Confessions and Lies

Anand was one my favorite relatives. He was five years older than I and we’d spent many summers together in Thatha’s brother’s house in our village near Kavali.

The last summer we spent there had been quite an adventure. Thatha’s brother, who we called Kathalu-Thatha, had been trying to track down the thief who was stealing from his mango orchard and we were convinced that we could be just as good as writer Enid Blyton’s Famous Five heroes. Anand was thirteen, Sowmya eleven, and I was all of eight years old; we thought we made a dashing Thrilling Three.

Thatha’s brother told the best stories and that was why we called him Stories-Grandpa, Kathalu-Thatha. We would all gather around a fire and Kathalu-Thatha would tell us about the ghost who lived in the old well in the middle of his sugarcane field, the old-old man who still lived in the shack by the stream at the end of the village and the tigers that would come out only in the night to take away little naughty children. Some stories scared us, others made us laugh, but all of them brought us closer to Kathalu-Thatha. My memories of sitting by the fire, sipping hot sweet milk from silver tumblers while Kathalu-Thatha wove tall tales that were rich, still had the ability to brighten my day.

Anand gave me a hug as soon as he saw me. “You took too long, Priya,” he said. “And now you are all grown up.”

“All grown up and single,” Ma muttered from behind us. “And making nakhras, throwing tantrums like a spoiled brat.”

I sighed.

“Let it be, Akka,” Sowmya said, wrapping the edge of her sari around her waist. “Why don’t both of you go and bring the mangoes downstairs while I get Anand’s tea ready?”

It was a good escape route—neither Anand nor I needed to be told twice.

“I hear a boy is coming to see you tomorrow,” Anand said, as we went up the stairs. “Two boys in one day. . . . My mother must be in heaven.”

“Yup,” I said sarcastically, “one for me and one for Sowmya. Just a regular meat market.”

“Oh, it won’t be so bad,” Anand said, and patted my shoulder.

“And so says the man who fell in love, eloped, and married,” I pointed out. “And there is big news as well.”

Anand smiled from ear to ear. “I can’t believe it. Can you believe it? I am going to be a father?”

I shook my head and laughed. No, I couldn’t believe the Anand who had spent an entire night atop a mango tree waiting for Kathalu-Thatha’s mango orchard thief to make an appearance was now old enough to be a father.

“I was thinking about our last summer at Kathalu-Thatha’s house,” I said, as we started folding the muslin cloth on which the now dried and wrinkled mangoes lay.

“Oh yes,” Anand said, rubbing a scar over his left eye. “ Amma refused to ever let me go there again.”

It had been late in the night. Sowmya and I kept guard at the end of the orchard, looking for the thief. We’d sneaked out of the house, adamant at finding the thief to impress Kathalu-Thatha. Sowmya had been reluctant, but Anand and I had been persistent. Unable to bow out in the face of our enthusiasm, Sowmya came along, her forehead wrinkled in a worried frown.

Anand was on sentry duty atop a mango tree along with a steel flashlight. “I will have a better view,” he said.

It surprised all of us when the thief turned out to be a monkey who freaked out when Anand flashed a light on its face and attacked him. Anand fell from the tree and hit his head on a stone, its sharp edge just missing his left eye.

Sowmya and I, sick with worry, ended up screaming for help like the girls we were.

We were all reprimanded the next morning and unfortunately that had been the last time we had gone to the orchard on vacation. Kathalu-Thatha , did not make it through the coming winter and Thatha, his only next of kin, sold the family house and leased the orchard to some jam and juice company.

After we folded the two muslin clothes with the mangoes, Anand looked around stealthily and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “Don’t tell anyone,” he said. “If Nanna found out . . . he will kill me.”

Here was a grown man, about to become a father, who was still afraid of his father.

I shook my head. “Just don’t smoke around Neelima.”

“Of course,” Anand said, and sat down on the cement floor. He leaned against the cement balustrade and sighed. “I have been waiting all day for this.”

“Neelima is not the happiest person in the world,” I told him bluntly. “You keep bringing her here and they’re all so mean to her.”

“They are just getting to know her. . . . You know how they are when someone new comes in. Remember how both my Amma and your Amma made Lata’s life miserable when she and Jayant Anna got married?” Anand said.

“Lata is very different from Neelima,” I reminded him. “Neelima feels really bad, Anand.”

