6

Prin looked up into the bright lights above the operating table. He could only look for so long before having to close his eyes. What should have been blackness behind those closed eyes was orangey-red, the amber of ember light. There was a radio playing ragtime music in the background, and doctors and nurses in masks were complaining about their phone plans. Which meant this was normal and all was well and all would be well. He was wrapped in a heated blanket and told to count down from ten, nine, eight, but he said Hail Marys until seven, slix, fi, fo Mary, fee of grace…

Deep, deep he went. He dreamt he was in a restaurant that only served seahorses. He stood at the hostess booth, giving a lecture. Refugee families kept coming in, asking about wait times for tables.

“He’s awake!” one of the girls said.

“Daddy!” another of the girls said.

“Princely! My only beloved son! Praise Jesus!” Prin’s mother Lizzie said.

“My wife’s only beloved son! Praise Jesus and also all religions!” said Kareem, Lizzie’s new Muslim husband.

“You, Molly, give him the rest of that Big Mac. He’s hungry,” Prin’s father Kingsley said.

“Daddy, how do you go to the bathroom now?” another of the girls asked.

“Hi, love. The doctor told me the operation was successful. How are you feeling? Are you okay?” Molly said.

“Molly. I am. I love you,” Prin said.

He began crying. A nurse explained this was a possible side effect of the anaesthesia, and through his tears Prin insisted the tears were real and tried to say why but just cried more. The nurse shrugged and went to get the doctor. Molly smiled and wiped his tears and was about to tell him that she—but by then the girls and Prin’s mother had shouldered their way in between them, everyone sobbing except Prin’s father and Prin’s stepfather. The two older men were nearer the door, standing beside each other and not making eye contact.

He loved all of them, just then. He’d come through. He didn’t even mind his new stepfather being there. His mother had met him, an Ismaili grocer, at his store, Kareem of the Crop. Kingsley made a poor big show of not being offended by Kareem’s presence at family events. He also made a big show of passing a metal detector over his body every time he saw him. Lizzie boiled but Kareem laughed it off. After all, he drove a newer old Cadillac than his new wife’s ex-husband, and with a vanity plate no less—GO2HLAL.

“Seriously, how do you go to the bathroom now?” Kareem asked.

Then, in a loud, discreet voice, Lizzie asked Prin if he needed her help … “that way.” She was already tugging at the sheets.

“The men of my family, stand up!” Prin’s father said.

He then ordered the room cleared. He needed to speak with his son. He stalked the hospital room in his loafers and corduroys and Harris tweed jacket, arms behind his back, intensely studying an invisible line on the floor.

His family line, now.

Unless.

“Son,” Kingsley said.

“Dad,” Prin said.

“Son,” Kingsley said.

“Dad,” Prin said.

“Do you know how hard I worked, to give us this life in Canada? I came here with a suitcase and a transistor radio. How many televisions did you grow up with? More than most people have in brothers and sisters!” Kingsley said.

“Yes, Dad, thank you.” Prin said. Again.

“And?” Kingsley asked.

“And thank you … very much?” Prin said.

“NO! I didn’t do all of that just so my last name would die on some operating table in Toronto,” Kingsley said.

“Oh. Well Dad, I’m not sure there’s anything to be done,” Prin said.

“What if I’d thought that way fifty years ago in the British High Commissioner’s Office in Colombo when the clerk informed me that my application to Canada had been misplaced? When he told me he wasn’t sure there was anything to be done? Where would we be now?” Kingsley asked.

“In a hospital in Colombo, with the same situation?” Prin said.

“Of course not! You would have grown up eating real fruits and sleeping in traditional poses. Didn’t you get my email? Whereas here you’ve been polluted by a rotten civilization. Apples on steroids and memory foam! But good news, son! I have a plan,” Kingsley said.

“Dad—”

“I know, I know, first you have to get better. Listen, you don’t have to worry about having more children. I am your father. I have a plan,” Kingsley said.

What plan?

“What worries me is whether you’ll be fully healed before the father-son pickleball tournament in April. I had her ask the doctor—”

“You mean Molly?” Prin said. Again.

“I know her name! I asked her to ask the doctor, and he said you’ll be okay before then, before April, so you can play. You’ll play, right?” Kingsley said.

“Yes, Dad, if I’m better by then,” Prin said.

“Good. Now, the plan. I’m going to pay for you to go to Sri Lanka next summer. I will come with you. And we’re going to visit the best healer in the village. You’ll come back ready to start the family,” Kingsley said.

“I already have four children,” Prin said.

“I know that! I love my granddaughters! It’s not about them, son,” Kingsley said.

“Then what, Dad? Really? You know, you must know, the chances of my having another child are—”

“Don’t say it,” Kingsley said.

But there was no command in his voice, only cracking. Kingsley’s nose tingled like someone had just smashed it with a mango. But damn them, he never cried when they’d smash his nose on all those walks home from school in a Colombo laneway. When he wouldn’t cry at the smashed nose, the older boys would make him walk past the canteen where his mother worked.

The first chance he had, Kingsley applied to leave it all behind and start again.

Clean slate.

White as snow.

Canada.

And you don’t build a life like this, you don’t keep it going, by dwelling and dwelling on why your wife left you or why she then married a terroristic grocer or how it could be that the man lying in a hospital bed is still, is always, your child, your little boy on the bench of the Caprice, or how it could be that something has been taken out of him that could have killed him. Damned cancer!

But it was gone, and now what mattered was what happened next, what needed to happen next, to keep it all going and going and going.

“Fine. If you can’t, then I will,” Kingsley said.

“You will what?” Prin said.

But Kingsley had already gone into the corridor to call everyone else back into the hospital room. The girls crowded around the bed. Lizzie pulled out her bag of rosaries. Parking was by the hour, so Kingsley invited Kareem to offer a prayer of thanks for Prin’s successful operation, which confused and quieted Lizzie and her beads. Kareem demurred until Kingsley commanded him to recite. Then, after Kareem’s longish prayer to a sort-of-every-God, Kingsley asked Molly if she and the girls wanted to visit a martyr’s shrine north of the city for some real prayers… and candy! The girls cheered.