My Last Love Story (34 page)

“I know he’ll be fine,” said Kiran Desai, giving me a watery smile.

She’d aged in these last months. Lines of fatigue and worry crowded around her mouth and eyes. Even my father-in-law, who hadn’t had a single gray hair on his head, had a line of them sprouting along his temple and sideburns. Time was catching up with all of us.

“It’s not only him I worry about,
beta
.”

She meant me. Another hot poker of guilt stabbed me in the stomach, letting me know I wasn’t completely numb after all.

“Don’t worry about me, please. Nirvaan and Ba both believed I was strong. And I am, you know.” I crossed my fingers, hoping I hadn’t jinxed myself.

“I know you are, but that’s not what I meant,” she said as I pulled into the airport.

I parked the Jeep in the lot and rolled my mother-in-law’s bag into the terminal for her. It didn’t take us five minutes to check in. The flight was not full, but the airport was small enough to feel full even though there weren’t many passengers in the afternoon. I bought us two cups of coffee, and we sat side by side on the plastic chairs of the terminal until her flight boarded.

My mother-in-law blew into her coffee cup, which I’d left lidless to cool fast. “Eight years ago, I didn’t take the news of your engagement too kindly. I thought it was a mistake for the two of you to marry.” She gave me a sideways glance, much like her son used to.

My heart squeezed tight, and I willed it to stop aching. He’d looked so stunned when I’d proposed to him. He’d been happy, nervous, confused. He’d argued I should wait for Zayaan to fly down from London, wait until all three of us were together again before I made any decisions. I’d refused to wait, and I’d given Nirvaan no choice but to answer me that day.

“Because I wasn’t Hindu?” I guessed tentatively.

Community standing meant a lot to my in-laws, and as a rule, Gujarati Hindus tended to marry within their community—or at the very least, into similar belief systems. Nirvaan’s friends had openly expressed shock and envy that he’d married a Parsi woman without his parents going ballistic.

“That was one reason. Another was, you were too young. Nirvaan was a foolish young man. A flibbertigibbet. Brash. Insensitive. I didn’t think he was ready to settle down. Ready to focus on one person or be a husband. But there wasn’t only one person, was there?”

I choked on my coffee, and my mother-in-law obligingly thumped my back. “Sorry?”

“You forget,
beta
, I’ve seen the three of you grow up. I know you love my son, and he loves you, but you feel something for Zayaan, too. And I don’t know what it is between those two boys, but it’s more than friendship.” Suddenly earnest, she twisted her compact body toward me. “I don’t know what happened between you and Zayaan, but if you think it’s us…that we won’t approve…that’s not true. Nirvaan would want you to be happy…both of you. We do, too,
beta
.”

“What…what do you mean?” I stuttered, aghast by what I was hearing.

“Twenty-eight years ago, I didn’t trust my feelings, and I let your father-in-law convince me if we had enough money, all our troubles would end. I left my children in the care of others. I didn’t see them again for eleven years, and by then, they were not my children anymore. I will regret leaving them for the rest of my life. What I’m saying is, relationships matter,
beta
. All relationships. But the special ones matter the most. Don’t live in regret, Simeen. It’s not worth it.”

The conversation floored me.

After we hugged good-bye and cried buckets, she boarded the flight, and her plane took off. I sat in the car, watching it fade into the clouds. I was still shocked. I couldn’t believe what she’d said. I didn’t know if I could live without regret in this life, but the fact that my mother-in-law cared for me like my own mother had was enough to make me weep.

I was surrounded by brave people, had been all my life. I realized then that I could be no less. I couldn’t insult them by being less. I’d been afraid for an eternity, not truly living life but just waiting for death to happen. I’d always considered myself an unlucky person, Khodai’s least favorite human, but now, I thought—no, now, I knew I was the luckiest person in the world. Lucky to have known my parents and Ba and Mukhi Saheb, lucky to know the Desai clan, my brothers, and, yes, even Nisha. But most of all, I’d been so very, very lucky to have known and loved Nirvaan.