“She would tell me if she felt bad,” Anand said, looking up at the sky. “See the Saptarishi?” he asked, pointing at the constellation of seven stars shaped like a question mark. “For the longest time I couldn’t see Arundhati,” he said.

The Saptarishi were the seven Maharishis, great holy men, who were created by the vision of Lord Brahma. They were learned beings to whom the Vedas had been revealed and they represented the seven powers of life and consciousness in all of God’s creation. The seven rishis were married to very nice-looking women and once when they were performing a yajna, Agni, the God of Fire, saw the women and immediately fell in lust with them. Agni’s then-girlfriend, Svaha, wanted to please her lover and took the form of all the rishis’ wives in bed. She could, however, take the form of only six of the wives. Arundhati was such a true wife that Svaha, no matter how hard she tried, couldn’t change her body to look like Arundhati. Thanks to all this shape-shifting and sex, Svaha got pregnant, and the rumor that traveled around the Godly circles was that one of the six Maharishis’ wives had a baby with Agni. All the rishis, except for Vashishtha, who was married to his true wife, Arundhati, kicked their wives out for being not-so-true wives.

In the Saptarishi constellation of stars, the last but one star at the bottom, which is Vashishtha, has a small star revolving around it, and that is Arundhati. The myth is that if you cannot see Arundhati, you will have bad luck . . . lots of it.

“And now you can see her?” I asked, avoiding looking up to find out if I could see Arundhati. It was a silly superstition, but I didn’t want to put it to test.

“Not really,” Anand said, “but I am getting there. Neelima will adjust, Priya.” He took a deep puff and blew out small rings.

I put a finger through one dissolving ring of smoke. “You should tell Ammamma and Lata and the rest of them to stop blaming her for marrying you.”

“It is not something you should have to tell your own family,” Anand said bitterly. “And I can’t just walk up and tell them . . . can I?”

“Of course you can,” I said. “Be a man, Anand, stand up for your wife. Or is Thatha still controlling you like a puppeteer?”

I was being a little harsh. . . . Well, I was being very harsh, but Anand’s nonchalance at what his wife was going through at the hands of his family had increased the temperature of my blood. And Anand and I were close enough that I knew I had a right to be direct with him. As I guessed, Anand didn’t take offense but he was a little miffed.

He crushed his cigarette on the cement floor and glared at me. “You want me to take on my big bad father?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Really?”

“Yes, ”I repeated.

“So when are you going to tell him about your boyfriend?” Anand asked.

“What?” I asked aghast. Sowmya would never tell anyone about Nick. Would she? How could Anand know?

“Oh, you’re telling me you are against arranged marriage as an institution because you like being single and alone?” Anand demanded. “It is easy enough to guess. So who is the boyfriend?”

I felt the bile rise up to coat my throat with fear. Was I wearing a neon sign that said I HAVE A BOYFRIEND IN AMERICA?

“Come on, Priya,” Anand said. “I know these things. I am not stupid.”

“This isn’t about me,” I muttered. “This is about Neelima.”

“You don’t have the guts, do you?” Anand smirked. “So you shouldn’t—”

“If they were ill-treating my boyfriend, you bet I’d take issue,” I charged at him.

“So there is a boyfriend,” he grinned, and lit another cigarette. “Tell, tell.”

I sighed. “You’re not going to like this.”

“Hey, I married Neelima.”

“At least she is Indian.”

The cigarette in Anand’s hand dropped. “No . . . you don’t have an American boyfriend.”

I nodded.

“Oh Rama, Rama . . .”

“I know.”

“What will you do?”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I have to back out of this stupid pelli-chupulu first.”

“You can’t, not now,” Anand said, sounding worried. “Not without telling them about Mr. America.”

“Forget about me; are you going to do something about how everyone is treating Neelima before she divorces you?”

Anand picked up the cigarette he had dropped and put it in his mouth. “I will see what I can do.”

“As soon as Neelima said she was pregnant Lata talked about miscarriages in the first trimester and—”

“That bitch, how dare she?” Anand burst out and the cigarette he was holding fell on the cement floor yet again. “I don’t know how Jayant can stand her. And now they are pregnant again. Wants to give Nanna a pure-blooded Brahmin heir.”

“What will you do?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Anand said.

