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Devi woke with a start. She looked over at Mani, seated in an armchair across the room and still in his coat, "What´s wrong?" "Kumar followed me back to the apartment." She didn´t need to ask him how it had happened. And she didn´t get angry with him either. Instead she got up and went to the restroom to wash her face and brush her teeth. As she watched her reflection in the mirror, it struck her how old she was. And how calm. She debated taking time to put her make-up on. It was snowing outside, Kumar would be cold... "He parked his car next to yours and then went to wait in the lobby," Mani said standing up and stretching his back. Devi smiled, Mani still knew what was on his mind before she said it. As he moved to hang up his jacket, she noticed the gray in his hair. Devi started rubbing foundation into her skin. ********* "That was really stupid." Madhav looked over his newspaper at his younger brother. "What was stupid Karthik?" he asked innocently. "Bringing Mani over here when you knew Kumar was here." "Oh don´t tell me you believe that rubbish about Devi and Mani! For God´s sakes, they´re both middle-aged!" Karthik fumed at his brother. Their father listened with interest while their mother tutted. "Fine thing when a woman goes against her mangalsutra and sleeps with another man," Kalpana said, putting Vid´s breakfast in front of him. "But, she´s separated from Murthy. Last I heard he was still with his mistress." "Karthik, you´re turning into a gossipy woman. Listen to you!" Karthik and Madhav looked daggers at one another. Their father still found this amusing, but Kalpana was worried. After so many weeks, Karthik had agreed to spend a few days with the family and she didn´t want anything to send him fuming out of the house. "Karthik Chithappa is a woman! Ha!" Vid said happily shouting into his idlis. Arjun walked into the dining room and cuffed Vid about the head as he passed.
"You guys shouldn´t talk about stuff in front of Vid. He blabs." "I do not!" Vid screamed, outraged. "Arjun, I´ll thank you not to tell me or your uncle what to do," Madhav said tersely. "He´s just making a suggestion," Karthik said, annoyed.
"And I´ll thank you not to tell me how to raise my children!" That had done it. Kalpana raised her hand to her mouth in horror. Her husband tried to persuade Karthik not to leave, but he shrugged him off and they heard the door slam. Madhav tossed his unread paper at the table and cursed. *********
"Have you finished your Christmas list, darling?" "Ahhh, Amma. I´m too old for that stuff." Meena smiled, "You´re right. I keep forgetting how quickly you´re growing up." Meena patted her son fondly and then went back to baking cookies in the kitchen. Kannan sighed. He loved his mother more than anything in the world. He could pretend like he wanted to work on a Christmas list with her, but he would just be pretending for her, and she would see right through that. Kannan´s grandfather nudged his back. "What´s the matter, boy? Why so glum?" Kannan looked up at the elderly face, " Amma´s lonely." "Absurd! Doesn´t she have more friends and family than anyone! I never see that girl being still! If she´s not at work or your school or with you and your cousins, she´s off with her friends. Don´t be ridiculous." Kannan shrugged his shoulders and returned to his homework. Ram looked at the young boy and realized he had spoken too quickly. "Alright, Kannan. Tell me, why do you think your mother is lonely?" "I don´t really know Thatha. Maybe because I´m growing up?" Kannan tapered off...Vid had told him that Kalpana Patti was always going off about how Karthik Uncle wanted to marry Amma, but that she had ruined her chances for marriage by adopting a baby. Him. Kannan had been sad when he heard that. He hated the thought that people didn´t like Amma because of him. And he was sad because he would have loved to have a father. Anand Mama tried to be like a dad, but he was really Shanthi´s dad. And Nathan Uncle, Mani Uncle, and Madhav Uncle were just uncles...they took him out because they wanted to be nice. What he wanted was a dad of his own. He didn´t mind that Karthik Uncle wasn´t interested in Amma, because Kannan certainly didn´t like him. But where would he find another uncle who could marry Amma? Someone fun, and nice, and who could make Amma laugh, and would like to have a half grown son? "Hmmm. Maybe I should talk to your mother about adopting another baby?" Ram offered. ********** Shilpa set the dinner plates on the table. "Why four Amma?" Shanthi asked, bringing the rice in. "Your father is bringing over a friend."
Shanthi winced at the dead tone in her mother´s voice. It scared her. And she knew what kind of person Appa´s friend must be to make her mother so despondent. Shanthi stayed close to her mother through the rest of the dinner preparations. Lately she had taken to hiding the kitchen knives while she was in school, tucking the houosehold chemicals into the locked cabinets, and following her mother around like a shadow. Some afternoons, Amma would retreat to her bedroom and lie still with her hand covering her eyes, occassionally muttering, "Neil." That was Amma´s brother who was dead.
