The Story Hour (5 page)

“Why didn't you tell me until now?” Sudhir was asking again.

Maggie closed her eyes. “I don't know,” she said. “I'm just glad I finally told you.”

“Me, too.” Sudhir let the argument drop.

The next day Maggie saw her first client, Rose, in her new home office. It was a beautiful day in early June, and she and Rose stood near the window and admired the plants blooming in the backyard. Then they got started. Maggie had been the older woman's therapist for several years and figured she knew everything there was to know about her—the passionless but affectionate marriage; the mildly autistic son, Roland, who was now in his thirties and living in Dallas; the daily irritants of working at the public library; the ongoing resentment against a sister-in-law. Sometimes Maggie even wondered why Rose continued seeing her, since the problems seemed so mundane, but she had several clients like this who came for regular tune-up sessions. Maggie was thankful for patients like Rose—they made listening to the harrowing tales more manageable. Besides, she liked Rose and was always happy to see that ruddy face, as plain as the side of a mountain but lit by an ever present smile.

Which was why she wasn't prepared for the story Rose told her that day. It turned out that Roland had a twin sister who'd died in the womb. The doctors couldn't do anything to remove the dead fetus; the risk to the other baby was too great. So Rose carried her other child to term, walking around for three months carrying a dead child. She and her husband had never mentioned his sister's death to Roland. But Rose still woke from a recurring nightmare in which the dead baby called to her, threatened to put its translucent hands around the healthy brother's neck and choke him. “I just can't wash it off,” Rose whimpered. “That dirty feeling of carrying death within my body. And the baby in my dreams—it's sinister. So unforgiving. Like something from a cheap horror movie.”

Maggie knew Rose was looking at her, to her, to say something, to set things right, but she was stunned. Amazed at her own vapidity, her own cluelessness. How could she have missed something so important in someone she'd counseled for so many years? And yet how could she have known? She was struck by the limitations of therapy, was reminded anew of the opacity of human relations, the inability to truly know someone else. Her mind flashed to the conversation in the car with Sudhir. If her husband couldn't have guessed at her history with her father, how on earth could she have known what guilt poor Rose was harboring all these years?

She cleared her throat. “I'm sorry, Rose. I'm so sorry,” she began, hoping that her eyes were conveying the sympathy that she felt for the older woman, more than her words could.

“I know,” Rose said. “It's okay.”

Maggie had a two-hour break after Rose left and before the next client arrived. She went into the kitchen to make coffee. She reached for the pot and found that her hands were shaking so badly that she had to set the pot on the counter. She stared at her hands, puzzled, and even as she did, she felt the shaking spread through her entire body, so that she pulled up the kitchen chair and sat down. Was she getting ill? Catching a cold? She didn't feel ill. Maybe her sugar was low? Then she felt a sensation in her stomach, and it moved quickly to her chest and then into her throat and escaped from her mouth as a sob. When she heard that sob, followed by its twin, and then by another and another, she was surprised—What the heck are you crying for in the middle of the day? she scolded herself—but unable to stop. She felt grief move within her like a barefoot woman flitting through a dark house.

So much pain. So many secrets. She felt burdened by the weight of other people's secrets, their grief, their trust, their blinking anticipation, their eager faces, the hunger with which they looked at her, expecting answers, expecting cures, expecting miracles. And until this moment, she had always felt capable of meeting their expectations, had believed in her ability to help them part the cornstalks of their confusion, sift through the hard pellets of their grief, and arrive at a new understanding. Until now she had believed in the power of logic, of rational thinking, of cognition, of self-awareness. But not right now. Not as she sat with her head on the kitchen table, hearing herself sob and unable to stop. Right now each human heart felt remote as a coral reef, and every person so mysterious, so unknowable, so incomprehensible, that she wondered how she'd ever do her job again.

