man was not a happy man,” Mama continued. “He had no family or anyone to call his own.”