His mom goes and looks at all the things that everyone made out of paper, and she tells Eddie that his plane is good, and she tells Denise that her picture of a horse is good, and then she tells Maurice that his boat is good, even though it’s crusted with glue, and she tells Mohammed that his racing car is very good, and then she comes and looks at the picture that Jaspreet has made, which is a picture of the sun. The sun is smiling down on the land. And his mother comes and asks him what the land is that the sun is smiling down on, but he doesn’t answer because he doesn’t like to answer. But he smiles up at his mother because his mother is beautiful and so is the nice lady. Then the nice lady asks, “Jaspreet, can you just this once tell your mother what it is a picture of?” And she points at the sun, which is smiling. “What is this that’s smiling here? We know you know the name of it. Just tell your mother how you know the name. Can you do that for me?” Jaspreet smiles at his mother and smiles at the nice lady, but he has a feeling like he does not want to say the name of the sun. If he had drawn a tree, then maybe he would say that its name was tree, though maybe he wouldn’t say that, either, just because. If he felt like it, maybe. But today he doesn’t want to say that the sun has a name, because he just doesn’t want to, and what he wants is what he wants, even though his mother is beautiful. It’s important to go home now because it’s the end of the day, or at least he thinks so, and when his mother picks him up, then he doesn’t have to go out into the hall with the other kids, because when he is with the other kids out in the hall something horrible happens. One time he threw up.
“Come on, Jaspreet, just one word, and it will make our day complete. We will feel like we have had an especially good day if you will just say one word.”
He says nothing. He can see that his mother is not smiling now, and actually she is making a face that is not such a nice face, and she is taking him by the wrist, telling him that it is time to go, but he has not put away the glue stick and the picture, and he begins to cry out about the glue stick, but not exactly about the glue stick, because he would rather not have to use any words, but it’s just a fake cry, a fake sound coming out of his mouth, a mouth-wide-open cry, and Maurice starts to cry out, too, and some of the others, too, and soon everybody is pounding on the table, and the nice lady looks afraid because it’s scary when everybody gets mad, and they could start spilling paint. Jaspreet just wants to put away the glue stick, put the lid on the glue stick and take it over to where the supplies go, where the glue sticks and the pens and the crayons go, but his mother has him by the wrist and she is telling him not to argue with her now, just come on along, please, because there are things to get for dinner and she does not have time. There’s some more about the glue stick, and he wants to tell her about the glue stick, how wonderful the glue stick is, and that’s when he finally gets out the words “Glue stick,” and everyone hears the words, the nice lady hears the words, and everyone applauds because they know it’s a good day when Jaspreet finally says something.
Later he’s in the supermarket cart, standing. Even though he is way too big to be standing in it. He can see that no other kids his size are standing in the supermarket cart, just kids that are half as tall, and he has ripped open the box of cereal with his teeth and he is putting cereal in his mouth, piece after piece. And his mother is pushing him down the aisle in the cart, and he is making a trail of cereal behind him. His mother used to try to get him not to eat the cereal on the way down the aisle, but now she just lets him. She could get him to stop with the trail, but so far she hasn’t noticed. One day a man frightened him by telling him not to eat the cereal. Another time he saw the same man, and the man didn’t say anything. Cereal is Jaspreet’s favorite meal. Sometimes in the morning there are television shows that have a lot of commercials with cereal. He just waits patiently until the television is turned on. He watches whatever is on. If there is cereal in the show it’s even better.
What is the best kind of cereal? The best kind is whatever kind he is eating. Sometimes he eats cereal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In the aisle, his mother says there will be dried lentils, and there will be chapattis and there will be aloo gobi and there will be cashews and naan bread, which is a bread that he likes. There will be achars. He likes cereal better. Soon they are clumped in a line behind all the people clumped, and his mother hands him a newspaper with a lot of ladies in it. He is distracted by the ladies until his mother is going past the man with the machine where you rub the boxes. This man asks if Jaspreet would like to rub one of the boxes, and Jaspreet looks at his mother, and his mother sighs. What he really wants is to ride on the belt that goes past the man, but he will not do that today, since there are a lot of people behind them. Instead he will put the box on the machine. He runs around the end and stands where the man with the apron is standing, and he takes the box of cereal that he has already eaten most of, and he rubs the box and rubs the box again, and the machine beeps. He wants to do it again.
The man says, “Just once, otherwise you’ll have to pay for it twice.” To Jaspreet’s mother: “He’s a natural.”
