The Girl in the Garden (2 page)

You placed a hand on my shoulder and something inside me closed up.

There’s nothing to talk about
, I said, and changed the subject. We made stilted conversation over dinner, then I excused myself and left early.

After that night I avoided you for a week, turning off my phone and ignoring the doorbell. I skipped all my classes and stayed alone in my apartment. The first two days I lay in bed, unable to move. The third day I got up and showered, then went into my studio with a pot of coffee and began to paint. I think I might have gone temporarily crazy in those days, painting in a frenzy. I don’t even remember if I slept or if I ate. All I remember is painting and the feeling of relief it gave me, like taking a drug, and also the feeling of not wanting to lose you. Finally I stopped. I packed up all the paintings, threw on my coat, and ran outside into the winter night. I ran all the way to your house, clutching the portfolio.

You looked shocked when you opened the door and found me standing there, out of breath and contrite. I can only imagine how wild I must have appeared, and you had every right to hate me after the way I behaved, but in spite of everything you let me in. You let me in.

I went over to the kitchen table, set down the portfolio, and began pulling out my paintings, one by one.

This is Amma’s magenta parka that I still keep in my closet.

This is the daffodil cake she baked for my third birthday.

This is the canopy bed she convinced Aba to buy for me when I was seven.

This is her orange pill bottle.

This is the oil lamp she lit in the hall closet when she was praying.

This is a rose from her prizewinning garden.

This is her hair covered in snowflakes.

This is the scar on her right shoulder from a snakebite.

You looked at each painting and listened. When I got to the final one I hesitated. It was of a magnificent white bird against a bright green background.

And what about this one?
you asked.

I looked up at you.

I’ll tell you about this one another time, I promise.

For then, it was enough. But I knew it would not be forever.

So I began to write it all down, partly for myself, and partly for you.

For months I wrote feverishly, late at night while you slept, and though I felt immense relief when the story was complete, I still locked it up in a drawer.

I am finally ready to share it.

I hope that when you are finished reading, you will understand why I have left like this with no warning, no explanation, no good-bye; only this story, the ring, and an address in India where you can find me.

Most of all, I hope I am not too late.

F
or the first ten years of my life I lived with my parents in a big, airy house on a hill in Plainfield, Minnesota. Our neighborhood was known as Pill Hill because all the doctors resided there in fancy brick houses built on neat green lawns, high above the rest of the town and surrounded by rippling cornfields. Aba was a cardiologist at the Plainfield Clinic, where he conducted experiments on laboratory mice. Amma had a part-time job in a department store at the Chippewa Mall, but she spent most of her time at home, gardening, cooking, and caring for me.

I would be giving the wrong impression if I said our domestic life was idyllic, but it was at the very least comfortable. I took my parents’ relationship for granted, content in the belief that if I loved them and they loved me, they must love each other.

School was another story. I was shy about my dark skin, unruly hair, and thick glasses, which separated me from most of the other kids at Plainfield Elementary with their blue eyes, hardy frames, and Lutheran church, whose vaulted ceiling soared above their golden heads every Sunday morning.

But at home I felt safe. As long as nothing disturbed our routine—Aba worked in his study or tended to his mice at the lab, Amma cooked or crouched over bulbs in her garden, coaxing them to sprout, and I read, sketched, or played with my dog Merlin—I was secure.

Looking back, I see that things were far from okay; the disturbances in our household were obvious, even before those months leading up to India. But like most children, I believed the world revolved around me, and I was oblivious to the signs that indicated otherwise.

One icy winter afternoon when I was in fifth grade, Amma received a letter.

That day my heart felt particularly heavy. Lindsay Longren was having a birthday party and she had invited every girl in our class but me. Lindsay had made a big show of handing out invitations on the ride home, calling out names, one by one, and making each lucky recipient stand up and walk down the aisle to collect her pristine pink envelope. This enraged our bus driver and added an even more dramatic flavor to the ceremony. When Lindsay had reached the bottom of the pile she looked at me with her pale blue eyes and said, “Oh, Rakhee, I think I have an invitation here for you,” and a surge of hope filled my chest. A few seconds later, she handed out the last envelope. “Never mind, I guess not,” she said with a light shrug, and my face felt as if it had burst into flames. I took my tattered copy of
Arabian Nights
out of my backpack and buried my nose in it for the rest of the ride, anything to hide the tears that had begun to sting my eyes.

When I finally got off the bus, I rubbed my mittens across my damp cheeks before picking up the mail from the box at the top of our driveway as I always did. A letter on top of the stack immediately caught my attention. It looked
different from what we usually received—bills, catalogues, flyers, magazines, an occasional greeting card. It was a simple blue envelope with the words
Par Avion
stamped across it in red ink and Amma’s name and address written in fine black cursive—Chitra Varma, 7 Pill Hill, Plainfield, Minnesota. I knew that Amma’s last name before she got married had been Varma, but no one ever called her that. I found it odd that it didn’t read “Chitra Singh,” which was her full name now, like Aba’s, Vikram Singh, and like mine, Rakhee Singh. Just seeing Amma’s name written like that, Chitra Varma, the name she held before either Aba or I came into her life, unsettled me. The flowery cursive handwriting was so unlike my fifth-grade teacher’s blocky print, or Aba’s illegible doctor’s scrawl.