Suddenly determined, I blew my nose and strapped on my seat belt. Setting the gear to D, I drove back to the hospital via the fertility clinic. I wasn’t going to be scared of this thing called love anymore, no matter its risks.

I was going to have Nirvaan’s baby.

Life once again became a triangle between the hospital, the beach house, and the clinic.

My IVF cycle was shorter this time. I didn’t have to ovulate and retrieve eggs or even wait for my oocytes to be fertilized. My frozen zygotes were ready to be inserted into me as soon as my womb was ready for gestation.

I was put on the daily dose of progesterone again, and I steeled up and shot myself in the upper thigh daily. It was infinitely more painful in the thigh muscle, and my skin bruised, as if I had gangrene, but I persevered with loads of ice and gritted teeth.

Sarvar would drive down to Carmel every weekend to keep me from becoming an island unto myself. I didn’t quit my daytime vigil at the hospital, but on weekends, with Sarvar, I learned how to chill again.

Ba’s funeral became the talk of the community. The entire world, it seemed, had shown up at her wake—or what the Gujaratis called the
oothamnu
. Following it, for thirteen days, hordes of people came to the mansion to pay their respects and mourn with the family.

Hindus cremated their dead and scattered the ashes over a body of holy water or a place dear to the departed one. We Parsis were a bit more macabre with our death customs. We simply dropped the body into the
dakhma
, the Tower of Silence—which, ironically, was a waterless well dug deep into the ground of the cemetery—and let vultures swoop down and devour the dead. Something to do with the cycle of life, a convoluted form of the ashes-to-ashes and dust-to-dust theme, I believed.

“I think I prefer cremation myself,” I told my brother one December evening as I lounged in bed, encouraging Tickles the Zygote to take root in my womb. I was meant to relax for twenty-four hours, but I was playing it safe, and it was nigh coming on thirty-six now.

Sarvar had been with Nirvaan all day these three days, giving me the peace of mind I needed to get pregnant.

“Unnecessarily morbid, Sissy,” he said, arranging an X-massy scarf around his neck before pulling a knit cap over his head.

He was driving back to San Jose tonight for Zeus’s holiday party. I was sad to see him go, but I guessed not everyone enjoyed being a recluse.

“Well, under the circumstances, can you blame me?” I was surrounded by death and disease. Only the life growing in my womb—please, Khodai, let it have taken root—kept me from floating away like a ghostly waif into the beyond. I needed Tickles to anchor me to this world.

Sarvar turned from the mirror in my bathroom. “Will you be okay?”

“Yes. I promise I won’t jump into the car and drive to the hospital as soon as you leave. I talked with Beatrice, and Nirvaan is already down for the night. I’ll wait until tomorrow to bounce in—well, not bounce, but you know what I mean. Go to your party. Have fun. Have a shot of tequila for me. Besides”—I picked up my Kindle and waved it at him—“I have my sexy new book boyfriend to keep me company—a tall redheaded highlander in a kilt, no less.”

Loneliness didn’t bother me. And this was a good kind of alone. My in-laws were in India to scatter Ba’s ashes over the plot of land Bapuji had married her for, as per her wishes, and weren’t due back for another couple of weeks. Ba had been an Indian citizen, and there were formalities to be completed, a charity to be set up in her name. I hoped to give them some good news on their return.

Smiling, I ran a hand over my stomach, wondering if Tickles liked being inside me. No, I wasn’t alone anymore.

“I’d feel better if you came with me,” my brother reiterated.

I groaned. “Quit treating me like an invalid, and get going.”

Sarvar kissed my forehead and my nose, which he possessed a twin of, and then he stood around, looking reluctant again. I literally pushed him out the door then. Shaking my head and grinning, I locked up behind him.

Not fifteen minutes later, the doorbell rang, and I rolled my eyes, feeling both cherished and irritated at the same time.

“You just can’t help hovering, can you?” I scolded, opening the door.

I’d expected Sarvar, so I was beyond flabbergasted to find Zayaan on my stoop.

