The Shape of Family Read online

  Inexplicably heartened by this sight, Karina put down her backpack and dug inside the front pocket for Prem’s small Swiss Army knife. She turned it over in her hand, noting its smooth, unscratched surface. She pulled out the large blade and pressed it gently into her finger pad. Then in a single, swift motion, she drew back her arm and flung the knife into the broken cavern.

  15 | keith

  MAY 2010

  Keith left the office early the day the crew began working on the backyard, knowing it might be a difficult day for Jaya. She had been singularly focused, almost obsessed, with removing the backyard pool before the first anniversary of Prem’s death. As he entered the house, he heard voices upstairs and followed them. Jaya was leaning against the doorframe of Prem’s room, watching a construction worker tear up carpet from the floor while another took a sledgehammer to the built-in bookshelves.

  “What . . . ?” Keith said, taking in the scene before him. “What is happening here?”

  “Oh!” Jaya turned to him with an excited smile. “There you are,” she said, as if he was the one who had disappeared. “I’ve finally figured out what to do. It came to me when I was sitting in prayer. And these fellows were already here for the pool. So opportune!” She flipped through a small notebook she took from her pocket, stopping at a page with a pencil sketch. The drawing was of a full room-sized temple, dwarfing the small nook he’d seen tucked away in her parents’ home.

  Keith felt visceral pain in his chest as he heard the sledgehammer slam into the empty bookshelf. Where were Prem’s things? His books, his toys, the pennants that lined the walls? He looked back to Jaya in disbelief. “How . . . ?” How could she do this? he wanted to ask, but he was struck by the realization that she was dressed in a crisp salwar kameez, and her hair was freshly washed and combed.

  “You know we’ve never had a proper temple in our home,” Jaya continued, “and now we can have one, right here.” She gestured at Prem’s room, being stripped of all traces of their son. Keith looked from the notebook to Jaya, who smiled again. That smile looked like it was coming from some other person inside her. “It’s perfect, isn’t it? The perfect way to honor Prem.”

  “No.” Keith shook his head. “NO. Tell them to stop. Stop!” he shouted at the workman with the sledgehammer. “Just stop!” He turned to the other workman, pulling up the carpet. “Please stop. Just, uh . . . knock off for the day, all right?” Keith stood guard in the center of the room against further destruction, until the men gathered their things and left the house. He ran his hand through his hair and looked around at the disarray. He took a deep breath and forced himself to speak calmly. “Don’t you think we should have discussed this first?”

  Jaya looked at him with genuine astonishment. “You never cared about this before, how and where I do my prayers.”

  “I care about this!” He gestured around the empty room, his voice rising despite his intentions. “I care about our son’s room!”

  Jaya’s brow furrowed. “You’ve barely set foot in here for the past year—”

  “Yes, but . . .” Keith sputtered in anger, feeling the sting of her words. He felt weak for being unable to go in there as she did, but he always assumed he’d still have the ability to do so. He hadn’t expected her to destroy the place while he was summoning his strength. It was as if she saw right through him, to the most tender and vulnerable part, and stabbed a searing poker into it. Overcome with frustration, he banged his open palm against the doorframe. “How could you do this? You just got rid of all his stuff? His clothes, his furniture, his posters?”

  “It’s all boxed up in the garage,” Jaya said, as if this made everything better. She touched the crook of his arm. “But those things don’t matter. His spirit is still here.”

  “It does matter, to me!” Keith yelled, pacing across the room. “Can’t you see that? Can you see anything past yourself? We are all hurting, Jaya. All of us: you, me, Karina.” He shook his head. “I swear, it’s like you don’t understand me at all, and you don’t even care to. You don’t give a shit.” He turned and walked out of Prem’s room. At the end of the hallway, he saw a glimpse of Karina as she disappeared behind her bedroom door. He turned back to Jaya. “She’s home?” he whispered.

  Jaya nodded. “Practice was cancelled.”