When we came back downstairs, my father was in a heated discussion with Jayant about nonresident Indians, NRIs. Jayant sincerely believed that those who left India were betraying their motherland and my father was convinced that those who stayed were missing out on opportunities to grow and develop.

“The world is everyone’s oyster,” Nanna was saying. “We should think of ourselves as citizens of the world not just as Indian or Korean or Malaysian.”

They were sitting at the dining table sipping tea as Sowmya bustled around them setting the table for dinner.

“Ah, Priya,” Jayant said and extended both his hands to hold both of mine in a warm clasp. “You have grown up. And getting all set to be married I hear. This Sarma boy seems to be very ideal. What do you say?”

Anand cleared his throat while Sowmya glared at me. I smiled uneasily. Jayant patted my hands as if he could feel my tension.

“She is angry with us for setting this up,” Nanna said, obviously enjoying the position I was in.

“Angry, nothing,” Ma said, as she came into the dining area from the kitchen carrying a big steel pot with hot rasam in it. “They will be here tomorrow and once she sees the boy . . . ah, she will thank us. He is earning hundred thousand dollars a year, fifty lakh rupees.”

“Money isn’t everything, you know, Ma,” I said sitting down beside Jayant. “And I haven’t said yes to being here tomorrow for this . . . humiliating experience you want me to go through.”

“Humiliating?” Nanna asked, his voice thick with emotion. “What, Priya Ma, you are talking like we are demons torturing you. We love you; we are doing this because we love you.”

“Don’t break our hearts now, Priya,” Ma said suddenly serious. “We have waited this long. You said you were not ready and we waited for all these years. What more do you want from us?”

If they had yelled at me, scolded and admonished, coerced and coaxed, I would’ve known how to deal with it. This quiet remonstration was alien, their behavior strange, and because of it all the fight left my voice.

“It isn’t like that, Ma, Nanna,” I said softly. “I just don’t think that getting married like this is . . . It isn’t dignified . . . no, no . . . it just isn’t for me.”

“Everyone else is doing it,” Ma said in a low voice. “You think Sowmya and Jayant are not dignified?”

That was hardly fair. How could I answer that when both Sowmya and Jayant were looking at me waiting for me to reply?

“No . . . that’s not what I meant,” I said lamely.

“So you’ll be here tomorrow?” Nanna asked.

It was a goddamn ambush!

“No one will force you into marriage,” Ma said eagerly. “Just look at the boy and if you don’t like him, you don’t have to marry him. But if you don’t see him you will never know.”

Oh, I’d know! But they were all looking at me with quiet desperation on their faces. They were so enthusiastic to see me married, settled, as they believed I should be. And what child could hold out against parental desperation?

“I’ll be there,” I said defeated, before leaving the kitchen.

I walked past the hall where Thatha, Ammamma, and Lata were watching the evening Telugu news and found Neelima and Anand talking to each other in the bedroom next to the veranda. She was crying, yet again, and he was holding her hand. They both looked incredibly cute and very much in love with each other. I felt a pang of envy. They were already married, while I didn’t have the guts to tell my parents about Nick. My cowardice knew no bounds because now I had even agreed to sit through a bride-seeing ceremony.

I felt my empty ring finger with my thumb and then clenched my fist. I had taken the ring off in the plane before it landed in Hyderabad. I had hidden Nick from the start. Maybe I had known even before I left that he would continue to be my dirty secret.

I picked up my purse, which was lying next to the shoe rack on the veranda, and leaned over to find the slippers I had thrown from my feet a while ago. I slipped out of the house without telling anyone to look for a telephone booth. I found one a street away from the goli soda shop. I dialed Nick’s cell phone number and he picked up the phone almost before the first ring ended.

“Hi,” I said, and I could hear his relief even before he said anything.

“How are you? Where are you?”

“At my grandma’s house,” I said.

“How’re you holding up?” Nick asked.

“Okay.”

“You don’t sound okay.”

“I’m fine,” I said, trying to inject some false joy into my sagging voice. “It’s just the whole . . . the boy they want me to see . . . It’s just tiring.”

“You’re not going to go through that bride-seeing ceremony . . . are you?” Nick asked softly.

I paused for a microsecond before lying confidently. “Of course not.”

“Are you sure? I mean, do you want to? I . . . This is hard, this is very hard. I am . . . Are you having doubts?” he asked, his frustration hitting me squarely on my conscience.

