The Golden Son

  Anil had requested two weeks of vacation, fully expecting Casper O’Brien to approve only one, as he had every other time. When he was granted both weeks, Anil felt a modicum of guilt over listing the purpose of his trip as a family wedding, but it passed quickly. He was, after all, closer to Mahesh than to his own brothers. As a third-year resident, Anil had seen his value at Parkview rise, and it undoubtedly would grow even more as a cardiology fellow. He would submit his application soon after returning from India. Anil could already see his life changing ahead of him, a brighter path than the one he’d traveled the past few years.

  Mahesh’s wedding festivities in Ahmadabad would occupy his first week in India, but he didn’t make any plans for the second. If he received the cardiology fellowship, this would be Anil’s last opportunity to visit home before it began, but he still couldn’t bear the idea of facing his mother. Anil booked himself a seat on the same outbound flight as Baldev and Trinity, and a return flight to Dallas by himself two weeks later. He told no one in his family he was coming.

  The weeks leading up to the wedding were hectic for everyone. Mahesh and Yaalini had to prepare their company to survive their simultaneous absence, and vacate Yaalini’s apartment so she could move in with Mahesh after the wedding. Every night after work, they shuttled over a car full of her belongings. By the end of the week, the hallway outside Mahesh’s room was stacked high with sealed cartons. On the other end of the apartment, Baldev sifted through his possessions to decide what to take on the plane to Bangalore and what to send via shipping container. Some items, such as his barbells and the Bollywood posters, he bequeathed to Anil.

  As Anil prepared for the trip, his mind kept drifting to Leena. He pictured her slender fingers tracing the inner rim of the imperfect bowl in her drawing room. Leena’s hands were beautiful, but not in the glossy, manicured way of the hospital clinic receptionist. Nor did she have the delicate, thin wrists he remembered on Sujata, his lab partner in medical college, with her tinkling glass bangles. Leena kept her fingernails trim, with only a thin strip of white. The backs of her hands were darkened by the sun. Her fingers were long and slim, with remnants of clay dust in the creases of her knuckles. When Leena had shown him those enormous urns she’d made, the ones for the fancy hotel, Anil had been astonished they had come from her slight hands. He longed to go back to that day, to grasp one of her hands and decipher the lines on her palms, the way his grandfather used to do for all the children in the family. How long was her life line? Was the wealth line unbroken? How many children would she have? Now, after reading her letter, he knew more about her destiny than he ever would have found in her palm.

  Anil continued to think of her as he boarded the late-night flight out of DFW airport, and while Baldev and Trinity slept curled up together in the two seats next to him. During their layover at Heathrow, as they strolled through the duty-free shops, Anil wondered how the Tahitian black pearl earrings would look in her earlobes, or a tiny diamond pendant in the hollow of her neck. He said nothing to Baldev or Trinity as they traversed the terminal and stopped for tea. If he spoke about Leena, she would become real, along with the complications of her past and his mother’s judgment. For now, it was better that she remain safe in his thoughts.

  ONCE THEY landed in Ahmadabad, the wedding festivities provided Anil with ample distraction. Mahesh’s mother was in constant motion: directing vendors, welcoming guests, and fussing over Mahesh and his friends. She doted on Anil, because he too was Gujarati, and because doctors were the only professionals who trumped engineers in their cultural hierarchy. There was no hint of the Shahs’ initial reluctance about their future daughter-in-law as they proudly introduced Yaalini to their circle of friends and relatives. That Baldev had shown up with his American girlfriend, with whom he planned to live unmarried, seemed to render Mahesh’s choice less scandalous. For her part, Trinity managed to win over everyone with her willingness to dress in a sari for every occasion and eat so adeptly with her hands.

