In the constellations

Deeva and her new husband Rakesh sat perched on opposite sides of their hotel bed, still in their wedding attire. The newlyweds stared at the carpeted floor in front of them, unable to look one another in the eyes. The thick ring of marigolds wrapped around Deeva’s neck suffocated her with their sickly sweet scent. During the car ride over to the hotel, the couple suffered through brief small talk before eventually opting to stare out at the bright lights of the Mumbai traffic passing by them. Though they were acquaintances at best, Deeva already knew every mundane detail about Rakesh’s life. When she finally agreed to let her parents find her a match, they had poured over several options: the sons of family friends, men presented by professional matchmakers, a slew of profiles on Shaadi.com. They eventually settled on Rakesh, the oldest son of a respectable family, someone at the periphery of their social circle who had been vetted by her relatives that lived in India. From her mother, Deeva learned that he was thirty, a software engineer, a Taurus whose astrological placements supposedly aligned with hers. Their love story was written in the stars. 

“I hate this thing,” Deeva was the first to break the delicate shell of silence that had grown around them. As she pulled the garland of marigolds above her head and off her neck, crushed petals drifted to the floor like snowflakes. 

“Me too. I’ve been struggling to hold in a sneeze for hours,” Rakesh’s gentle voice quivered at the end of his joke. Deeva graced her husband with a polite smile as he removed his own garland with care, his delicate fingers cautious to prevent the flowers from being destroyed. Deeva had draped the wreath around his neck earlier that day, right at the beginning of their wedding ceremony. Their friends and families whooped as they officially tied their bloodlines and commenced the long series of ceremonies that wove their fates together as tightly as the flowers interspersed around their necks.  Though they had removed the garlands for the reception later that night, both their parents had insisted they wear them again for a final photo opportunity. The second time, they decided to place them around their own necks, gazes firmly averted. 

In the hotel room, quiet draped over them once again. It was punctuated only by the soft jingling of Deeva’s bangles as she nervously picked at the flowers; he loves me, he loves me not. Though Deeva was twenty nine herself, she felt like a teenager alone in a room with a boy for the first time. The couple had only met a handful of times before Deeva flew to India for their wedding festivities. They had never spoken to each other without using their mothers as buffers, never shared touch except for curt introductory handshakes and halfhearted parting hugs. Both she and Rakesh had anticipated that they would be spending the night together after their reception, though neither of them had any idea what that would entail. She pretended not to notice the mattress shaking as Rakesh bounced his leg. 

“I’m going to go change. In the bathroom,” Deeva clarified before making her swift escape. She dropped the torn marigolds on the bed and exchanged them for the small overnight bag she had hurriedly packed for herself earlier that day. With every soft step of her feet, the intricate jewelry decorating Deeva from head to toe rattled. It clanged when she finally stepped inside and let her back thud against the cold door behind her. Her lungs rushed with a sigh of relief that she had not even realized she had been holding. For the first time in a week, Deeva was alone. Their wedding festivities had taken several days; from the welcome dinner to the mehendi ceremony, wedding, and reception, she had moved through flurries of congratulations from distant family friends and conversations with aunties she barely remembered. Her friends were proud career women, unable to take enough time off from work for a single day, never mind a week of events abroad. Deeva’s close family, her sister in particular, had been her only solace in the storm. She supposed that now, Rakesh was her family too, on paper if nothing else. 

Deeva took her time getting undressed, sliding each bangle off one by one before moving to the intricate, heavy jewels draped across her neck and the tikka hanging over her hair and down her forehead. Her bridal nath, a gold hoop that hung from her nose and looped around to her ear, had been irritating her all day. With each delicate item of jewelry Deeva removed, she felt more like herself. Though her inflexible arms struggled to reach for the buttons at the back of her blouse, she knew better than to ask Rakesh for his help. She chose, instead, to contort her body painfully until she managed to wiggle out of her top. Her lehenga skirt was a deep, blood red, embroidered with patterns of brilliant gold and lined with gems that caught the light with her every twirl. She only realized how much the skirt had been weighing her down when she stepped out of it. Standing naked in front of the mirror, Deeva was confronted by the pudgy fat at the base of her stomach and the long white stretch tattooed along her hips and breasts. She studied her body carefully, as though seeing it for the first time. With a feather-light touch, she grazed over every mark, every divot in her flesh. Her hands traversed over the cellulite on her thighs, the small patch of hair on her arm that she missed while shaving earlier that day. Her body had always been unmistakably if not painfully, her own. Now, she wondered if Rakesh shared a piece of it too. 

