"Nathan!"

His name came out as the surprised cry of his friend Meena.

"Meena! What are you doing here? What are you doing with that rolling pin?" Meena had her wooden cooking utensil raised in the air.

"I live here. Your apartment is on the next floor, remember?" Meena let out a slow breath, bringing the rolling pin down as well.

"I thought I’d check up on your apartment, you know, to make sure everything was safe... that’s why you gave me your key right? To periodically check while you were away, right? And you’re supposed to be away right now. You’re not supposed to be here, you’re..."

"Okay, you’re right. I’m back a week earlier than I said I would be. And thank you for checking up on the place."

Meena went into the kitchen, " Don’t leave yet Nathan."

Fine with him, he hadn’t planned on leaving. Even if he left, he didn’t know where he would go. Certainly not back to HIS apartment. Nathan looked about the apartment. Now that Meena had returned from India, he was sure her apartment would be littered with tourist items and Indian decoratives. The cloth covering the table was new so was the blanket covering the couch. And there were straw mats, the thin South Indian kind, covering the carpet.

Meena emerged with a mug and a plate of burfis. "You have to drink this before you leave," she said, pushing him toward a chair. The sweet smell of Bonvita filled the room, and he fell into the seat without any protest. Meena placed the burfis down and went into her bedroom. Nathan now had a view of the kitchen. He puzzled over its appearance, "What’s with all the baby bottles and idli plates? What has she been up to?"

He soon heard the answer gurgling behind him.

"Mr. Jagunathan, I would like to formally introduce you to my son," and now Meena walked before him jiggling a baby on her hip, "Meet Kannan Reddy."

Nathan’s mouth opened wide in shock. Some of the ladoo he was eating spilled out of his mouth, into his lap. "I need a napkin, and a chill pill," he said, picking off the ladoo from his shirt, his eyes glued to the baby.

Meena handed Nathan a box of babywipes. " Are you surprised?" she asked mischievously.

"Where did it, um, he, come from?"

"From India. I have been pursuing an Indian adoption for a few years now. I went to India to finalize the adoption."

"I, ah, well I..."

" You don’t know how to react. That’s okay. My parents have known about my plans for the past year or so, and they still don’t know how to react. That’s why I told everyone the wrong date for my return. I wanted a chance for me and my Kanna to get used to our life together before I started complicating things."

Nathan was still in a state of disbelief. While he continued to stare, he watched Meena play with her baby. The baby looked like he was at least a year old, but he was a little thin. His black eyes were large, too large for his face. His hair was unruly, though there was some evidence that a comb had tried to tame it. Overall, he wasn’t a very attractive baby. But Meena’s eyes adored his every movement, her voice sang to him lovingly, and her arms held him with ease.

" I know you’ve been considering adoption, but I didn’t think you had actually taken steps toward..."

"I didn’t want to say anything until everything was certain. There were so many levels on which I could have been rejected. I might have been given an older child or a child with special needs. I didn’t want anyone expecting anything."

"Well, Meena, I guess I’m happy for you, may I?" he said, reaching for the baby. Kannan recoiled in his mother’s arms, whimpering.

"Okay, baby, okay. I’ll make friends with you later. I’ll go away, see I’m leaving"

"Nathan, sit down and finish your drink. My Kanna has gotten used to me, now he has to get used to other people."

Meena had a way of commanding situations. Her demeanor was what had made her business editor at the magazine Nathan wrote for, but it as a member of her social circle; it had been a saving grace in a number of uncomfortable social situations.

"How long have you been back?"

"Well, judging by the mug of warm coffee I found in here, maybe 20minutes after your last visit here."

Nathan’s face burned up. He had been spending time in Meena’s apartment while she had been gone. Since he wasn’t expecting her for another week, he had become careless with his things.

"Nathan, is something wrong?"

"Why do you think something is wrong?"

"I don’t. I’m asking you."

Nathan looked at his friend. Meena had this unnerving way of looking right into peoples’ eyes when she spoke to them. It was hard to look at Meena and make up a half true excuse. She would surely know he was hiding something.

"Nathan, you can talk to me, you know that." Nathan looked away.

"Look, you don’t have to say anything to me, but I’m concerned about you. It looks like you’ve been in my apartment a number of times while I was gone. You look nervous and tense not anything like I would expect a guy who got married three weeks ago to look. And to top it all off, it’s three in the morning and you’re in my apartment instead of your own. "

There was no hiding anything from Meena. He could leave now, before finding out what else she knew. But he was reluctant to do so. Suddenly he realized all these trips to Meena’s apartment had in part an escape, and in part he was looking for someone to talk to. He looked back at Meena, cradling her son, and realized she understood this as well.

"I didn’t realize it was so late."

"Nonsense," Meena said, walking into the kitchen, "Kanna and I are still adjusting to the time difference. I was already up getting his babymush-stuff." Meena tipped a pot toward Nathan so he could see the strange white spongy contents.

"Yuck!"

Kannan laughed at the face Nathan made

"Yuck yuck," he cried happily.