  On the morning of the wedding ceremony, the atmosphere in Mahesh’s family’s home reached a heightened frenzy. Yaalini’s parents had finally agreed, just days earlier, to attend the wedding. They’d arrived the night before the ceremony and were staying in the same hotel as Baldev and Anil, declining the Shahs’ offer to stay in their home. Their discomfort was clear as they entered the ceremony hall wearing tight smiles and avoiding eye contact with the other guests. They answered inaudibly when asked by the pandit for their blessing of the couple. But Yaalini seemed impervious to any tension. She was beautiful in her wedding sari, her head crowned with flowers and dramatic makeup flaring her eyes. Mahesh looked like a smiling robot, a permanent grin etched on his face as he drifted around the room, greeting guests and accepting the envelopes of cash they pressed into his hands.

  Despite being exhausted by the end of the evening, Anil, Baldev, and Trinity lingered in the reception hall until it was appropriate to leave. Even Trinity’s appetite for Indian culture had been depleted after so many wedding functions.

  “Only one more event,” Baldev groaned. “Lunch tomorrow.” He sank into a chair. “All I want to do is stay in bed and order room service.”

  “We have to go.” Trinity held up the skirt of her heavy sari as she sat down next to him, layers of fabric billowing around her. “Mahesh’s mother will definitely notice if we’re not there. She even loaned me an outfit of his sister’s.” She glanced over at Anil and smiled. “What do you think of Mahesh’s sister, by the way? Pretty, don’t you think?”

  “Auntie could probably get that wedding arranged lickety-split, doctor.” Baldev elbowed Anil in the ribs. “Just give us some time to recover from this one.”

  Trinity rested her head on Baldev’s shoulder. “I’m so glad we’re going on vacation after this.”

  “You sure you don’t want to come with us, Anil bhai?” Baldev asked. He and Trinity were going to a beach resort in Goa for a few days on their way down to Bangalore. “You could use a rest too, before you go back to Dallas. It’s your last chance to spend time with us. Beautiful beaches, nothing to do but eat and drink and swim all day.”

  “Sounds tempting,” Anil said. “But I can’t. They’re expecting me in Panchanagar.” It was not true, of course. No one was expecting him. His mother did not even know he was in the country, much less a hundred kilometers away. But it wasn’t his family he was going to see. On that long, lonely flight from London to Ahmadabad, when the cabin was darkened and the other passengers slept, Anil had stared out the window into the black sky. He’d wrestled with his thoughts, trying to make order out of the chaos: Leena, her marriage, the kerosene, the dowry money, his father’s advice, his mother’s sharp disapproval. He could make no sense of it. The only place his mind found solace was in those early memories of his childhood with Leena: rolling in the gully between their homes, play hunting for tigers in the brush, scrambling up the coconut trees. A time before everything became so complicated.

  Over the past week in Ahmadabad, Anil still hadn’t sorted out anything in his head, but he’d felt a deep, driving need to return to Panchanagar, and that instinct was stronger than any reason to the contrary he could conjure. He wanted to see Leena again, and he was prepared to face his mother to do so. He had allowed Ma to constrain his behavior when they were younger, but he would not do it again. What might Leena have been spared had he stood up to his mother that first time, if he had followed his heart back then? He could barely allow himself to consider it.

  EARLY THE next morning, Anil awoke feeling refreshed, despite the exhaustion of the preceding week’s activities. He showered, shaved carefully, and dressed in the crisp white shirt he’d kept unworn until now. After checking out of the hotel, he confirmed the arrangements he’d made for a car and driver, then paced the lobby, waiting for Baldev and Trinity.

  The Shahs’ home was bustling with people by the time they arrived. Trinity was hurried off to provide a therapeutic massage to Mahesh’s mother, who was suffering
from lower back pain after being on her feet all week. Anil and Baldev found Mahesh and pulled him out onto the private balcony.

  “So?” Baldev asked Mahesh, sliding the balcony door shut behind him. He dropped his voice. “How was the wedding night?”

  A grin spread across Mahesh’s face as he cast his eyes downward and put his hands into his pockets.

  “Look at that.” Baldev slapped the balcony railing. “Proud as a peacock.”

  Mahesh smiled and wobbled his head. “I can’t lie. Happiest day of my life.” He put a hand on each of their shoulders. “Thanks for coming, brothers. It wouldn’t have been the same without you.”

  “Are you kidding? We wouldn’t have missed it.” Baldev leaned against the balcony rail and let the sun warm his face. “It’s the end of our collective bachelorhood. Mahesh was the first to fall, no surprise.”

