Mira Jacob - The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing

“What are you looking for?”

“Coffee.”

“Next to the spices. With the red top.”

Thomas pulled down the tin of Nescafé and opened it, taking a hesitant whiff before nodding. “You want some?”

“Gross.”

“Right.” He took the tiny plastic cup out of it, ladling a spoonful into a mug. “What are you looking for?”

She was looking through the paper for the horoscopes for any indication that Dimple missed her, or barring that, that someone was on the verge of falling in love with her. Thomas watched the kettle with remarkable concentration.

“Know what we need?” he asked a few moments later, and she looked up, the line Someone special has taken notice of you momentarily disorienting her.

“Huh?”

“A coffeepot with an alarm clock attached. You know? So that when the alarm clock goes off, the coffee starts brewing. So by the time you get to the actual kitchen, there it is — a full pot of coffee! — just waiting for you. Neat, huh?”

“Sure.” She looked down at the paper to read his horoscope. “Okay, Dad, today for Leo says—”

The phone rang, cutting her off, and Thomas answered it.

“Cindy!” he said, as though to a long-lost friend. It was the way he always talked to the nurses who called. “What’s going on?”

“What?” Thomas said. “No, he’s home, why?”

The voice on the other end said something, and Thomas covered the receiver and turned to Amina.

“Check the driveway for the station wagon,” he said, his voice calm. He spoke back into the receiver. “What time did you say they came in?”

Queen Victoria was sitting in front of the door as she approached and made no effort to move as she turned the handle.

“Let’s go, Your Majesty,” Amina said, and the dog got up with some canine groaning, shuffling aside as Amina opened the door. She stood blinking in the morning, the heat of the coming summer warming the tops of the trees and chasing puffs of cotton down from the branches into the driveway.

Akhil’s car was gone.

“How bad are the burns?” Thomas said as they drove, phone jammed between his shoulder and ear, and Amina heard a burst of static in reply. He was driving fast, his arms shaking, and the pack of traffic they were moving in dropped back like dogs until there was nothing but clean road and sky in front of them.

“Okay,” her father was saying. “Okay. Was he at all responsive when he came in?”

Next to him, Kamala read every movement of his face.

Amina looked out the window, staring at the fence of green poles that divided the highway until they blurred together to reveal the cars driving in the opposite direction on the other side. They zipped by at an astounding speed, and she counted them frantically as she heard her father hang up, as her mother said, “What? What is it?”

“Let’s just get there,” Thomas said.

Sanji Auntie came barreling through the sliding glass doors like a maddened hippo, salwar bunched around her hips, wet hair clumped to her forehead. When she saw Amina she walked quickly across the room, shouting, “Are you okay?” and smothering her with a hug before she even had time to answer.

“Are you okay?” Sanji said again, holding Amina firmly back and looking at her.

“I’m fine. It’s Akhil.”

“Daddy said something on the phone about a car accident?”

Amina nodded. “The ambulance brought him in. The ER recognized him and called Dad.”

“So they’re inside? You’ve been waiting out here alone?”

Amina nodded again, suddenly feeling very teary. Sanji sat down in the chair next to her and pulled her onto her lap, which should have felt ridiculous but didn’t. She shut her eyes tightly and pressed her face into her aunt’s neck.

“Poor thing, must have been scared, no?”

Amina nodded and let herself cry a little as Sanji Auntie rubbed her back in circles, talking up a storm.

“… almost didn’t hear the phone ringing because I was just getting out of the shower, but then I thought I’d check and your father told me and I came running. Uncle is on the way, and Bala and Chacko are at home with Dimple, who is so worried about you. I told them we would call as soon as I heard anything. Poor thing. But don’t worry, nah? Akhil is okay. Mummy and Daddy are just scared right now. But he’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” Amina whispered.

Sanji Auntie didn’t say anything but kept rubbing her back, which helped a little. Out the window Amina saw more flashing lights, and another ambulance pulled up. This time, when the EMTs hopped out to open the back she made sure to look away. Sanji Auntie inhaled and sighed, shifting Amina on her lap. She started to say something and stopped.

“What?” Amina asked.

She sighed. “I’m just thinking, this is a bad place, no? How about if I take you to the Kurians’? You can wait there instead?”

“What about Mom and Dad?”

“I’ll tell one of the nurses to tell them. They can come and pick you up later. This is no place for you to sit.”

Amina sat up and looked at the steel doors, feeling a little guilty.

“It’s fine, Ami, Mummy and Daddy would want you there instead anyway. Shall I just call Bala?” Sanji scanned the waiting room. “Come, there’s a pay phone.”

They walked across the room to the far corner, where two of the three pay phones were occupied. Sanji picked up the third and, after listening to a dial tone, dropped in a quarter. Amina watched a man sink into the chair she had abandoned, checking his watch.

“I have her,” Sanji Auntie was saying into the phone. “Shall I bring her over to see Dimple? I don’t want her waiting here with so much of awful things in this place.”

Bala Auntie’s voice squeaked over the line, and Amina thought she heard someone saying her name. She looked to her side.

“Ami.” It was her father. Amina caught a blurry flash in his eyes, and he looked away. Pink. His eyes were terribly pink. Behind him, Amina’s mother stood, holding something in her arms. A cat. A baby. Amina squinted and saw Akhil’s leather jacket.

“Kamala, what happened to your eye?” Sanji Auntie said, and Kamala looked through her like a window. And something stopped then. It might have been her breathing or the sirens or every beeping monitor in the hospital, but in those seconds, Amina saw how smooth and hollow her mother’s eyes had grown, how stripped of perception. When no one said anything else, Sanji Auntie hung up the phone.

“There was an accident,” Thomas started to say, then didn’t say anything else.

One hand covered Sanji’s mouth, and the other flew to Amina’s shoulders, as if to steady them. Someone somewhere was saying no, no, no, no .

“What?” Amina heard herself ask, even as her father looked at her, even as she knew. “What?”

Kamala held the car keys in front of her like a flashlight, guiding herself across the parking lot to the car door with steady steps. Behind her Thomas followed, and behind him, Amina and Sanji.

“Kamala, Thomas, let me drive you all home, please,” Sanji Auntie said again, and Kamala shook her head.

“We’re fine.”

“You’re not fine, ben , how can you be fine? It’s nothing to me; Raj and I will come back to pick up your car this evening—”

“No,” Kamala said firmly, unlocking the door. “No, thank you.”

Sanji stepped away from the car, watching as they got in. She pulled up the tip of her salwar and tugged the bulbous fruit of her nose with it. She bent down to place her palm against the backseat window, staring at Amina as the car started up.

“Call me,” she mouthed, and Amina nodded. She backed up as the car pulled away.