Is this what burnout feels like? she asked herself, and before she could answer, an image flashed before her eyes: of her father sitting across from her at dinner and talking to her husband. Sudhir was explaining a mathematical concept, doing his best to explain it in layman's terms, and Wallace was doing his damnedest to follow. They were all doing this for her sake, Maggie knew, but still she was irritated at Sudhir for trying so hard. Just then Wallace's eyes wandered to her face and he gave her the faintest smile, just enough to let her know that he sensed her irritation, that he knew she was as trapped in her seat as he was. No one else caught that exchange, but it flustered her because it told her two paradoxical things: one, that this was all a performance, that Wallace was simply a guest in her house who would soon be on his way; and two, nobody would ever know her as well as her father did. In one look, Wallace conveyed to her both his hold over her and his disinterest in her.

So it's not burnout, Maggie told herself. It was that she was rattled by her father's visit, and telling Sudhir what had happened when she was ten had made her realize that the memory, which she'd assumed was defanged and toothless, still had a bite left in it. That's all. Rose's confession today had just put her over the edge.

In fact, the shaking had stopped a few minutes later, and she saw her other two clients that day without any further problems. But two weeks later, it happened again. Then nothing for a few months, and then the shaking came back. Sometimes the most mundane of confidences could bring it on. When Maggie sheepishly mentioned to Sophie her suspicion that building the home office had somehow knocked down the metaphoric wall between work and home life, Sophie pooh-poohed the idea. Plenty of therapists work from home, she declared. That's superstition.

So Maggie let it go. Accepted the shaking as an occupational hazard. Worked around it. Managed to control it so it wasn't easily apparent to anyone else. Sure enough, she hadn't experienced it in almost six months. Until now. Her encounter with the Indian woman had set it off. She knew what it was, too: Something about how bereft, how existentially lonely, Lakshmi looked had found an echo within her. And when she'd mentioned the bit about her mother being sick . . .

She walked to her office, glad that it was late in the evening and most of her colleagues had gone home. She opened her office door unsteadily and sat down on the desk chair. She sighed. A martini. That's what she needed. A martini and Peter Weiss were just what the doctor had ordered.

T
ODAY IS
M
ONDAY
and the husband has day off so he look more relax. He sitting in chair and I feels him staring at me. But when I looks in his face, his eyes shift away from me, as if I a piece of leftover food he sick to look at. Again he ask, “Why you do this wicked thing? I give you everything—food, saris, house. This is how you repay me? By doing the suicide?”

I want to say: This is why I do the suicide—because you have come to see me Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and today and not one time you say my name. Not once you give me the kind touch or say one good word. Not one time you looking at me like I your wife. I seen you look at the butter chicken in the restaurant with more loving than you look at me. I want to say: My family was poor but full of love. My dada prideful of me, my ma call me jewel of her eye. When she young, my sister, Shilpa, follow me like a tail. In my village, everyone say my name. Lakshmi, come do this. Lakshmi, show me how to do that. Lakshmi, you so smart. My teacher always pet my head. Even Menon sahib, our landlord, tell me I am as if his niece. That's why only he puts me in charge of Mithai. He always pinching his son and say, “Munna, see how Lakshmi so good at the maths and accounts. You must learn from her.”

I want to say: In my village, the earth is red and soft. When rainy season come, it like a green sari cover my village. The earth smelling so fresh and clean and sweet. I want to say: What this cold, hard place you bring me to? Half year, no leaf living on trees. And ground so bitter and cold, nothing grow. And where the people go? When we driving to the Costco, not one person walking on the street. No melas, no old man selling roasted peanuts, no childrens laughing-playing, no stray dog running round and round, no sweet cow sleeping on pavement, no crow cawing on tree, no nothing. Just long, empty road of silent. You brings me to this upside-down place and you set me in corner like old suitcase. And then you say, “Why you do the suicide?”

But I says nothing. So husband make big breathing sound. “Okay, talk, don't talk. I don't care,” he say.

How hard his words is. I feel the tears in my eyes and I open-close eyes fast to make them stop. But he sees and he bends near his chair and pull out tiffin box from cloth bag. “Here,” he say. “Rekha sent food for you. Goat biryani and gulab jamun.”

