The Abundance: A Novel Read online

  * * *

  Abhi likes three whites with one yolk marbled through it. Sachin likes his eggs with all the yolks mixed in. Men first: the traditional reflex. Besides, Mala is focused on feeding the children. She shakes one cereal box, then the other, giving them a choice. I do not break the eggs as cleanly as I usually do. My fingertip chases a fleck of eggshell through the jellied egg white until I draw it up the bowl’s slope and beach it on the lip. I spill the eggs onto the heat and I let them whiten.

  Abhi is sitting straight, lotus position, lengthening his spine. He never did these asanas when he lived in India. Neither had our parents. Yoga was for sadhus, not for engineers and students. Only after seeing white women on the Fitness Channel do it, five of them on mats, blue bay and white boats behind them, he had become fascinated with this sublime science from India’s past. I set two slices of rye bread to toast for him, just in case he doesn’t want the croissants. Soon he will be restless while everyone lingers over breakfast. How wonderful these indoors winter days are! Brownies on a plate, child laughter and child tantrums to disrupt my brooding, plastic trains and picture books and stray stuffed animals on the carpet. Yet these days drive Mala stir-crazy—that is her word—come the afternoon, when dinner is as far away as the children’s sleep time is from dinner.

  Abhi loves these days, too. But he is subject to the inward pull of his mind, which revolves beyond the reach of our ruckus. After Vivek takes Mala’s requisite two more bites, Abhi will play with him for a few minutes. He will roar, he will chase and capture and release and chase again, but then he will get distracted. The chasing will grow listless, the tickling less furious, and once Sachin finishes eating (Sachin is very slow), Abhi will slip into the study, body following mind.

  Half an hour alone with his numbers refreshes him. He can’t accomplish much in that time. I told him once that he returned to his mathematical work the way some obsessive-compulsives wash their hands. He said that was right—except it wasn’t work, it was play.

  Vivek asks for croissants, just as they are due out. Mala gets up to fetch something from the refrigerator and stops, the door wide, her profile bathed in pale, cool light.

  “What’s all this?” she asks. “Mom? Is this just for the next couple days?”

  Tupperware stacks are each topped by a plastic-wrapped basin of a different dahl. On every dish, I sprinkled the shredded coriander in a circle, as in a cookbook. I even have ready dough, covered in a stainless steel bowl. “I made it all yesterday. It’s fresh. There’s more in the freezer.”

  “Isn’t this a little much for the four of us?”

  “The kids will eat, too.”

  “Good luck with that.” Her hand goes for something, then drifts back, thwarted.

  “What do you want?”

  “The skim milk, but…”

  “Here.” I slide things out, slide things aside. “I’m sorry, I should have kept the milk more accessible.”

  “No, you know what? I don’t need it. Just leave it.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “No, Mom, it’s all right.”

  “This will only take a second!”

  She crosses her arms and waits. Vivek has his mouth full of steaming croissant. He opens his mouth and breathes out the heat, then gets up on his knees on the chair as if to show everyone the food.

  “Don’t stuff your mouth like that,” Mala says. “Sit down in your chair. You’ll fall.”

  Vivek doesn’t respond until Sachin looks his way, makes a sound like shhhhp, and points down with two fingers. He turns back to feeding Shivani. Mala sighs while I get her the skim milk. Sachin, his curiosity piqued, sets down the spoon in Shivani’s bowl and comes over to where I have put out some of my dishes. Mala passes him without a glance.

  “What do we have?” he asks in Gujarati.

  “Surprise, surprise, you have to wait until lunch.” I put my hand halfheartedly over one of the bowls.

  “This is a lot.”

  Abhi, his exercises done, approaches the table and the plate I set for him. “You didn’t see the refrigerator in the garage, did you?”

  “What’s this now?” Mala asks. “You bought another refrigerator?”

  “Full-size. And she filled it, too. You should have seen the cooking she was doing yesterday. She sprouted two extra arms, like Durga.”

  Mala shakes her head. “These two aren’t going to eat Indian food lunch and dinner.”

  “Can we have lasagna?” asks Vivek through a full mouth.

  “Chew your food, V.”

  “Can we?”