“Doubts about us?” I asked, swallowing hard. “Of course not, Nick. How could you even think that?”

“Well, it makes me wonder. You’re so reluctant to tell them about us. I’m not a serial killer or rapist. I’m a pretty decent catch. . . . Don’t you think? My mother thinks so,” Nick said, laughing a little at the end.

“Oh, you’re better than decent. You’re the best catch this side of the Mississippi,” I said, joining him in trying to lighten the air, letting the doubts slip away.

“I wish I’d come with you. I wish I was there with you now,” he said suddenly in exasperation.

I wished he had, too. It would’ve made everything twice as difficult but at least I wouldn’t have been alone and my parents would never have tried to set me up with some friend’s, friend’s son.

“I want to tell them about you. I will tell them about you, today, soon, now,” I said, lying again. I had never lied to Nick before, this was akin to cheating on him but I couldn’t do anything about it. I was caught up in a tornado and I had left Kansas a long time ago.

“I’ll tell them tomorrow,” I lied yet again. I had no intentions of telling them about Nick anymore. I couldn’t. I would just have to kill myself on the way back home to Nick so that no one would be the wiser about my deception.

“Tell them . . . don’t tell them; just don’t stress too much. You’re on vacation, you should enjoy yourself,” he said and I wondered if he knew I was lying.

“I will tell them. I love you, Nick,” I said almost desperately.

“And I you.”

“I’ve got to go back now. I’ll call you again. Send me email . . . lots of email. I like to read.”

He said he loved me again before I hung up. A gloom settled upon me. I didn’t have the raw guts to tell my family about Nick. It was not to protect them from pain and hurt, it was to protect myself. I was afraid that if I told them about Nick, they wouldn’t love me anymore. I was afraid that if I didn’t tell them and went back, Nick wouldn’t love me anymore. It was not a fair bargain. I could keep either Nick or my family.

I cried all the way back to Thatha’s house, feverishly wiping my tears with both my hands.

Dinner was boisterous as Thatha talked about how we could have a double marriage. “What do you say, Priya, you and my Sowmya getting married in the same mandap?” he asked, slapping a hand on his thigh.

I scooped out some mango pappu from a steel bowl onto my plate and mixed it in with rice.

“Nnayi?” Sowmya held up a small steel container with clarified butter and I shook my head. I should never have come to India—I was convinced of that. Now I had more problems than I could solve.

“Priya? ” Thatha questioned. “What, Amma, you don’t want a double wedding? ”

“Maybe we should just have one wedding in one mandap,” Ma said as if it was all a done deal and she didn’t want Thatha to get the wrong idea. When her daughter would marry, it would be in her own mandap; Sowmya could get her own.

“Let’s not count the chickens before they hatch,” Lata said and for once I was thankful. “Anand, pass me the rasam.”

Anand and Neelima were sitting next to each other and they had been quiet ever since dinner began. He looked up at Lata and then at the rasam and took a deep breath.

“Lata, did you say Neelima would have a miscarriage when she told you about her pregnancy?” he asked, a small quiver in his voice betraying the straight face he was trying to wear.

Silence fell so soundly that the echo of voices past crashed against the steel glasses standing on wobbly feet on the Formica table. Anand’s fearless voice clamored to rise above his usual calm, comfortable, fearful, and almost silent voice. He was not one for confrontations, that was why he told the family about Neelima after they had married.

“What?” Lata asked, her hand covered with mango pappu lying listlessly on her plate.

Anand was silent for a minute. I could see his Adam’s apple bob in and out—his nervousness had tentacles that reached out to everyone in the room.

“Anand, we don’t need a fuss now. Lata didn’t say anything,” Ammamma warned, not wanting to witness a fight.

“There is no fuss,” Anand said and stood up as if towering over everyone at the table would make it easier for him.

Nanna, who was sitting next to me, lifted his eyebrows in query. I shook my head. I knew what Anand was about to say, though I wondered if he had the courage to go through with it.

“Ever since Neelima and I got married, you all have been treating her really badly,” he began.

“Badly?” Thatha demanded, his voice thunderous. “What nonsense! You are imagining things.”

