Mira Jacob - The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing

“What?”

“Something is wrong with you! I don’t know!” Amina looked at her father pleadingly. “I’m not the doctor.”

Akhil turned back to Thomas. “So that’s why you took me in for those tests? You said you were looking for sleep apnea!”

Thomas nodded. “We were looking for everything. Apnea was a possibility. Narcolepsy was also a possibility.”

“But you didn’t tell me that.”

“I wanted to be sure.”

“Oh, so now you’re sure?”

“No, not entirely. But we need to look into it if we’re going to treat you—”

“Treat me? Like I’m your patient ?” Akhil’s voice shot up a scale.

“Not mine. Dr. Subramanian’s.”

“You’re going to let that guy fuck with my brain?”

“Akhil, we’re not going to do anything to your brain—”

“Bullshit! You’re going to fucking lobotomize me! You’re going to … what do you think? That you can just change me?”

“What is he talking about?” Thomas asked his wife, but Kamala shrugged, arms crossed tightly over her chest.

“God only knows what things you and your son will say to each other. So? Now he’s angry. Brilliant, Thomas.”

“I told you, this isn’t something we can ignore—”

“Of course it isn’t. When I tell you, it’s some silly joke, right? Some silly woman with her head on outwards. But when you decide, then it’s a problem.”

“This has nothing to do with that. How many times do I have to say—”

“I’m not going,” Akhil announced. His parents looked at him. “To get more tests. I’m not going to do it.”

“You have to,” Thomas said.

“You’re not touching my brain.”

“Of course I’m not; the testing isn’t invasive—”

“I’m telling you, I’m not going.”

“Son, don’t make this worse than it is, okay? All I’m saying is that we need to figure out what it is. That’s all.”

“And then what? We find out I’ve got narcolepsy, and then? What’s the cure?”

“Why get ahead of yourself? We’ll just have to take it slow. First figure out what we’re dealing with.”

“We? We? What, you’re going to stick around for this like you care?”

“Of course I care! Don’t be silly!”

“Bullshit. You’re never even fucking here. You don’t even …” Akhil looked at his mother, at Amina, at his father’s mouth, which was already opening in rebuttal. “You don’t even like us.”

Thomas’s mouth snapped closed. Akhil’s eyes turned bright pink, and for an awful moment Amina thought he might start crying, but he said nothing else.

“You think I don’t like you?” Thomas asked, almost laughing, but then he stopped, a deer in the forest listening to an unwelcome stillness. He looked from Akhil to Kamala to Amina.

“You think I don’t like you?” he asked them.

No one answered. The question blew through the kitchen, over Akhil’s pained eyes and crossed arms, brushing a stray strand of hair from Kamala’s furrowed head, and finally pressing against the base of Amina’s throat, so that even if she could have figured out what to say, she wouldn’t have been able to say it.

Thomas’s head dipped. He took his plate to the sink and stood in front of it, his silhouette buzzing in the fluorescent light.

“Someone has to work,” he said quietly.

Amina looked at the table, its glaze of crumbs and splotches, the arced footprint of oil left from a jar of mango pickle. From the corner of her eye, she saw her father lean heavily into the kitchen counter.

“You need to get the testing,” Kamala said.

“What?” Akhil asked.

“You do.”

“Mom, you just said—”

“And now I am saying different.”

“Based on what ?” Akhil said, spit flying across the table. “Dad? His fucking … patriarchy ? You’re just going to sit there and take it like some goddamn pushover? IT’S THE 1980s, MOM. YOU ARE ALLOWED TO HAVE YOUR OWN OPINION.”

Kamala shut her eyes and exhaled slowly, as if to expunge every last trace of the sentence. “No driving until you do.”

“What?”

“It’s not safe.”

“Since when?”

“Since now.” Kamala stood up from the table, her eyes scanning the living room, then marched to the couch, where Akhil’s backpack lay.

“Wait!” Akhil shot up. “Wait, what are you doing?”

“I want the keys.”

“No! I mean, you don’t have to take them. I won’t drive. I promise. I swear.”

“Then it won’t matter that you don’t have the keys.”

“But when do I get them back?”

Kamala hovered over the bag, looked at her husband.

“Once we know the severity of your case,” Thomas answered.

“And what if it’s severe?” Akhil asked.

Amina saw her parents look at each other again. Kamala licked her lips. “Then you don’t drive, but that’s not the end of the—”

“I don’t drive ever ?”

“Not until we know that you won’t hurt yourself or someone else,” Thomas said.

Kamala reached for the backpack, but Akhil cut her off, grabbing it with one hand and fending her off with the other. His eyes were wide and white in their sockets, his face sweaty.

“Not on weekends? Not even to prom?” he asked.

“Give it to me,” Kamala said, motioning.

“No.”

“Give it.”

“No!”

The tug-of-war that ensued was brief, silly, catastrophic. Kamala latched on and yanked the bag in her direction, while Akhil pulled it in the other. Amina watched from the kitchen table as her mother leaned away with all her weight like some sort of sari-clad warrior. Akhil leaned back. There were grunts, groans, curses, and just as Akhil began to get a better grip, his mother redoubled her efforts, straining harder, her whole person intent on winning, so much so that she failed to see the decision when it flickered across her son’s lips in a cruel smile. He let go suddenly, and the bag slammed into her face, sending her backward, hard. She landed flat on her back. For a moment, the rest of the Eapens were silent, staring at her arms and legs akimbo, sari splayed, the backpack where her face should have been.

Amina was standing, though she didn’t remember standing up. Her father moved quickly, shoving Akhil away and lifting the backpack. Under the nylon and the zippers, Kamala lay blinking, one eye shut in dismay.

“Don’t move,” Thomas said. “Just sit there for a moment.”

Kamala raised a hand to her cheek, pressing it gingerly. She stared at the blood that dotted her fingertips.

“It’s a small cut,” Thomas assured her. “Don’t touch it. Amina, get the hydrogen peroxide.”

Amina turned and ran to the pantry on legs shaky with heat. It was cool in the pantry, full of the smell of soup and pickle, and she wanted to stay there for a moment, hidden, until whatever needed to happen out there had happened. Her mother groaned. Amina stepped on a bag of basmati to reach for the cotton balls, Band-Aids, and peroxide.

“Oh my God, Mom,” she heard her brother say.

Amina walked past him on the way back and almost felt sorry for him, kneeling on the carpet, looking like he wanted to melt into it.

“Get ice in a bag,” Amina’s father barked as she handed him everything, and she ran back to the kitchen, opening the freezer. She grabbed out two trays of ice and then looked frantically around the kitchen.

“Where are the plastic bags?” she shouted.

“Oh God, Mom.”

“Under the sink,” her mother said, her voice weak, and Amina grabbed one. She emptied the trays into it and ran back. Akhil hadn’t moved an inch, but Kamala’s hands were roaming her face, patting her features as though they were Braille.