  “Ask Naani. But chew your food first. This is the last time I’m going to tell you or you lose those croissants.”

  “I know,” I say. “It is too much food.”

  “Not if I am set to work on it,” says Sachin pleasantly, returning to his seat in front of Shivani’s high chair. Shivani is playing with two spoons, one in each small hand. “Home cooking! After a long time.”

  Mala has just poured herself half a glass of skim and is raising it to her lips. “A long time?”

  “Naani, can we have lasagna for lunch?”

  “I meant we hadn’t had your mother’s cooking in a long time.”

  “If I had free time, I’d spend all day in the kitchen, too.”

  “Not for lunch, Vivek. I’ve made a lot of nice things for you. You like raita, right?”

  “Sorry, husband, but I have a job.”

  “Mala,” Abhi interjects sharply. I close the refrigerator door. Abhi would have let the comment pass if circumstances had been different. Things are about to escalate. Vivek is not going to forget the lasagna, either.

  That is when the doorbell rings.

  * * *

  The day before Christmas Eve? At nine in the morning?

  “I’ll get it.” Mala leaves the table.

  Sachin and Abhi glance at each other. Shivani, quiet, amenable Shivani, opens her mouth for another bite, and her father obliges. I listen. The door opens. Mala gives a sound of delight, a laugh crossed with a yelp. “What are you doing here? You know I saw that Spurs jacket of yours through the window and I thought, Naw, it can’t be him. God! You didn’t even tell me. And I thought I was going to be alone this whole weekend! Don’t you smirk at me!”

  Abhi is looking at me with his mouth open. I rush to the door, shouting, “Ronak?”

  He is standing in the doorway, looking a little abashed. I throw my arms around him and feel the chill of his jacket against my cheek. He smells of coffee. I step away and look up. He is unshaven.

  “So, uh, Merry Christmas,” he says, not at ease, his eyebrows twitching, the way they do when he is nervous.

  Vivek comes running full speed down the hall and jumps into Ronak’s arms. Abhi and Sachin with Shivani on his hip approach in puzzled delight. Sachin puts his hand out. “Brother, welcome, quite the surprise!” Ronak shifts Vivek to one side and shakes the hand, then draws Sachin close. The shake becomes a sideways hug. Ronak kisses Shivani on the forehead.

  Abhi waits. He pats Ronak’s shoulder, studying the scruff on his cheek. “So let’s get my grandkids in here,” Abhi says, his voice just short of elation. “And Amber, too—where are they all hiding?”

  Mala glances out at the driveway. “You brought the Beamer?” Meaning the sedan; meaning not Amber’s minivan, not the car seats, not the kids. “They didn’t come?”

  “Right,” says Ronak, and swallows. “They’re in Pitt right now. With her parents.”

  I flush. “You … you came for me?”

  Ronak hesitates.

  I look at Abhi and breathe deeply. “You told—”

  “I said nothing.” I take one look at Abhi’s eyes and believe him. “Ronak?”

  Ronak, seeing me and Abhi tense, grows calmer, offhand. “They’re in Pitt, like every year. But I came, you know, to be here. Here with my boy V.”

  “Where’s my cousins?” asks Vivek.

  Ronak purses his lips. “They’re in Pittsburgh with their
mom,” he says. “But they did send along a whole bunch of presents.”

  “So you dropped them off and came here?” Mala asks. “You took two cars?”

  “Right.”

  “So you left their house at what, six thirty in the morning?”

  “Yeah.”

  Mala smirks playfully. “Kind of early for you, isn’t it, High Finance?”

  “Once in a while’s okay. You know, so I can see how the other half lives. Doctors and surgeons and that kind of riffraff.”

  It pleases me to see Mala and Ronak teasing each other. Abhi is tense. “They must be up by now, right? We can do a video chat so the cousins can see each other.”

  Vivek smiles. “Yeah, I want to see my cousins on the computer.”

  “Okay, V, they’re probably still eating breakfast, and then they are going to see some relatives this morning…”

  Vivek sticks out his lower lip, his disappointment not lost on Ronak or Abhi, who says, “Let me get my phone. I’ll see if we can catch them.”