“Not nonsense, Nanna,” Anand said, his voice for once confident as it measured up against his indomitable father. “Neelima is my wife, she deserves respect. If as a family you all have decided to ill-treat her—”

“No one is ill-treating her, Anand,” Lata interrupted him. “I was simply telling her to be careful. The first trimester is always a delicate one. I don’t know why she misunderstood what I was saying.”

Neelima started crying softly. It was partly the tension in the room and partly because her hormones were raging. “I am sorry,” she whispered.

“No, I am sorry,” Anand said, sitting down to hold her hand. Such display of emotion between couples was not commonplace in our family and again I felt envy raise its head inside me. They loved each other, they were married, they were going to have a child; I was in love with a man who had the wrong skin color and nationality, I was living in sin with him and I had just lied to him.

“I keep sending her here”—Anand looked at Thatha when he spoke—“so that you will accept her. You will get to know her, see what a wonderful person she is and love her, treat her like a member of the family. But . . . if you don’t want to do that, she won’t come here. . . . I won’t come here . . . and neither will our child.”

The line had been drawn. Anand had just crossed over and become a man. I couldn’t have been prouder.

Ammamma was about to say something but stopped when Thatha raised his hand.

“I agree, she is a daughter-in-law of this house and as such she deserves respect,” Thatha said somberly. “But it will take time before we love her. She will never be our choice for your wife, Anand. What is done is done; I can’t change the past or our past behavior. But from now on we will treat her like a member of the family.”

Ammamma looked away and Lata made a small clicking sound. My mother pursed her lips and then shrugged.

“Are we clear?” Thatha repeated, looking at the women of his house.

“Yes,” Ammamma finally said, speaking for everyone.

“Good,” Thatha said, and nodded toward Neelima. “Congratulations on the baby. We can’t wait to hold another grandchild in our arms.”

By now Neelima’s tears were racing down her face with the speed of a heavy waterfall. Anand looked at me and mouthed “Thank you.” I nodded, feeling like a total fraud.

TO: PRIYA RAO <PRIYA_RAO@YYYY.COM>
FROM: NICHOLAS COLLINS <NICK_COLLINS@XXXX.COM>
SUBJECT: PHONE CALL!

IT WAS WONDERFUL TALKING TO YOU.

I KNOW YOU ARE UNDER A LOT OF PRESSURE AND I WISH I COULD FIND A WAY TO EASE IT. I DON’T UNDERSTAND THE INTRICACIES OF YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR FAMILY AND SOMETIMES THAT MAKES IT HARD FOR ME TO UNDERSTAND WHY YOU DO THE THINGS YOU DO.

BUT I DO UNDERSTAND THAT YOU HAVE TO FOLLOW YOUR INTUITION AND YOUR HEART TO KEEP YOUR FAMILY HAPPY BECAUSE THAT’S HOW YOU CAN BE HAPPY. I REALIZE NOW THAT MAYBE THE DETACHMENT YOU FELT FOR THEM WHEN YOU WERE HERE ISN’T EASY TO FEEL WHEN THEY’RE NEXT TO YOU. HERE YOU COULD SEE YOURSELF TELLING THEM ABOUT ME EASILY BECAUSE I WAS WITH YOU, NOW YOU’RE WITH THEM AND YOU FIND THAT IT’S NOT EASY.

I WON’T LIKE IT BUT I’LL UNDERSTAND IF YOU FIND THAT AT THE END OF THE DAY, YOU CAN’T TELL THEM ABOUT ME. I WON’T LIKE IT AT ALL BECAUSE I WANT YOU WHOLE, NOT DIVIDED AS THE DAUGHTER OR GRANDDAUGHTER AND WIFE AND LOVER.

BUT ULTIMATELY, I’LL TAKE YOU ANY WAY I CAN GET YOU.

TAKE CARE.
NICK

I couldn’t sleep.

Sowmya, Anand, Neelima, and I were spread out on the terrace on straw mats, chappas. I lay my head on a flat cotton pillow and looked up at the stars. For the past half an hour since Sowmya had fallen asleep, I had been staring at Saptarishi and, just my luck, I couldn’t see Arundhati.

Instead, the vultures were circling.

The last time I had slept on this terrace, I had been twenty years old, ready to face the world with the strength of the innocent. I was gearing up to go the United States; I had gotten my F-1 student visa and my bags were packed. I was spending a last weekend at Ammamma’s house before heading over across seven seas to the land of opportunities. I had been so eager to leave, so excited that I had never thought that when I came back everything would be different to me and for me. I had never thought about how it would never be the same again, about how the cliché “you can never really go back home” would stand true.