  “Christ, Jaya.” Keith shook his head. Karina must have heard everything. “Jesus Christ.” He ran down the stairs and grabbed his car keys from the front table. He would speak to Karina later, but right now he was too angry. Adrenalin pumping through his veins, Keith drove well over the speed limit on their suburban streets. By the time he merged onto the highway, where he could really let out the throttle, the lump in his throat had manifested into tears running down his face. He was no longer just angry; he was despondent. Jaya had moved so far away from him that she didn’t even know him anymore. They were both good, loving parents, he still believed. It just seemed they couldn’t be so together anymore.

  * * *

  By the end of the following week, the yard project was completed, with no sign there had ever been anything there but an expansive green lawn. It took six more weeks for the workmen to finish transforming Prem’s room. When it was completed in June, the floors were cool marble and the closet doors had been removed to create an open alcove that housed three tall god statues, complete with silk garments and floral garlands, all imported from India. On the floor were three seat cushions embroidered with small mirrors and tassels. Standing alone in the transformed version of Prem’s room, Keith could think of nothing else he could do to try to save his marriage and his family. He felt like he was losing himself.

  The Hindu priest came to bless their new home temple with a private prayer ceremony. Jaya was animated in a way she hadn’t been since Before, as if she had come back to life but as a different person. Keith numbly went through the motions: he and Karina wore what Jaya chose for them, stood and sat where she told them to, and followed the instructions she translated from the priest as they went through the steps of the ceremony. It eerily paralleled the service they’d had one year earlier to commemorate Prem’s death, also in their home, with the same priest. Only this time, it was Jaya they had lost.

  16 | karina

  2011–2013

  In the end, Karina lost both her brother and her parents. They divorced the summer she turned sixteen, two years after Prem’s death. Given her father’s schedule, her parents agreed she would live primarily with her mom, or at least this was how they explained it to her. Karina wasn’t sure whether her dad fought to have her or not, but they settled on weekend visits when feasible.

  After trying so hard to make her parents happy and hold her family together, Karina had still failed, so the only thing left to do was save herself. Now, beginning her junior year, she only had to hold on to her tenuous existence for two more years until she would leave for college. It would be a clean start. She could seek the place where she truly belonged, free from the baggage of her family. A shift occurred inside Karina, unnoticed by her parents but significant, as she redirected all her energy toward the one thing she could now control: her own future.

  * * *

  Karina took a leadership role on the Science Olympiad team, assisting the captain by running after-school meetings. With Mrs. Galbraith’s help, she set up a peer tutoring program for younger students, which took up all her remaining free time. Her days were full and busy, but she liked having a sense of driving purpose—reasons to work late into the night, knowing exactly what to do when she woke in the morning.

  “So, Karina.” Mrs. Galbraith leaned against the lab table where Karina was sitting one day after school, stapling papers for the Olympiad quiz session. “Have you decided on your classes next semester? I’m teaching environmental science and I’d love to have you in my class.”

  Karina didn’t look up. The class requisition form had been sitting in her backpack for a week, but she’d been avoiding the showdown with her parents. Ever since she’d taken an ear
ly interest in science, her parents had guided her toward medicine. At one time, this had appealed to Karina too, the idea of helping people feel better or even saving lives. She used to enjoy taking care of children and animals for her neighbors and the independence it conferred.

  But all that had ended with Prem’s death, along with many other things. The idea of being responsible for another living being had become too daunting. On the Olympiad team, she’d learned about earth science, geology, engineering. She saw how much diversity and richness there was in the field of science, with numerous paths that felt as equally noble and important as medicine. The abstract nature of environmental science felt safer, but she knew this discussion would result in another argument with her parents.

  “Yes, definitely.” Karina smiled at Mrs. Galbraith. That evening, she forged her mother’s signature on the requisition form, feeling only a small flint of guilt as she did so.

