The Unexpected Son (36 page)

Finally, after nearly an hour of tossing, she fell asleep. She had no idea how long she slept, and how deeply. She had a dream—a most disturbing one. Girish was at its center. He was accusing her of ruining his life, informing her that their marriage was over.

Arya stood in the background, looking so small and hurt and alone, it broke Vinita's heart.

Her eyes flew open. It was dark in the room. Disoriented, she couldn't tell where she was. Then the familiar feel of the bed made her realize she was still in Palgaum. But her heart was galloping. Divorce. The dream had been about divorce. Abandonment. Devastation. Her subconscious was probably trying to tell her to brace herself.

She was lying on her side, her face turned toward the window. It was dark outside as well, except for the streetlight directly across from the house. All at once the day's events came back in a rush. And her own problems receded. There was so much else to worry about. Had Sayee returned from her shopping? Had she driven Vishal home yet? What was Rohit's present condition? Had the rioting begun? How could she have slept through all of that?

She glanced at the bedside clock—8:17 p.m. She'd slept for nearly five hours.

Why was the house so quiet? she wondered. This was supper time normally. No one had come to wake her, either.

She turned around and tried to rise from the bed. That's when she saw him. More like sensed him. And froze. There was a man sitting in a chair beside her bed. She nearly choked on the scream that sprang from her throat.

“Shh, it's only me, Vini,” said a familiar voice.

“Girish!” It couldn't be. She tried to focus on the figure in the semidarkness, but couldn't see very clearly. She blinked hard, but that didn't help. He was still there. Good Lord, it wasn't just a dream, but a nightmare in which she was imagining things. She was going insane.

Closing her eyes, she lay back again. “It's only a dream,” she murmured in an effort to calm herself and rationalize the hallucination. The trauma of the day had done something to her brain. “He can't be here,” she whispered. “I
must
be dreaming.”

“No, I'm really here,” said Girish's voice, contradicting her.

She sat up again, convinced she had lost her mind. “Don't do this, Girish. Please, just go away. Leave me alone. I've had enough nightmares.”

“That's the problem. I've left you alone far too long,” he said in his soft, accented tone.

She frowned at him. There was something surreal about this scene. She was having an imaginary conversation with her husband. “What do you mean?” she asked. What the heck, she might as well continue this dream, or whatever it was—and see where it would go.

In reply he stood and came to sit beside her. She felt the air stir around her, heard the rustle of his clothes. She gingerly touched his arm. He felt solid. Felt real. “Girish?” she repeated.

“It's me, Vini. You're not dreaming anymore. But you were a while ago. You were mumbling in your sleep.” He took her hand in his, the one with the missing fingers. And she knew then that he was really there, in the flesh. The hand felt amazingly warm and firm. And so dearly familiar, it brought a lump to her throat.

“What are you doing here?” She peered at him in the semidarkness. Now that she was wide awake, she could see his profile in the jaundiced glow coming from the light outside. The sharp nose, the outline of his eyeglasses, the angle of his jaw—they were unmistakable.

“I got here a couple of hours ago.” He squeezed her hand.

“Why?” she asked, still grappling with the shock.

“Didn't you get my e-mail? I sent you one just before I left home in Jersey.”

“I haven't checked my e-mail in a while.” She'd had too much on her mind. Arya hadn't called in a couple of days, either.

“I've come to take you home,” he said simply, as if he'd seen her yesterday and not weeks ago.

“You want me to come home after what's happened?” she asked. “I thought you were filing for divorce.”

He gave a wry chuckle. “I'd never divorce you, Vini. I love you.”

Fury kicked in at his casual admission of love. “Then why the hell were you behaving like a sulking brat all these weeks? I begged you to call me or e-mail me and you ignored every damn attempt I made.”

“I was an idiot, okay? Too blind to realize it wasn't entirely your fault that you didn't tell me the truth.”

She withdrew her hand and stared at him suspiciously. “What brought this on all of a sudden?” Something didn't add up.