This was not home anymore. Home was in San Francisco with Nick. Home was Whole Foods grocery store and fast food at KFC. Home was Pier 1 and Wal-Mart. Home was 7-Eleven and Star-bucks. Home was familiar, Hyderabad was a stranger; India was as alien, exasperating, and sometimes exotic to me as it would be to a foreigner.

I heard the gate opening and got up to see who it was. A lanky figure with a backpack stepped into the yard and then under the small yellow light that glowed with a flicker under the carport. He looked up and waved. I had never been happier to see Nate.

“I’m starving,” he said, as soon as I came down. “You guys sleeping upstairs?”

“Yes, and there’s plenty of food in the kitchen,” I said. “Let’s go in from the back door.”

“Good idea, last thing I need is Ma waking up and going, ‘oh my son is home,’ ” he said with a grin.

I hugged him tightly then. He was taller than me now, I realized as he stroked my hair.

“Hey,” he said, and pushed me away after a moment, “I’m a man, this hugging thing is for sissies.”

“Ah,” I said and tweaked his nose with my fingers.

Nate left his sneakers outside the back door before coming inside the house. We turned the light on in the kitchen and Nate flopped down onto the floor.

“What’re you doing back?” I asked, as I picked out a plate from the cabinet for him.

“Got bored,” he said, and then shrugged. “I wanted to be here for the bloodshed. Or has the fat lady already sung?”

“What fat lady?” I demanded, and filled a glass with water from the earthen pot next to the stove. “ Pappu with rice work for you?”

“What kind of pappu?”

“Mango?”

“Sure. Sowmya makes this spinach pappu that’s painful to swallow,” Nate said. “You think you can heat the rice a little? Fridge-cold rice makes my hair in all the strange places stand up.”

I pulled out some rice and pappu for Nate from the fridge. I mixed them both with my fingers and put the mixture in a frying pan to heat.

“This house so needs a microwave,” I said.

“The American-returned daughter brings in some fancy ideas,” Nate said with affected mockery. “So . . . when’re you going to tell them?”

“I’m not,” I said, not looking at him. “They set up a pelli-chupulu for me.”

“Rice Sarma’s Venkatesh type.”

“You know?”

“Not really. It isn’t like Ma discloses all to me. But in all fairness, the boy—ah, man—is very handsome, has a good, stable job. Don’t know about the smoking and drinking part, though his mother claims he is a gudu-baye,” Nate said.

“A good boy, my ass,” I muttered. “Remember the gudu boy from Chicago?”

“Oh, the Cheee-cah-go baye, you mean?” Nate imitated Ma. “He was a prize, Priya.”

“He was also screwing another woman.”

“Details, details.”

I put the now warmed rice and pappu on a plate and placed it in front of Nate along with a glass of water. I sat in front of him on the floor and drank some water from his glass.

“There is also some HAPPINESS in the fridge,” I told him. “I asked Sowmya to save it from the mango she cut for dinner.”

“And you don’t want to fight over it?” Nate asked suspiciously.

I shook my head. I didn’t even want to fight over HAPPINESS. This was an all-time low.

“What, not feeling well?” Nate put a hand against my forehead as if checking my temperature.

“I lied to Nick,” I confessed. “I told Nick that I wasn’t going to go through with the chupulu and that I was going to tell everyone about him.”

“Nick is the man’s name. Do we have a photo?”

“Photo? I have bigger problems, Nate.”

“So tell him the truth and don’t go through the chupulu ,” Nate said as he chewed on his food. “Then tell them all about Nick. And I’d still like to see my future brother-in-law, if not in the flesh, at least in Kodak color.”

“I’ll send you a picture later.” I said. “And what does it matter how he looks? Lord, Nate, this stress is going to give me a coronary.”

“You’re not going to have a—”

“Nate?” Nanna’s voice filtered into the kitchen.

“Hey, Nanna,” Nate called out and winked at me. “At least she didn’t wake up,” he added on a whisper.

“Nate is here?” Ma’s voice chimed in on cue.

“Well . . . can’t have it all, can we?” Nate sighed as my mother’s shrill voice came in through the hall, she was saying, just as Nate had predicted, “Oh, my son is home.”