Minute he say gulab jamun, my stomach make loud noise, like angry dog. He hear and look so surprise, I begins to laugh. “That Rekha smart.” He smile. “She know what you like.” He bring out spoon and plate and put biryani on it. “Eat,” he say. “Nurse complain to me yesterday you not eating their food.”

I makes the face. “Not food,” I say. “It is plastic. No chili powder, no cumin. This is dead people food.”

He look around. “Be quiet. The white people take insult if they hear you. This their home you are in.”

I say nothing. I am eating half with spoon, half with hand. It is first time today I eat. After few minute, I look at husband. “Thank you,” I say.

But he shake his head. “Eat slowly-slowly. Otherwise you getting sick and they keep you longer here. Big problem at restaurant, not having you work. When they going to discharge you?”

I don't know meaning of word “this-charge” but I don't want to say. He not even waiting for me to answer. “I had to hire my friend Prithvi's son to be waiter in restaurant,” he say. “Stupid fellow, know nothing of being server. All mistakes he is making. Saturday, two customer take off without paying. I need you to come to work quickly.”

I feels good, my husband missing me. I feels good with biryani in my stomach. So I feels the courage. “How much you pay Prithvi's son?” I say.

Husband look surprise and then he say, “Minimum wage.”

“When I come back, you pay me,” I say.

Husband's face look shock. “Did suicide make you crazy? If I pay you, how I pay electric company? How I pay gas bill?” Then he get angry. “Only loose woman speak like this to husband, Lakshmi. I am the one who feed you, clothe you, give you roof over your head. When I come home and find you dead-like on sofa, I call 911 and transfer you to hospital. You know how much this hospital bill going to be? Insurance rate will go up also. Other man would leave wife after this evil business. Such shame you have brought on my family name. Every day customers saying, ‘Where your missus?' And what answer I give them? That my missus is doing aram in a hotel room, eating goat biryani and gulab jamun, while I break my back before a stove?”

I feel ashame. “I'm sorry,” I say. “I was making a joke, only.”

“Joke?” the husband say. “Joke is funny. This is not funny.”

I say sorry second time, and when I looks up, I see someone standing inside the room. At first I only sees the white coat because the face is so dark, but then I know who is standing there and my stomach move, like I on a boat. The husband hate the black people and this is same lady who was here before. She standing with one hand in her coat pocket and her head crooked sideways and she frown. She look at back of the husband like he smell bad.

Then she walk into room, and husband hear her and push back his chair. He open his mouth but she talk first. “Hi. You must be Lakshmi's husband?” she say. “I'm Dr. Margaret Bose. Her therapist.”

My husband look like he have heart attack. No one say anything and in that minute, I feels something move inside of me, so I shifts from my husband to her side. I feel bad, but it happen automatic-like—I feel happy watching husband try to think what to say, do, where to look. And she not know how he hate the black people, and I want to protection her, the way I do my Shilpa. But she also stronger than Shilpa, I know, she no needing me to do protection.

“You are Mr. Patil?” she say, and husband look surprise and then say, “Yes.”

“Good. I'm glad I caught you. We have a lot to discuss,” she say, and then she come to me and put hand on my shoulder. “How are you today, Lakshmi?” she say, and her eyes are so soft and again I think of my Mithai. And of Ma as she lay on the mud floor of our house, the 'rthritis twisting her hand and foots into the crooked shape of the ginger root.

“I am fine,” I say loudly and both she and husband look at me surprise.

“Did you have a good weekend?”

“I am fine,” I say again, wanting her eyes to stay on me, wanting to build the thread tying her to me, against the husband.

“Good.” She smile. “Good.”

Husband make uh-uh sound in his throat. “When will she be discharge?” he say. “My business suffering with her absent.”

The lady look at him funny. “Well, Mr. Patil, we're hardly at that point. Your wife has just attempted to kill herself. Unfortunately, because of the weekend, I've not been able to work with her much. I realize the pressures on you, but under the circumstances—”

Husband not bother to behave his temper. “Then bring a real doctor to give her treatment. I have a business to run. I cannot leave the business to come every day during visiting hours. Very difficult and very costly.”