The Shape of Family Page 5
9 | keith
JUNE 2009
In the weeks after Prem died, Keith felt as if his body had been occupied by an outside force. He barely slept and his appetite dwindled; his eyes spontaneously filled with tears throughout the day. He hid away in the bathroom shower or sometimes in his car in the garage to cry, if not freely, then less self-consciously. He knew, intellectually, it was normal for him to cry. But the sound of it, to his own ears, undid him. He sounded like a child, like Prem when he’d fallen off his bike and scraped the entire length of his leg on the sidewalk. At the memory of Prem, and all the moments he would never have in the future, Keith cried even more.
Keith had never witnessed his own father cry, not once. He had grown up in a distant suburb of Philadelphia, in a Scandinavian Lutheran family that seesawed between newly prosperous and the verge of bankruptcy. His father was a serial entrepreneur, though not often a successful one. He always proclaimed to be on to the next big thing and started a series of businesses selling products, like car shammies and hand-crank flashlights, through late-night TV and mailbox flyers.
When a business did well (hand-crank flashlights took off during the cold war, as neighbors outfitted their basements for impending nuclear disaster), Keith’s father took the family to fancy steak houses for dinner. He bought his dream car, a red convertible Thunderbird, and spent freely until another business (portable jump-starters to store in car trunks) went bust, as most of them did. Threatening red-lettered envelopes arrived in the mail and persistent phone calls from debt collectors rang in on call waiting while Keith talked with his buddies or tried to convince a girl to go out with him. By the time Keith left for college, the boxes of costly but useless inventory still lined one side of the garage, up to the ceiling.
Even at the lowest times, Keith’s father never cried. Not when his businesses failed, not when the bank repossessed the Thunderbird (which by then had been sitting in the garage for six months, awaiting unaffordable repairs), not even when his own father died.
Keith had no sense of how to handle the grief he suffered in the wake of Prem’s death. In the hospital, the social worker had given him the name of a grief counselor. “I think we should make an appointment,” he said, sitting on the edge of their bed, next to Jaya, one evening.
She shook her head, a small but firm movement. “I don’t want to. I don’t want to talk to strangers. I don’t want to talk to anybody, Keith. I just can’t . . .” She bit down on her lip.
“Honey, the social worker said it’s a good idea for the whole family to go. You know, to help Karina too,” he said to appeal to her abiding maternal impulse.
“How is a complete stranger going to help our daughter? Help anything? Please, Keith, just let me be.” She slid her body down under the bedcovers, reaching for the pillow behind her head. It was 7:40 p.m. “Can I just get some rest?” She began to cry, then turned away when he tried to comfort her.
Keith tried to broach the subject again the next day, and even called Jaya’s mother to help convince her, but apparently, opening one’s heart and soul to a professional was not part of the Indian culture, so he didn’t garner much support. Jaya was strong, her mother reminded him. He remembered back to 9/11, when she’d been in her most vulnerable and emotional state, just a few days from delivering Prem. She had implored him to see what a dangerous place the world was, but Keith had seen it the opposite way: fate had given him a renewed lease on life. Losing friends in the World Trade Center that day made him want to go out into the world and not lose a single minute, not waste a bit of it. To go hang-gliding over the ocean, to run that marathon, to travel to beautiful cities like Istanbul and Beirut, even if they were dangerous. Yes, the world was unpredictable and wild, and also full of possibility and beauty he hadn’t even begun to see. Outside of the year he’d spent in London, the city in which their divergent and unlikely orbits collided, he had seen so little of the world. He couldn’t imagine doing what Jaya had in those dark September days, shrinking back into herself and making her world smaller, as if she could somehow keep them safe that way.
That trip they finally made to Switzerland was glorious. The children were spoiled by their grandparents, and he and Jaya spent a couple of romantic nights away at Lake Geneva, where they hardly left their bed. By their return flight, Jaya was back to normal, handing out snacks and coloring books to occupy the children during the long journey, while she read a novel. He’d been impressed with her courage then, and he needed to have faith in her now. This was what made their marriage work: drawing on their respective strengths.