Under the shower’s scalding hot water, Deeva’s mehndi-painted hands scrubbed away at the makeup her older sister had meticulously applied for her earlier that day. She thought of the care in Rina’s hands as she brushed blush to the tops of her cheekbones, the little dimples that formed by the corners of her mouth as Rina held her little sister’s chin between her fingertips and tilted her head up into the sunlight. She thought of how her mother’s soft palm cradled her cheek, suppressing tears before letting go with a final caress of her daughter’s hair, ready to send Deeva off to face Rakesh and a hoard of other unfamiliar faces. No man had ever touched Deeva with that much love. Her twenties were littered with memories of rough gropes and toothy kisses, white boys leaving her neck and thighs spit-speckled and bruised with mouths like hot irons. Rakesh was a last resort, a concession after years of failed love affairs. She did not dare to hope he would be better than the rest. Unexpectedly, Deeva could not bring herself to cry. 

Once she had dried herself off, Deeva shuffled through her bag to find suitable sleepwear. Black lace peaked out from behind her toiletries and pajamas, though she now felt it would be comical at best and mortifying at worst if she emerged from the bathroom in racy lingerie. Rakesh could barely look her in the eyes, much less undress her. Instead, she engulfed her body in cloth, wearing an oversized shirt that she stole from her father and a pair of ratty Boston University sweatpants that she could not bring herself to throw away. As she wrapped her hair in a towel and stepped outside, it occurred to Deeva that Rakesh had never seen her without makeup on. But she could not bring herself to worry about whether or not he found her attractive. It was too late to matter now. In the room, Rakesh was still sitting on the bed, though she noticed that he had cleared away all the frayed flower petals and deliberately hung their garlands on the rings of the coat rack. He looked up at her and smiled, wearing the same empty gaze when seeing her dressed down as he had when she was dripping with jewels. 

Deeva nestled into the bed as Rakesh took his turn in the bathroom. She tried to call Rina to placate her mind but her sister would not pick up. Knowing her, it was on purpose, a way to try and force her little sister out of her shell. So instead, Deeva searched for any other way to occupy her time: she scrolled through boring work emails and Instagram posts, texted her limited number of friends with sugar-coated updates about the wedding. Her desperate search for a distraction was interrupted, however, by the sound of a faint sob piercing through the patter of water hitting the tiled floor. The thin wall between Deeva and Rakesh could not conceal his labored breaths, the gasped intakes as he failed to choke back his cries. Deeva was struck by their shared grief, but when Rakesh eventually emerged from the bathroom, she did nothing to console him. His red-rimmed eyes were framed by a thick pair of squared-off glasses, their power strong enough to make him look slightly bug-eyed. Deeva did not even know her husband had glasses. Her chest wound tight. 

Rakesh lingered at the foot of their bed like a frightened animal, only moving when Deeva patted the mattress to spur him on. As he took his place next to her, he gingerly placed a pillow between them. Almost a year had passed since Deeva last shared a bed with a man. It was the night after her engagement to Rakesh had been confirmed. She was sitting at a bar, buying cocktail after cocktail that she could barely afford. The man, whose name she could no longer remember, whose name she might have never even gotten, was no one special. But he smelled of expensive cologne and spoke to her with a low-voiced desire, curling into a predatory purr at the end of each word. She recalled the way he grabbed at her body, all hard edges and forceful thrusts. His dilated pupils could not be more different from the large, questioning looking at her now.

“Is this okay?”

“Thank you.”

“Can I turn off the lights?” She hummed yes. With Rakesh and Deeva’s backs turned to one another, neither of them slept that night.

•••

The next morning, Deeva and Rakesh got breakfast with their families. They had all stayed at the same hotel, a fact that had kept Rakesh awake through the night. In the early hours of the morning, when he could see the pale sunshine peeking through the gaps in the hotel room’s curtains, he imagined himself knocking on his parents' door. His mother would pull him to her chest and drag him to bed, where he would fit his body into the small sliver of space between his parents like he did as a child. It was the ghost sensation of his father’s large, paw-like palms rhythmically smoothing down the hair at the back of his head that lulled him into a fitful slumber.

In the stark white lighting of the hotel lobby, Rakesh could see the dark shadows peeking out from beneath Deeva’s makeup. He wondered if her parents saw them too, if they could tell that the couple had spent the night forcing their breathing to slow. They sat next to each other now, shoulder to shoulder. While Rakesh was grateful that he did not have to look at her as they ate, facing his brother was no better. He hated the slight upturn at the corners of Arjun’s mouth, the obvious humor in his eyes as they darted back and forth between Rakesh and his new wife. Though Rakesh was four years his elder, Arjun had always had the upper hand in their relationship. He found power in his experience, and with every girlfriend Arjun brought home, Rakesh’s standing with his brother slipped. Rakesh, too, had his fair share of lovers, women who slipped in and out of his life like water through his fingertips. Rakesh was not good at receiving love and was even worse at giving it. It was not that he was uninterested, but rather, he had unwittingly built an internal wall that felt impossible to climb. When his parents ultimately offered to find him a bride, his acceptance was reluctant. But the only thing he feared more than letting someone in was letting his parents down.

