Trail of Broken Wings (36 page)

“Then why?” Eric pleads, his defenses clearly gone. He comes to stand before me. Holding my shoulders, his question is ripped out. “We had everything. You were my love, my life.”

“I don’t know,” I whisper, his touch reminding me of another time. Another place. Another man.

“
You are my life,” the voice whispers in the dark. She had been sleeping. She was sure she imagined it until she felt the hand on her shoulder through the thin material of her nightgown.

Without meaning to, I wrench out of Eric’s arms, wrapping my own around my much slimmer frame. There is no longer joy in food, three meals a day feeling more like a chore than anything. My body has paid the price, withering away. My clothes hang off me, my belts never tight enough.

She awakens slowly, sure it is Sonya sneaking into her bed again. At fifteen, Trisha isn’t as quick to welcome her anymore. It is the night of Marin’s marriage. Trisha feels older, more mature. Too mature to have her
little sister sleep with her. “You’re the only one I love,” the voice continues, the hand moving from her shoulder down her arm.

“It’s done,” I say, trying to push him and the memory away at the same time. I shake my head, back and forth, trying to rid myself of the vision. But it holds me in its grip, refusing me a reprieve. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“That’s it?” Eric shakes his head, clearly angry for having tried.

She’s walking down the darkened hallway. No one responds to her silent cries. They are filled with horror and sadness, too loud for anyone to hear. She bangs her fists on the wall, hitting until they are raw with pain. One door after the other she tries, unsure of where she is. What was once familiar is now foreign, her home alien. Finding one door unlocked, she wrenches it open, only to discover it is a linen closet. Leaving the door ajar, she searches for another. And another until she enters a darkened bedroom. She falls to the floor, so exhausted from her search for a haven. She cries into her hands, her sobs echoing in her head.

“Trisha?” Sonya’s young voice breaks through the sound of the cries, her arms surrounding. Fear laced into every word. “What happened? Why are you crying?”

“Can you at least tell me this?” Eric asks, jarring me back to the present. A muscle jerks in his jaw. “You knew about my past, the loneliness . . .” He pauses, hurt. “Why didn’t you want a child?”

“Because they always get hurt,” I finally answer, the truth searing me.

I sit in front of Mama’s house, the engine idle. I stare at the front door for what feels like an eternity, too afraid to go in, but more afraid not to. Thoughts haunt me, tugging at my brain. I try to push them away, desperate to forget, but they refuse to go.
Now, it says. Now it is time
.
I shake my head, but time is not my friend or my ally. If it were, then maybe I would have more of it.

I finally step out of the car, the metal casket no longer providing me a reprieve. I don’t use my key, the house suddenly feeling like a stranger’s home instead of mine. I ring the bell and wait, sure that Sonya will be in at this time of the evening. I ring again. And again, my fingers sitting on the bell.

When Eric left the house, disgusted with me, I followed, jumping into my car, all the packed boxes left in the foyer. I could feel him watching me from his car, his love turning to hatred, two sides of the same coin, each emotion a worthy opponent of the other. I drove straight here, needing answers and sure that only Sonya could give them to me. What I can’t remember, she must. As if the floodgates have been opened, I can see her sitting on my sofa when she came to say good-bye.
He plays the loving father. You let him.
Her words repeat in my head, her eyes searching mine for a sign of recollection.

“Trisha?” Mama answers the door. “What are you doing here, Beti?” She steps back, motioning me in, but I stand rooted to the same spot.

“Is Sonya home?” My hands are shaking. “I need to speak to her.”

“No,” Mama says, staring at me. I imagine everyone doing the same thing, trying to understand the train wreck I have become. “What’s wrong, Beti?”

“When will she be home?” The sun is getting ready to set. The mosquitoes have begun to bite. As a child, I was always their target, my skin swelling with welts. “Because you are so sweet,” Papa would say.

“It’s late.”

Mama takes my hand, ushering me into the house. I allow her to do so, too weak to lead myself. “Soon. Come, we will have a cup of chai and you can tell me what has happened.”

I want to laugh. Her solution to everything, as if chai can fix the world’s woes. Yet, hadn’t I done the same thing? Offered Sonya a cup
of tea when she came to say good-bye. Included a bag of hot cocoa in Gia’s gift basket. I wonder how many other habits of Mama’s I have made my own. When did I become her reflection and Papa’s creation?

“No chai,” I murmur, searching. The cries that have been muted until now are suddenly loud, searing me with their desperation. I watch in slow motion as Mama walks into the kitchen, pours the cup I refused, and sets it in front of me. I can barely make out the steaming milk or decipher what she is saying. Without a word to her, I walk out of the kitchen and toward the stairs.

“Trisha.” Her yell breaks through the barrier, but I ignore it, other voices louder. She follows me, her breath on the back of my neck.

I say nothing to her, climbing the stairs quietly, lost in another time, another place. My fingers grip the bannister, each step harder than the last. Reaching the top, I walk down the hallway, my hand sliding alongside. I reach my room first, flinging the door open. It is the same as I left it years ago. The last time I spent the night here was the day before I got married. That evening, everything seemed possible. The only thing missing from my life was the presence of my little sister, but I wouldn’t allow that to mar my good day. I had two dresses laid out on my bed, my red sari and a white wedding gown. Both I had spent hours shopping for, insisting everything be perfect for when I married the perfect man. No matter that Eric was white and older. He loved me as I deserved to be loved.

“Why did Papa let me marry an American?” I ask, my mind whirling. I know she is behind me, watching. “It went against our culture, his dictates.”

Papa never uttered a word of anger when I told them with trepidation that I had fallen in love with a white man. “Never marry a BMW” was the mantra of the Indian community. Black, Muslim, White—the three unacceptable marriage partners in our culture. I was sure my announcement would be met with fury and disappointment, that it would be the first time I would feel his wrath. I had prepared myself
for the worst, but when he simply dropped his head and nodded his acceptance, I was left speechless. He walked out of the room and the discussion was over.

