by Sudha Balagopal
I’m driving home after checking out the art museum as a possible wedding venue when I see Papa’s Honda outside his office building. It’s past seven on Friday evening and the tall street lamp casts a pool of light on his personalized license plate which reads GRANYON―acquired after his third hike down the Grand Canyon. He’s obsessed with the wonder. “Most visited tourist site in the US,” he says.
I peer up at his illuminated office window, park the car.
I stride past the dark cubicles toward his office with the glass door and fluorescent lights and once there, gasp-halt. In five blinks, photographic details embed themselves: my father’s arms around a woman, hands splayed across her back, his dark-dyed hair disheveled, maroon tie askew; her brown hair in a loose-hanging chignon, calf muscles taut in high-heeled shoes, the deep red of her dress accentuating creamy skin.
Heart releasing a fusillade of beats, I bolt. Behind me, I hear him shout, “Shilpa! Shilpa!”
I leap into my car, shift gears with a shaking hand. In the rearview mirror, I see him run out of the building, then pound the roof of his Honda.
The song on the car radio accompanies the refrain in my head: Papa’s with a woman, a woman, a woman. He’s cheating on Ma.
My phone rings; it’s him. I clench the steering wheel, pull over. My heart’s still knocking inside my ribcage. I cannot speak to him. Yet. My brain swirls in a kaleidescope of shifting images: the woman in red, her heels, her hair, Papa’s hands. I pull out other impressions absorbed in those brief seconds: the coffee cup with the words “World’s Best Dad” on his table, the sunset wallpaper on his desk monitor, the bland, pale-green cactus print on his wall.
I let the call go. He tries again. I ignore him.
At my apartment, I kick off my tight sandals―the straps have scored indentations on my instep―and flop on the worn couch. Who’s that woman? A colleague? But Papa works in an engineering firm; they don’t employ many females.
Does this mean our small family unit―Papa, Ma and me―is shattered? I want to cry, I can’t. I want to shriek, I can’t. I want to hit someone. I pick up a sandal, fling it at the wall.
I call Hersh, my fiancé, at his home.
“Can’t do dinner tonight,” I say.
“Okay, I’ll pick up pizza after I finish laundry.” He doesn’t catch my tumult. I tighten my grip on the phone. We’ve been together three years. By now he should be able to pick up my inflections: anger, hurt, frustration. “How was the museum?” he asks.
“Forget the damn museum.” I twirl the engagement ring around my finger. He’d saved for a year to purchase the diamond. I bite the inside of my cheek.
“Alright, what’s going on?” Hersh asks.
“I saw Papa with a woman. He’s having an affair.” Silence hangs while the words travel and click.
Hersh clangs the lid of the washer. “What?” The machine beeps; a slap of water hits the tub. “Hold on. Are you sure?” A pause before he adds, “But you love your dad.”
As if that’s enough to prevent Pa from committing adultery.
I love my father. And he loves me. He calls every other day. He remembers not just my favorite foods―ma po tofu and Mysore masala dosa―but he can tell you the names of my best friends from middle school.. He recalls my height at age ten and the date I received my driver’s license.
I’ll rephrase that. I love-d my father.
“I know what I saw.” I teeter on the edge of screeching.
When Hersh brings a large margherita pizza and six-pack of lemonade, I’m sitting in the dark. He places the food and drink on the coffee table, turns on the lights. We’re both math teachers at the same private school. I slide onto the floor. He doesn’t reach for me. I’m grateful.
“Want to talk about it?’ he asks.
I want to seethe and wallow, not talk about what I witnessed. But Hersh’s kind, earnest gray eyes are waiting for my answer. I grab a slice of the lukewarm pizza, toss the slice back into the box. The pie tastes like plastic.
“How did you feel when your parents got divorced?” I ask.
He opens a window to let in fresh air. Traffic sounds encroach.
“Me? I was only eight. Weekends,I went to Dad’s. I liked having two houses, two bedrooms, two sets of toys,” he says. “Dad would let me stay up late to watch television. But Mom and Dad couldn’t stand each other. Look, this isn’t a divorce yet. This is different.”
He’s right.
This is different because my parents have been married for twenty-nine years, because I’m part of an immigrant family in the US, because Papa set the bar high in terms of academic performance, because he dictated how we, as a unit, presented ourselves to the world―well dressed, polite―because he changed jobs often, which meant we moved five times by the time I finished high school, because he expected me to be a doctor, an engineer or an accountant, because he didn’t want Hersh and me living together until after marriage, because he said, “We have strong family values.”
In the kitchen, Hersh knocks a tray of ice against the counter to loosen the cubes.
“Just run it under the faucet,” I say.
“I understand your disappointment,” he says.
I want him to stop tapping the ice tray. “Disappointment doesn’t begin to express my feelings.”
I cannot explain the emotions battling inside. I’m furious. I’m sorrowful, I’m ashamed, I’m unmoored, I’m disgusted. At the same time, memories play peek-a-boo. Papa reading Dr. Seuss at bedtime, solving my algebra problems, teaching me to drive.