  “And Baldev’s become totally domesticated,” Anil said. “Which is a surprise.”

  Baldev gave an exaggerated shrug of his shoulders. “Who would have predicted three years ago when we met that we’d end up here? Mahesh in a love marriage, staying in America. And me, moving to India?” Baldev shook his head. “Life is funny, man. You never know where the road leads.”

  “And then there’s Dr. Patel,” Mahesh said. “Who is exactly where he planned to be.”

  “And soon to be a cardiologist.” Baldev extended his hand toward Anil, who grabbed it and embraced his friend. They shared one last collective farewell—big bear hugs and slaps on the back—before going their separate ways, not knowing when they’d all be together again. Mahesh and Yaalini would return to Dallas after their honeymoon in Rajasthan, but it would not be the same as before. Mahesh had told Anil he was welcome to stay in the apartment indefinitely. They would not need to replace Baldev as a roommate, and Anil could have the other bathroom to himself. It was a generous offer, but Anil had other plans. Before leaving Dallas, he had already inquired about the vacated apartment next door.

  After explaining to his hired driver how to get to Panchanagar, Anil settled into the backseat of the air-conditioned Ambassador and closed his eyes, bold with the anticipation of doing the first rash thing in his life.

  LEENA WAS sitting on the edge of her bed, braiding her hair, when there was a knock at the front door. Her mother was rolling chapatis in the kitchen, so Leena held the loose tail of her braid and went to answer the door, expecting to see Piya. Instead, it was Anil. An immediate fluttering rose in her chest. Was it her mind playing tricks on her, conjuring up the person who’d just been occupying her thoughts? Leena had mailed the letter months ago; she had received no reply, and had stopped expecting one. She held the end of her hair, waiting for the apparition to move.

  Anil smiled and took a step toward her. “Come for a walk?” He gestured with his head to the fields behind him.

  Leena watched him for a moment, trying to read his face. She looked toward the kitchen, where her mother would be occupied for some time, then turned back to Anil, held up her forefinger, and closed the front door, leaving him out on the terrace. Leena stood still for a moment, trying to calm her spinning mind. She could not blame him for not responding to her letter. Not many people, even those who’d been friendly when she first returned, cared to associate with a ruined woman. She had long ago stopped hoping for anything else. And yet.

  Leena breathed deeply a few times, then told her mother she was going for a walk. She opened the door just enough to slip through and closed it behind her. She skipped barefoot down the front steps without waiting to see if Anil followed. Leena could move quickly through the fields, picking her way expertly in and out of rows. She didn’t slow down for his benefit. He hurried behind her, through a patch of trees and down a valley on the other side. Finally, she reached a point where they were completely isolated in the brush. Her house, far in the distance, was obscured by the tall reeds surrounding them on all sides. Leena slowed her pace along the edge of the sugarcane field, planting one foot squarely in front of the other, as if walking a tightrope. Anil fell into step beside her. She could hear him trying to catch his breath. They walked quietly for several moments.

  Anil stopped at a guava tree and laid his hand against its python-skin trunk. “You remember that time you climbed a guava tree to get fruit for all of us? And my mother came looking for us, angry because Kiran and I were late for dinner?”

  Leena smiled. “You were so scared of getting in trouble, you ran off and left me there at the top of the tree by myself!”

  Anil laughed. “We knew you could get down on your own. You were the only one who could do it without help.”

  Is that how he thought of her, as she used to be? Strong and carefree, not needing anyone else? It was no longer who she was, of course. Had he even received her letter, Leena wondered, or would she have to tell him everything again?

  Anil turned to face her. “Leena, remember the last time I was here, I told you about the hospital I work at in Dallas, about the cardiology program?”

  She nodded, recalling their conversation after the Big House medical clinic, during which he came alive describing how he could do more than just bandage people up, how he could actually mend their hearts, save their lives.

  “I’m applying for a fellowship in cardiology, to become a specialist. It’s not certain yet, but I have a very good chance.” Anil’s face was flushed. “It’s going to change everything. It means another four or five years in America.”

