For breakfast she sliced an apple that was past its prime and dipped it in almond butter straight from the jar. To lift the sticky residue of the nuts and rinse away the mushiness of the fruit, she chased the meal with a glass of grapefruit juice.
Stepping into the bathroom she brushed her teeth with cinnamon and baking soda. It was dry and gritty and didn't leave her mouth feeling clean. Spitting it out, she decided to use the remainder of the jar on the grimy scum around the drain.
As she cast a quick glance at a belly-high mirror, she grabbed a book she had been reading the night before, and let herself out the door.
On the bike ride to her clinic, she cut off several cars and almost hit a pedestrian waiting at a crosswalk. Sighing, she thought, Maybe meditation doesn't work.
The sun flashed through twenty-four empty bottles before disappearing again behind a cloud. Jasmine, cinnamon, ylang ylang, cedar. The lavender was in her hand.
Three drops of oil fell into a shell.
There were two patients waiting in the lobby. Sitara was more than an hour behind. She set the shell on the windowsill next to the row of coloured glass and inhaled deeply from the bottle that was still in her hand.
Her father had bad timing. She'd always known that—her mother had reminded her every day. Parvati was forty-one when her husband made her pregnant. That was her opinion—that he'd made her pregnant, as if it was fully his fault. She'd married him on the condition that he wouldn't and, of course, he hadn't intended to. Even as the years went by, she accepted no responsibility for her baby's birth. Sitara was ill-conceived, and her mother never let her forget it.
Hearing the restless shuffle of clothing in her waiting room, she put the bottle down, smoothed the white sheet of her examination table and checked the bedside drawer for cotton swabs and needles. Then, opening her office door, she smiled intentionally and motioned for her next patient to come in.
Patrick sat down in the chair across from her, barely touching the wood. Like a bird, he fluttered every extremity. His eyes darted and fled. Every time he entered her clinic, he brought a wave of motion with him, but today it made her queasy.
Forgoing her usual pleasantries, she invited him to lie down. Glancing up at the Meridians of Chinese Medicine poster framed above the bed, she listened to the flow of blood through the veins on his wrist and legs and asked him a series of questions.
"How have you been sleeping?"
"So-so."
"How are your bowels?"
"Fine."
"What about headaches?"
"Same as usual."
"Why did my father choose today?"
Patrick started to fidget and Sitara looked away.
Sarasvati beckons to me with three of her four arms. I crawl into the kitchen cupboards to see her. She hides next to the sink, where my parents keep the spices. When I close the door I am surrounded by a darkness that is rich and raw with scent. I reach for the cardamom pods, thinking they are her favourite because they are mine. I try to crush them with my fingers, but they are awkward and tough. Instead I use my foot. Finally the papery shells burst open, and the strangely shaped seeds dig into my heel. When I find her, Sarasvati is warm and aromatic. She speaks to me in Sanskrit and I understand. It is our secret code. Holding the cardamom jar tightly in my hand, I ask her to sing. Parvati, my mother, has been gone for hours and I am alone.
Sitara rolled her shoulders back and straightened her spine. After she turned eleven she no longer fit into that cupboard, although she tried, by not eating, to stay small. For the next few years she hid in her room or locked herself in the bathroom. But her father always caught on. By age thirteen, her hiding places were no longer in the apartment—she slept in parks or on other people's floors. An old woman at the temple sometimes "forgot" to lock the door.
"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.