Shanthi wanted to tell Appa, but somehow she knew that would betray Amma´s trust. In front of Appa, Amma acted like everything was perfect. She was cheerful, but there was an edge to it, and it made Shanthi wonder at how her father couldn´t see past the fascade. ********* Sudha came strolling out of the company´s Christmas party arm in arm with Terry Powell, VP of Marketting. Dhivya has been watching them all night, and when she saw them walking to the parking lot together she had to act. 10 years of working side by side with Terry Powell had taught her a thing or two about what he might have in mind by leaving a party at 10PM on the arm of an attractive young woman. "Sudha, my secretary just paged me...you have an emergency at home." The girl´s face looked alarmed, and then skeptical. She paused to consider what she would do, but as Dhivya suspected he would, Terry looked very ill-at-ease by this potential bit of unpleasantness and excused himself back to the party. Dhivya watched Terry´s back disappear into the Empress Ballroom and smiled at her own genious. She turned back to Sudha, who for the first time since she started working for her with anything but reverence, in fact it was a look of pure hatred. Dhivya almost cried at the pose the younger girl struck, the young sophisticate with her sparkling red strapless dress and hair done in a roll. "Why in the world would you lie like that? There´s no emergency at home!" "Sudha, you don´t understand, that man is just pure trouble...." Sudha´s lip curled into a sneer. "Oh I see, now you´re trying to be my mother." Dhivya looked at Sudha gravely. So the girl knew. Of course she knew. Dhivya suspected that was why Sudha had wanted to be assigned to her in the first place. And she, Dhivya, knowing the risks involved in becoming so close to her lover´s child, had said yes. And they did become close over the years, but there had always been this wall, and unspoken, unmentioned barrier called Murthy and Devi´s marriage.
"Sudha, you came to me to learn how to survive in this world. And for better or worse, I´m going to teach you not to make the same mistakes I made. You decide if you want to stick it out with me, or if you think you know better." Sudha watched Dhivya walk to her car and then ran after her. ************** "Absolutely not!" "Jaya, be reasonable. The kids want to see their grandparents." "They do not! Do you kids?" Siddharth and Somu kept quiet. They didn´t know what grandparents their parents were arguing about (they went to their father´s parents´ house everyday after school before Amma and Dad came home from work), so these must be the India grandparents... the ones they had never seen. Anyway, even though Amma was the only girl in the family, they knew better than to take Dad´s side in the argument...girls were better at winning fights, and worse about losing them. Nathan looked exasperatedly at the children. "Jaya, they want to come here to visit us. Just for a week or two. I´m not going to say no to them. I can´t do it." "Fine. Then I will." "Right. Like they´ll accept that." Nathan laughed at this one Indian ideosyncracy that might help him get his way. His in-laws were very old fashioned and felt that decisions should only be conveyed by the male members of the family. Jaya fumed. Finally Nathan put his hand on his wife´s arm and said softly, "Is that it? You don´t want them to come because you´re scared they might not respect you?" Jaya softened, " Nathan, I know they won´t respect me. I´m trying to teach the children better..." Her voice muffled against his shoulder. The children watched their parents embrace and started making whooping noises to tease them. It was safe to make fun of Amma now. ************** Arjun and Mina were practicing for the music school´s show when Mike came into the basement to watch. "Now Mina, do you want to do this piece in Roopkala Talam of just plain Tisram?" Arjun asked, passing the music to her. Mina started tapping the steps out as she read the music. "We should stick to Tisram...the little ones and some of the older ones will look crisper if the beat is simpler. Not too exciting for you though, " she said with an apologetic smile. Arjun played his mrithdangam happily, "No worries, I´ll put you senior students through your paces in the finale." Mina laughed and caught sight of her brother sitting distractedly in the corner.
Arjun stopped playing when he saw that Mina wasn´t dancing. He looked over at Mike. "Hey, weren´t you supposed to be at your company´s Christmas party tonight?" "Yeah, I went." Mina and Arjun looked at each other. "Mike, it´s only 10 o´clock." "Yeah, Mina? I left early." Arjun nodded at Mina and they continued to rehearse. Mike stared angrily at the opposite wall, the image of Sudha and that blasted Terry Powell, his own mentor, kept appearing before him. He tried to close his eyes against the image, but it was like someone had glued their dancing figures to the insides of his eyelids. He opened his eyes and forced himself to watch Mina and Arjun, who were happily rehearsing a Krishna song. "Mina! Where is that blood coming from?!" ********* Murthy called Devi´s cell phone. There was no response. He anxiously went to the children´s rooms. Sudha would be at the company party tonight. But where was Kumar? He had gone to Madhav´s to babysit the night before and had not turned up all day. Murthy had tried calling various friends, but no one had seen the boy. Madhav in particular seemed perturbed that the boy was missing. He kept calling upon the hour trying to find out if there had been anyword. the phone rang again. "Kumar, is that you?" "No Murthy. It´s me Madhav again. I guess that means there hasn´t been any word?" "I think I´m going to call the police soon. It´s been snowing..." "Right, Murthy. Before you call the police, I have one more number for you to try. It´s the number of a friend of mine...he was here last night when Kumar was over...I think Kumar might have gone off with him..." Murthy was perplexed but took down the phone number for one Mani Gopalakrishnan anyway. If he could just find his son....
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