“It wasn't sudden. I was beginning to see things a bit more clearly when I heard you were very sick, and again when the riots broke out the last time. That's when I really started to worry about you, what could happen if…if I lost you. I knew I had to come and take you back home.”

“But you didn't. You didn't even bother to answer my e-mails,” she accused, spoiling for a fight. He had no right to torture her for weeks and then behave like it was nothing.

“I'm very sorry. Like Arya said to me, I'm a complete ass, I'm stubborn and set in my ways, and I'm a fool.”

“She said that to you?” Vinita nearly smiled to herself despite the resentment churning inside her. It sounded just like Arya.

“And a lot worse. You know Arya doesn't mince words. Between her and your sister-in-law, they made me see how stupid and blind I've been.”

“Sayee? What does she have to do with this?”

“She called me last week…told me you were miserable.”

Vinita buried her face in her hands and let out an aggrieved huff. “You were forced into coming.”

He put an arm around her shoulder, a bit diffidently, perhaps because he knew she was fuming, and he feared rejection. “No, Vini. I was getting ready to come on my own. I just had a couple of things to wind up at work before I could leave. The company's going through a downsizing and it's been very tense at the office.” He let her absorb that. “That was another thing that was preying on my mind these past couple of months.”

“Why didn't you tell me how things stood at work?”

“I didn't want to worry you.”

“Is
your
job safe?” Her anger vanished in an instant at this bit of news. It wasn't completely unexpected, with the state of the U.S. economy in a shambles, but he hadn't let on about his situation. He'd been going through a rough time, too, while she was gone.

“Safe for now,” he said.

“Thank God.” She let him hold her, albeit a bit reluctantly. It was awkward after all these weeks of distance between them. But it was comforting nonetheless.

“Am I…forgiven?” he asked with great caution.

She turned the question over in her mind. She'd never known him to falter. He was a confident man for the most part. “I don't have a choice,” she replied after a while, “since you seem to have forgiven my mistakes.”

“You did nothing wrong, Vini. It was I who was a fool. Took me long enough to realize that. I'm glad Sayee called and Arya nagged.”

“How is Arya, by the way?”

“Still living at our house and lecturing me to death. She said she wanted to keep an eye on me while you were gone.”

A chuckle escaped Vinita's mouth. “Good for her.” Her baby girl had done a fine job of watching over her dad and beating him over the head till he'd finally come to his senses. She'd have to thank Arya privately one of these days.

“Did Sayee fill you in on what's going on?” she asked.

He nodded. “By the way, your brother's home and resting. He and I had a long talk.”

“About what?” She relaxed a little and inhaled Girish's familiar scent. He was wearing something soft and it smelled like the fabric softener from back home. He hated doing laundry, so Arya was apparently doing the laundry—her least favorite chore. Another astonishing occurrence.

He pulled Vinita closer. “Vishal explained everything to me about what happened to you thirty years ago. He also told me the man who got you in trouble died in a car crash today.”

“I think he was murdered. He was deep into hate politics.”

Girish rubbed her back with a familiar, gentle motion. “Do you still have feelings for him?”

“Lord, no!” she snapped. “Any feelings I had were gone by the time I was out of my teens.”

“I'm sorry I was nasty to you,” Girish admitted. “I was a little jealous of that guy.”

“You could have told me. I would've assured you that all I felt for that man was contempt. And now he's dead.” She looked up at him. “Don't you think I was jealous of Nadine at first?”

“Were you…really?” He seemed astounded at her remark.

“I'm only human, Girish. Nadine was your wife. But after a few years I got over it.”

He made a sound of frustration. “So I've been obsessing over nothing for weeks.”

“You have, but it's not all your fault,” she assured him.

They sat in silence for a long time, holding each other, deep in their own thoughts.

“What happens now?” she finally asked.

“I was thinking maybe we could stay for a week or two, until your son is out of danger.”

“Palgaum is bracing itself for more riots. We could be stuck here for a while.”