My phone rings. Papa, once again.
I text back: STOP CALLING.
My phone dings. I toss it to Hersh. “I won’t respond to him.”
Hersh looks at the screen. “It’s your mother. We’re supposed to discuss wedding venues tomorrow evening.”
He places my phone on the side table, next to the family photo from our engagement party.
“Damn! I forgot,” I say.
He points to the frame on the table. “I could have sworn they were happy. She’s a beautiful lady.”
Ma’s considered good-looking by most standards. Perhaps too beautiful for my father who’s short, thin and soft-bellied. She has large, almond-shaped eyes, crescent eyebrows, a wide forehead, hair down to her slim waist, luminous skin.
“Obviously beauty’s no insurance against infidelity,” I say.
“I suppose,” he says. “We can never know what’s going on inside someone’s marriage.”
He chases down his pizza with sips of lemonade. From the way his Adam’s apple is moving, I know he’s weighing words. He’s self-conscious about the protrusion. I’ve told him, repeatedly, it’s common among males.
Males who can be cheats, two-timers, adulterers.
But this is Hersh. Dear Hersh. He brought me soup and Tylenol when I had the flu. He watched me try out ghagra after ghagra for my engagement outfit.
He’s speaking.
“Huh?”
“So, here’s the big question. Are you going to tell your mother?”
“Me?” Thoughts swirl like grit in a dust storm. I imagine telling Ma. I imagine her face crumpling. I imagine her sinking to the floor in a heap, like a heroine in a Bollywood movie.“No. Absolutely not!”
He rests his hand on mine, doesn’t attempt to intertwine our fingers. In the upstairs apartment, children run. Adult footsteps thud after them.
My parents met eight weeks before Papa was scheduled to leave Kolkata for the US to pursue an advanced engineering degree. Ma, an economics student hoping for a career in banking, became enamored of Papa, already in love after meeting him just twice at her aunt’s house. Papa, who’d been reading up on all things American, enchanted Ma with facts about the Grand Canyon. “Did you know the vivid colors of the Grand Canyon are caused by trace amounts of different minerals?” and “Did you know the canyon’s bottom receives less than twenty centimeters of rainfall every year?” Before Papa approached my grandparents to ask for Ma’s hand in marriage, he told her he’d be poor until he finished his PhD. Ecstatic Ma didn’t care. For the first few years, my parents lived in a rat-infested basement apartment with noisy plumbing and leaky windows. Ma spoke of those times with nostalgia: how she eased up on wearing saris once she got to the US, adapted to western clothing, learned to bake. When Papa finished his PhD and got a job, they bought their first home. They sold and purchased many more, one for every job change, each one suburban-pretty, potted flowers flanking the front door.
After Hersh leaves, I put the kettle on for tea. A cockroach scurries over my foot and across the kitchen floor. I scream, grab the kitchen broom and whack it. Undaunted, the insect scoots under the dishwasher where I can’t get to it. A pest-control company’s television jingle comes to mind: “There’s never just one roach.” Frantic, I open the lower cabinets, look under the sink and in the broom closet.
I turn on all the lights. Perhaps the brightness will be a deterrent. I don’t know how many cockroach families I’m hosting. An unwelcome thought ferments. Perhaps this is not Papa’s only dalliance. Perhaps our moves, sometimes in the middle of my school year, had something to do with unsavory activities.
Once the notion takes residence in my mind, sleep flees. I turn on the television, drink Darjeeling tea, read the school principal’s newsletter, watch more late-night television, fish for the red marker in my bag, grade papers, make whole wheat toast, take a cold shower, check my emails, grade more papers, make Earl Grey tea.
At seven in the morning, the doorbell rings. It’s Papa.
I don’t greet him.
He rubs his stubble, deposits himself on the couch. Ordinarily, he’d chastise me for opening the door without checking to see who was outside, but now he sits, shoulders hunched.
I gulp my Earl Grey, don’t offer him tea.
“About yesterday, I want to tell you . . . ” he starts.
I press my hands over my ears. “Spare me the sordid details.”
He stands, touches my shoulder. “You know you’re my world.”
“I saw you with some woman.”
“That was Glenda from Accounts. Her son’s been arrested and she wanted to talk.”
I move to the kitchen, drop my cup into the sink, run the faucet. Papa’s in my apartment. Early in the morning. “You’re lying.” I ball my fists. “I know what I saw.”
“I’m really sorry,” he repeats.
“Sorry for what? Sorry I saw you? Sorry I caught you?” I pause to take a breath. “Know what I think? You don’t care about Ma and you don’t care about me.”
“I’m sorry you didn’t come into my office. I could have introduced you.”
He steps forward, extends his arms and pulls me close. What he’s saying sounds ridiculous, but held against his chest like this―safe, comforting, familiar― it’s easy to believe him.
I pull back. “Why are you here? And at this time in the morning? To concoct an excuse? To make up some story? You could’ve called.” I remember he rang-rang-rang last night. “Or messaged.”
“You know I’ve been trying.” He rubs his stubble again.