  Ronak sets Vivek down and tips his suitcase over. It is a large bag with wheels, the kind you would take for a longer stay, or a trip to a place that wouldn’t provide everything the way our house would. Presents, probably. He unzips a front pocket and brings out a Buzz Lightyear figure. “There’s an early Christmas present for you, V.” Vivek is successfully distracted, clawing at the packaging to get it open. Abhi returns with the phone on speaker ringing in his hand, over and over, until Amber’s voice-mail comes on. Her voice slows Ronak’s hand as he zips the bag.

  * * *

  Now that Ronak is here, the house takes on an air of celebration, mostly thanks to his effect on Mala. Abhi relaxes more as the morning goes on, like a moving body warming to water. Vivek plays on the couch, climbs on his mother, basks in her good mood.

  It is unusual for Ronak to spend this much time with family at a stretch. His laptop is usually out by now, or he is sliding a fingertip across his phone, the screen’s reflection turning his glasses white, impenetrable. Generally he leaves the chitchat to Amber. His children, too, would divert us, freeing him from the obligation of interacting. This morning, he seems curiously free of his itch to retreat. Maybe, without Amber and the children, he has consigned these hours to us. Yet he seems happy to be here. Does he know? I wonder. If he doesn’t, I don’t want to tell him. I don’t want to ruin this unexpected warmth.

  For a while, the grandchildren and I do some fingerpainting with a set I bought at the dollar store. Vivek keeps showing his work to Ronak, and Ronak scratches his chin, sticks out his lower lip, and says, in a British accent, “A work of astonishing grandeur!” or something like that, which pleases Vivek greatly. Shivani paints the paper and her face alternately; when she runs out of cheeks, I offer her my own. In the bathroom mirror, we look like we have been celebrating Holi. Ronak goes upstairs to shower and shave when Mala teases him about his “terrorist-mug-shot shadow,” which I think means his two-day beard. When Sachin comes down from his own shower, I slip into Abhi’s study.

  He is at his desk, an architect’s table by the window, and has three separate books open, his graph-paper notepad at the center. He registers the door opening with the surface of his mind and commands his right hand to rise. His left hand keeps writing. It is his “stop where you are and don’t talk” gesture. I walk up behind him and pluck the pencil out of his moving hand, which moves for a few seconds before he startles, as if shaken from a dream. He looks over his shoulder at me, closes his eyes, and rests his elbow on the table, his forehead on the heel of his hand.

  “It’s like walking a tightrope,” he says. “And you cut the tightrope.”

  I clack his pencil firmly on the desk. “I never interrupt you.”

  “What is it?” He picks up the pencil and begins worrying the eraser with the pad of his thumb.

  “Did you—”

  “I told him nothing.”

  “Did you hint at it?”

  “No.”

  “Did you say something to Amber?”

  “I never talked to Amber. I still haven’t got ahold of her. I am worried.”

  “You think they had a fight?”

  Abhi nods. “He will tell Mala first. He may not tell us at all.”

  I bite my lip. “Do you think they fought because we asked them over?”

  “No.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “They wouldn’t fight over coming here.”

  “Why did they fight then?”

  Abhi shrugs. “What do couples fight about? What do we fight about? Some trivial thing or another. Enjoy him while he’s here. She seems to have given him a sound thrashing for us.”

  I smile and kiss his head where the light from the window shines on it. I tap his notebook. “You are overthinking things, Abhi. The answer is four. Two and two is four. Now come out and play with your grandchildren before they grow up.”

  * * *

  I wonder how much Vivek understands of the moods and shifts and silences above him. Does the chill between adults drop like cold air and discomfort him, an unplaceable draft? For the most part, he seems to soak up Mala’s moods. The only time he ever spoke to me defiantly was back in June, right after I had an argument with Mala. I had known he was mimicking his mother and had not taken offense. Still, I had expected Mala to reprimand him. She didn’t. (What had his outburst been about? I think it was the color of his Gatorade cup; he had a special Gatorade-only cup I was supposed to know about.) Mala had let him speak to his grandmother in that tone. The sting had come out in our tearful reconciliation later that night, after the kids had gone to sleep, when as usual we traded apologies and self-defense in whispers at the kitchen table.

