It was working! Finally. Or at least it had to be. The proof was right in front of my eyes.
I beamed at our plants. They felt like my plants now, and not just Dad’s. The spilling aloe vera, the heady-smelling mint, the lemon plant, the cacti—everything was bursting with life, as bees and butterflies and moths visited them. Not to mention the pigeons who tried to sit on them and squash them—even the cactus!
Everyone was flourishing. The climate was almost back to its regular, happy self. The people were suddenly la-la all over again (well, you can’t win everything).
All except the jasmine plant. The stupid thing was still brown as a bug. Languisher. I frowned at Bekku, who was still using the jasmine pot as her favorite sleeping bag. But even the plant’s obstinacy couldn’t keep me down for long.
The wasps and Tree had reported success. People were finally getting in touch with nature, with their true selves, with the environment they lived in—not seeing it as something that was separate from them, but seeing themselves as part of it all.
Feeling lighter than I had in forever, I picked up Bekku and my school bag, and closed the door to my room to go to school. Meher had already left, as usual. Then what I saw made me stop in my tracks.
Mom was not cleaning! Her hands were still! She was sprawled on the sofa, hugging a cushion and sobbing.
I looked frantically at the door, wondering if I should just slink out. Maybe Mom wouldn’t notice. These days she didn’t seem to notice anything anyway. Not the late-night meetings that I had been attending, not Meher’s obsession with her phone, nothing.
I began to move towards the door, when I saw the cushion Mom was hugging. It looked familiar.
Oh!
The purple frog on my heart pressed down a bit harder. It was a cushion cover made out of my father’s second favorite shirt—bottle green with dark green checks.
Mom looked up, tears streaking down her cheeks, blurring her glasses. “Baba had it made,” she said. “It just . . . just arrived.” Baba now lived in Almora, surrounded by forests and valleys. We had only seen him once since Dad’s death, at the funeral, so this was a surprise. It struck me now that he must miss his son. Just like each of us had retreated onto our own grief planet, so had he. We needed to visit him ASAP, I realized. Death, it complicates relationships.
Bekku wriggled out of my arms, ran towards Mom, and jumped lightly onto her lap. The cat stayed away from the cushion, as if she knew she couldn’t shed on it. She purred, her green eyes staring at me accusingly, as if she knew I was going to do a runner on them.
What sort of a lowlife did Bekku think I was? A year earlier, I would have just pretended not to have seen this and slunk out. But now I was someone who hugged trees. I dumped my school bag and sat down on the arm of the sofa, next to Mom. I tentatively reached out. I wanted to . . . oh, I touched the cushion, feeling the soft, worn fabric. I tried to blink back tears, but now they wouldn’t stop.
Mom moved her hand and put it on top of mine and squeezed it tight. It was as if the purple frog had finally slid off my heart. I moved next to her and hugged her tight. It felt like everything I had been holding in, every thought, feeling, emotion, was pouring out of me with my tears. Bekku licked our entwined hands, her whiskers brushing our arms lightly.
We sat like that forever. Finally, Mom’s phone pinged. Usually her first reaction was to reach for it and forget everything around her, but today she just ignored it. Something shifted in me, and I said, “Mom . . .”
Mom shook her head and gripped my hand tighter, almost as if she was holding on to it for life. “I am so sorry, Savi, so, so sorry,” she finally said. “I’ve been a terrible mother . . .”
I wanted to protest, to deny it, but I just couldn’t find the words. It was true, our mother had been in another world, wrapped up in her grief, so intense and private that she hadn’t been able to let either of us in—especially me. At least Meher had seemed to be able to talk to her. I had no words. But for now, I didn’t need them. I squeezed her hand back.
“I have. Don’t shake your head. You lost your father too. And it’s not fair you had to lose your mom. It was all just too much, you know—the insurance, the provident fund, changing joint accounts to single ones, and on top of that—just missing him so much. So fuc . . . very much.” She let go of my hand after another squeeze and reached for the box of tissues. We had a box of tissues in every room, though I had switched to hankies because wasting this much paper was highly unnecessary. I made a mental note to buy hankies for everyone at home as well.
Mom said, “I am here now. Really.” I realized that it wasn’t just her. I had spent so much time thinking about Dad, that I stopped thinking about Mom.
Just then, Meher came barging in. “Savi! You didn’t make it to the school bus. I had to come back all the way for you. I am going to miss first period, thanks to you.”
She stopped as she saw Bekku, Mom, and me sitting next to each other, tears, snot, and all. Why was crying so exhausting?
“Savi, what did you do?” she glared.
“Nothing,” Mom said, holding out her hand to Meher. “She did nothing. Come here.”
Confused, Meher took Mom’s other hand and sat down on the floor. She looked from Mom to me to Bekku to the cushion, biting her lip.
Just like that Mom began talking, all the while holding on to Bekku, stroking her. And she wouldn’t stop. It was like Gia when she went into that trance.
Mom talked about her depression, the fugue that she had been living in, that she inhabited even now. It had solidified inside her like makhan in the fridge. She hadn’t been able to do anything, she’d just been buried in paperwork, and she had thrown herself into her work and, well, cleaning (she looked sheepish at this point)—so that she wouldn’t remember, so that she wouldn’t have to think. All she needed to do was just put one foot in front of the other. She told us how, in her grief, she had isolated herself, forgetting that not only had she lost her husband, but we had lost our father.
“But the other day,” she looked at me, “Bekku kept running into your room, and I had to take her to the vet. She just wouldn’t listen. So I followed her to catch her, and that’s when I saw them . . . the plants. Oh Savi, you magician. Abhay would be so proud.”
Mom didn’t tell us that when she had chased Bekku into the room, the sight of the plants had made her stop and all thoughts of the doctor’s appointment had left her. She had started crying and had not stopped until the smell of the jasmine had overpowered her, making her feel less alone. But it mingled with the sharp smell of mint, almost like a wake-up call, reminding her of her responsibilities. Of the grief not being hers alone.
It was too silly to put into words, what had happened in the room, Mom decided, so she left that bit out.
What she didn’t know was that the traitorous jasmine plant had spilled the beans to me. Well, traitorous to her, but fully loyal to me. I flushed and looked at the cushion. I was also pleased with my success with the plants, but more so that Mom had finally noticed. It was like she was waking up from a deep sleep punctuated with bouts of crying and long, heavy silences that weighed down our tiny apartment. And lots and lots of squeaky cleanliness.
“Does this mean you are not going to clean every godforsaken surface?” Meher asked. She was still looking confused, but I fully appreciated her asking this. The nation of this house needed to know.
Mom spluttered and shook her head. “Not all.”
“Mom!”
“We’ll see, we’ll see. But we’re all skipping today,” Mom said, a watery smile on her face. “What say, we watch movies and eat pao bhaji?”
“With extra makhan,” I said, with a grin. “And masala pao!”
Meher was so startled by the whole thing—our mother talking more than she had in forever, her sulky sister smiling sunnily—that, for once, she just nodded and didn’t complain about the enormous amount of butter in the bhaji and pao. Or make a reel of the moment—though who knew how long she would resist?
“I’ll get my phone and you can call school and tell them we’re unwell!” I said. I jumped up and ran to open the door to my room. The smell of jasmine assailed me—the plant had burst into bloom. Pearl-white flowers studded the bright green plant.
For a minute, I considered not telling anyone, wanting to hug the secret close to me (see, more hugging!). After all, it was my plant. The plant shuddered visibly. I rolled my eyes and thought, fiiiiine. “Mom, Meher, you won’t believe it. Come here right now!”