  * * *

  “Truth or dare, Karina?” Maddie Kramer asked before taking a swig from the longneck bottle of Miller Lite.

  “Dare,” Karina said. They were in the basement of Maddie’s home, as her parents and younger sister were out for the evening.

  “She always chooses dare,” someone in the circle muttered. “Make it a good one.”

  Other dares Karina had successfully executed were prank-calling for pizza, taking a swig from a liquor bottle, and downing a full spoon of red pepper sauce. Truth would have been easier, especially since she could always lie, but it wouldn’t give her the same thrill. A joint was being passed around the circle, and Karina feigned taking a drag before passing it on.

  Maddie, one of the popular girls at school whom Izzy knew from the barn, scrunched her forehead in concentration for a moment before a glint appeared in her eyes. “You have to spin the bottle, and whoever it lands on, you go into the bedroom with him for five minutes and take off your shirt and let him feel your tits.” Maddie looked around to the rest of the group, who responded with whistles and catcalls.

  Karina took a slow sip of her beer. She was new to this group. Many of the girls were paired off with guys, sitting between their legs or curled up with them under concealing blankets. Karina had not yet dated and, truthfully, hadn’t even kissed a boy yet. Everyone was now watching for her reaction. She felt perspiration collect under her arms. “That’s not going to take five minutes,” she said, stalling.

  “Well, then use the time however you like.” Maddie grinned. “Or he likes!” Another round of whoops and whistles came from the group, as the guys disentangled themselves to sit in a circle around the bottle Maddie had placed on the floor.

  Without allowing herself a moment’s hesitation, Karina leaned forward into the circle and spun the bottle. After a couple of rounds, it landed on Kyle Derrick, a senior on the football team who had never spoken to Karina. Now, he smirked at her and rubbed his palms together. Again, moving against her fear, Karina picked up her beer and stood. Izzy shot her an anxious look, but Karina gave her a confident wink and smile, and Izzy reflected it back. One scream and she knew Izzy would come running. Kyle hopped up as his buddies slapped him on the back and wished him good luck. “Can I watch?” one of them called out, as they climbed the staircase leading out of the basement.

  Karina chose the first bedroom, which, with its assortment of stuffed animals on the bed, must have belonged to Maddie’s younger sister. Kyle followed her into the room and closed the door. Karina stood near the bed and pulled her mobile phone out of her jeans’ back pocket.

  “Oh, you wanna record it? Yeah, that’s hot.” Kyle grinned. “Didn’t know you were so kinky.” He took a step closer and extended a hand toward the hem of her shirt.

  In a single, swift motion, Karina swatted his hand away. “Don’t be an idiot, Derrick. You think I’m going to let you touch me?” She held up her phone, displaying the large digital numbers. “Four minutes, forty-five seconds. And counting. Go sit over there.” She pointed to a pink fluffy beanbag in the corner of the room that looked like a giant’s cotton candy.

  “But that wasn’t the deal.”

  “It’s the deal now,” she said. “Or I can go out there and tell everyone you couldn’t get it up. Your choice.”

  “I can’t tell them nothing happened in here. What am I supposed to say?” Kyle wore a little boy’s hurt face.

  Karina willed herself to not roll her eyes. “Nothing. You say nothing. I’ll say nothing. Your buddies can come to their own conclusions. You get credit for being a gentleman—or I out you as a limp-dick.” She held up her phone. “Three minutes, fifty-one seconds. Deal?”

  Kyle threw his hands flaccidly into the air. He sighed and plopped into the beanbag, looking so pathetic that Karina almost felt sorry for him. She sat on the bed and took a sip of her beer. She’d felt a little woozy after drinking the first one too quickly but was now settling into a pleasant buzz.

  “So, what’s your story, anyway?” Kyle said, toying with a Rubik’s Cube he picked up from the shelf next to him. “Not a lot of science geeks like to party. Shouldn’t you be home, studying for the SAT or something?”

