Mira Jacob - The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing

“When did this become about me? Your job gets hard and I’m the jerk?”

There was a brief pause on the line, punctuated by the anxious bleat of a ferry.

“Okay, fine, that’s fair,” Dimple said. “Yes, I’m stuck. I don’t have a good match, and even if I did, I wouldn’t have a pristine set of prints that I love all ready to mount! But you do. And you’re here, so we could bang this out fast. And I really do think you’re a great fit for the show. Please .”

She sounded like a junkie. Like a photography junkie. The saddest, most pretentious thing in the world.

“I’m not there,” Amina said.

“You’re coming back this week.”

“No. I need to stay here for a little bit.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

“Something is really wrong with my dad.”

“What?”

It should not have felt so good, or easy, to tell Dimple everything, given the preceding conversation, and yet it did. It felt like taking off a tight helmet.

“Oh God.” Dimple’s shoes clacked as she paced. “Does the family know? I mean, obviously my mother doesn’t, or everyone would, but the others?”

“I don’t think so. It depends on how far it got around the hospital. But don’t say anything about it yet, okay? I need to figure some stuff out.”

“Of course. Right. I won’t mention it to Sajeev.”

Amina frowned. “Why would you tell him?”

“What? Oh, just because he asks about everyone from home when we talk.”

“You talk?”

“He’s been coming by. Talking about digital cameras, blah blah blah. Not important. How long are you going to be out there? Like, a few days or what?”

“Maybe another few weeks.” Amina leafed through the remaining pictures on the desk, trying to channel Monica’s strange, flat tone from the day in the car. “We just need to get him checked out and then take things step by step.”

She stopped on a picture of her parents. She laid it flat on the desk. Dimple was telling her she’d keep picking up the mail, watering her plants, but Amina barely heard her. Technically, the photograph was beautiful. Taken at that moment when the sun pulls all the color in the desert to the surface, it showed Thomas at his radiant best, mid-dance, his arms thrown to the sky, a ring of blurred, smiling faces surrounding him. Except for Kamala’s. Even slightly out of focus, Amina could see the wary pinch of her mother’s brow, the look of someone assessing a traffic accident.

For half an hour after she and Dimple hung up, Amina sat at her brother’s desk, listening to her parents tumbling around the house, banging into and out of it at regular intervals, opening and closing cabinets and drawers and doors without ever seeming to run into each other. It was amazing really, a dance so intricate it felt choreographed, executed to perfection through years of practice.

And what would they do if something was really wrong with Thomas? How could they possibly face it any better than they could face each other? Amina looked at Kamala’s blurry face in the picture. It was useless, really, to fear whatever was making its way toward them, its slow progress dismantling the familiar routines of their lives, but that did not stop her from sitting as still as she could in the brightening day, as if stillness could keep the worst of it at bay.

Anyan George was endearing in his own way. It wasn’t a way that made Amina feel like reproducing with him, or even getting close enough for a friendly hug, but his offer to help in the kitchen, his attempt to appear casual in a button-down shirt and a horrible argyle sweater vest, his inquiries about Kamala’s many sisters, and the tittering laugh he released generously at anything even resembling a joke made dinner the following night somewhat less of a chore than she had imagined it would be.

“More cabbage?” Kamala asked, pushing the bowl toward him. “Amina, hand him the cabbage.”

“Oh, no thank you,” Dr. George said, patting his sweater vest. “I am finally stuffed. It was absolutely delicious.”

“We’ll send it home with you! Don’t want you becoming skin and bone!” Kamala smiled a bit too hard, her eyes darting across the table. “Amina will be quite a cook someday, you know.”

“You must take after your mom in the kitchen?”

“God, no. The only thing I can do in the kitchen is try not to hurt anybody.”

“Amen to that!” Thomas said.

“Oh, pah . What for dessert, Anyan?” Kamala asked, annoyed. “We have ice creams and we have cookies and we have ladoo.”

“Much as I hate to, I should go. Early-morning call and whatnot.”

“Sure, sure.” Kamala was already walking toward the kitchen with hands full of dishes. “Let me just get your leftovers together. Amina, come.”

In the kitchen, her mother’s smiled vanished. “Can’t cook! Who tells people the worst thing about you first? Why not let him get to know you?”

“You think that’s the worst thing about me?”

“I’m just saying, let him get to know you! All night you and your father are acting like clowns so he will laugh.” Kamala threw open a cabinet, whipping out two empty Tupperware containers. “How will he take you seriously?”

“We were having a good time.”

“Well, there are times to have a good time and times to put a good shoe forward.”

“Ma, stop. It was a perfectly nice night, and you’re about to ruin it.”

Kamala spooned heaps of potatoes into one bowl and cabbage into the other, sealing the lids with a tight mouth. Amina took them from her, walking back into the dining room.

“Are you sure there’s not too much?” Anyan smiled when he saw the food.

“Take, take,” Kamala said. “When you are ready, we’ll have you back for more.”

“Thank you so much. I really had a lovely time.”

“I’ll walk you out,” Amina said, reaching for the door.

“Oh.” Thomas, on his way out the door, stopped, looking confused.

“Good, good, excellent!” Kamala snaked her arm through Thomas’s to keep him back, and for once, Amina was relieved by her mother’s enormous will. “Good night! Nice to see you, Anyan! Bon voyages!”

The door closed with a gaudy thump, and Amina, too embarrassed to look at the doctor’s face, turned and walked down the steps. Their feet were loud across the gravel in the drive. Anyan kept a careful distance between them and seemed relieved when they had reached his navy blue BMW without incident.

“Well, Amina, very nice to see you again.”

“Yeah, you too.” She looked at him expectantly, wishing he could read her mind, and the silence around them grew fatter.

“Listen,” he said at last, softly, apologetically. “I feel I should tell you that I am, in fact, seeing someone.”

“You are?” Amina asked, before remembering that she didn’t care.

“A nurse, actually. She’s very nice, really, and though of course we’ve been a little less than public about it due to our work life, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention it.”

“I need to talk to you about my dad,” Amina said.

“Excuse me?”

“I mean, that’s great, about the nurse. I’m happy for you. But I need to talk to you about my father. I’ve been hearing some stuff about him.”

Even in the fading light, she could see Anyan stiffening, his eyes traveling back to the house.

“Don’t worry, they can’t hear you,” she said. “You can’t hear anything from the front yard when you’re inside, just the back, for some reason. And I can talk to you at your office if that’s easier; I just didn’t want to show up in the middle of a workday without you knowing what it was about.”