Arjun teased him mercilessly in the weeks leading up to the wedding: small quips and condescending pats on the back disguised as congratulations. The night before the wedding festivities began, Arjun left a simple six-pack of condoms on his brother’s bed, ribbed for extra pleasure. Rakesh buried the condoms in the bottom of his crowded desk drawer where he would not have to look at them. However, the night before the final ceremony, he shuffled through his belongings to find one, placing it in his wallet like he had heard men in the movies did. He could feel his wallet pressed against his leg now, the condom left untouched. He glanced at his father, sitting on Arjun’s right, and felt a hot flush rise up his neck. His brother and father bared a striking resemblance to one another, both short but broad-shouldered. They commanded space. In contrast, Rakesh’s body seemed to sway with every step, his feet were always light on the floor. He decided to throw away the condom in his pocket when he had the chance. 

Beside him, Deeva made small talk with Rakesh’s mother. She threw her head back as she laughed at his mother’s jokes, her freshly blow-dried hair brushing against the top of his shoulder. Unconsciously, he shifted away, but he forced himself to readjust until their arms lightly brushed against each other. He hoped his brother would notice his feigned nonchalance. Deeva’s sister sat by her other side, her eyes as wide as hers. The pair moved in harmony, their gestures reflecting one another’s in an almost uncanny manner. Their mother, sitting on the other end of the table, shared their sense of ease.  There was no tension in her shoulders and the wrinkles by her eyes carved deep into her skin, the sign of a life lived with a permanent smile plastered across her face. The only other person who seemed to share the heavy weight Rakesh felt in the pit of his stomach was Deeva’s father. Rakesh and his father-in-law sat next to each other in silence, opting to pick at their continental breakfasts in lieu of making conversation. 

“You must be excited to head back home,” Arjun said to Deeva. Rakesh’s fists clenched. 

“I am, though I’ll miss how warm it is here.” When Deeva smiled, her round cheeks bunched together until her eyes disappeared into small slits. It was disarming. Rakesh wondered if one day, the skin by Deeva’s eyes would crease like her mother’s. He looked back down at his plate. 

“Rakesh, you’re barely eating,” Deeva’s mother spoke up from across the table. 

“Sorry Aunty, my mind was just wandering.” Rakesh stuffed a spoonful of scrambled eggs into his mouth and ignored the smirk spreading across his brother’s face. 

“There’s no need to call me Aunty now. You should call me Ai.” 

Rakesh coughed to clear away the thick knot that had formed in his throat before responding, “Haan, Ai.” With Deeva’s full lips and even fuller cheeks, her mother smiled.

•••

When Deeva returned to Boston, she was struck by how normal everything felt. Her laundry basket was still half full, her apartment still in a state of disarray after she had hurriedly packed her suitcase to leave for Mumbai. She sat in front of her television with a bowl of instant ramen that she had not even bothered to pour into a proper bowl. She slurped soup out of the steaming plastic cup in her hands, still covered in the intricate patterns the mehendi artist had drawn on her just a week prior. As The Bachelorette played in the background, she looked through her wedding photos. She couldn’t recognize the woman in the pictures. The photographer her mother hired had overexposed every image to lighten her skin by several shades. Her bridal wear, a blood-red lehenga, looked foreign on her. She had always envisioned herself in a white wedding gown. 

As a child, Deeva would spend her afternoons combing through the bridal magazines in the waiting room of her father’s dental practice. When his secretary would turn her back, she would fold corners around her favorite dresses, delicately rip the pages, and slip the pictures into her notebooks for safekeeping. At home, she would glue glossy paper to poster boards that she would later hide below her bedpost. Sometimes, when it was far past her bedtime, she would pull her dreams out from under her bed and study them in the dim glow of her desk light. She imagined white satin against bronze skin, a billowing skirt with a grand train. She thought she would peer through sheer white tulle at her beaming husband-to-be, tears rolling down his face at her beauty. Once their words of love and commitment were shared, he would swoop in and give her a good kiss, a movie kiss, and the crowd would rise to their feet as she was swept off hers. Decades later, when she was planning her real wedding, she did not even bother to ask for a white wedding gown. White is the color of mourning, her mother would say, the color of death. 

She continued to scroll through the pictures from the many marital ceremonies that constituted a Hindu wedding. In one, during the Haldi ceremony, her sister rubbed turmeric paste across her forehead. Both their heads were thrown back in laughter, capturing one of Deeva’s only truly genuine smiles from the whole week. The girls shared the same arch in their brow, the same tilt of their necks. Their mouths revealed the same sets of teeth, curved wide under the long nose that Deeva had once despised, only learning to love it through the mirrored image reflected over Rina’s face. Growing up, the two were often mistaken for twins, cut from the same cloth. But despite their two-year age difference, Deeva had always felt smaller, more frayed around the edges. Rina found direction while Deeva wandered, aimless. As a small child, she copied Rina on the playground, as a teenager, she stole Rina’s style. Now, twenty-nine in age and seventeen at heart, Deeva had nothing more to take from her older sister.