  Leena smiled. “That’s wonderful, Anil.” So that’s why he’d come, to share his good news. She turned her eyes to the ground. With the curl of her big toe, she pushed at the earth; wrapped around her second toe was a thick silver band, the last remaining piece of jewelry on her body. In the still air, she could hear Anil breathing.

  “Come with me, Leena,” Anil said. “It doesn’t matter to me. Everything you told me, your letter. The past. It doesn’t matter anymore.” Leena looked up, met his eyes, and examined his face for a moment. What was he saying? She turned and continued walking along the edge of the sugarcane field, the heel of one foot in front of the other’s toe. She heard him scramble after her. “Leena?”

  She shook her head. “You don’t know what you’re saying, Anil.”

  He reached over and grasped one of her hands, pulling her to face him. “What don’t I know? I know I loved when I was twelve years old and you beat me up that coconut tree, because everyone else always let me win. I love the way you make those beautiful pieces with your hands. And I love that you keep the crooked ones.”

  Leena’s smile widened and she automatically moved her hand to her mouth.

  “And I love that.” Anil caught her hand. “I love your smile, that smile. Don’t cover it up. It’s the best part of you.”

  The smile remained on her face as Leena’s eyes filled. They were words she’d never heard, words she’d given up believing she would ever hear. “I love the way you slow down your speech when I start stammering, and it helps me stop. I love the way you know me better than I know myself.” He cupped his hands around her face and wiped the tears from each of her cheeks with his thumbs. The roughness of his skin surprised her. She’d imagined someone so educated would not have the same hands as her.

  She shook her head. “Anil—”

  “It will be different with me, Leena. You know me.” Anil’s eyes glistened. “You’ve always known me. I can come back this summer for the wedding. I even found an apartment for us to live in. It has a big patio you can use for your pottery studio. We’ll live right next door to my friend Mahesh and his wife, Yaalini. You’ll love them. We’ll start a new life together. It’s a different world there, Leena. The lights never go out, the water runs all the time. I’ll be making a good living. You can work on your pottery, and you don’t even have to worry about selling it. You can keep it all, even the good ones. We’ll have shelves from floor to ceiling. Have you ever seen a motorized pottery wheel? We’ll get you one.” He was talking without pause, running out of breat
h again, his shirt damp with sweat. He looked into her eyes, holding her face in his hands. “A new life, just the two of us. What do you think?”

  Leena smiled, shaking her head. He’d been like this even as a boy, a big dreamer, always talking of faraway places. “What about my mother? I can’t leave her alone.” Even as she said it, Leena knew her mother prayed every day for her happiness. It was the only thing she asked of God after her husband had died.

  “She can come with us,” Anil said. “Whatever you want, Leena.”

  Leena had to laugh at his brazenness. Could it be true? Could those dreams she’d tucked away in a corner of her heart still be possible?

  “Your mother can take care of our babies,” Anil said. “Make them fat on her delicious chundo.”

  Leena felt an unmistakable pang from somewhere deep inside her as Anil stepped closer to her, slowly. Only after her skin was already burning with the anticipation of his hands did he embrace her. Despite everything else they knew about each other and all the things they’d done, this was the closest they’d ever been physically. How different his touch was, how safe she felt in his arms. He lifted her off the ground and spun her around and she laughed.

  Anil stumbled on the uneven ground and they fell together onto the earth, splayed out like awkward children. Leena moved her sari to cover her bad leg, but Anil caught her hand. He sat up, drew the sari away from the area, and touched the scar lightly. With his fingertips, he traced its outline from the top of her foot past her ankle, up her calf to her knee and back down again, sending a tingling sensation up her leg. When he finished, he draped the sari over her leg again carefully and smiled. Leena felt a warmth spread through her body, a feeling of security she hadn’t had in a long time. She stood up and brushed herself off. Anil followed and took her hand, and they started walking again, back through the reeds. “I’ll take you to a very good plastic surgeon in Dallas,” Anil said. “He can do skin grafts on your leg, the scar would hardly be visible.” He squeezed her hand.