Chitra Divakaruni - One Amazing Thing

Suddenly Jeri shouted, “Holy shit! Would you look at that!”

My eyes startled open, and the sky was full of the same swirling colors I’d seen within my eyelids. Swatches of red mostly, but also greens and yellows. I forgot to breathe. Curtains of misty light swept across the horizon, punctuated by bursts of brightness. It was like something out of The Lord of the Rings .

Ripley was trying to say something, but his tongue didn’t seem to be cooperating. Finally, his vocabulary muted by reverence, he burst out with, “It’s an effing aurora borealis.” It seemed sublimely plausible. There are more things in heaven and earth than are writ of in our geographies. We watched the aurora. Maybe for minutes, maybe for hours. Eventually, the spectacle turned my companions amorous and they made for the backseat. They invited me to join them. When I declined, Jeri narrowed her eyes at me, trying to gauge whether I was insulting them and whether they should do something about it. But Ripley said, “Whatever,” and slammed the car door shut.

The aurora gave a little shiver, then continued displaying its splendors. I walked into the field. The stalks of bearded barley were hard against my back. The hairy ends tickled my cheek. I rolled around, flattening stalks as I went until I had cleared enough space to see the aurora clearly. All around me was a musty, muddy odor, moles or raccoons or something more secretive. I had never before lain down on the bare ground at night. I pressed my palms against it. How foolish humans were to travel the world in search of history. Under my shoulder blades and over my head were the oldest histories of all: earth and sky. Strands of light-not the reds and greens I had thought earlier, but hues I had no name for-enacted their mystery. Soon, I fell into the deepest sleep.

WHEN I AWOKE, THE AURORA WAS GONE, LEAVING A TRACE OF redness in the sky, like embers in a fireplace after a party. My clothes were wet with dew. My head was clear. I returned to the car and, scooping up chilled water from the ice chest, washed my face. Jeri and Ripley were asleep in the backseat, limbs askew, mouths open. I’d been afraid of them earlier because they knew so many things about living that I didn’t-but I wasn’t scared anymore. Something had happened as I lay in the field, watching the sky, an understanding that I couldn’t control the lives of others-but neither could they control mine.

I swung the car in a wide U-turn and started driving back to the city. My CDs were in the back, so I turned on the radio, low, to keep myself awake. After a while, the news came on. There had been a major explosion in one of the chemical factories to the east of the city. Twenty fire engines had been dispatched to tackle the blaze. The situation was now under control, although residents close to the factory had been advised to keep doors and windows closed and to drink bottled water until informed otherwise.

This explanation of my aurora was disappointing, but no matter what its source, the dance of lights over the night field had given me something facts couldn’t take away.

I was almost at the city limits by the time Jeri and Ripley woke up. There was much loud-voiced remonstrance and banging of fists and questioning of my sanity and spewing forth of profane threats. I bore these with equanimity. I was in the driver’s seat, after all. I took the exit where we had picked up Ripley, stopped at a gas station, and asked them to get out. Something must have changed in my demeanor, because they did so without further ado. In all the turmoil, no one brought up the aurora.

I drove back to the dorm, took a shower, ate some dry cereal, and got to my classes on time. I hadn’t missed much; it wouldn’t be difficult to make up the work. Friends looked at the circles under my eyes and surmised I’d had the flu; I didn’t deny it. I gathered up the money-I hadn’t spent even a dollar-and returned it to the bank.

Later I listened to the messages that had piled up on my cell phone. There were twenty-two-eighteen of them from my father, increasingly frantic as he tried to figure out if something had happened to me. I thought of how he had almost ruined my life. Then I thought, no. I was the one who had headed for the brink; I was the one who had pulled back from it.

When he called that night, I picked up the phone. When he asked where the hell I’d been, I responded with a cool silence that lobbed the question back at him. He must have sensed that same difference in me that had made Jeri and Ripley leave quietly.

“What I told you about, a few days ago,” he said. “All I can say is, I don’t know what came over me.”

He wanted me to express thankfulness, but I would not oblige him.

“Maybe I’d caught a bug or something,” he said.

I didn’t reply.

“What I mean is”-he spoke too fast, the words tripping over one another-“I’m no longer planning to ask your mom for a divorce. In fact, I want you to forget all about that conversation we had.” He must have realized the absurdity of this request, because he amended it. “I’d appreciate it if you don’t bring this up with your mother.” There was a pleading tone in his voice.

I agreed. Reassured, he asked his regular questions about my health, coursework, and financial stability, and I offered my usual monosyllabic answers. The status quo thus restored, he hung up with relief.

But things were not the same. The relationship between my parents and me had shifted. I was driving, seeing them in my rearview mirror: smaller, shrunken; my mother trustingly oblivious of the fragility of the relationship on which she had based her life; my father without the courage to follow through on what he had-selfishly, illicitly, but truly-desired. Later I would forgive, but for now, I pulled away from them. Perhaps this distancing would have happened anyway, in time. But I felt rushed into it, as though I had yanked off a scab before the wound was healed, leaving behind a throbbing pink spot, the slow blood oozing again. And when I entered relationships of my own, I was careful to withhold the deep core of my being, the place in my mother that would have shattered if she had learned of my father’s betrayal.

I didn’t realize-until this earthquake, until today-that my withholding was a worse kind of betrayal, a betrayal of the self. It was time for me to change.

THERE WERE SOUNDS AGAIN UPSTAIRS, A CLANKING, ADVANCING noise, as though a different giant-this one in iron shoes-had decided to take a walk. It could be rescuers; it could be parts of the building getting ready to collapse. No one jumped up. It hurt too much to hope indiscriminately. But their eyes were alert. They were aware of the possibilities and ready to accept them. While Uma had been busy telling her story, people had moved around some. Tariq sat between Jiang and Lily, and both of them had laid their heads on his shoulders. Mangalam had come over to Uma’s table and placed his arm around Malathi. Mrs. Pritchett had wrapped Mr. Pritchett in the black shawl, and he hadn’t objected. Cameron, who had been pressed closer against Uma by these rearrangements, patted her knee as if to say, Good job .

But what they didn’t know was that the story wasn’t over yet.

A RAIN OF PLASTER BEGAN TO FALL, COVERING THE LITTLE BAND in grayish white until they looked like statues carved from the same material. Uma knew she had only a few minutes to find the right words to describe how, long after she had graduated and moved back to California for further study, the past had resurrected itself in the form of a phone call. It was Jeri on the line, her voice like old sandpaper. Uma hadn’t recognized her until she identified herself.

Jeri said she was dying. She didn’t give details. Nor did she ask for money, as Uma at first supposed she might.