Surprisingly, Deeva’s favorite pictures were the ones of just her and Rakesh. In the midst of the festivities, Deeva had barely even bothered to look at him; he felt like an afterthought, a byproduct of the wedding itself. But now, she took time to really take him in. He was all long legs and broad shoulders, glowing in his lightly bejeweled tan kurta. He was handsome. She swiped to find a photo of the two of them beaming at the camera, smiles faked so brilliantly she almost believed them. The couple in the picture were mad with passion; they made love like they couldn’t bear not to and kissed fervently in the afterglow. They woke each other with light traces of their fingertips down the bridge of their noses and over soft lips, sharing awe in the slivers of sunlight peeking through drawn curtains. Sitting in her ragged sweatpants and the college hoodie she could not bring herself to throw away, Deeva could not feel further from the woman on her screen. 

She did not let herself think twice and crossed oceans to send the picture to Rakesh. The two had not spoken since she returned to Boston. She had been lying to herself, claiming her supposedly busy schedule as an excuse to evade contact, and had decided for herself that Rakesh must not care enough to reach out. As the image filled their empty chat box, Deeva’s heart raced like it did when she would slip notes to her crushes in middle school.  At this point, it was late enough in the night that Rakesh, half a day ahead, would likely be awake. Deeva threw her phone across the couch, pretending she did not care for Rakesh’s response. And yet, she could not stop herself from reaching for it every few minutes, only to see that he still had not responded. An hour later, when he did reply, it was with a thumbs up. Deeva screamed into a throw pillow. But minutes later, she heard her phone ding once again. How was your flight? The thought of Rakesh staring at his phone, equally stressed over what to send his wife, satisfied her. The next morning, he sent her a goodnight message. As she went to bed, she wished him good morning. They continued with this exchange of pleasantries and short updates every day, sometimes veering into new territories of movie recommendations and funny pictures. Though they did not dare to venture past these simple exchanges, the very knowledge that a man half a world away kept Deeva in his thoughts was enough. Even if it was out of mere obligation.

•••

Rakesh’s life turned upside down after the wedding. Deeva flew back to Boston two days after the reception, stating she had to get back to work. As he filed mountains of paperwork and packed thirty years of his life into two suitcases, he tried to convince himself that she did not leave out of contempt for him. The night that she left, his friends surprised him at his house with a cake and, after a few too many beers, fits of laughter and tears at the thought of their childhood friend leaving them. Rakesh had known the majority of his friends since he could barely walk. He grew up traversing in and out of their homes seamlessly, and he was raised by his parents’ friends– whom he lovingly called his aunties and uncles– almost as much as his own family. Every day after school, they would meet outside their apartment building to play. They’d crisscross through the cars in their parking lot while chasing each other or playing marbles, screaming in delight when they rolled them just right. When they grew older, they would bike to an empty lot nearby to play cricket. Rakesh had his first kiss when he was fourteen after one of their games. His friend Lakshmi had reached over to peck him on the lips out of curiosity and the two yelped in mortification afterward, realizing they were more like siblings than anything else, before bursting into peals of laughter. Now, that lot had become a construction site for a budding skyscraper and Lakshmi held onto Rakesh with all her might, devastated by the incoming loss of her brother. 

When his friends were not hounding him for his time, Rakesh spent his nights pacing up and down the living room of his family home, struggling to conceptualize what his life in America would be like. He had only visited the country once, as a teenager. His family went to see a distant uncle in California, one whose name he could no longer remember. He does remember, however, how his uncle’s mouth wrapped around his words. After years of living in America, he rolled his Rs and sharpened his Ts, his accent a strange medley of home-grown and foreign lands. One night, sitting alone in his room, Rakesh tried to replicate the sounds, his mouth molding into alien shapes, but he could not make it sound right. Deeva’s voice rang through his head then, the way it tilted up at the end of her sentences or puttered away when she was unsure of what to say.

The night before he left Mumbai, his mother cooked him his favorite meal: ambat varan and rice. It was a simple dish, nothing special to most, but the sweet and sour flavors of the tamarind dal reminded Rakesh of his childhood. His mom would pick him up and place him at the edge of their kitchen counter, legs dangling off the floor as she scooped steaming rice and ambat varan between her fingers and pushed them past his lips. Though those moments of contentment were long gone, Rakesh wanted to savor their taste. He didn’t know when he would get to experience it again. He had spent hours in the kitchen with his mother, trying to replicate her food, but to no avail. No one could capture the flavors of her food, the perfect balance of sourness and heat. His family sat around their dining table and forced themselves not to acknowledge that it would be the last time they would sit in the formation that had become second nature to them.

“Bags all packed?” Rakesh’s father’s gruff voice spoke up from across the table. Rakesh nodded.

“And you have your passport? Your papers, aur wo saab?” His mother chimed in. They would never see him as anything but a child, but he was grateful for that. 

“Haan, ma. Don’t worry so much.” His mother smiled, a sad smile, and scooped rice into her hand. 

