I don’t say anything. I stay very, very still. I know what she is thinking even if she never says the words. This is all my fault. She’s lost him because of me.
Inside me, the dark waterweed stirs.
*
After the funeral, people come. Every tangled, twisted branch of the family, every far-flung relative, every department head and professor my father has taught with over the years comes.
They sit on our couches. Sita brings out sandwiches on a silver multitiered stand, cakes, a pot of freshly brewed tea with the smaller containers for milk and sugar, all the familiar paraphernalia. They sit and look at us with shrewd eyes and say, “He was so strong, no? Such a good swimmer. How is it possible?”
The men say, “Yes men, I was with him at university. He swam like a fish.” Suspicion rises like clouds from them. My mother and I have crossed an invisible threshold. We are marked by worse than accidental drowning; we are marked by scandal.
After they leave, Amma cries, “What do they think? That I held his head under the water until he died? What the hell is the matter with people? It was an accident. He fell … in the rain. It was raining so hard. What the hell do they think happened?”
I sit next to her, rubbing her back, handing her my own hankie, hoping she does not turn to look into my eyes. We do not say the words we are thinking: suicide, murder. We lock these words in the boxes in our chests.
She turns to me wide-eyed and says, “Oh my god, your birthday.”
I say, “It’s okay, Amma.”
She says, “Are you sure? Shall we have a cake?”
I shake my head fiercely. “No, really. It’s okay. I don’t want anything.”
She looks at me even more closely, and maybe seeing that I am not lying, that I really don’t want to be looked at or seen, she relents. She says, “Okay, but next year, I promise. A big, beautiful cake with roses on it. A party. Everyone will forget all this by then. Everything will be normal again. I’m sure.” She looks anything but sure, but I nod my head. I know I am the mother now and she is the little girl. I fold her into my arms and let her cry against my small bony chest.
*
They come in their large rented car, the driver waiting outside. My mother’s sister, my aunt Mallini, who left the island a decade ago with her husband, my uncle Sarath, and their daughter Dharshi, who is just six months older than me. Names I have associated with boxes sent from America, magazines and shorts, precious things.
Aunty Mallini is tall and dark, where my mother is small and fair. No one would ever think they are sisters. But now she is kissing my mother on both cheeks, holding her tight, and my mother is hugging her back. Uncle Sarath wraps his arms around both of them and they stand there for long moments, cocooning her while my mother’s shoulders shake. I have never seen her accept affection like this. I realize that these are people she has missed desperately. People I don’t even remember. I feel a stab of envy. These are people who have known my mother before I was born.
They turn to me, opening up their little circle, and Aunty Mallini says, “My god, what a long time it’s been. Look at you. You were only a little one last time I saw you. You and Dharshi. Both of you so small when we left.” She turns to include the girl, says, “This is your cousin Dharshi.” We look each other up and down. She is tiny, coming up to my shoulder. I had thought Americans were large, taking up more space than everyone else. But nothing is big on this girl except her coal eyes. Her hair swings loose to her denim shorts, which have frayed white edges just like the ones she sent me. Her toenails are painted a violent pink. I’m profoundly aware of my calf-length skirt, the baggy T-shirt I’m hiding in, my hair parted in the middle and tightly braided.
I say shyly, “Thank you for the magazines.”
She nods.
We regard each other warily and my mother says, “Why don’t you take her around the garden?”
She follows me as I show her the various landmarks of my childhood: the river, the hibiscus, the ponds and fish, the well in its overgrown corner. She looks at each politely. At the well she leans over the side says, “Oh my god! It’s so deep. What if someone fell in?”
I say, “No one has fallen.”
Our old dog comes up to lick her hand.
I say, “This is Punch. Judy died.”
“Oh. Like the puppets?”
I had not expected her to know this. I nod.
She says, “Do you have MTV here? What do you do for fun?” And then looking at me from the corner of her eye: “My mother says you’re coming to America with us.”
I stare at her and ask, “What is MTV?”
*
Inside the house our parents are talking. We stand outside the dining room listening, some complicity binding us to silence.
Aunty Mallini’s voice says, “You must be careful. People will talk. They’ll say things.”
“What things?” I can picture Amma plucking at the edges of her dress.
“Things … you know how people are.”