Trail of Broken Wings (35 page)

“You don’t get it, do you?” Raj demands, narrowing his eyes. “This isn’t a discussion. I’ve made my decision.”

“When did you start to believe it was yours to make?” Marin demands.

“When I realized you were making all the wrong ones for her.” Raj folds the paper carefully and slips it into his top desk drawer. “If you have a problem with my decisions, too bad. You have no choice.”

“That is your first mistake,” Marin says, her mind whirling. “I always have a choice.” She finally sees what she hasn’t been able to. What she has avoided since the first night of her marriage. “If you and I can’t agree on Gia, we have nothing left.” She begins laying out the steps in her head. Separate rooms, separate bank accounts. Whatever it took to separate their lives.

“You want to split?” Raj barks, his words ripped out. Clearly filled with incredulity, he stares at her.

Marin knows they are lost in a maze, one with no exit. Every turn they make is the wrong one, every corner leading to more darkness. If there was once a way out, it no longer exists, having been destroyed by their distrust, the belief that each one knew better. Hubris in its purest form, the price to pay higher than anyone could calculate. She doesn’t respond.

“It’s that easy?” he asks, quietly.

“When it comes to my daughter, everything takes a backseat. Including us.”

Raj’s shoulders slump; he seems to accept her decision without a fight. “If that’s all we are, then I’ve been mistaken all these years. I thought we had a marriage. I now see it was just a charade.” He stills when his phone begins to ring. He takes the call, turning his back on his wife.

It’s raining. The Bay Area has four seasons—sunny, sunnier, rain, and rainier. Today the rain comes in sheets, blinding anyone who dares to venture onto its war path. For Marin, it is a welcome distraction from her life. She sits in her car, the windshield wipers at full speed but failing to stop the water from covering the glass. Staring at her phone, she wonders whom she can call.

Her contacts are filled with numbers of colleagues and subordinates, none of whom would care to hear about her woes, since she has never bothered to hear theirs. Births, deaths, weddings, and joyous occasions—all of them she’s glossed over with a few perfunctory words before returning to the task at hand. Not once did she bother to ask the people these things happened to how they were feeling, if there was anything she could do. Now, when she is in need, no one will offer her a hand, an ear to listen. She is alone because she refused, over the years when it counted, to walk alongside anyone in their time of need.

Reincarnation is an established tenet of Hinduism. As children, Marin and her friends would play a game where they would guess who and what they were in their previous lives. From princesses and movie stars to cockroaches—the lowest reincarnation possible—they fantasized about all the possibilities.

“You had to be a man,” one of Marin’s oldest friends said as they sat in the safety of her mud-and-brick home, staring at the monsoon raging outside.

“Definitely,” the rest of them agreed.

“Why would you think that?” Marin demanded, playing with her braided hair. “Are you saying I look like a boy?”

“No,” they assured her. “But you don’t let anyone tell you what to do.”

“Why should I?” Marin demanded, sure of herself. “Just because I’m a girl doesn’t mean anyone is the boss of me.”

Marin hated the inferior status of women in their culture. It was standard practice; men controlled women. Males were assumed the superior sex, smarter, wiser, and more powerful. Women, no matter what age, were required to obey and follow their dictates. Cover their heads in respect, ask for permission to leave the home, with opportunities for higher education few and far between. It was the reason Brent gave everyone for leaving India, the sacrifice he made for his daughters. Better educations so they could have better lives.

Marin assured her friends that day that even if she were a man before, she would never be a man again, not in any future lives. When they demanded to know why, she answered with all the confidence born from not knowing, “Because that’s the easy way out. I like the hard way better, because then you know who you really are.”

Never would she have predicted how hard it would get, or how Brent would hold his position as man of the house over her like a burning flame, ready and willing to scorch her if she didn’t obey. His threat so powerful and so effective that if asked again who she would reincarnate as—a man or a woman—Marin would say neither. She would rather not be reborn at all.

RANEE

She was born to give birth. That and to keep house. From the time Ranee could remember, she was taught all the intricacies of making a home. From doing laundry and the proper way to fold it, to making roti perfectly round. She and all the other girls she knew were enrolled full time in the school of homemaking from the moment they uttered their first word.

Ranee would listen as her brothers spoke about school, what they had learned and the games they played. They would bring home books that Ranee yearned to read but didn’t know how. After begging her older brother for hours to teach her, he gave her a basic lesson. With it, she taught herself the rest. Sneaking the books with her to the outhouse, Ranee would use the few minutes of privacy to devour as many chapters as she could. As they got older, their books became more sophisticated. The stories were of places Ranee had never been, countries Ranee dreamed of visiting.

After their arrival in the States, Ranee’s constant exposure to women who were confident both in their careers and their places in the house gave Ranee a different perspective. Whether in television or real life, Ranee watched them like a voyeur. Admiring their suits, their
confidence, made her wonder what it would be like to be in control. To be the one who made the decisions, who forged the path of her and her daughters’ futures, instead of it all being laid out for them.

She never told anyone of her wishes, not even the women she called friends in the community, for fear of their reaction. As time wore on, the dream seemed to fade farther away. But on Sonya’s birthday a few months back, it became obvious; the decision didn’t really need to be made, just followed through.

Once Sonya left, Ranee had no reason to celebrate her birthday. The day passed quietly, until the silence became deafening. Brent was seated in his favorite chair, reading the newspaper. His eyes had started to give him trouble, a side effect of the diabetes that ravaged his body. The doctor had prescribed drops, but he also used Visine to help with the redness.

“Ranee,” he called out, refusing to get up, “bring me my eye drops.”