  Eventually we lapsed back into argument: “We shouldn’t have to scold him when he does something out of line around you, Mom. You can tell him, you’re his grandmother.”

  “But it’s not as effective coming from me as it would be from you, Mala.”

  “That’s not true, he never listens to me.”

  “He listens to you all the time: he listens to how you speak to me.”

  “I was speaking my mind to you because you’re my mother, but you know, I guess I’ll watch myself in the future.”

  “You don’t have to watch yourself around me.”

  “Well, obviously I do…”

  Old quarrels: forget them. We are happy right now, aren’t we? And I am watching myself. I made no comments on her eating habits or her children’s. It is a sensitive topic with her and has been ever since her teenage years, when I began pushing her to eat more than a few spoons of rice and the skim water off the dahl.

  Vivek shows Abhi two action figures he brought from home. Mala slides an India Today from under the coffee table. Sachin, Shivani in his lap, is pointing at a picture book and counting. Even Ronak, when he comes downstairs, looks lively. With his freshly shaven face, a light seems to have been switched on somewhere inside him. But the eyes are bloodshot. The eyes are not smiling.

  “Did you eat anything before you left?” I ask. “You’ve been on the road for hours.”

  “I grabbed something for breakfast.” He goes for the pantry and starts scanning shelves; he is hungry, he just isn’t saying it.

  “Let me make you something. Go sit down. What do you want?”

  “I’m fine, Mom. I’m not hungry.” He finds the cashews and shakes some into his palm.

  “How about eggs?”

  Mala speaks from the couch. “Might as well save room for lunch, Ronak,” she says. “There’s quite the feast coming our way.”

  Ronak glances at me, and I name the dishes I made for lunch as he strolls to the glass doors that open onto the deck. Inches of snowfall balance precariously atop the legs of the upside-down patio chairs. The only color is from the patio umbrella, collapsed late last fall, propped at an angle. Its floral yellows break the snow. I will open that umbrella again. Even if I do not respond to treatment, spring is almost guaranteed me. I will get to
shake the April water from that umbrella and screw it to the hub.

  Ronak stares out at the backyards. Our swing set with its chairs rusted in place, a neighbor’s trampoline fenced in black netting, another neighbor’s pool, drained and covered for the winter. I remember the blond children in their blue swimming trunks, front teeth coming in outsize, shouts audible over the lawn mower two yards down. They ran and ran and flung themselves down the Slip ’n Slide. The water dried on their golden backs. Then one morning, a station wagon was loaded full of cardboard boxes, clothes and shoes, posters rolled to go up on the dorm room wall. The children came back as twentysomethings, their hair a few shades of darker brown. In the backyard they sat and chatted at Fourth of July barbecues, beer bottles in their hands and fat watches on wrists, slightly sunburned, khaki shorts, button-down shirt sleeves. The grown rich children of rich parents, the life cycle continuing, and me at the window unchanged.

  I go over to Ronak, who is still pensive, his cashews finished. “Is she upset?”

  “You got ahold of her?”

  “No, no. I am just wondering, is she upset? And her parents—what did Dottie and Don say?”

  Mala looks up from her reading and watches for Ronak’s response.

  “They were fine with it. They know I’ve spent every year there for … for years now. Even before the marriage.”

  Sachin stops counting. Mala says, “Did you two have a fight?” Her tone is playful—come on, out with it already, it’s not a big deal—and I fade out, knowing his sister has a better chance of getting the information than me, assuming there is information to be gotten.

  Ronak’s face stays blank. “No. She’s fine.”

  Mala had closed her magazine over her finger, but now her finger slips out. “Funny, for a guy who hustles old ladies out of their savings for a living, you’re an awfully bad liar.”

  “I’m not lying, Mala. Everything’s fine.”

  “You’re telling me your rifle-and-Bible in-laws are okay with you missing Christmas? That’s some real Christian forgiveness, I’d say.”

  Sachin smiles at me in faint bewilderment, having understood nothing but Mala’s suddenly aggressive tone. She has a way of making her voice turn sharp all at once. I am not sure she always intends to be sharp, but this time probably she does. I have been on the receiving end of it before.