"How sweet, you guys are bonding," cooed Meena, placing a bowl of the much on the table and sitting down. She started feeding the baby.

"So, how was your wedding?"

"Yeah, it was good. I got to Madras the week before the wedding, so I got a chance to see her face to face. And the phone didn’t do her any justice. She has a beautiful voice. She and her sisters sang together at their grandmother’s house on her birthday. That was a few days after the wedding. And well, I left a week and a half after the wedding, and we were pretty busy visiting relatives and stuff."

"Her name is Lakshmi, right?"

"Right. Vijaya Lakshmi."

"Let me guess, you call her all of that." Nathan was shocked. How did she know?

"You do don’t you! Nathan, when that girl gets to this country, she’s going to think you’re flipped for not calling her by her nickname."

"She’s already here."

Now it was Meena’s turn to be shocked. The spoonful of mush she was taking to the baby’s mouth stopped midair.

"She came back with me."

"Well, I...Gosh Nathan, I wasn’t expecting her to come back with you. I thought she would come later."

"So did I. But her parents wanted me to bring her with me. My parents and sister stayed with us this past week, but today it has been just the two of us," Nathan stuttered on, "My mom and my sister spent a lot of time with her, I just kind of did my own thing."

"Avoided going home," Meena interjected.

"Yeah, right. Avoided going home, kept to myself. I wasn’t sure what to do really."

"So how long was this supposed to go on?"

"What go on?"

"You. Avoiding your wife."

"I don’t know I..."

"Nathan, what are you doing? What are you scared of?"

"I, I don’t know. You know how Indian men are; they’re always in charge. I never realized how unlike an Indian man I was until I got to India. I thought about it when I was there, but I have never even seen my father ask my mother about what she wants or how she feels. I want to be accommodating to my wife, but I don’t know how to communicate with her. I don’t know what she wants from me, what she expects me to be. It didn’t occur to me until after I married her how different our worlds are."

"You’re still from the same planet! Your marriage doesn’t have to live up to any standard. Not everyone has a marriage like your parents. Why don’t you just be yourself? Just talk to her the way you usually do. "

"Do you know what happened when I was "being myself"? It was the day after the wedding and I had lunch at her parents’ house. She was serving me, and I asked her to sit down and eat with me. Then everyone started to laugh; her brothers, he parents, her little sisters and cousins. Her father finally told me that women eat after the men."

"That’s not always true. It must be a more traditional family. Besides, who got married? Her family, or you?"

"Meena, it’s hard. I’m this American guy with little knowledge of Indian customs. I don’t know what she expects."

Meena looked at Nathan for a minute. Then she looked at her baby, now done with his mush.

"See my Kanna Nathan? I didn’t know much about him either. But I’m going to be his mother for the rest of his life, so I had to change that situation. Coming into this, I wasn’t sure what to expect. All I knew was that I wanted to be a mother. I also knew that before he met me, he had a life, and experiences. Things that changed him and made him who he is. There are still so many things I don’t know about him; I never know how he’s going to react to something. That’s why I took this week off, so I could learn about him, and me with him."

"Meena..."

"Do you have any other choice? You can’t avoid that poor girl. She married you, American and all. You’re a pretty sensitive guy Nathan, you would have been able to tell before the wedding if she really didn’t want to marry you."

" I know, but…" But I’m scared I’ll fail. I’m scared she’ll leave me, just like Devi left Mani. Nathan kept that thought to himself. Meena’s older sister had sworn him to secrecy about her relationship with his older cousin. The relationship that ended because Mani wasn’t the man she hoped he would be. Mani, now 12 years older and more bitter for it, had warned him, Marry an Indian, and she will want a man like her father.

" But what Nathan? Talk to her Nathan. You’re not a bad person. She won’t think any less of you."

"And if she does?"

"Nathan, you’re making my hair fall out. Look at my kitchen. My baby likes that stuff they gave him in the orphanage better than any baby food I could buy him here. Look, jars and jars of baby food. I had to learn how to make idlis. He eats ground up idli with milk and sugar. Do you know how hard it was for me to figure out how to make a good idli? It was a lot of work, but I did it because I wanted to. For my son. Maybe it will be the same for you; maybe you’ll have to make a lot of tries. But hey, at least your wife can talk and tell you if she’s happy. My son just says, "yuck, yuck".

Nathan smiled, then more soberly" I don’t want to disappoint her."

"Tell HER that. She must be worried right now, with you out in the middle of the night. You have to try before you can give up my friend."

"You’re right. I knew I would have to work at our relationship, I just didn’t realize I would feel so self-conscious." And if she doesn’t like what I offer her, then there is nothing left to say.

"I think it’s the Honeymoon heebie-jeebies. Go home Nathan."

Meena smiled at her friend, but in the back of her mind she knew there was something he was hiding. She wondered about his new wife, whether the fear Nathan was feeling was due to Vijaya Lakshimi or some influence of his cousin Mani. Mani was a bit of an oddball at times, with strange ideas on relationships, though he himself had never been attached. But he and Nathan were closer than brothers.