“Idhar aao,” she reached her arm across the table. Rakesh stood and leaned forward, letting her push rice into his mouth. He felt his brother’s hand rest on the top of his back, a rare show of affection. They shared a wordless glance and looked back down at their plates, finishing their final meal together.

•••

“So, when are we going to meet this guy anyway?” Deeva’s friend Marissa peered at her over the rim of her mimosa glass. Weekly boozy brunch had become a tradition for the two of them since their college days. When they were still in college, Deeva adopted Marissa’s tastes as her own. Fresh out of high school, Deeva’s naivety entertained Marissa, while Marissa’s gall entranced Deeva. It was as though Marissa carried no tension in her body. Deeva followed her like a duckling, spending her weekends on dates with boat-owning white boys her parents would never approve of. Their differences were only magnified when Marissa met Jason in their senior year. The son of a business mogul, Jason had the luxury to pursue his passion, despite his lack of talent. They spent the past decade falsely appeasing Deeva that she could one day find a love like theirs as well. When she ultimately hadn’t, Marissa pretended it didn’t bring her joy. She knew Marissa like the back of her hand, and over a decade of friendship had taught her that her questioning, wide-eye gaze, and the ever so slight quirk in her brow, were founded in anything but good intentions. 

“Soon enough.” Deeva didn’t want to tell her that he would be arriving in just a few days. “You’ll love Rakesh,” Deeva lied once again. Really, Rakesh was the exact type of man that Marissa derived pleasure from mocking. He was traditional, simple, the type of man who could not tell luxury brands apart, who smiled too genuinely and dressed too conservatively to meet Marissa’s standards. But the little white lie placated Deeva. She burrowed into her fabrications, almost allowing herself to believe they were true. They may as well have been, at least while Rakesh was still not around. 

“I’m sure I will,” Deeva could tell from the victorious lilt in Marissa’s voice that her friend knew she was lying. “Show me your ring!” Deeva’s wedding ring was modest, two thin gold bands intertwining with a small round diamond at its center. The ring was an heirloom from Rakesh’s side of the family, and its age was apparent through its dulled shine. Deeva’s coworkers had loved it; on her first day back to work, the nosy older women had crowded around her cubicle. With Deeva’s hand in theirs, they insisted on seeing pictures of Rakesh, as if to reaffirm that he was real. Deeva pulled up the shot of the two of them grinning at the cameraman and felt her heart swell with unfounded pride when they gushed over his handsomeness. But when reached her hand out to Deeva, her own glistening engagement band glistening with a huge, clean-cut diamond at its center, she had to suppress the urge to hide her own in embarrassment. 

Marissa’s engagement had been nothing like Deeva’s. It was a spectacle, a dramatic, public display that put Deeva’s business transaction to shame. It happened during Marissa’s fiance’s- then boyfriend’s- preview for his art gallery. Marissa had invited Deeva, excited to show her all the paintings that loudly boasted Jason’s love for her. Deeva remembers standing in front of the huge canvas, which spanned almost the entire length and width of the wall and was covered in broad red brushstrokes. Its only other element was a single white dot at its center. It was titled: A Love Story. 

“This one’s a personal favorite,” Marissa had bragged. Deeva pretended to analyze the painting with great care. “It’s beautiful,” she lied.

“It’s a portrait of me.”

“I can really see the resemblance,” Deeva quipped. Marissa barely smiled. She pointed at the white speck and asked, “This is you, right?” That had prompted a laugh out of Marissa. She had barked out the same cruel laugh when, a month later, Deeva told her she was to have an arranged marriage. 

“No, sweetheart,” her voice dripped with condescension, “I’m the red and Jason is the little white dot.” Deeva could hear Marissa’s satisfaction, the amusement she found in Deeva’s lack of comprehension. It was during this exchange that Jason began the show. The low bass line thumping through the gallery speakers came to a halt and the shrill ringing of metal against glass pierced through the silence. All heads had turned to the source of the sound. Jason stood by his largest painting, a canvas colored entirely blue, ready to make a toast. Though Jason himself looked mouselike, with his small wiry frame and greasy, slicked-back hair, his voice boomed with overconfidence. Not even the voracious applause from the crowd of sycophants he had gathered there that night could prevent him from being heard. He welcomed the crowd to his gallery, which he had ostentatiously named Amor.

“Amor, or love in Spanish; the language, of romance, of sex, of passion, of God,” he announced with pride. Marissa whooped from Deeva’s side as she struggled not to roll her eyes. He continued his speech, “Amor is in the air I breathe, the wine I drink, in the woman I take to bed every night.” With the bend of a finger, Jason beckoned Marissa to his side. Marissa gasped dramatically, too dramatically, as though she had been expecting this and was putting on an act. She shoved her full flute of champagne towards Deeva, not caring when it spilled all over her dress. She strode over to Jason, who grabbed her by the waist and planted a wet, passionate kiss on her lips. The crowd hollered and Deeva half-heartedly whooped with them. Then, in a moment that made every hair on Deeva’s body stand, Jason reached into his pocket and placed one knee on the ground. 

