Mira Jacob - The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing

“No, I’ve decided. I just feel funny about it.”

Jamie grabbed a stray onion ring and dragged it through ketchup. “When is the opening?”

“September.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah. Hopefully I can go.” She tried not to think of her parents’ faces as they emerged from the car that afternoon. They hadn’t been mad about Sanji showing up, or at least they hadn’t said as much to Amina, but then they hadn’t said much at all.

“How’s your dad doing?” Jamie asked.

Amina shook her head, not trusting herself to talk about it without getting upset.

“Any word on the prognosis?”

She shook her head again.

“So you don’t want to talk about it.”

“I just don’t have a lot to say about it.”

Jamie took a sip of soda. “Just using me for the sex, huh?”

“That’s not true,” Amina said, realizing too late that a serious answer turned it into a serious question. Jamie said nothing, rattling the ice around in his cup.

She took a breath. “It’s just my whole life, you know, I just thought doctors knew things the rest of us didn’t. Like they were privy to some metaphysical library or something.”

“Metaphysical library?”

“Just go with me here.”

“Are the books there written in invisible ink?”

“No, dummy, ghost blood.”

Jamie looked at her appreciatively. “Go on.”

“And now, I’m just so, uh”—she laughed to cover up the way her eyes had begun to tear up—“I’m just so fucking disappointed right now. I mean, seriously? Nobody knows anything . It’s all just tests and results and more tests, but where’s the part where they take you into a room and say He has two months to live or That was a close call, but it looks like he’s going to make it ? Where is the part where I stop making deals with the universe like it’s some karmic pawnshop that will let him get well if I’m a better person?”

Jamie handed her a napkin, and she pressed it over her face, willing herself to pull it together.

“Shit,” she said. “I’m sorry. Are we making a scene?”

“Nope. Just you.”

She laughed and crumpled the napkin into a ball. “You were right, by the way. There were other things in the garden besides the jacket.”

“Yeah?”

She told him, careful to keep her tone even but watching his face like it was an emergency weather report. The keys, she explained, had been lost right before she came back home. She had no idea about the mango pickle. But the rest of the items were definitely for members of her family — the trophy for Ammachy (Thomas had always joked that he should have sent it to her), the album for Sunil, the shoes for Itty, and of course the jacket for Akhil.

“Wow,” Jamie said, looking more impressed than concerned. “So he’s seeing your brother, too.”

“I guess so. I don’t know. It’s sad.”

“Is it? Whoa, don’t give me that look, I’m just saying that it could be worse. At least he’s seeing people he loved.”

Amina looked at him. Really looked at him, at the light skein of wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and the little patch of stubble he’d missed by his sideburns and the unnerving way he was squinting at her like she was the one who had somehow overlooked the central truth about what was really happening. “Jamie Anderson, how did you of all people become such a Pollyanna?”

He picked up an onion ring, shoved it into his mouth whole. “Must have been the divorce.”

The family descended the next day. First came Raj, hurrying up the steps with pale blue rings stamped under his eyes and a cardboard box that smelled several kinds of delicious, then Sanji, huffing under a bright red cooler.

“Hello, baby,” she said, sticking out a cheek for Amina to kiss.

Bala came next, looking nervous and slightly corrosive in a bright yellow-green sari. She handed Amina a pack of store-bought cookies as Chacko parked the car.

“His brain? You’re sure about this?” She said it as though it were a bad decision Amina was in the middle of contemplating: You’re sure you want to drop out of college? You’re sure you want to give your father a tumor in his brain? “Because Sanji said she saw them yesterday and he seems fine, but then of course she said he’s been seeing things, so he must have been putting on a good show for her benefit, isn’t it?”

“He’s in the kitchen.” Amina motioned to the doorway. “Go see for yourself.”

Chacko inspected his way across the driveway, taking note of the encroaching yard like it was a traffic violation. He marched up the stairs and squeezed her shoulder before stepping inside.

In the kitchen, Kamala and Thomas pulled dish after dish out of Raj’s box, snapping and unsnapping lids.

“Chapati and beef and appam and stew?” Kamala frowned. “It’s too much. We don’t need.”

“Speak for yourself, woman.” Thomas pulled a chapati straight from the warming dish. “Between all your truffles and trifles, I haven’t had a normal meal in weeks.”

“You’ve had some nausea from the radiation?” Bala asked.

“Surprisingly little,” Thomas said.

“I’ll get you some beef.” Raj motioned to Amina for a spoon. “You can also have the stew, of course. I just thought the beef would be nice and rich in irons. I also made a tomato carrot salad, for vitamin C. It helps with the absorption, isn’t it?”

Thomas popped open another container. “My God! Samosas, too? You must have been cooking all night, Raj.”

“No, no, I just made a few things. I also brought a little homemade yogurt in case you’re having indigestion. Sanji says you’re thinking of starting chemotherapy?”

“Looking into it. Just spoon some salad, too, nah?”

“Excellent, yes, absolutely. Sanji, can you look in the cooler for the kichadi?”

“Ho ho!” Thomas looked more genuinely excited than Amina had seen him in weeks. “Yes, please, and thank you!”

“He should be eating only bland foods,” Chacko announced from the other side of the kitchen counter, where he had settled in. “Bland foods are better for nausea. Rice and curds, maybe a bit of dahl.”

“Kichadi!” Sanji held up a Tupperware.

“Actually, though, what you can eat differs from person to person.” Bala hovered uneasily in the doorway of the laundry room. “My sister with the breast cancer told me that everyone will say one thing or another about what you can eat and what you can do and how you will feel, but really it’s the individual body.”

“You have more plates?” Raj asked just as Amina was reaching for more. “Oh, good. Maybe get some bowls too, for the payasam.”

“Payasam!” Thomas crowed, and even Kamala had to smile.

Half an hour later they sat around the living room with plates that had been filled and emptied twice, the ladies and Chacko perched on the couches while Amina, Thomas, and Raj tucked themselves against stray couch cushions. Poor Raj. Coming down from whatever high had enabled him to cook thirteen separate dishes, he looked particularly spent, the crepey skin under his eyes pouching. Sanji squeezed his shoulder and leaned back into the couch.

“So then, I suppose we should all just take turns at the hospital?” she said.

“Hmm?” Bala fiddled with her bangles.

“I was just thinking one of us should always be with him.”

“ I’ll be with him,” Kamala said.

“Of course, of course,” Sanji said. “I’m just saying that one of us should be there for you, too.”

“What me? Nothing is wrong with me!”

“Just to help,” Amina said, nodding to Sanji. “I think it’s a good idea, Ma. And you and I should take turns going, too.”