Normally, Ranee would have rushed to do his bidding, anxious to keep him happy. But the day was weighing on her. Another year without her youngest.

“Do you miss her?” Ranee asked, needing to fill the emptiness.

“Who?” Brent asked, not bothering to glance up.

“Sonya,” Ranee bit out. “Our daughter.”

Brent lowered the paper slowly, clearly agitated at being disturbed. “Why are you asking me this today?”

Shocked, Ranee stared at him. “It’s her birthday.” Ranee had left her a voice mail, but unlike every year past, Sonya did not return the call. Normally the sound of her voice assuaged the heartache, but today Ranee didn’t even have that. She tried twice more, but still no answer.

Realization dawned on Brent. Dismissing the importance, he raised his paper again, squinting to make out the words. “It was her choice to leave, Ranee.”

Fury propelling her, Ranee pulled the paper out of his hands. She saw his anger simmer, knew her action was fuel on fire. Maybe she was
looking for a fight, something to make her feel again since numbness had taken over. “Again and again, you told her she was a mistake.” When Sonya left, she had taken a part of Ranee. “She had no choice.”

“You think it was because of me?” Brent shakes his head, not bothering to give Ranee his full attention. “It was hearing the truth from you—that you didn’t want her. That was the reason she left.”

At times Ranee felt like a small fish in the vast ocean, no boundaries or limits to where her life went. She was at the mercy of each wave, each surge leading her farther away from where she was before. In between, she had to survive. But she couldn’t deny Brent’s words. She had pushed her daughter away. With so little of herself left, she had offered Sonya nothing. But by telling her child she wasn’t wanted—and not telling her the reason why—she drove her away.

“It was to save her,” Ranee finally spoke up, needing to admit it aloud. “You would have destroyed her if she stayed here.”

Turning his gaze toward her, Brent assessed her before letting out a low laugh. “That was the decision you made? Having your daughter hate you?” Dismissing her, he murmured, “When Sonya chose photography over law I knew she wasn’t intelligent. Now I know where she got it from.” Letting her know the discussion is over, he motioned toward the kitchen and reminded her, “My drops, Ranee. I’m having difficulty reading.”

“Yes,” Ranee said, her mind starting to turn. “You need your eye medicine. If you went blind, how would I see?”

TRISHA

I wait on the sofa, one leg crossed over the other. I threw on a pair of slacks and a blouse after showering. The house is still, as though it has already accepted its fate and is mourning the loss. A family that never came to fruition. I assume Eric will sell it or maybe live in it, hoping to fill it one day with the children he wants. The thought of him with another woman, holding her, tightens my stomach. He has been mine for so long I can’t imagine him being someone else’s. But I know he may one day be. I have no say in the matter. I gave that up when I had the IUD implanted.

The doorbell rings, startling me. The watch that he gave me tells me he is on time. We have not seen one another since that day in his attorney’s office. All communication has been via the woman who now speaks for him. My first replacement, I realize. How easy it was, I muse. I rise slowly, taking each step as if it were my last. Opening the door, I soak in the sight of him. It is the end of a workday, so he has on a suit and tie. He looks everything that I know him to be—strong and sure.

“Thanks for meeting me here,” I say, welcoming him into his own home. “I know you preferred your attorney’s office but—”

“This is fine,” he says, interrupting me. His steps are hesitant, his hands thrust into his suit pockets. He no longer wears his wedding ring—it was the first thing I noticed at the attorney’s office. “Since you’ve refused any type of alimony, her services seem superfluous.”

“Right.” We take a seat on opposite sofas, facing one another like strangers. I can still remember making love on them when they first arrived. Eric teased that we should christen them and was surprised when I readily agreed. I had stripped first, enjoying the burn of desire in his eyes as he watched me. “How are you?”

“Fine.” Always the gentleman he asks, “And you?”

“Good,” I lie. I wonder what he would say if I told him I hadn’t slept more than a couple of hours each night, the bed too empty to sleep peacefully in. That I wonder daily what it would feel like to have had a child, to be a mother. To have given him what he wanted so badly, and in the process taken the step that I feared so much. “I’ve packed everything that was mine.” I motion to the few boxes that are stacked in the foyer. “Anything we bought after the marriage I left.”

“Where are you going to live?” he asks.

“I signed a month-to-month lease for an apartment in the city.” I don’t meet his eyes. “Until I can find something more permanent.”

“Right.”

We both fall silent, the pain in the room palpable. I yearn to reach out, to have the right to hold him like I used to. I never imagined the choice I made would lead to this. But only because I assumed he would never learn the truth. The secret was meant to be hidden forever, as they all are. The voice inside my head that has become louder in recent months starts to laugh, amused at my naïveté.
No secret stays hidden forever
, it whispers.
No secret
.

“How’s work?” I ask abruptly, trying to quiet the murmuring.

He laughs bitterly, his face showing fatigue at the game. “Do you really care?”

“Yes,” I say, taken aback that he would think otherwise. “I know how much your career means to you.”

“Having a child with you meant something to me too,” he says, the pain raw. “But that apparently didn’t matter.” He stands, finished with the farce. “Why did you want to meet?”

“To say good-bye.” The words sound foreign to my ears. “To give you the keys to the house. To tell you I’m sorry.” I turn my head, staring out the window. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I try to find the words. I will myself to stop, to let it go, but I can’t. He was my husband, the man I meant to stay with forever. That I was wrong, that it was my fault, makes me feel foolish. “I never meant for this to happen, for us to say good-bye.” Wringing my hands together, I admit, “I would have done anything not to hurt you. I loved you.” Finding no reason to keep it from him, I tell him what I can barely admit to myself, “I still love you.”