Jhumpa Lahiri - Unaccustomed Earth

After a week a letter came, with a postmark from Columbus, Ohio. It was not addressed to anyone; he had not even put their family surname on the envelope. "Don't bother looking for me here," he'd written, "I'm only spending the night. I don't want to hear from any of you. Please leave me alone." They wondered how he got to Ohio, since he had no money, wondered if he'd hitched rides. A week passed before her mother noticed that the small zippered pouches she kept hidden at the backs of her drawers, behind her jumble of British brassieres, containing all the gold jewels she'd acquired over her lifetime, all the pieces representative of her husband's success in America, much of which was intended to go to whatever woman Rahul eventually married, were missing.

He had been gone two months when Sudha discovered that she was pregnant; one night during her miserable honeymoon, her body had begun to make a life. Suddenly alongside the terrible there was now the wonderful, the good news reviving her parents. Sudha thought of Rahul often during her pregnancy, invaded by memories and dreams of their childhood, recalling the existence that had produced them both, an experience that was both within her and behind her and that Roger would never understand. In her first trimester her emotions dipped and soared without warning. On good days she believed that Rahul needed to get away in order to put his life back together. On bad days she feared that the police would call her parents saying his body had been found in a ditch. He was absent the following Christmas, which Sudha and Roger spent in Way-land, absent at the hospital in London the night she gave birth to Neel. And she got used to it, used to having a brother she never saw.

Wrapped up with Neel, her parents got used to it, too, coming to London now at every opportunity, their tiny grandson plugging up the monstrous hole Rahul left in his wake. For hours they stared into the bassinet, at the stern downy creature with Roger's pale skin and Sudha's dark hair and a destiny all his own. After a few months Sudha returned to work, first three days a week, then five, leaving the house at eight thirty and returning at six, taking Neel from the nanny and spending just two hours with him, first in the bath and then nursing him to sleep in the rocker. She felt awful, always, that it was for such a brief piece of her day that she actually cared for Neel, but she reminded herself that he was too young to resent her for it, his face lighting up at the sight of her, leaping into her arms as if she were the most wonderful being on earth.

It was then, at a time when her life was at its most demanding and also gratifying, that she returned home one cold Saturday from grocery shopping and found, on the other side of the door slot, an envelope from America addressed in Rahul's hand.

She stood in the entryway of the house, with the brown-and-gold wallpaper she and Roger kept meaning to tear down, staring at that simple but certain proof of Rahul's existence. She wondered how he'd gotten her new address, but then she remembered, when she was home for her wedding reception, writing it on a piece of paper and taping it to her parents' refrigerator. Neel napped in his stroller, not knowing the existence of his uncle, not knowing the shock that filled his mother's eyes with tears. There was a faded postmark from New York, and on the back of the envelope, a post office box somewhere upstate. Before opening the envelope she pulled out an atlas. The town was north of Ithaca. She was stunned- she had assumed he'd gone as far as possible, to Oregon or California. She never thought he'd want to return anywhere near the place where he'd so spectacularly failed. Inside was a single sheet of paper that he'd stuck into a typewriter.

Dear Didi,

I hope this is you. First, I want to say that I'm sorry. For everything. I know I screwed up, but things are better now. I have a job at a restaurant, as a line cook. I discovered that I really like cooking. Nothing fancy, but I've gotten really good at omelettes. Also, I'm writing another play. I showed it to someone I met here, a guy who's directed some things at Syracuse, and he said it still needs work but that I should stick with it! I'm living with Elena-remember her? We got back together and I convinced her to come up here. Crystal's in fifth grade and Elena got a job doing human resources at the university. Think what you will about Elena, but she got me to start rehab. So like I said, things are better. Anyway, I'm sorry for everything and I hope you (and Roger) can forgive me for being a jerk at your wedding. I really am happy for you guys. And I'd like to come to London and see you, if that's okay. I've saved up some money and I'll have a little time off from the restaurant this summer. I'm assuming you won't mention any of this to our parents.

Rahul

She replied immediately, without rereading the letter or bothering to ask Roger if it was all right for Rahul to stay with them. She tore a sheet of paper out of the notebook they kept by the phone, for messages, and wrote:

Dear Rahul,

Yes, it's me. I've had a baby, a boy named Neel. He's ten months old, and I want you to meet him.

She stopped, then signed the letter. She had nothing more to say.

She had not seen Rahul since her wedding night, a fact that was incredible to her. "Hi, Didi," he said when she opened the door, still using the traditional term of respect their parents had taught him. She felt no awkwardness, the sight of him after over a year and a half standing under the portico of the house, completing a part of her that had been missing, like the clothes she could wear again now that the weight of her pregnancy was gone.

"Here he is," she said to Rahul, adjusting Neel in her arms. Neel stuck out a hand, his fingers gripping a digestive biscuit. He babbled softly, taking in the new person in front of him.

"That's right," Rahul said, stroking Neel's cheek with the back of his index finger. "It's your screwup uncle finally here to see you." He shook his head in disbelief, acquainting himself with the details of Neel's face, the nose and eyes and mouth and wisps of hair that Sudha felt she'd known all her life. It was Rahul who'd changed. He'd put on weight, enough so that his once refined features appeared common, his neck and waistline thick. He had acquired the stoop of an older, uncertain man. His hair was combed back from his head, receding above the temples, the sideburns long. His jeans had lost their stiffness, frayed at the hems. The pin-striped blazer looked like it had come from a thrift store and was a little short in the sleeves.

"I can't believe you were born and I didn't know it. You're absolutely perfect," he said to Neel. He looked at Sudha, then Neel, then back at Sudha. "He's got your face, totally."

"You think? I see Roger's."

Rahul shook his head. "No way, Didi. This boy is a Mukher-jee through and through."

She gave him a tour of the house: the kitchen and a small toilet in the basement, the parlor above, two bedrooms and a bathroom above that, Roger's study under the eaves. In spite of all the stories the house was diminutive, and they were constantly going up and down the staircase, which these days Neel was also attempting to climb. The steps were too much for Sudha's father, who had recently developed bursitis in his knee, and when her parents last visited London they'd stayed with friends in the suburbs. But Roger had agreed to let Rahul sleep on the daybed normally covered with papers in the study.

"Feel free to take a nap," she told Rahul, but he declined, coaxing Neel into his arms and not letting go as Sudha peeled potatoes and prepared to roast a chicken. He took in the low-ceilinged space, with its black-and-white checkerboard floor, a perpetually cluttered dining table, Spode plates and copper molds hung on yellow walls. Roger had painted the walls himself, the final layer applied with a sponge. Rahul stopped in front of some shelves where the cookbooks were, along with photographs in frames. Most of the photos were of Neel: in the hours after his birth, in the arms of Sudha's parents, sitting in his stroller outside of the house. There were no pictures of Rahul. "When was this taken?" he asked.