“Yes, yes, yes!” Marissa wept as her lover slid the largest diamond Deeva had ever seen onto her ring finger. Jason swept Marissa off her feet, spinning her like lovers reuniting on screen. Their friends, family, and admirers flocked toward the happy couple, but Deeva could not bring herself to rush forward with them. She hung back and watched the tornado from afar, Marissa and Jason desperately grasping at each other in its center. Deeva felt hyper-aware of the wet splotch of champagne on the dress; she could not tell if the chills running down her spine were due to the cold silk sticking onto the delicate skin of her stomach or the sound of Marissa’s joyful sobs. Later that night, after several more bottles of champagne had been popped and pictures, with Deeva’s stained dress on display, had been taken, Deeva told her parents to find her a match.

Deeva was pulled out of her memory when Marissa yanked her left hand forward to assess her ring. “It’s cute!” she exclaimed. The worst part was that she meant it. Deeva thanked her halfheartedly before slipping her hand away and out of sight. She soothed herself by spilling lie after lie about Rakesh, happy to uphold the facade of her happy marriage. 

•••

Rakesh’s journey from Mumbai to Boston Logan had taken over twenty hours and he was exhausted. Yet, he denied Deeva’s offers to pick him up from the airport. The immigration line alone took another hour. During the flight, he practiced what he would say if the immigration officers were to question him- he reviewed Deeva’s address until it was branded into his memory, rehearsed what to say when asked about his purpose in the country, sorted through his files time and time again, afraid he may have left an important page of paperwork behind. But nothing could have prepared him for the officer’s beady eyes as they glared at him. Rakesh regretted letting his stubble grow out. He vowed to shave it that night itself. He faced several minutes of accusatory questioning, but he decided not to tell anyone about it, least of all Deeva. When he was finally let go, he found his suitcases and holed himself up in the bathroom to freshen up. He brushed his teeth and combed through his hair, unfortunately, left greasy after his long travels. He even changed his shirt, afraid that he may stink after wearing it for so long. Though Deeva was his wife, he felt as though he was about to meet her for the first time. 

The car ride to her apartment did not feel real. The scenery blurred past him as his cab sped down the freeway. He was used to narrow roads and standstill traffic, smog obscuring his vision. He had barely touched down but he already missed Bombay. He missed the standstill traffic, the honking drivers, the smell of smog. Boston felt too clean, too polite, sterilized. At least Mumbai felt alive outside the window. But he found comfort in the cab driver, a Gujarati man whose English Ts and Rs rolled off his tongue the same way they rolled off Rakesh's. Small talk in Hindi filled the heart in a way that English never could. The cab driver hoorahed when Rakesh told him he married an American. 

“Bhai, green card mil jayega!” The cab driver exclaimed.

“Haan, ji, milega,” Rakesh laughed. Quite frankly, moving to the United States had never even crossed his mind. He loved how alive Bombay was, loved to walk past shouting street food vendors and chai walas on his way to work every morning, and cross paths with young partygoers every night when he returned home. But the cab driver’s unabashed glee at the prospect of him gaining a green card made him feel hopeful for his future in Boston. 

“Lekin…. wo gori ladki nahin hai, na?” A thick wrinkle of concern sliced through the cabbie’s forehead at the thought of Rakesh marrying a white girl. 

“Nahin, ji, gori ladki nahi hai. Hamare desh ki hai,” Rakesh reaffirmed to him. The driver reached his hand out to the backseat. Rakesh clapped it with gusto, not because of his sentiment but rather, because of the connection they had forged. The cab rolled to a stop in front of Deeva’s small apartment building and Rakesh experienced a strange sense of loss as he bid his new friend goodbye. 

Rakesh checked his reflection on his phone before ringing his wife’s doorbell, his pulse racing. The door swung open and, at that moment, their marriage felt real. Deeva stood in the doorway in jeans and a nice blouse, her makeup done and her hair curled. 

“Hi.” They stared at each other for a moment before she crossed the threshold and tentatively wrapped her arms around Rakesh. Her head fell right over his chest and he prayed she could not hear his thumping heartbeat. He placed his arms around her shoulders and, for a moment, they just stood. The soft contours of her body melted against him. It was nice. Comfortable. He broke away and cleared his throat. 

“Can I come in?” She grabbed one of his suitcases and lugged it inside. Deeva lived in a tiny one-bedroom apartment, which was all she could afford in the city, she explained sheepishly. Of course, Boston is an expensive city, Rakesh affirmed. As she grabbed him a glass of water, Rakesh sank into her old couch and let his eyes scan over her living room. Her walls were painted a light cream color and he could see some chips of paint peeling off the ceilings. There was a small TV mounted on the wall, one that Rakesh hoped to upgrade eventually as his eyesight was bad enough as it was. One end of the room had a bookshelf that was almost as wide as the wall itself with a plant with browning leaves sitting atop it. Small trinkets found their home nestled amongst Deeva’s many novels. Curiosity got the best of Rakesh, and Deeva walked back into the room and saw him examining a snow globe.