I step back, retrieve the cup from the sink, clatter it on the draining board. “Oh, stupid, stupid, stupid me! I should have guessed.” I stride toward the front door. “I know why you’re here. To stop me from telling Ma.”
I hold the door wide open.
“Shilpa, you’re asking me to leave?”
He lifts his arms, then drops them. He steps outside. As I shut the door, I notice sweat soaks my pajama top.
Thoughts swirl, a maelstrom in my head. Papa may not say anything to Ma, which means she’ll remain unaware, ignorant. He must realize I’ve no choice but to tell her. If I don’t, the unpalatable scene will gnaw at me for the rest of my life. Besides, she’ll crumble if she were to discover the ugliness later and realize she’s been deceived by both husband and daughter.
I consider how I should share the distasteful information. I could say I saw Papa with a woman in his office. And she might counter with, “So? He talks to women colleagues. They’re business associates.” Which means I’ll need to provide details of what I witnessed. She may still not believe me. Or she may be devastated. Even worse, furious.
But Ma doesn’t get incensed. Maybe that’s the problem. She’s maintained a controlled facade: through Papa’s job changes every few years―Austin, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Seattle, and last, Phoenix―through the packing-unpacking, through finding a new home, through making new connections, through helping me adapt to new schools, and through the biggest sacrifice of all, giving up any hope of building a career for herself.
I call Hersh. “I’m not sure you should go with me today,” I say. “Best if I went alone.”
“Understood,” he says. “Just know I’m always here if you need me.”
Yesterday, I was upset he didn’t catch the turmoil in my voice. Today, a wave of love drenches me. “Thank you,” I whisper.
I message Ma: See you in the evening.
She responds: Can you pick up dessert?
I want to ask why―Papa loves her weekend special, pineapple upside-down cake―decide not to. I purchase a bundt cake, secure it with the belt in my car’s passenger seat. The dessert wobbles all the way to the house.
After the forty minute trip, I park behind Papa’s car on the driveway, sit for a couple of minutes studying his license plate. When I step out, I control a staggering urge to pull out the red marker in my handbag and deface the GRANYON vanity plate.
Ma answers the door, kisses my cheek, takes the cake from me. She seems taller somehow, perhaps because she’s holding her chin high. Or maybe it’s the way she’s dressed. She has, as always, paid attention to her appearance. A gold chain around her neck and dangling hoop earrings complement the fuchsia tunic and black pants.
“Where’s Hersh?” she asks.
I shrug. “Busy.”
She frowns.
“And Papa?” I ask.
“Around.” She waves her arm.
Now might be a good time. A chill grips my body.
“I need to wash my hands.” I sniff my fingers.“Filled gas on the way.”
On my way to the bathroom, Papa calls from the study. “Hi, Shilpa!” as if the morning encounter didn’t happen. He’s seated in front of his computer. The stubble’s gone and he’s wearing an ironed kurta-pyjama. I don’t respond.
Outside the bathroom window, a retinue of baby quails follows their mother. Babies trust their mothers, and after they grow up, mothers must trust their adult children.
Ma places the food on the table. “So, the botanical garden. There’s no indoor backup. What if we have crazy winds or unexpected rain? Your wedding will be ruined.” She’s made pulao, daal, alu-mutter. “What did you think of the museum?”
“They can’t accommodate our numbers.” I rearrange the order of the food on the table. Maybe it’s as Papa said. Maybe that red-dress woman has problems and needed to talk. Maybe I’ll ignite unnecessary family trouble. “Ma, I must . . .”
Of course, Papa must interrupt. “Do you know there are six wedding locations at the south rim of the Grand Canyon?” he asks.
Under the table, I rub my cold hands together. He wants to pretend things are normal.
Ma doesn’t acknowledge Papa. She clears her throat. “Don’t worry, Shilpa. I’ve lined up alternatives.”
She goes toward the guest room, not the master bedroom. The door’s wide open. I can see her sleepwear―the caftan she favors―on the bed. She returns, hands me two folders, one for a historic resort and another for an organic farm. I scan the brochures, words blur-swimming before my eyes.
They loved each other, once.
“I need time to think, Ma,” I say. “About all of this.”
“Of course.” Ma tucks an unruly strand of hair behind my ear. “Weddings are important. You shouldn’t make hasty decisions.” She picks up her plate. I lift mine.
Papa’s chair squeaks against the floor as he pushes it back. He leaves his plate on the table.
Ma and I pack leftovers for Hersh. I load the dishwasher, she cleans the kitchen counters. She cuts two slices of cake, hands me one.
“No store-bought cake can match yours,” I say.
She wraps me in a hug. Over her shoulder I see Papa’s abandoned plate on the table, dried bits of food clinging to his fork.
I sit, pull out the chair next to me, pat the seat.
“Ma, we should have a chat.”
Sudha Balagopal is an Indian-American writer whose work appears in Smokelong, Doric Literary and Ghost Parachute among other journals. In 2024, her novella-in-flash, Nose Ornaments, runner up in the Bath contest, was published by Ad Hoc Fiction, UK. She has had stories included in Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions and the Wigleaf Top 50.
