The Ever After of Ashwin Rao. Padma Viswanathan

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      As the coffee decocted, I tried to figure out who had called me. Not a number my phone or I recognized, but there was a message: Brinda.

      I perked up a little.

      Her voice was breathless and uncertain on the message, thin and small when I reached her on the phone. She wanted to meet.

      “But yes, I would be happy to . . .” The throbbing had returned. “Tomorrow? The same café?”

      “Um . . .” I heard her swallow, and grew concerned that if she had to wait, she might not show up.

      “Or now?” I could pick up Tylenol on the way and surely the coffee would help.

      She exhaled. “Now would be great, but, I don’t suppose you have an office or anywhere, that— I would really prefer somewhere private?” She had tears in her voice. The bombing anniversary, perhaps? My mind was working slowly. More privacy—why?

      “I’m so sorry. I don’t have an office.” The dentist started his drill downstairs. I felt it in my molars, loosened by the drink. “I suppose, if you don’t mind, you could come here. It’s a studio apartment, but it has a sitting area. There is a dentist’s office beneath, but the place itself is quite private. Come, why don’t you?”

      We agreed that she would, within the hour. I opened a window, cleared an empty bottle off the balcony table and scouted for further signs of my binge. A burst of laughter from downstairs. Elsewhere, people were eating or opening a window or just walking dully along. Not everyone re-died each June 23.

      I lay down on the bed with a cool washcloth over my eyes, then drank my coffee, but the fog was only starting to recede when Brinda tapped on the window of the door.

      “You found it,” I said to her. She, too, was newly showered, hair wet. Eyes also wet? “I feared it would be tricky.” She seemed unsure whether to enter. “Please.” I indicated the sofa. “Take a seat.”

      She stepped over the threshold, but stopped, one elbow in a hand, painful indecision. “I shouldn’t have come.”

      “Not at all. A cup of—”

      “I really should . . .” She was turning again toward the door. But then, with a shuddering breath, she let her hands and head drop.

      I touched her back lightly, moving her toward the sofa. She sat and I brought her a glass of water and a kitchen chair for myself. Then I waited.

      She sipped and began. “I’m sorry for coming, but I’m in such a bind. I need so badly to talk to someone and I don’t really want to talk to my friends, because, well, I guess you’ll understand once I tell you the whole thing, that is, if you’re all right with hearing it. It’s a long story, and I’ve never told anyone, and . . .” Finally, the tears arrived.

      I put the box of tissues near her, small tidal waves assaulting my cranium as I stood, as I bent. Despite this, the ol’factory wheels were turning: shampoo, clean clothes, and something peppery. Fenugreek? Nothing unhealthy. I sat and squeezed my eyes closed for a second. Massaged my temples. Brinda’s hairline, her eyes, something about her features reminded me of Asha. Nearly the same age, they would have been. It could so easily have been Asha, coming to me for a word of comfort. Or perhaps she would have been hit by a car, or overdosed, or come to mistrust me. This was an old game, alternative misfortunes, and I’d exhausted its philosophic compensations. No. Asha would be like this: healthy, accomplished, stretches of contentment, hard work and love, occasionally troubled by matters where my help was useful. But then, I should never have moved back to India. The loose skin of my forehead slid easily over my skull. I pulled it taut. The kettle rang. I opened my eyes. Brinda was looking at me.

      “Are you feeling okay?” She wiped her nose.

      “Yes, fine,” I said, blinking. I stood up to fill a teapot. “Tell me.”

      “I need to see a therapist, badly, but I’m not in town for very long, or I don’t know how long I’ll be here, and since you and I already met, I thought perhaps I could— I’m obviously willing to pay.”

      This was sticky. “I’m sorry. I’m no longer licensed here in Canada. But I’m sure I can help you find someone. There must be many therapists in Lohikarma.”

      “No, no, no—please?” Her eyes and nose were red and her shirt looked too big for her. “I don’t want to deal with trying to find someone I connect with, all that. Is there any way you— We could do it informally, or—I . . .” She blew her nose assertively. “Never mind. I’ll figure it out. I never should have come.”

      I poured a cup of tea for her. Milk. Sugar. I had no biscuits; what’s a cup of tea without biscuits? “No—let’s talk. Informally, as you say. No payment, no . . . promises. This is not therapy. It is merely talking. Is that all right?”

      “I need one promise, though. You can’t breathe a word of this to my parents.”

      “Tch. I wouldn’t dream of it.”

      “Well, not to anyone. Like, I don’t want this in your book. It’s not related, anyway.”

      “So, not therapy, but therapeutic confidentiality.”

      She nodded through the tea-steam. “I kind of have two problems. The first one, maybe it’s the biggest one . . . maybe they’re the same problem.”

      I waited.

      “Let me back up.” She took a big breath, sipped her tea and smiled at it. I do make a good cup of tea. “As I told you yesterday, I wasn’t allowed to date in high school. I had crushes, fooled around a tiny bit in secret, but never a proper relationship.”

      This was the preface: no intimate relationships while she was in university, such that this fact itself became something of a burden. After undergrad, a terminated relationship with a slightly older fellow who didn’t feel comfortable taking her virginity. A year working for a London NGO that included an affair with a married doctor—he was her first lover, though she hid that from him—and a fling with some young man on holiday in France. I imagine her story’s start was different from those of most young Canadians, though perhaps it became more like theirs at the end? She stated that she hadn’t rebelled much, and she did seem more attached to her parents, more concerned for their approval, than I recalled was the case with those young Canadians I saw all those years ago. But here I am, generalizing about them.

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