“I got that in the 7th grade, at Franklin Park Zoo,” she spoke up from behind him. Rakesh’s body jolted and he dropped the knickknack to the ground. A deep crack formed along its side, causing water to seep onto the hardwood floor. A long string of expletives escaped Rakesh’s mouth as he scrambled to amend the situation. He grabbed at the snow globe, but in his rush, gashed the delicate skin of his palm against open glass. Thick droplets of dark red mixed with the water and tiny pellets of fake snow as they continued to bleed across the floor. 

“Fuck, are you bleeding?” Deeva ran forward and yanked Rakesh’s hand to make him stand upright. Desperate apologies spilled past his lips, but she would hear none of them. She darted to her bedroom to retrieve a first aid kit, and Rakesh heard her scuttling in a panic in an attempt to find it. While Deeva desperately searched, Rakesh grabbed a thick roll of paper towels off her kitchen counter.  Shame surged through his veins but he tried to channel his energy into cleaning up the mess he made He clasped a thick wad in his right hand to stop the bleeding and used his left to mop up the sheer red mix of blood and water, scrubbing at it to stop it from soaking into the wooden floorboards. Deeva emerged from her room to find him crouched on the floor, drying up the last of his wreckage. 

“Stop!” Her authoritative tone made him bolt upright. He began to apologize once again, but the fiery look in her eyes wired his jaw shut. She pushed him onto the couch, took his injured hand into hers, and threw the bloodied paper towel onto the floor without care. With a careful touch, she used cotton balls to dab alcohol onto Rakesh’s wound. He failed to contain his hiss of pain, but that did not prevent her from meticulously moving forward. “How deep is it? Do you need to go to the hospital?” Rakesh insisted he didn’t, so Deeva pressed on. She tightly wrapped gauze around his wrist before going over his injury. Over and over again, perhaps to an excessive extent, she rolled the bandage over his hand. When she was done, she held Rakesh’s fingertips in hers and examined her handiwork. His pulse quickened.

“You’re really good at that,” Rakesh commented, his face still flushed from embarrassment. 

“I had to do first aid training when I was a girl scout. I guess some skills stick with you,” there was no malice in her voice, though Rakesh felt he deserved it. He felt nauseous with guilt

“I really am sorry.” Instead of responding, she pressed the glass of water she had brought out earlier into his hand. Unsure of what else to do, he chugged the glass of water as Deeva cleared away her supplies and threw out the dirtied towels and cotton balls. The sun had set at this point and, now that his adrenaline rush had subsided, Rakesh’s body grew heavy with exhaustion.

Deeva must have sensed his fatigue because once she was done cleaning, she turned to him and asked, “Do you want to clean yourself up?”

“That would be great, thank you.” He dragged his suitcase to the middle of the living room and searched through it for an adequate pair of pajamas. He hid his boxers under the pile of clothes in his arms as Deeva showed him to the bathroom, handed him a towel, and left. He could not figure out how to operate the shower knob, but after the ruckus he had caused, he did not want to call for Deeva’s assistance. And so he submerged himself under icy cold water, opting to deal with the tremors that shook through his body instead of asking his wife how to change the settings. The showerhead just barely reached his neck, so he had to hunch over and let shampoo suds pour down his forehead and over his eyes to adequately clean himself. Rakesh washed away the difficulties he had faced during the day: he started with his sore legs, cramped from the tiny airplane seat he had squeezed into for hours on end. Then he moved to his face, which he ferociously scrubbed to try and erase the daggers the immigration officer had stared into his eyes from his mind. All the while, he was careful to keep his bandaged hand out of the water’s reach, not wanting to undo Deeva’s meticulous craftsmanship. Her shampoo smelled like flowers, her body wash vanilla. As Rakesh draped himself in her scent, he looked through the slew of other products she had lined up against her wall, though he could not tell what half of them were. 

Once he had dried himself, Rakesh examined himself closely in the mirror. His eyes were weary and tired, his beard cast a light shadow across the peaks and valleys of his face. He retrieved his small pouch of toiletries, with a travel-size bottle of shaving cream and a razor, and deliberately eliminated any sign of unkemptness from his appearance. After a moment of contemplation, he took his toothbrush from his little bag and settled it next to Deeva’s on the holder by her sink. Before leaving the bathroom, he checked over every last one of Deeva’s products and belongings to ensure nothing was out of place. He left the bathroom and crept to the doorway of Deeva’s, now their, bedroom. Inside, she was fixing the disarray caused by her desperate search for disinfectant and gauze. She, too, had changed into her pajamas- the same as what she wore on their first night together. She looked up, noticed her husband at the entrance of her room, and smiled. Rakesh noticed that her lips were drawn taut; her eyes did not close with this smile. 