He can tell that the man is saying something that’s a joke, except that Jaspreet can’t understand what’s so funny. And his mother, who should understand the joke, doesn’t seem to think it’s funny. She looks cross. Maybe there were other funny things that happened today, but he can’t exactly remember. After the exchange-of-money part, they are out on the sidewalk, and he is carrying the bags because that is one thing he can do that no one else can do. Except that he gets bored. Maybe his mother will be singing something in her feathery voice while they carry the bags back to the house.
Sometimes when they get home his father is waiting in his car out in front of the building, and sometimes he isn’t waiting because he is working late into the night. On those evenings, Jaspreet needs to go to bed without his father telling him a story. Being strong is always the moral of the story. Be strong, you have to be strong, but if his father doesn’t tell him a story, then he is not strong, he’s weak, because there’s a moment at the end of the day when he always knows that something is going on, some joke is being told, except that he doesn’t understand what’s so funny and he wants to be included, except that he’s not included, he’s standing off to one side, no matter when it is, and if it’s during the day, then there are some other kids standing with him, all of them looking like they forgot something important, and then there are those other kids in the hall, whispering. At night, in bed, he can remember all of this, in bed, and it doesn’t matter if his mother is beautiful and his father is strong and drives a fancy car, it only matters that he doesn’t understand the jokes. The feeling is like wanting to break something over his head.
His father is not waiting when they get home, and his mother is short-tempered, and she is unlocking the front door in a way that is not good, and Jaspreet knows not to speak. Instead, he goes into the room where the television is, and he looks at the lone fish in the goldfish bowl and he watches the fish turn and turn again. Soon someone will have to feed this fish. What the fish does is rush to the top of the water, which is good.
His mother calls, and he goes into the kitchen. His mother! She asks him to use the rolling pin, which is a special task. He likes to help roll out the dough for pastries, and he eats some of the dough, and suddenly he is hungry and doesn’t know if he can wait until dinner because he is hungry, and his mother slaps his hand and tells him not to eat all of it yet. But there is a dish of dried lentils, and so he eats some. The chapattis will be better than the raw dough.
Then there is a knock on the door.
Someone is at the door! Jaspreet goes to hide in the television room, beside the couch. He doesn’t know why he goes running to hide. He always does. Sometimes there is a cat living in the apartment, which is the cat belonging to the neighbors, because sometimes the neighbors go away, and Jaspreet’s father brings in the cat. And when the cat comes to stay, Jaspreet tries to pull the tail of the cat, and the cat goes runni
ng and hides under the couch.
It’s just his father, who is knocking at the door, and now he is putting his key in the door, and now he is opening the door, and now he is coming inside. His father is strong! His father has special gloves. His father has a beautiful turban, and sometimes his father takes off the turban and Jaspreet sees his father’s hair. One day he, too, will wear the turban. Jaspreet likes to pull on his father’s hair, and he likes to pull on the tail of the cat, and he likes to smell his father’s hair, and his father lets him pull on his hair as long as he doesn’t do it hard. He comes running, out from behind the sofa to where his father is, and he trips over a yellow bulldozer that is right in the middle of the floor, a bulldozer that his mother told him to pick up, and he did pick it up, and then he put it back where it was, and now he has tripped over it. When he dusts himself off, he sees that his father is not alone.
The pale lady has yellow hair, hair that is the color of the sun in his drawing of the sun. And the lady is thin like a coatrack. She is wearing a long red coat. A raincoat. His father gives him a hug and he musses his hair, but Jaspreet doesn’t know why. Jaspreet stares at the pale lady for a long time, until his father tells him he doesn’t need to be staring, and then his father says her name. And he tells Jaspreet’s name to the pale lady, and she extends her hand, and Jaspreet looks at her thin hand. Then his mother comes out of the kitchen, and she is wiping off her hands on a towel, and she sees the pale lady, and then Jaspreet and his mother are staring at the pale lady, and the pale lady is staring back at them. The pale lady tries to get his mother interested in her hand, but she continues wiping off her own hands and then after a while she extends her hand. Jaspreet makes a noise in his throat that is not a word. The noise is like there’s a lot of water in the back of his throat, and he keeps making it, and then he goes over and touches the raincoat of the pale lady and puts his hand in her pocket.
“He likes to see what’s in a person’s pockets,” his father explains.