“The trouble's already begun. I took a taxi from the airport and the driver had to take some crazy, circuitous route to get me here. He said there's violence in town—a curfew in some areas.”

“So you'll stay with me for a bit?”

“As long as you want me to.”

“There's an old friend I want to contact. I owe her an apology—something left over from thirty years ago.”

He looked at her quizzically, perhaps wondering how many more painful secrets she still kept tucked inside her. “Would you like me to go with you?” he asked instead, stunning her once again.

“Prema lives in Bangalore, so I just might have to settle for a phone call—if I can manage to track her down, that is.” Vinita wasn't sure it was possible, but she would certainly try. “Would you like to meet Rohit one of these days?” she asked him cautiously. “If he makes it.”

“I'd like that.”

Girish's reply settled in her belly like a warm cup of tea on a cold morning. “I think you'll like him. He's a bright young chemistry professor, and he used to be a star cricketer in college.” She could hear the pride in her own voice. She desperately wanted to believe that the son who'd come into her life so unexpectedly would live a long and productive life.

“I hope he makes it, Vini,” Girish said, as if he'd read her mind. “I wish him well.”

Vinita slid off the bed and turned on the light. Seeing Girish's face more clearly brought a fresh surge of hope to her flagging spirits. It had been so long since she'd seen that beloved face. He was dressed in casual khakis and a gray T-shirt with his company's logo across the chest. With a day's growth of beard and disheveled hair he looked unkempt and travel weary.

He looked wonderful.

She loved him so much. Needed him so much. Thank goodness he'd finally seen the light. She blinked back the tears needling her eyes. She'd been crying like a leaky faucet lately.

Tugging on his hand, she urged him to his feet. “Come on, let's go look in on Vishal, then go downstairs and get something to eat.” She sniffed. Prawn curry and
dal
were cooking in Sayee's kitchen. Her appetite was finally beginning to perk up.

As he got to his feet, Girish studied her with narrowed eyes. “You've lost weight.”

“I was ill for several days, remember?”

“I've missed you, honey.” He reached for her again and gathered her to him in a crushing hug that seemed almost desperate in its need. It matched her own.

“Likewise,” she confessed on a whispery breath. She wasn't going to tell him yet just how much she'd missed him. She'd let him suffer a little. Wrapping her arms around his waist, she settled her head on his chest, content to stay there for a while.

There was so much happening around them, she almost felt guilty about standing still. The town was under siege; Som was dead; there was no guarantee that her son would make it; her mother was still bristling at her on some level. And yet none of those things seemed as terrifying as they had earlier in the day.

Girish was here now, and he was willing to stand by her, share in her worries. That's all that mattered at the moment. The sense of release was like nothing she'd experienced in a long time. She'd indulge in the peace a little, she decided, then wrestle with her demons later.

He was the first to stir. “Are we going to eat anytime soon?” he asked gently.

“Missed my cooking, huh?” she teased.

“Dreadfully. I couldn't eat one more bite of Arya's organic pizza and vegetarian sushi,” he admitted with a laugh. “It's the main reason I came to fetch you.”

“I should have guessed,” she said.

“And I wanted us to be together for our twenty-fifth anniversary,” he added quickly.

She didn't tell him that she'd been deathly afraid there wouldn't be a twenty-fifth for them. “It would be nice to celebrate it here, with the family,” she said instead, tears of relief and gratitude pooling in her eyes all over again. “Maybe Arya can fly down for a week or so. Rohini and Kishore, too.”

“Hmm,” agreed Girish. “We could make it a special reunion event. It could be fun.”

“Then let's do it!” Maybe Rohit and his parents could join in the family celebration. Make it that much more special, Vinita reflected, letting the tears swell and fall. She wanted that so much—for Rohit to accept his new family.

If only God would be merciful enough to fulfill one small, simple wish: save her son.

A READING GROUP GUIDE

 

THE UNEXPECTED SON

 

Shobhan Bantwal

 

 

ABOUT THIS GUIDE

 

The suggested questions are included
to enhance your group's
reading of this book.