she heard the insistent ring of her telephone. With her boots and rain jacket still on, she walked over the hardwood floor to answer it.
"Hello?"
"Sara, I can't believe I'm hearing you!"
"Who is this?"
"You don't recognize me?"
"Kyle?"
click
A long wet kiss.
"I heard you were back in town. It's been ages—do you want to have dinner?"
click
A handful of wild roses, their thorns all carefully cut off.
"Sure. Of course. When?"
"How about in an hour?" he asked. "I'm off at five."
There was cold water running down her neck and face from her hair. "Alright."
"Should we meet at the Argyle?"
"Sure."
"Will I know you?"
"What?"
"Well," he said, "it's been awhile! Unless," he added quickly, "you haven't changed."
"I'll be the blind woman with a cane," she said. "See you soon."
Still holding the phone in her hand, she slid down the wall into the puddle she'd made. An hour with Kyle would be like an hour out of the rain.
We broke up a long time ago. She could hear the words in her head, but couldn't make her mouth say them. He was sweeping her hair aside, trying to reach her skin.
They were sitting on his parents' sofa, shoved as it was, in front of a half-empty bookcase in his small apartment. It was the item she associated with him the most, and the only thing she recognized in his new home. The curtains were drawn, making the room feel small. She stood and brushed them aside, asking, "You ever open these?"
"Sometimes," he said. "Sit down. I'll make you tea."
As Kyle disappeared into the kitchen, she sighed visibly for the first time since dinner. The corners of the room were all empty. She wondered if he was afraid of getting trapped there. His walls were bare too. He needs some photographs, she thought, or at least some good posters.
When he came out of the kitchen, he was smiling. He put a bowl of sugar and a jug of milk on a small table in the centre of the room. The way he placed the teaspoons made her think of his mother.
Together they sat down on the sofa again—he against the arm, and she somewhere in the middle.
"There," he said, "that's better."
His domestic skills had improved.
"Thank you," she said. "For the tea."
"Sara, you look tired."
She smiled mildly, suddenly unable to discern his politeness from his genuine concern. She knew he liked to feign weakness as a way of gaining sympathy and wondered if he assumed she did the same.
In one continuous movement, he poured tea, added milk, stirred and moved closer to her. "I'll take care of you," he said.
"Actually, I don't know if—"
"Sara, I've missed you."
"Hmm." She smiled. Until he called, she hadn't thought of him at all.
chapter 4
Although he had suggested a café, Sitara arranged to meet her father in the simple, unshaded park across from his hotel. At their first encounter, she wanted to be standing.
He looked small as she approached from a distance. He was walking slowly away from her with his hands stuffed into his pockets. She could see his cream-coloured kurta hanging down below his leather jacket, and could hear her mother's scolding. "Raj, tuck that damn shirt in or take it off. You can't have both!" By both, she meant the long Indian kurta and the short Canadian jacket. Parvati didn't have room for grey areas. She lived in a world of black and white. Sitara felt her fists tighten. Her arguments with her mother were old.
Cutting through the grass, she walked towards her father. She hadn't seen him for eleven years and might not have seen him for another eleven, if he hadn't suddenly arrived.
She was now just a few paces behind him—so close she could smell his woody cologne. She wanted to surprise him to give herself the upper hand.
"Bapa?" she called.
"Sitara, your hair has grown." He stopped but did not fully turn around.
"Did you wait long? I was busy at the office."
"I have waited long," he said, "but not so much today."
His hair was thin and grey and she could see that he was shaking.
"It is cold here, Sitara, but I can see why you like it. I walked along the waterfront today, while you were at your office, and three people offered me coffee. No one asked where I was from, or how long I was staying, or if I had any money. They simply responded to an old man pouring breath on his hands to keep them warm. They opened their hearts to me." He turned to face his daughter. "That would never happen at home."
I have already packed my bags. I will leave before anyone gets home. I want to tell Bapa, but I know he will tell Parvati. "Say goodbye," Sarasvati warns. "For even if your mother knows, she will not follow you. She does not care if you go." But I have been preparing for days—sneaking food from the kitchen, coins from Parvati's purse and bills from Bapa's wallet, and I will not risk it.
"Sitara, you are flushed."
"From the walk," she said, trying to be casual. "How was your flight?"
"Fine."
"I could have met you at the airport if I'd known you were coming. You could have called."
"I could have done a lot of things, Sitara. But I did not. And now, perhaps, it is enough that I am here." His voice was tired and more resigned than it had been on the telephone.
Sitara didn't say anything. She knew that she could have done a lot of things too.
"Your mother did not know I was coming either," he said. "And still does not. She thinks I am in Seattle."
Sitara eyed him carefully, trying to calculate how many other secrets he had.
"There are some things it is best she does not know," he added.
Like what? Sitara wanted to ask, but didn't.
Raj shuffled his feet on the pavement while she watched a gull pick at a scrap of bread. He lifted his arms, as if to embrace her, but put them down again.