  “Already took it,” Karina said. “Beginning of this year.”

  “Bet you got a perfect score?”

  “I did fine.”

  “Heh,” he chuckled. “Not me, barely scraped four digits. But I still got signed to play for USC on a full ride.”

  “Congratulations.” She was surprised to see that Kyle had solved the blue face of the Rubik’s Cube. Karina’s SAT score may not have been perfect, but it was pretty damn close. She was laying down the stepping stones to her future, and she wasn’t going to let anything get in the way, certainly not the grubby hands of a cute, dumb jock like Kyle Derrick.

  “So, you’re what, Middle Eastern or something?” Kyle asked, still fiddling with the cube.

  “No,” Karina said flatly, offering nothing else.

  “What then? You’ve got something different going on.” He pointed his finger in a circling gesture around his own face.

  Karina glanced up from her phone to glare at him.

  “Hey, no offense. I’m one-eighth Navajo, even though I pretty much look white.”

  She waited for a moment before answering. “My dad’s white, my mom’s from India. But I’m pretty much white, like you.” The alarm trilled on her phone. “Probably the only thing we have in common.” Karina slid the phone into her jeans pocket as Kyle struggled to get out of the sunken beanbag, then followed her out the door.

  * * *

  “The school called today,” Mom said when they sat down for dinner, the two of them perched on the kitchen stools next to each other. “They said you’ve missed some classes.”

  Karina put a forkful of green beans in her mouth and chewed. “Class. Singular.”

  “Don’t be smart.” Mom was watching her. “You think that’s acceptable, just deciding not to go to some of your classes?”

  “Mom, it’s just P.E. Not a real class.” The required P.E. uniform consisted of a gray T-shirt emblazoned with the school logo, and athletic shorts cut high on the leg—high enough to now reveal the series of cuts that had been extending further down her inner thigh. Karina had realized this a couple of weeks ago when she was changing in the girls’ locker room bathroom. She begged off class that day by telling the coach she had bad menstrual cramps.

  “Apparently, it’s been happening for two weeks now. Is that right?”

  Karina gave a small nod of her head. “It won’t affect my grades, Mom. No one cares if I get a B in physical education.” After being excused from that first class, the next time she wore her longer bike shorts. The coach let it go that day but told her she’d have to be in full uniform the next class if she didn’t want to be marked absent. She considered covering the cuts with a bandage or wearing leggings under her shorts, but that would only draw more attention. So, she just decided to stop going to class.

  “I care,” Mom said, finally serving herself some food. “I care if you�
�re not going to class when you’re supposed to. First, it’s one class, then another. And what are you even doing during that time you’re supposed to be in class? Smoking? Drinking? Going off campus?”

  “Mom! No. Nothing like that.” Karina’s fork clattered to her plate. “It’s just one stupid class and the coach is bad, and I just don’t like it. Why do I have to take P.E. anyway? It’s an elective and Dad made me take it, but I hate it. I hate it!” she said, louder. “Can’t you talk to him? I can still drop the class and use the free period as a study hall.”

  Mom lifted her water glass to her lips and took a leisurely sip. “You can talk to him about it this weekend. He’s picking you up Friday after school. Don’t forget to pack a bag.”

  Karina shook her head and stood up from the kitchen stool. “I’m done. I have homework to do,” she said, leaving her half-eaten dinner behind.

  Living with Mom was like living with a ghost who operated in her own ethereal sphere, making her presence known on occasion. It was no picnic, but Karina didn’t love going to Dad’s place either. He loved his fancy hotel apartment, but Karina found it depressing. All the units were identical, right down to the green and gold drapery. There were no other families living at the hotel, and it felt awkward to have her friends over. Dad had encouraged her to have a swim party there for her birthday, but she hadn’t been in a pool since Prem, and went out of her way to avoid the one at the hotel. The last time she’d inadvertently passed it, when Dad had taken her to the gym, the smell of chlorine gave her heart palpitations.