LITMIR.BIZ

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doors on them, except the two bathrooms. Thick damask curtains acted as doors to the rooms, giving one a vague sense of privacy when drawn.

      I could go for hours without bumping into Zayaan, if I wished. The house was that spacious. The thing was, I didn’t seem to want to. I was getting used to him again. And no matter how resistant I still was about our living arrangement, my devious husband had counted on just that. Nirvaan wished I’d overlook Zayaan’s inadvertent transgressions—meaning, I should look more kindly toward his religion and his infamous Pakistani family, including his obnoxious mother. I’d perpetuated those lies for a long time, and I would continue to flame them. It was better the guys thought of me as a paranoid bigot than suffer the truth.

      The nonstop rain had triggered a drop in temperature, both outdoors and indoors, and one of the guys had thoughtfully built a fire in the living room.

      My chores done, I decided to serve lunch in front of the cheery crackling fireplace. I’d put together a nutritious bhonu meal of egg biryani and a Greek yogurt-based vegetable raita—a simple dish but plentiful—keeping the guys’ bottomless stomachs in mind. It’d taken Nirvaan a long time to rebuild his appetite, reawaken his taste buds that cancer medications had destroyed, and I dreaded the coming months that would leach it from him again. I was determined to spoil him as much as possible until then.

      I wasn’t a great cook. I wasn’t bad, either, and could manage simple dishes well enough. But given a choice, I’d gladly surrender the kitchen to a more seasoned power, one of the reasons I looked forward to my in-laws’ visits. No one indulged my husband’s notoriously Gujjubhai palate better than his mother. My mother-in-law was the undisputed queen of the Desai kitchen, and I, her quasi apprentice.

      That reminds me...

      “I should stock up on groceries before your mother arrives. If you guys have special requests, tell me now.” I paused, a forkful of biryani dripping with yogurt poised before my mouth. “Don’t make me or even yourselves run to the store twenty times for ingredients.”

      I exaggerated, but the guys did have a tendency to spring culinary demands when least expected. Like last week, Nirvaan had had a craving for Indian-style Hakka noodles in the middle of the night, and no Hakka noodle packets had been in the pantry.

      Nirvaan chewed on his food and my question, when, suddenly, his face twisted into a frown, as if he’d tasted something bad. Or rather, he’d seen something unpleasant—my bun. I’d bunched my hair into a topknot, so it wouldn’t get in the way of my chores.

      I sighed, reached up and pulled the rubber band off, letting the weight of my crowning glory drop. “Happy?” I rubbed my scalp and fluffed my hair out.

      Nirvaan had developed this hair fetish after his own had fallen off during his first chemo. I understood his obsession, sympathized with his apprehensions, but sometimes, he took things a bit too far—and not just with my hair.

      “You know what I like, baby. I’ll leave the satiation of my cravings in your skilled hands,” he said, giving me a syrupy smile.

      I rolled my eyes at the not-even-clever double entendre. I could’ve pointed out that we were discussing the satiation of his cravings through his mother’s hands, but I thought better of it. The comment would no doubt trigger rebuttals, and I didn’t want the conversation to slide into the gutter.

      “And you?” I darted a look at Zayaan, or more specifically at the fringe of hair flopping over his eyes. I’d worked out a system to deal with him. I would not get too close, and I’d stick to minimum eye contact.

      “Everything Mummy cooks is delicious. Just make sure there’s enough left over to last until her next visit.” He smacked his lips together, clearly anticipating the forthcoming delicacies.

      “Not that we don’t appreciate your cooking, baby. The biryani is orgasmic. No, seriously, I love it,” added Nirvaan.

      The patently fake, obsequious tone made me snort. I was proud of my strengths, and I’d learned to live with my weaknesses. Cooking was neither. I just didn’t care about cooking enough to take offense that I wasn’t a master chef in people’s eyes.

      “We can drop you at the market on our way to the marina,” offered Zayaan, briefly smiling at me before jerking his chin at Nirvaan. “We should get the Jet Skis checked out—serviced, gassed up and whatever else. Daddy will want a ride first thing tomorrow.”

      “You’re right,” groaned Nirvaan. “Damn it. He’ll hog one all weekend. Thank God Nisha’s not coming, or between Aarav and her brats, we’d never get a turn.”

      He was joking, of course. Nirvaan loved his sister, got along famously with his brother-in-law, and doted on his niece and nephew, who adored their Nimo in turn.

      For reasons slightly more serious than the sharing of Jet Skis, I, too, was glad my sister-in-law had postponed her visit. We’d hosted Nisha and her family last weekend, and we would see them at our birthday celebration at Nirvaan’s parents’ house in LA at the end of the month. So, it wasn’t a huge tragedy to miss bonding this once.

      I had no issues with Nisha, as such, but she’d started behaving a bit funny with me over the past few months, and I didn’t know what to make of it. She was probably worried about Nirvaan, I’d concluded, and unable to express her feelings about the tumor and its ramifications. It might explain her stiff attitude toward me. It was difficult to find the right words of support and solace in our kind of situation, and Nisha and I had never been chums to begin with.

      In truth, I’d never even tried to get friendly with her—or anyone else since my fifteenth birthday. I’d been so blinded by the guys, so wholly satisfied by our friendship and what it’d brought to my life, that I hadn’t wanted any other friends. And after...after that night, I’d been too afraid to step out into the world. So, what would I have done with making friends, anyway?

      Nisha and I had become passably friendly only after my marriage. But then, we’d had to, hadn’t we, for Nirvaan’s sake?

      “Stop whining, chodu. I should be whining.” Zayaan flicked an uneaten clove at Nirvaan.

      The spice bounced off my husband’s shoulder and landed on a white seashell embossed on the shrimp-colored fabric of the sofa. He pinched it up and popped it into his mouth. Nirvaan could eat anything remotely edible.

      “You’ll get out of playing golf by faking fatigue or the bubonic plague, and I’ll be stuck on the greens with Daddy for hours or days. Fuck, I hate golf. It’s such a tedious game.” Shaking his head, Zayaan ambled into the open-style kitchen and dumped his empty plate and bowl in the sink. He twisted the tap on, running water over both.

      It spoke volumes to just how entrenched Zayaan was in the Desai household that he addressed my in-laws as Mummy and Daddy. Even I didn’t do that. I couldn’t. Mummy and Daddy were honorifics reserved for my own parents alone even though I considered Nirvaan’s in the same light. I’d addressed my in-laws as Kiran Auntie and Kamlesh Uncle since I was fifteen, and I continued to do so after marriage. Neither my in-laws nor Nirvaan had ever questioned me on it even though plenty of our relatives had. I’d usually smile and shrug in answer to such nosiness.

      The thing was, as a Parsi daughter-in-law, I could get away with a lot of things in the Desais’ predominantly Hindu household that another woman of similar faith would not have. Especially as we Parsis were known for our outspoken, eccentric attitudes. My own family hailed Freddie Mercury of Queen fame as a hero—a nonconformist outspoken Parsi, if there ever was one—and his hit song “I Want to Break Free” was the family motto. I sat on the fence regarding the hero worship even though I did love his music.

      I cleared the remnants of our lunch onto a tray and took it into the kitchen, humming the catchy beat of Freddie’s song under my breath. Nirvaan brought in the empty beer bottles and soda cans, tossing them into the recycling bin. From the fridge, he drew a tall glass of the mixed berry smoothie I’d whipped up for him earlier and glugged a quarter of it down along with his provision of meds. There were a few more pills in the mix than there’d been last month, as his medications

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