Keith attended the first session with the grief counselor alone, out of obligation to the rest of his family. Going to a shrink, as his dad would call it, wasn’t part of Keith’s comfort zone either; he was in the habit of suppressing unpleasant feelings or using them as motivators for change. The counselor was a young woman, probably too young to be a parent herself. “Tell me about your son,” she said when they sat down.
Keith shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Perhaps Jaya was right. How could a stranger who didn’t know him, who’d never known Prem, help him grieve? Still, he started from the beginning. “He was an easy baby, always happy. We took him everywhere—restaurants, hikes, train rides—and he napped wherever and whenever.” He explained that Prem had a lightness and joy that counterbalanced Karina’s seriousness. “Prem always made us laugh, whether he was trying to or not. One time, he lobbied to have a water balloon fight inside the house.” Keith laughed, recalling how Prem had unrolled giant garbage bags to cover all the furniture as part of his campaign.
He laughed. Eight days after his son’s death. Immediately, he was flooded with guilt. Tears sprang to his eyes.
“It’s okay,” the counselor said. “It’s normal to feel all kinds of emotions in the wake of a death, especially a sudden death. The death of a . . . child.” She spoke the word cautiously. “Of course, you have happy memories of your son. That’s the way it should be.” She leaned toward him and placed a hand on the coffee table between them, as if trying to reach him. “At some point in the future,” she told him, “when you think of your son, the happy memories will come to your mind before the tears come to your eyes.”
Keith wasn’t sure he believed her, but just to know such a thing might be possible, that there might be a day when he could smile before crying when thinking of sweet little Prem and all he had lost from his future, and all they had lost with him—there was some hope in that. It was the tiniest glimmer of hope, but Keith grasped on to it.
The next time, he brought Karina with him, and the counselor asked her some of the same questions. “What do you miss about your brother?”
Karina recalled sweet moments they’d had together, moments Keith was vaguely aware of but didn’t remember himself. He’d been too inattentive; he’d missed so many moments. Tears welled up in his eyes. Karina cried too as she recalled Prem, wiping small tears from the corners of her eyes before they escaped. But when the counselor asked her about Prem’s death, if she wanted to talk about that day, Karina firmly shook her head no, and Keith became protective. The police had already questioned Karina and he thought their questions had gone too far, had been almost accusatory. His daughter needed a safe place to heal and move on from the memory of that terrible day, not to dwell on it.
* * *
After many nights of rewarming casseroles brought by friends and neighbors, Keith tried to convince Jaya to go out for dinner, just to their neighborhood bistro a few blocks away, but she refused to leave the house. So, falling back on his earliest skill with women, he decided to cook something. Rummaging in the pantry, he found linguine, canned tomatoes, olive oil, capers, anchovies and chili flakes, and improvised a pasta dish. It felt surprisingly good when the steam from the boiling water rose to his face, to hear the satisfying crackle of oil in the hot pan as he prepared the sauce. He had forgotten this simple pleasure of preparing a meal, of throwing in pinches of salt and chili pepper until it suited him
, an extra drizzle of fruity olive oil on top of the finished plate.
“Oh my god, Dad. This is so good,” Karina said as they ate together at the kitchen table, with cloth napkins and a bottle of wine he’d opened. She twirled large forkfuls of pasta and ate them in one bite, then wiped the bowl with a crust of bread until it was clean. Jaya ate well too, finishing her plate and getting a second serving, and this brought Keith deep satisfaction.
A shared love of food was one of the things that had brought him and Jaya together after meeting in London. Unlike his wife, Keith hadn’t grown up with fine food, and his appreciation of the gourmet was hard-won. When times had been tight in their household, Keith’s mother had clipped coupons religiously and composed meals from an unlikely combination of ingredients that happened to be deeply discounted: grape jelly went into spaghetti sauce, canned corn into meatloaf. Keith never knew how haphazard this fare was until he went away to college and began eating with friends who hailed from New York and Boston. Only then did he experience the sheer bliss of eating food that was expertly paired, not unnaturally forced together in desperation. A delicate piece of raw ahi dipped in soy sauce. A pungent leaf of basil on a slice of buffalo mozzarella. A drizzle of aged balsamic on fresh strawberries.
