Mira Jacob - The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing

Amina chose her words carefully. “I believe they believe it.”

“Unbelievable!” Sanji resumed pacing, drunk on her own dismay. “Just nuts! All of these years they can’t agree on one single thing, and now they are practically singing a duet? And what happened to all Kamala’s big talk of bad spirits and weak souls and doing His righteous work ? All that is just gone now?”

“No. She just thinks His righteous work sent us Akhil.”

“Oh, Akhil!” Sanji said, and saying his name aloud seemed to break her a little. She leaned forward against the counter, pinching the bridge of her nose. She looked old.

Amina put a hand on her shoulder, and Sanji turned around and fell into her with such force that it felt like catching a ham more than a human. Her aunt didn’t say anything for a long moment, the small gasps of her trying to steady her breathing the only sound in the kitchen. Her bosom shuddered gelatinously. She whispered something.

“What?” Amina asked.

“It’s like it’s happening all over again,” Sanji repeated.

And there it was, the thing Amina had not been able to find her way toward but felt was unmistakably true. She said nothing, her loosely floating fears suddenly converging around that point like water over a drain. That was it, wasn’t it? In the midst of all of the rest of it, all the tests and the treatments and the fights, they were rushing back to that dark place.

Sanji sighed a heavy, oniony breath. “All these years and they can barely talk about him. Some days, I will remember and I can hardly bear it myself. He was our first, nah? Our baby. That sweet little boy who ran around putting his chubby hands into everything, stealing our shoes when you and Dimple were still drooling? Ach!”

Because really, it didn’t matter whether he was the by-product of Thomas’s tumor or some filament of time slipped through a chink in the universe; it didn’t matter that Kamala and the others could not, would not, would never see him. The very idea that Akhil could be in the garden had brought back his loss, pushing it into every corner until the house bled with it. If she shut her eyes, Amina could feel exactly how gone her brother was, her ability to weigh his absence extra keen, dialed up like a blind person’s ability to hear. Cool air rushed against her cheeks and chest and she realized Sanji was holding her at arm’s length.

“I’ve upset you. Oh, baby, I’m sorry. I don’t know why I keep yelling at you all the time about every new thing.” She kneaded Amina’s forearms. “It’s not your fault.”

“It’s okay.”

“No it isn’t.”

“Okay, it’s not.”

They held each other for a bit longer, and after that, there didn’t seem to be much more to say, so they put water on to boil and filled the teapot with Red Label.

Bala was the next to come back, chattering loudly all the way in through the porch and then quieting abruptly as she saw Sanji and Amina. She looked over her shoulder, whispering loudly, “It’s the pain of losing a child.”

“No shit,” Amina said, and Sanji smacked her hand lightly, but Bala appeared not to hear.

“They say it’s unlike anything else. A grief so profound it can bring people closer to the dying than the living . I saw it on the Ricki Lakes once, a whole family that believed their youngest was still in the garage where she—”

“Oh, shut it,” Sanji snapped.

“No, really! And one of my sisters herself had a stillbirth! She was never okay after that.”

“Ranjana was never okay before,” Chacko announced, walking in from the living room, three lanterns in hand. He held them up for Amina. “These are a fire hazard.”

Amina took them. “Thanks.”

Her uncle looked at her somberly. “Okay, koche . So now we know. Next, we need to take action.”

“Yes, but what?” Sanji looked anxiously toward the porch. “You heard them. They’re not doing the chemo until the whole thing is over.”

“Wait, what?” Amina asked. “They haven’t told me this. What’s over?”

“The visit has to end ,” Bala said, pinching the air for emphasis. “He’s only come for a short time, apparently. Thomas said all of the others that have come have gone on their own after a few days, you know, like aliens beamed back into the light, and—”

“He said that? Beamed back into the light?”

“No.” Sanji glared at Bala. “He did not. He said that he’ll start treatment when Akhil is gone, and that Akhil will go when he’s ready.”

“But he hasn’t even talked to him yet!” Bala said. “That was the other thing, no? That Akhil must talk to him, and he hasn’t yet? So he’s waiting for that.”

“Too late,” Chacko declared, rocking from his heels to the balls of his feet and back. “We don’t have any more time to waste. We need to separate them, incapacitate Thomas, and take him in.”

Incapacitate? Amina held the counter as her stomach plummeted.

“Chacko Kurian, have you lost your damn mind?” Sanji exploded. “This isn’t an episode of Laws & Orders ! We can’t just take him in like he’s a criminal!”

Chacko frowned. “He will thank us later.”

“Really? Like Dimple has thanked you?” Sanji snorted and Bala gasped. “What? You know it’s true! Fifteen years since you sent her away, and still this girl doesn’t come home if she can help it, and now you people think we should try it on Thomas!”

“Well, someone has to do what needs to be done,” Chacko said, stung. “And anyway, I don’t see you making a better suggestion.”

“How about we talk to him like one human? Nah, Ami? Isn’t that better?”

They both looked at Amina expectantly, but she was still stuck on incapacitate him , her mind racing with horrible images: Thomas felled like a Serengeti lion, reduced to a mass of sleeping fur, while nimble hands checked tags and teeth; Thomas back in the hospital, prisoner to a staff he once directed.

“Yes,” Amina said. “Let’s talk to him.”

Raj was the last to come in, clearly shaken, cotton stars smashed across the back of his pants where he’d taken a seat on the couch. Unlike the others, he had little to offer in the way of advice and began simply making chapatis to eat Bala’s aloo with, the puffs of flour rising across his face and mapping the occasional tear that streaked down as he rolled the dough into flat rounds. Half an hour later, the Eapens were corraled to the dining room, despite real grumbling from Thomas.

“So can you see Akhil, too?” Bala asked Kamala, passing her the potatoes.

“Bala!” Sanji scolded.

“What? I’m just asking!”

“Nope,” Kamala said. “But did Thomas tell you what he’s wearing?”

“Yes,” Raj said hurriedly, just as Bala said “No” and Sanji looked like she might kill somebody.

“His jeans are short and he has paint on his hands !”

Sanji looked at Amina, alarmed.

“Everyone comes back looking like they did on their best day,” Amina found herself explaining, hoping that it somehow sounded less crazy coming from her, though from the look on Sanji’s face, it definitely did not.

“And have you ever seen him, Ami?” Bala asked.

Amina felt the heat rise to her face and avoided looking at her father. She shook her head.

Kamala shrugged. “He hasn’t come for us.”

“Thomas, what can I get you?” Raj asked. “You’re not eating. How about just plain rice and curds?”

“Actually, I should probably just get back outside.” Thomas pulled his napkin from his lap. “It’s getting late.”

“But we just sat!”

“You stay and finish. I’ll just be outside.”