She nods and she pulls out a piece of fabric. It’s many colors, the piece of fabric, and she gives it to him, and he wraps it around his head.
“Jeanine has come here to meet Jaspreet.” His father is saying something else, but Jaspreet has the colorful fabric and he goes back into the television room, and the pale lady comes with him into the television room. And he’s carrying the fabric, and he is holding it around his head like it’s a turban. He points at the goldfish, and the pale lady, in a surprised way, says the word goldfish, and when he taps on the glass, the fish startles, and he points at it again.
“Do you feed the fish?” She keeps saying everything slowly like he can’t understand, when he can understand fine. Jaspreet goes into the kitchen to fetch the can that has the fish food and when he’s in the kitchen, he can see his mother with her hands on her hips, and he can see his father, who is tugging on his beard. His mother is whispering.
“Did you get paid for this fancy new job? Did you get paid for it? And is it part of your job that now you are bringing home the sexy Americans on a Friday night? From the job that doesn’t actually pay any money to you? The one where you quit your job that paid? Like you think you are working in a movie? Maybe the white lady in the living room will start singing a ballad to you, which you can put in your American movie? You think they actually want you to work at this company? You are not a student anymore and you have a family to take care of. That is your responsibility, and you are fooling around like a child, and your employer from the taxi service is calling the house, wanting to know why you have not come in. Did you even tell him that you are not working there any longer? I didn’t come all this way to raise my son in this country with a lazy husband.”
There’s more, but Jaspreet can’t understand. He can’t understand because the shouting is in the other way of talking that his parents talk to each other, and also sometimes his cousins talk in this other way, and he can understand some things and other things he can’t understand. His father watches his mother, and then when they see that Jaspreet is standing there, they start doing other things, and his father goes to the cabinet where there are special bottles, and he starts pouring from these special bottles. And Jaspreet is underfoot, trying to get to the drawer that houses the can that has the food in it for the fish, and his mother bats him out of the way, but he comes back. She tells him to get out of the way and then when she looks up, the pale lady is standing in the doorway. Everyone remembers that she is there, and so his mother lets him get the fish food, and he holds it up like it’s a trophy.
“Would you care to have a drink?” his father asks. And the lady says she would, and his father goes back to the mixing of special things. Jaspreet leads the pale lady back to the goldfish bowl, and there is the magic feeding, and the little mouth of the goldfish troubles the surface of the water. And they watch the fish until it is time for dinner.
The table is laid for four, and soon the four people are sitting at the table. Jaspreet does not like to sit at the table, and so he takes his chair into the kitchen and he comes back and he stands at his place at the table. His mother gets up and turns on the television because now is the time of a show that has to do with a million dollars. Jaspreet doesn’t like the show that has to do with a million dollars because the man who is on the show looks like he is catching on fire. Jaspreet tries not to look at the television and the man, but he keeps looking over anyway. Whenever the television is on he has to look over at it whether he wants to or not, and he keeps seeing the man, and the man is repeating the same things over and over again. And Jaspreet’s father asks if they must have the television on right now, and the pale lady is looking around the room like she forgot something.
“We have a guest,” his father says.
His mother frowns.
The room smells of spices, just as the kitchen smells of spices, and Jaspreet loves the smell of spices, even if he likes cereal better. The pale lady tries to eat. She is not saying anything. His father asks Jaspreet how his school was today, and Jaspreet doesn’t say anything, he just smiles. Was it good? his father asks, and Jaspreet smiles. Did you make anything? his father asks, and Jaspreet smiles. And how were the other children? Jaspreet smiles.
“Can you at least turn the program down, please?” his father says to his mother. Jaspreet’s mother is pretending that she cannot hear his father, and the man on the show is asking the questions. Are you sure? the man is saying.
Next, his mother is saying something very hard to follow. This is about how she met Father when she was just a child, and how her parents knew his father’s parents, and that is how they came to meet, she and his father, because this is how things were done, and for this reason, his mother is saying to the pale lady, she is meant to pay attention to Jaspreet’s father’s remarks, even when his remarks are not worth listening to. And she is meant to put up with him, even if he decides to quit his job for no good reason at all and begins claiming that he is a leading expert on television shows. Jaspreet understands some of this, but every time he tries to understand something his eyes stray back to the television set to watch the man who is on fire.
The pale lady says, “Maybe it would be better if I left.”
Jaspreet lets out an involuntary squeal. He doesn’t know why.