Once he’d stepped into that world, made infinite in Manhattan, there was no turning back. He was determined to learn how to cook for himself. By his junior year, when he shared an apartment, he was going to Zabar’s and blowing an entire week’s food budget on the ingredients for a slow-simmered Bolognese or coq au vin. These skills made it easy for him to score with girls in college, who were easily won over by any kind of home-cooked meal. Keith still loved to spend Sundays watching football and drinking beer with his buddies, but he became infamous for what he accomplished on Saturday nights with his famous linguine with clams. Perhaps because attracting women suddenly came easily to Keith, he found himself bored with most of them.
Jaya was the first woman Keith found himself interested in for more than a few months; his attraction grew as he got to know her better. He wasn’t the least bit surprised—though he was intimidated—to learn she’d lived in seven countries. Jaya picked up languages like passport stamps, speaking four of them by the time she graduated from university. They explored food and culture together throughout the great city of London, trying out new cuisines like Afghani and Ethiopian, then seeking out special markets to replicate dishes in his flat’s tiny kitchenette.
Now, in the oversized granite kitchen of their Los Altos, California, house, Keith returned to cooking as a way to reach his wife. He wished he could make her Indian food, the one cuisine he had ceded to her expertise but that would bring her the most comfort now. Keith watched how Jaya ate to gauge how she was doing. Some days, she ate ravenously; other times, she just picked at her food. Reluctantly, he came to understand that how Jaya ate bore no relationship to the taste of the food or any true appetite. She was eating purely for sustenance, when her body reminded her it needed as much. Despite Jaya’s indifference, Keith continued to prepare meals, hoping it would bring them all back to the table.
10 | karina
JULY 2009
The calendar hung on the wall of Karina’s bedroom, featuring photos of her and Prem every month. When she turned the page to July, she was confronted with a full-page image of her grinning, toothless brother, holding a dripping ice pop. He had lost both top front teeth a few weeks earlier and went around proudly showing off his “tunnel” for months. Probably taken with her father’s primitive cell phone camera, the photo was of poor quality—it was grainy and Prem’s eyes were half closed, as they often were when he was smiling big—but it captured her brother’s essence. His goofy smile was so infectious, with that dribble of rocket pop blue at the corner of his mouth, that Karina couldn’t help but smile back. She touched the tip of her nose, then placed her finger on his and let it linger there for a moment.
There was nothing marked on the page for July except the square for the fifteenth, on which she’d drawn a happy face and the name “Gilly.” It was nearly time to pick up their poo-retriever. She smiled again, remembering how Prem had delighted in telling everyone at school about their new self-cleaning puppy. His third-grade teacher had relayed that story to her parents when she came to the memorial service and cried the entire time.
* * *
“We need to set up Gilly’s crate and get everything ready,” Karina said that night at the dinner table, as she spooned fragrant Thai coconut curry atop the jasmine rice on her plate. Some of Dad’s efforts in the kitchen tasted better than others, and this was one of her favorites. She wondered when things would return to normal, with both her parents going to work and Mom rushing in to prepare dinner at night.
She saw her parents exchange a glance. “I can do it,” Karina said. “It’s in the garage?”
“Honey,” her father said. She noticed he hadn’t yet served himself any food. Her mother’s plate held only plain rice, which she was pushing around with her fork. “Honey, we’ve been talking and”—he exhaled a heavy breath—“we don’t think this is the right time to bring a puppy home. Maybe in—”
“What?” Karina said, turning to look at her mother. “No, we have to pick her up on July 15. That’s the date.”
“Honey.” Her father reached out and put his hand on top of hers. “We can’t handle it right now. In a year or so, things might be different.”
