Hirsh Sawhney - South Haven

Fortunately, the vigorous creaking of the baseboards forced him to open his eyes.

He floated between sleep and wakefulness for a few moments, indulging one of his favorite fantasies. His dream had been so real and yet ended up being fake, which meant everything else — last night and also the past twenty-one months — could have been fiction too. The sight of a breathing body on his brother’s bed seemed to confirm this suspicion. Arjun. Maybe he hadn’t even left for college yet. The sleeping body kicked off its covers, exposing New York Giants boxers and pale legs covered in hair. But it wasn’t ugly hair. It wasn’t the Indian kind. These legs belonged to Marc.

Having indulged such delusions before, Siddharth knew what came next. His stomach would buzz and churn, and the only way to feel better would be to watch a movie or some television.

“Marc,” said Siddharth.

Marc groaned, placing a pillow over his head.

Siddharth smiled. Marc Kaufman had slept over at his house. Siddharth propped himself up and noticed that his stomach felt fine. He eyed his friend’s boxers, which were so much cooler than his own tight white underwear. Marc’s back was a little pudgy, but his shoulders were broad and strong. Strands of stringy hair sprouted from the crevices under his shoulders. Siddharth fingered his own armpit. It was totally smooth, the armpit of a child.

He got out of bed and raised one of his curtains. It was sunny out, but the rhododendron bush was buckling under eight inches of snow. He didn’t even need to turn on the radio; school would definitely be cancelled. He felt relieved, like he was filled with helium and could float. He put on his Michigan sweatshirt and headed to Mohan Lal’s room, but the door was completely shut. Normally, Siddharth would have barged in. But something inside him told him to knock. He got no response and began to worry. Turning the knob, he peeked inside and couldn’t believe what he saw. It had just turned eight, and Mohan Lal’s bed was already made. He gripped the back of his neck. It felt thick and numb — foreign, as if it were somebody else’s.

He headed to his father’s bathroom, where he half-expected to find him sprawled on the vinyl floor. When Siddharth had traveled to Delhi the summer after his mother’s death, Mohan Lal tripped while stepping off the plane onto the runway, briefly losing consciousness. Siddharth had been so scared he vomited on the drive to his uncle’s home in Greater Kailash 1.

The bathroom was empty and, strangely, Siddharth felt disappointed. He had prepared himself to find his father strewn across the floor — to make the call to 911. If people could read his mind, they would think he was crazy. He stared out the bathroom window. The backyard was an unblemished blanket of white except for some deer tracks. They began at the woods and stopped below the sagging maple, right underneath the rusting, empty bird feeder. His mother used to fill the feeder at least once a week, even during winter. When the temperature fell below zero, she would put out leftovers for the deer and turkey. One time, Mohan Lal had told her to stop, saying that she was interfering with the laws of Darwin. She told him that he was cruel, that she considered herself a part of the animals’ evolution.

Siddharth headed to the hallway, passing his mother’s framed oil paintings of boats and fruit bowls. She’d won various ribbons for these at the South Haven County Fair. He passed the framed certificate of appreciation from the nurses at the VA hospital, where she’d worked as an attending anesthesiologist for twelve years. He glanced at the black-and-white photo from his parents’ wedding, in which his mother was wearing an ugly sari and his father a silly turban, like a real sand nigger. Siddharth didn’t know much about their pasts, but he knew the story of their courtship by heart.

After nine years in Manhattan, Mohan Lal had finally returned to India. He spotted Siddharth’s mother at a friend’s party and immediately knew she was the one. He spent the next two months convincing her to marry him, buying her flowers and taking her out for secret coffee dates on a motorcycle. Mohan Lal had to provide her father letters of recommendation to prove the strength of his character.

Siddharth shook his head and kept walking. As he reached the heart of the house, he could hear Ms. Farber’s voice coming from the kitchen. He paused in the family room, turning his attention to the coffee table, where a half-empty jug of Canei wine towered over the usual bills and legal pads. Next to it was a bowl of pink pistachio shells. Taking a few steps into the room, he couldn’t see them yet, but he could hear every word they were saying. She was talking about something called a kibbutz until Mohan Lal interrupted her. “You know,” he said, “I once managed a farm — in Kashipur, one of the most beautiful places. Let me tell you, the life of a rancher is a good one.” Siddharth had heard his father speak about such things before. When his parents used to fight, Mohan Lal would say he was going to run away to this Kashipur.

Siddharth warmed his feet on the family room’s thin burgundy carpeting, peering through the sliding glass doors into the porch. It was messy, filled with rickety cane furniture, discarded tools, and deflated balls. His father was dicing tomatoes at the counter. He had on his bulky wire-framed glasses, and his unshaven face was covered with tiny dots of gray.

Ms. Farber told Mohan Lal he had very unconventional perspectives. “Is that why you left India?” she asked. “A man like you — you couldn’t have had an easy time in a place that’s so traditional.”

Mohan Lal cracked a smile. “You could say that.” He came down hard on an onion and proceeded to chop it fast, as if he were a machine. “Yes, such a backward place can be stifling.”

“For me it was a little different,” said Ms. Farber. “I left home to—”

“But ask me why I chose to live here ,” Mohan Lal interrupted.

“Uh, okay. Why here?”

She sounded annoyed, and Siddharth hoped his father hadn’t offended her.

“I stayed because this is a great country. Or should I say, it was a great country.” Mohan Lal turned toward Ms. Farber, and his face hardened as he glimpsed Siddharth. “Son?”

Siddharth stared down at the holes in his tube socks.

“Morning, son. Come here.” Mohan Lal sounded very formal, like a stranger.

He entered the kitchen, and Ms. Farber asked him how he’d slept. Her voice was weird too, a little too sweet for his liking.

“Fine,” he said. He stared at the white brooch that was pinned below her collar. It depicted two masks, one smiling and the other frowning.

Ms. Farber got up and filled the kettle at the sink, her free hand hovering behind Mohan Lal’s back without actually touching it. “Instant coffee takes me back,” she said. “My parents — they used to drink it every single morning.” Returning to her seat, she paused in front of Siddharth and smiled. Her teeth seemed particularly yellow today. Tiny wrinkles engulfed her honey-colored eyes. The mole on her cheek didn’t look like a mole this morning — it looked like a small mountain. “You were fabulous yesterday,” she said.

“Yeah, thanks,” Siddharth replied. “Dad, I’m gonna watch TV.”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” said Mohan Lal.

“Forgetting something?”

“Sunday morning rules. Pour yourself some milk and take a seat.”

“Sunday morning rules?” He had no idea what his father was talking about. But something odd was in the air, so he sat down.

Ms. Farber stared at the photographs and magazine cutouts on the fridge, which had been up there for ages. “So you were saying?”