I stare at my room now, changed completely from that night, when I was still fifteen. Redecorated, a gift for my sixteenth birthday. I was allowed to choose whatever theme I wanted, whatever bed I desired. Everything in the room was trashed, replaced by new. Sonya stood by, watching in envy, as I chose the color to paint the walls and picked a princess theme décor to match my mentality. I kept the room that way for a year, until my friends began to tease me. I asked Papa if I could change it one more time, and he readily agreed. I went with a more mature theme, neutral spring colors that have remained to this day.

“He let me change the décor,” I murmur. “Buy everything new.”

“Yes.” She nods.

Her answers are quick, to the point. As if she fears saying too much. I step out of my bedroom and back into the hall. She follows me silently, a guide to a labyrinth with no way out. In the hallway, I slide my hands along the wall, remembering doing the same thing years ago. The red paint on my colored nails starts to drip over my fingertips and down the back of my hand. The paint turns to blood. I yank my hand off the wall, sure I have left a stain, but only pristine white stares back at me. I stare at my fingers but there is no longer any blood.

“I was crying,” I say, lost in another time. “I screamed.”

“I didn’t hear you,” Mama says, anguished. I pivot toward her, watching with odd detachment as she wrings her hands together. She refuses to look at me, her tears falling off her face and onto the floor. Like an old woman, her body has shriveled into itself. In front of my eyes she seems to have aged by twenty years while I am stuck in a time warp. “I never heard you, Beti.”

“The bathroom,” I exclaim. There was blood in the bathroom, in the sink. I can see it now, swirling with the water. Throwing open the door, I stare into the sink, but only sparkling porcelain stares back.
“There was a rag. I cleaned the blood with it.” Opening the drawers I search for it. But they are bare. I grab the trash can, sure I threw it in there, but it stands empty. The laundry basket is the same. “Where did it go?” I demand.

“It’s gone,” she says, reaching for me, but I push her away. I don’t want her hands on me. I start to rub my arms, feeling the heavy weight of something else or someone else on me. “I never saw it.”

“Where did it go?” I demand, sure she is playing a game with me. The memories flood my mind, erasing the line between yesterday and today. Lost in a vortex, my mind throws me from place to place, refusing me reality to hold on to. “It was right here.”

“I don’t know,” she whispers.

“Sonya may know,” I exclaim. I rush toward her room and open the door. “Where is she?” I demand when my search comes up empty.

“She’s still at work, remember?”

“You’re lying!” I scream. “She’s just a kid.”

“She’s a grown woman,” Mama says quietly. “So are you.”

She must be joking. I am only fifteen. Still a child. I have pretended to be a woman, like all teenagers do. But deep down I am still a young girl, waiting for when I am fully grown and dreading it at the same time. “Why are you saying this?” I cry. “After what happened, how can you do this to me?”

“What happened, Beti?” Mama asks.

I start to tell her what I remember, vague images filtering through a dark curtain, but something in her eyes stops me. A revelation that what I will say is not a surprise, not a secret I have kept from her, from myself, but instead the other way around.

“You know?” I am on a swing, flying so high that I fear I may fall. One moment I am the woman she says I am, and in the next second I am just a teenager. I vacillate between the two, neither one feeling real to me.

“Yes,” she admits, lowering her head. “Not then, but recently.”

“How?” I demand. Shaking my head, I push past her back to the bathroom. There, I stare into the mirror, the image staring back at me changing. The girl with her hair strewn haplessly and tears streaking her face evolves into a woman I no longer recognize. “What’s happening to me?” I demand, grasping the sink for stability. “What happened to me?”

“You don’t remember?” she asks.

“Tell me!” I scream again, hearing it echo in the empty house.

“He came to you late at night, after Marin’s wedding. He started drinking after all the guests left.”

I can smell the liquor now. He had never drunk before, always threatening it, but never following through. But that night he reeked of it. Cheap liquor mixed with the smell of wine. I made the distinction years later, the smell of both still causing my stomach to churn. I was fast asleep. I had started sleeping in my own room, insisting Sonya sleep in hers. He whispered the words in my ear, waking me with a touch. His hands down my arm, pulling the blanket slowly away. I clutched at it, fear paralyzing me.

“You are the only one I truly love. You know that, right? It is why you are so special to me. Why I treat you differently.”

Why I never beat you
, were the unspoken words. The ones he didn’t utter, but made sure I understood. As he lifted my nightgown, the thought reverberated in my head. I was the lucky one. The special one. That’s why he wasn’t beating me. And when he finally bore down on me, I was grateful that I was still safe from his fists. If this was the cost of being protected, then it was a small price to pay.

“What did he do?” I demand, everything moving faster and faster. The first time we went to an amusement park, I repeatedly rode the teacup that went round and round, laughing as everyone complained how dizzy they were. Only after, when I climbed out, did I realize the effect. Holding on to the side of the ride, I fought for everything to
stabilize and failed. I vomited seconds later, the purge finally giving me the steadiness I craved. “Tell me!”

“It doesn’t matter,” Mama starts, obviously hiding the truth. We had learned to appreciate our lies like a veil over our lives, each untruth stronger than the facts. I loved playing with her saris as a child, using the end as a veil like women were required to in India. Always fascinated by the mystery it represented, I see it now for what it is—an excuse to keep a woman in her place, her beauty and power hidden from the world.

“It matters to me,” I yell. At the same time I demand an answer, I want to run from it. Now I understand Sonya’s instinct, her desire to keep moving. When faced with what has happened, when you have no choice but to live with it, it seems wiser to sink rather than swim. “Tell me!”