What is he doing here?

A zillion emotions, beginning with shock, saturated the entirety of my being with the force of a typhoon. I grabbed the door for support and hoped I wouldn’t get washed away, like so much debris. I wished for Nirvaan then. I yearned for the bright sunlit strength of my husband’s love to keep me from drowning into the depths of the past.

Zayaan couldn’t know about the baby. Sarvar had promised he wouldn’t tell.

“You look terrible.” I released the door and walked into the living room. I didn’t want to do or say anything I’d regret even though regret between Zayaan and me was as inevitable as Nirvaan’s passing.

I wasn’t surprised by the visit itself. I’d expected him to come back to see Nirvaan. Of course, I had. Plus, his things were still here—some of his clothes, his papers, his nifty work gadgets. And I knew he’d return when he heard about the baby. Zayaan would be Tickles’s godfather. I’d made peace with that promise, too. The timing of this visit surprised me though. Wasn’t his sister’s wedding next week? I wondered if his mother knew where he was.

“You could’ve let me know you were coming.” I sat down on the sofa before my legs gave away beneath me.

The door whispered shut. Without a word or explanation, Zayaan walked across the living room to stand in front of the patio doors, which remained closed at all times now.

I didn’t go out onto the deck. I couldn’t yet. It held too many ghosts. But I’d watch the sun rise and fall through the glass every day.

Right now, the sleeping water and the sickle moon made an interesting backdrop, and I focused on it rather than Zayaan’s confusing reappearance in Carmel. I wasn’t prepared for this visit. I’d thought I had more time to sort things out in my head. I
needed
more time.

“I’m surprised you cleared immigration,” I remarked, half in jest, half in terror. Dear God, I totally, positively wasn’t prepared to deal with him right now.

Scruffy and dangerous, he gave the impression of a bomb about to go off. His hair was overlong and curled over his nape, and he had a full thick beard on his face. He mustn’t have shaved in days. His jeans and sweater were limp, and the scarf around his neck seemed more like a hangman’s noose than protective gear. In short, he looked like his brother.

The good part? I didn’t panic. I was calm. I wouldn’t let the writhing snakes anywhere near Tickles’s home in my womb.

“Are you hungry? There’s plenty of food in the fridge,” I said when I got tired of measuring the width of Zayaan’s shoulders.

He turned around, shaking his head. His eyes fell on the game controls on the coffee table. All four were labeled—
N
,
S
,
Z
, and
G
for guest. I hadn’t flinched at his appearance, but Zayaan did.

“I ate with Nirvaan when I stopped by the hospital from the airport.”

Of course, he had. Nirvaan would always come between us. He’d always come first.

“He looks better,” Zayaan said starkly.

I nodded in agreement.

Nirvaan’s eyes would follow movement about the hospital room sometimes. I liked to believe they fixed on me more than Beatrice or Sarvar or any of the hospital staff. His doctors agreed that if there were no more setbacks, I could bring him home in a month.

“Why did you push me away?”

My skin pebbled into gooseflesh, as if I were standing on the beach on this cold winter night, even though I sat close to a raging fire. I closed my eyes against the naked anguish on Zayaan’s face. Like the painting,
Shattered Dreams.

I didn’t want to have this conversation tonight. I couldn’t be tense tonight. Why had he come tonight of all nights?

“What are you hiding?” A bite of rage colored his voice.

I opened my eyes to gauge his meaning. What did he think I was hiding? Who had he been talking to? A million likely scenarios ballooned in my head. I’d never believe his mother had fessed up her sins. She wasn’t the star of this show. Nothing was making sense tonight.

“Surin said we should talk…come clean with each other. What did he mean by it?”

“My brother Surin? When did you speak to him?” I asked, my shock palpable now.
Why, that meddlesome, too-big-for-his-britches fart!

“I went to Surat for Ba. I couldn’t make it to the LA funeral, so I…” His throat convulsed—on a curse or a sob, I couldn’t tell. “I met Surin there. He invited me over for dinner.”