“But . . . we chose her.” Karina felt a prickling behind her eyes and she spoke louder. “I chose her. Gilly is ours. We decided.”
Mom’s fork clattered onto her plate. “Dammit, Karina. Do you care more about that stupid dog than your own brother?” Her eyes were deep black pools. “We canceled it. It’s done.” She picked up her fork and shoveled a pile of rice into her mouth.
Karina looked at Dad. It couldn’t be true. He sat with his hands folded under his chin, unmoving. “I’m sorry, honey.”
Karina shook her head and pushed away from the table. “I can’t believe you did that. I can’t . . .” And yet, it made sense. Why did she deserve a dog? She couldn’t take care of anything, of anyone. “I’m not hungry.” She left the table, breaking the family rule about staying until everyone was finished, which no longer seemed relevant. Karina ran upstairs to the bathroom and found relief in the one way that had become reliable: two thin vertical incisions on her left inner thigh. When she emerged from the bathroom, she sat at the top of the stairs and eavesdropped on her parents downstairs.
“There’s no other choice, Keith,” Mom was saying. “It’s too much of a distraction. And my mother’s coming next week. She’s not used to pets. Can you imagine that thing peeing all over the house, chewing up shoes?”
Karina remembered that her grandmother was coming from India to stay at least through the rest of the summer. The voices dropped in volume. She heard some murmurs, then fragments in her mother’s voice: “Do you really think . . . take care of . . . living being . . . ?”
So, that was it. This was her family. Dad spent half the day in the kitchen, preparing meals her mother barely touched. Mom was a smaller, meeker version of who she’d been, one who stayed in bed all day with the curtains drawn. Prem was gone, her grandmother was coming, and there wasn’t room for anyone else. And she couldn’t be trusted with anything. This was her family now.
Karina returned to her room, closed the door quietly and sat on her bed. She stared at her phone for a moment, then texted Izzy. She waited a few moments for a reply, but none came. She wasn’t supposed to have her phone in her bedroom, a rule she had regularly broken when she and Prem had been home alone after school. With this thought, her anger was swept away by a fresh wave of guilt. Why had she made a big scene at the dinner table over a stupid dog? Everything was her fault, and now she’d made it even worse.
11 | jaya
JULY 2009
Jaya knew she only had to hold on until her mother arrived. She had called her parents, now retired to India, the night Prem
died and her mother said she would come as soon as possible. With American expediency, Keith’s family had all flown in from Pennsylvania for the memorial service and left a few days later. Jaya’s mother hadn’t rushed to be at the service—women in India usually didn’t attend death rituals—but she wrapped up her affairs so she could stay with them for several weeks or even months, knowing that was when the real need would be, once the doorbell stopped ringing, the flowers stopped arriving and bags of food stopped appearing on the porch. When Keith brought her mother home from the airport, Jaya fell into her arms and felt herself revert to the child who could cry freely, her body shaking, tears and mucus running down her face. In the following days, she felt a deep comfort in the presence of her mother, who silently stepped into the role Jaya had vacated, caring for her and nurturing her family.
One morning, Jaya came downstairs after waking late and found her mother sitting cross-legged on the dining room floor in front of a small temple erected on an ottoman draped with a silk shawl. Her mother was chanting and counting on her prayer beads. Jaya moved closer and took in the scene. There was a small hand-carved sandalwood temple, four solid silver figurines of gods and goddesses, a stand for burning incense sticks, a silver dish holding a ghee-soaked cotton ball lit into a small flame, and a small silver bell—all of which her mother must have brought from India. Into this mix, her mother had placed a small orchid with bright purple blooms, which had appeared in the house along with so many other flowers over the past month.
“Ma?” Jaya said.
“Ah.” Her mother sprang up quickly, still possessing in her sixties the grace of a dancer. “You slept?” She touched a strand of Jaya’s hair, from the scalp down to the ends, then lightly circled her face with two fingers.