Carrying the mail inside, I set it down on the table in our front hallway, and pulled off my wet snow boots. My dog Merlin bounded up, his backside wriggling, and almost knocked me off my feet in his excitement. The sharp, delicious scent of spicy vadas sizzling in oil wafted from the kitchen. Amma was singing along to a tape of romantic film songs in her native Malayalam language, the music punctuated by the sound of spluttering oil and the steady beat of her knife hitting the wooden cutting board.

I grabbed the stack of mail and walked into the kitchen, dropping it on the table. She had three different pans going and was chopping magenta onions. Even with tears sliding down her cheeks, she looked lovely.

I used to think Amma was the most beautiful woman in Plainfield, maybe even the world. She was young then, only thirty-one, with pitch-black hair that fell below her waist, skin the color of milky tea, and wide, dreamy eyes, deep and dark as a clear midnight sky. Even though she usually dressed in jeans and sweatshirts, just as the other
mothers at my school did, when she walked among them she was like an exquisite rose surrounded by drooping daisies.

Her good looks made me proud and also gave me hope. At night I peered into the mirror and prayed with all my might that I wouldn’t always have to wear my big glasses, that my teeth would straighten out, and that my skinny, plain-featured, knobby-kneed self would one day erupt into a beauty as glorious as Amma’s. I would think about this for a while until a wave of embarrassment swept over me, and I would look away, blushing.

“How was school, molay?” Amma asked.
Molay
is an affectionate term for “daughter” in Malayalam, and Amma often called me that.

I sat down on a stool at the kitchen counter, in front of a cheese sandwich and a glass of chocolate milk. “Fine.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing.”

Amma glanced up. “You can’t have done nothing all day. Don’t be silly, Rakhee.”

“A letter came for you Amma. It’s addressed to Chitra Varma,” I said, trying to distract her.

It worked. She stopped chopping and moved to the sink where she began washing her hands. Amma’s hands were very small and shapely but covered in scratches from the many hours she spent gardening in the spring and summer. They always gave off a fresh, lemony scent. She wiped them dry with a dish towel, dabbed at her eyes, and went over to the pile of mail.

Amma picked up the letter and stared at it. A red flush began to burn across her face. She dropped it, gripped the sides of the table, and closed her eyes for a long time. Finally, she opened them and took up the letter again.

“Amma, what is it?”

“It’s nothing, just a letter from back home, from India, that is all,” she said, but her voice had changed. It was subdued and slightly haughty, as if I were a stranger who had made a nosy inquiry.

India.
India.
My curiosity was aroused, but Amma did not say another word; instead, she tucked the letter into her apron pocket and went back to cooking and humming.

After a quiet dinner, we sat together in the family room waiting for Aba to come home from the lab. Amma had left a covered plate of food for him in the microwave. I was doing my homework and Amma was reading a novel. At one point I glanced up to find her crying. It wasn’t the chopping-onions kind of crying. Her chest heaved, her hands shook, and tears coursed down her cheeks.

I hadn’t seen Amma cry in years, and the vision made my heart freeze. It made me remember a time when I was little and I would wake up to hear shrieks and shattering glass coming from my parents’ bedroom, or would walk into the bathroom to find Amma doubled over the toilet sobbing and retching. One day Veena Aunty, Amma’s cousin who lived down the street, came to look after me, and Aba took Amma away in the car. He returned alone.

Veena Aunty stayed in our guest room for a month, and when the month was over, Amma came back clutching a bottle of pills. She was a new Amma, a serene, sedate Amma who never screamed or cried. I remember when she walked in the door for the first time, I ran away, and she followed me, caught me, and hugged me close to her breast, whispering, “I’ll never leave you again.”

As I watched her crying on the sofa now, these memories
came back to me in searing flashes. I willed myself to speak. “Amma, what’s wrong?”

She glanced up, and at first it was as if she didn’t recognize me. Her eyes focused and she cleared her throat, but didn’t bother wiping away the tears, which flowed freely. “I’m just reading a sad book, molay, nothing to worry about.”

But I was worried. When I walked behind her, pretending I needed a glass of water from the kitchen, I saw something blue lying flat against the pages of her book.

By the time Aba came home, it was late and both Amma and I had gone to bed. I stared up at the yellow frill of my canopy and listened to my father’s light, quick steps, still so full of energy, coming up the stairs. Merlin, who was curled up at my feet, lifted his head, and the tags on his collar jingled. Throwing off my quilt, I got out of bed, opened the door, and squeezed through a thin crack, leaving Merlin, who gave a breathy whine, behind.

Aba did not see me at first, and I watched him. He was thirteen years older than Amma. His hair had begun to turn gray in patches around his ears, and there were lines around the corners of his mouth and eyes, but I still thought he was a handsome man. Distinguished. Tall and thin, with black, deep-set eyes behind wire-rimmed spectacles, thick, dark eyebrows, and a clean-shaven face. He was carrying a sheaf of papers under his arm.

“Rakhee, what are you doing awake?” Aba did not sound angry, only distracted.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Why not? Is something the matter?”

I paused, uncertain of what I would say, or why I had even come out in the first place. “Um, no.”

“Well then, you’d better go back to bed. You don’t want to be sleepy in school tomorrow and let the others get ahead.” Aba patted my hair before he turned and disappeared into his study.