Didn’t you hear me call?”
Mrs. Rao was standing at the foot of the stairway in her fluffy pink bathrobe and matching bunny slippers. I got a whiff of ratty, unwashed smell mixed with the bitter odor of whiskey. Though she had a choice of three oversized, luxurious bathrooms, Mrs. Rao had stopped taking showers weeks ago. She was beginning to look and smell like a homeless person.
I opened my mouth to answer only to discover my voice had disappeared.
Ten seconds ago, I was madly stuffing papers back into her desk drawers. I’d just picked up the vacuum hose in the library when she walked down. My chest was heaving, my heart was thumping, and I was sure my face gave everything away.
“What’s wrong with you? Have you gone dumb like Ashok?” she snapped.
“Sorry, Mrs. Rao.” I barely got the words out.
“The TV remote in my room is dead. Fix it!”
“Okay,” I squeaked.
Mrs. Rao shuffled back up the stairs, into her bedroom, and banged the door shut. I stood frozen for a whole minute before I realized I had got away free.
It was late at night, after finishing all my chores and crawling into bed, that I remembered the yellow envelope in my pocket. I pulled the letter out.
The dated stamp told me it had arrived a year ago but it hadn’t been opened. The letter, addressed to me, had originally been sent to Franky’s office in India, but someone had scratched that address out and written Mrs. Rao’s address on top of it.
I opened it with trembling hands.
Pink paper. A jolt went through my heart. Preeti always used pink paper to write her letters, soft paper like this. When I spotted her signature scrawled at the bottom of the letter, my heart jumped to my throat.
I began to read, holding my breath.
Dearest Asha,
I don’t know if you will ever receive this letter. You haven’t replied to our earlier ones. I am hoping that’s because you have found a good life and moved on. I’m sad about that but hope all is well.
Franky told us you are back in Tanzania now. That sounds so far away, I can’t even imagine what it is like there. Is it too hot for you? Have you found your old friend Chanda again? Franky said you were soon going to marry a rich Indian businessman over there and that you were doing very well. I am so happy for you. I know that if anyone deserves a good life, it is you. I hope that your new husband is treating you well.
After you left, Grandma got quite angry. She declared to everyone that she disowned you from the family, that you can never come back. Kristadasa came to our home with the marriage broker and said if I didn’t marry him, they will throw us out of our house. I told Grandma I will marry that man, but on one condition, that she can’t disown you, her own granddaughter. I want you to know that. No matter what you have heard or anyone has told you, you will always be part of my family. But in a way, her words don’t matter anymore, because she has left us for the afterlife.
It has been a very difficult marriage for me. Some days I wished to kill myself, but it was Aunty Shilpa who kept me going, who kept me alive.
I miss her a lot. Even though we knew it was coming, it was still very difficult. The disease wrecked her body. When she died, she was thinner than a rake and looked like a skeleton. She could barely speak. But she asked for you every day.
She lay in her bed for weeks before she took her last breath. I was with her that last day, holding her hand. She was not scared of death. She was scared of leaving me behind, alone. I told her not to worry, that you were doing well and that you will come and rescue me one day. She smiled when I said that.
Five days after we buried her, Grandma’s heart gave away. Hers was a quick and painless death, or so the sadhus in the temple told me.
I am now alone here. I miss you and wish you would join me again. You are my only family and friend. Please write back. Even if you don’t, I will keep writing, dreaming, and hoping that I will see you again, my dear cousin.
With all my love,
Preeti
I sat on my bed, staring into space for a very long time.
My mind had gone blank and my body had gone numb. When I finally came to, my muscles were stiff and I was still clenching Preeti’s letter—so tightly my fingertips had turned white.
Did I imagine all this?
I looked down at the letter in my hands. No, the words were still there in Preeti’s neat handwriting on her favorite pink paper.
It had been almost two years since I’d left Goa. I had two months to go before I’d have paid my dues for Mrs. Rao’s car damage. I looked up at my calendar. It seemed too long to wait to return home, to see Preeti again.
A tsunami of memories rushed in.
I remembered Preeti’s pretty eyes, her innocent face, and that brilliant mind of hers that impressed our teachers and even the school monitor. I remembered her funny hobby of collecting chocolate wrappers in her scrapbook diary, and how we’d curl up under the ratty old blanket on the sofa bed giggling over some silly joke or the other.
I remembered Aunty Shilpa’s sad but beautiful eyes, and how her face lit up whenever I’d read from a book. I remembered how much she’d tried to help us, how she’d always been there for us.
I recalled Grandma’s wrinkled old face as she’d stooped over the heavenly smell of her curry pot on the stone stove.
Precious memories. They were my family, my only family.
The image of the dirty, drunk Kristadasa looming over me in the apartment corridor flashed across my mind. A wave of nausea washed over me. This was the life of horror Preeti was going through every day. And it was all because of me. Because I ran away like a coward.
I got up and walked unsteadily to the bathroom. I collapsed in front of the toilet and threw up.