"Do you not care where she has been?" Bapa asks.
Parvati stares at him. "Has she been somewhere?"
I cringe, thinking that she notices him only because they share a bed.
"She has been gone three nights."
"Oh." My mother shifts back to her book.
"Parvati, Sitara would like to speak with you."
I try to broaden my shoulders, lengthen my spine, make myself large enough for her to see. She lifts an eyebrow but does not raise her eyes.
With too much force, Sitara pushed a needle into Patrick's leg. He winced and clenched his fists. She'd missed. Slowly, without looking at his face, she withdrew the needle and reinserted it into the proper place.
Slinking off to my room, I hear Bapa say, "You should pay some attention to her. She needs a mother."
"She has you."
"Parvati." He lowers his voice. "She is a woman now. There is only so much I can do."
Ashamed, I close the door, knowing that he has seen the blood stains on my bed.
"I'm sorry," Patrick said, pounding his chest and trying to swallow a cough.
Sitara smiled. "Let it go, if you want to. A trapped cough is like a caged animal. The more you hold it back, the more angry it gets. There's a reason it wants out."
Eagerly, Patrick sat up and coughed and coughed and coughed.
"Maybe save a little for later," Sitara added, as his throat went dry.
He stopped.
"Lie down again. There's one more thing I want to do."
Using her dark, slender hand, Sitara pulled a new needle from its plastic sheath and positioned it at the midpoint of Patrick's collarbone. She had been treating him for depression, but all she could think of was releasing the phlegm that was clouding his heart.
Just after dinner someone knocks on the door. Standing up, Parvati coughs loudly and Bapa escorts me out of the room. I know the cough is a signal, because my bapa always responds the same way. After closing the door of my room, he sits down next to me on the bed and places his favourite book gently on his lap. The cover is stained with oil—"pakora pee" he calls it—and the binding is coming undone. He tells me he has had it since childhood—the one treasure he was allowed to take with him when he left home. Although I know this already, he reminds me that he is the eighth of nine children, and the only one who moved away from their province.
Proudly he lifts open the grease-marked cover and shows me the inscription inside. He reads it in Hindi before he says it in English. Then he takes my hand and helps me run my fingers over the tiny letters. I try but, unlike him, I cannot feel the surface of the ink. I think maybe it has worn down and that all he feels is a memory. Impatiently, I beg him to move on. Smiling, he does. On the first page there are a lot of words that I cannot read. He translates some, with embellishments I think, because it's different every time. But it doesn't matter what he says—I'm busy feasting my eyes on the long hair, radiant skin and beautiful saris of the full-colour goddesses. In total, there are sixteen illustrations—nine gods, seven goddesses—and I have memorized them all. To me, Sarasvati is the most powerful because she is also on the front cover.
In the next room I can hear laughter. I ask Bapa, "Who is out there?"
"Some people from your mother's work."
"But who is laughing?"
"Your mother," he says.
I'm surprised because I've never heard her laugh like that before.
Repeating the same fast movement, Sitara removed each of the needles from her patient's skin. They were still humming as she dropped them into the sharps container next to the bed.
"We're done," she said. "When you're ready, you can get up."
Scratching his head, Patrick sat up and swung his legs several times before he jumped down. As Sitara wrote out a receipt, he shed more energy by unfastening and refastening his watch-strap. She could see that she was still running more than forty-five minutes behind.
"Shall we book another?" she asked.
"Yes, of course. Same time next week."
Like clockwork, she thought. Something to write in his book. "Try this," she said, handing him a bottle of herbs. "It will help to resolve your phlegm."
"I will, I will. Thank you." He jittered out the door.
Sitting briefly before admitting her next patient, Sitara lifted the lid of her teacup. There was no steam, but still she took a sip. Hot, green tea is bliss, she thought, cold, it is piss. She could no longer recall his face, but a professor at college had spoken it repeatedly—his own personal mantra. Even with its lid, her thin porcelain mug couldn't keep things permanently warm.
Standing again, Sitara looked out the window. There was a breeze on Hollis Street—she could see the bare-branched trees swaying—although no air moved through the clinic. For months she had been meaning to buy a fan. Lifting the brown and white shell from its place on the windowsill, she took one last long breath before leaving her office. Cool lavender to soothe her childhood heat.
Her next patient was an eighteen-month-old baby who had been waiting, more or less quietly, on the lap of her frizzyhaired mother. The toddler suffered from severe allergies, and visits to the clinic were becoming routine.
"Come in, Liz. I'm sorry you had to wait so long."
The woman stood, brushed some of the crumbs off her warm, creased lap, and carried her daughter into Sitara's office.
"How are you, Bella?" Sitara asked.
"Her runny nose is still bad," Liz answered. "And the only thing she'll eat right now is banana."
"Actually, banana is another food you should try to avoid for awhile."
"I'll try," Liz said, putting her daughter down on the examination bed.
"Alright Bella," Sitara whispered, as she reached for the baby's small hand, "let's see if we can toughen you up some more. Show me your tongue."
Bella turned away and buried her face in her mother's shoulder.
Liz laughed. "I saw plenty of that tongue this morning, believe me—every time I tried to give her a spoonful of anything. She just doesn't want to eat."
"Is it still swollen?" Sitara asked.
"Yes."
"Do you think she'll lie down?"
"It's possible, but I wouldn't count on it." Liz turned to Bella. "Hey sweetie, it's sleepy time. Do you
