Mom and Dad are ecstatic to see me. “It was four days.” I struggle for air as Mom crushes me close to her chest. “Not four eons.”
“I missed you, I missed you.” She layers me with kisses.
“Okay, okay!” I pull free, grateful the airport is empty this early in the morning. Cool air hisses along my skin. Grandma wraps her warm arms around me to hug and kiss me. “Are you feeling better?” I ask.
“I’m always good. The walks are the perfect medicine.” She pulls away and presses a piece of chocolate into my hand. “It was good?”
I don’t answer because I’m watching as Mom turns her attentions to Farah and gives her a long hug. Farah closes her eyes, presses her face close to Mom, and inhales, and it’s like she’s a moisture-starved houseplant that’s finally been given water.
I turn back to Grandma. “It was good.”
Her dark eyes take me in, take in the scene with Farah. “Come, let’s go home. I’ll make you some tea.”
When it’s time to go our separate ways, Farah hugs me hard. Everyone takes in the visual.
“You’re friends now?” From the tone of Dad’s voice, he doesn’t seem thrilled. It’s like I left to spy on another country, and was turned into one of their patriots.
I shrug, grab my bags, and head for the exit. On the ride home I keep the conversation focused on NASA and the sights in Florida. Once we’re home, it gets easier to distract them. Nothing makes my mother happy like watching me eat. I stuff myself silly. The growing stomachache is worth it when my dad presses for information on Aunty Gul and Uncle Raj, and Mom shushes him, saying, “Can’t you see she’s eating?”
“I should get my stuff in the laundry.” I push away from the table.
“Nira,” Dad calls me back. “Were your aunt and uncle okay? They treated you well?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“So? That’s it?”
I give him my best eye roll. “It’s Aunty Gul and Uncle Raj. What else can you say?”
He laughs and waves me off.
I dash to my room, closing the door behind me, and put my hand to my pounding heart. Uncle Raj’s secrets are his own, and so are Aunty Gul’s. I’ll help carry Farah’s because she’s asked me to, but the whole thing weighs heavy on me.
I have a secret, their secret. It steals the stars from the sky and the light from the moon, and I want to tell Mom and Dad. Not because I want to embarrass my aunt and uncle—I just want to free my parents from the idea that their siblings are better than they are.
There’s a knock at my door, and Grandma comes in. “You didn’t finish the tea.”
“I did,” I tell her.
She holds the cup aloft, jiggles it, and makes the liquid swirl.
“I finished my cup of tea,” I repeat. “That is the third cup you tried to force down my throat.”
“It’s good for you.”
“You know what else is good? Not having my bladder explode.”
She sits on my bed, and the colorful folds of her sari settle. “Tell me about the trip.”
“It was good.”
“As good as a not-exploding bladder?”
I laugh. “Nothing’s as good as that.”
Her smile fades, and she pats the spot next to her.
I go to it, reluctant, because she’ll pull the secret from me and I don’t want to betray Farah. It feels so weird that I care enough about my cousin to want to protect her from pity and judgment.
“You came back different.”
“Airport security will do that to someone.”
“Nira.”
I shrug. “It was a good trip. You asked me to be nice to Farah, and I was. I—she’s not as bad as I thought.” I can’t help the face I make as I say the words, and Grandma zones in.
“Yes, she is, but I think you see maybe why she is the way she is.”
I have no answer, so I shrug again.
“I think maybe you saw things.”
The glib response is on my tongue, but I love my grandmother too much to speak the words. Instead, I pull away, go to my suitcase, and forage for the box of chocolate. “I brought you these. Chocolate spaceships.”
She takes them. “I’ll eat them, and you can play me ‘Fly Me to the Moon.’”
“Be careful how many you eat. They make you gassy. Too many, and you’ll rocket yourself to the moon.”
“What did you see?”
“Nothing—”
“Nira.”
“Nothing, just Aunty Gul and Uncle Raj being themselves, okay? And I felt bad for Farah.”
There’s a long silence as she inspects my face. I turn away, unable to meet her gaze.
“So, you know.”
My heart skips. “Know what?”
The look she gives me is pure senior-citizen sarcasm. “That the world is round. You know about Raj, don’t you?”
“You know about him, too?” The weight on my chest is lifting. It’s a helium balloon carrying me to the ceiling.
“A mother knows her children.”
“How can you stand the knowing—doesn’t it bother you?”
“He’s not doing it to me. His actions are between him and his wife.” She stops for a moment to smooth her sari. “I don’t like the effects it has on Farah.”
“Is that why you go?”
“I would go more often, but he won’t allow it. He’d have to behave.” She sighs, and for a moment, it looks as though she feels every second she’s been alive. “The hardest lesson to learn as a parent is that your children are not copies of you. They are their own people who will make bad choices and mistakes. But if he were still a child—” Her eyes flash.
“I’ll make you some tea. Stay here.”
She squeezes my hand. “You’re such a good girl.”
I go to the kitchen, my actions on automatic as I boil the water, my brain mulling it all over. Two boys growing up in poverty, pity, and with the shadows of people’s self-satisfaction darkening their steps. They grow into men. I think of my father, quietly saving every penny, denying himself the compromise—the midsize car, the midquality BBQ—because everything he buys will have to be top of the line. Then there’s Uncle Raj, having it all but hungry for more, greedy and grabbing, no matter who it hurts.
The kettle boils, and I steep the tea. There must be a compromise, a halfway point between my dad and his brother, but I don’t know what it is, and I can’t find the light to direct me. The worry niggles at me, the shadow grows, and warns that if I don’t find the answer, I’ll end up as one of them.