“Is Chinese for dinner okay?” Deeva asked. Rakesh hated Chinese food, but he gave her an enthusiastic yes. She refused to let him help her clean up, so he moved back to the living room and spent his time messaging his parents and friends that he had arrived and was settling in. His suitcases were still in the living room, still packed. When their delivery arrived, Deeva and Rakesh ate it on the couch; the apartment was too small to fit a dining table. Rakesh scarfed down his food despite American orange chicken and lo mein not being to his taste. He had not even realized he was hungry until he had started eating. In the midst of their meal, he noticed a splotch of his blood had stained the edge of the couch. He prayed that Deeva had not seen it too, that he could clean it while she was away. Between bites, they made mundane conversation. About the weather in Mumbai, how Rakesh would have to buy a winter coat and a SIM card, how they would eventually have to practice for his green card interview. It did not feel comfortable, but it did feel safe. 

Later that night, they lay in bed together once again. Despite the knot of distress that had formed and refused to unfurl in the core of Rakesh’s belly, he was exhausted enough to doze in and out of sleep. But in the middle of the night, he woke to pitch-black darkness and an absent space on the other side of the bed. Still half asleep, he pattered out of the bedroom to discover Deeva leaning out the window. Wisps of smoke unfurled around her, magnified by the dim light of the corner lamp she had turned on. At the sound of his light footsteps, she spun around and a tuft of smoke escaped from between her lips. The living room was flooded with the scent of marijuana.

“I thought you were asleep,” she said. They shared eye contact for a moment before she brought the joint back between her lips, closed her eyes, and sucked in. She twisted her torso to let the wind carry her exhaled smoke before turning back to her husband. “I hope you don’t mind.” In response, Rakesh extended his hand out to her. She passed him the joint and shifted to make space for him to cram beside her by the window sill. He took a deep drag, filling his lungs until they burned. His exhale felt like a sigh of relief. The couple passed the weed back and forth until it was scorched down to the filter and bitterness coated their tongues. Deeva stubbed the joint out on her window sill and flicked it onto the ground below them. They peered out at the quiet city with clouded minds.

“I didn’t expect you to smoke,” Deeva spoke barely above a whisper, her throat hoarse. 

“What do you mean?” 

“You just seem so proper.”

“I’m not proper,” Rakesh defended.

“You totally are. You wear rectangular glasses,” Deeva stated matter-of-factly. They broke into peals of laughter, giggling with their heads sticking out the window until they grew dizzy. Deeva plopped onto the ground and Rakesh followed suit. “Sometimes I can’t fall asleep without it. Is that bad?” Deeva asked, staring up at the paint peeling off her ceiling.

“Probably.” Deeva smacked Rakesh’s arm.

“Is that why you snuck out of bed?” Rakesh inquired. She hummed yes.

“I felt like I was in college again, like when I’d visit home and have to hide it from my parents. I used to smoke in the park by my house and hose myself in perfume before heading back inside. It was kind of fun, to feel like I was doing something I wasn’t supposed to do.” 

“I can pretend I never saw this if you want me to,” Rakesh half-joked.

“Shut up.” They looked at each other through the haze and smiled, Deeva’s eyes disappearing behind her chubby cheeks. Eventually, they fell asleep with their backs pressed against the floor. When Rakesh woke up the next morning with the blinding sun in his face and a deep ache in his shoulders and spine, Deeva was gone.

•••

When Deeva returned from work that evening, her heart jolted at the sight of Rakesh sitting on her couch, flipping through one of the many books that lined her walls. She had been going over their conversation throughout the entire day, wondering whether their connection the previous night had been a fluke or the start of something new. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do. Domesticity was foreign to her. Deeva’s life had a set routine. She would drag herself out of bed at 8:00 am every morning, get dressed in a rush, and head to work. During her lunch break, she’d stop by the deli around the corner to grab a coffee and a sandwich, which she would bag up and bring back to eat in her cubicle. She’d spend half her time at the office working and the other half pretending to work. Then, she would go home at 5 o’clock on the dot and usually would let herself rot away on her couch with a microwave meal before heading to bed and starting all over again. It was not a cycle that she particularly enjoyed, but it worked for her. But Rakesh’s tall frame cuddled up against the side of her couch threw a wrench in her normalcy. 

“How was work?” He offered her a polite smile. Deeva didn’t know how to respond. What she really wanted to say was that it was awful and draining and that one of her coworkers had spilled coffee all over her favorite pants and left her feeling cold in her small gray cubicle for the rest of the day. But she didn’t know if that was too much. Did their brief moment the night before mean they were close now? Were they friends? How does a wife respond to a husband?

Deeva settled on, “It was fine, just tiring.” It was a safe response, but Deeva did not know how much she was allowed to divulge. Rakesh simply hummed and looked away, killing their interaction. Deeva slipped off her shoes and went straight to her bedroom, internally panicking but ready to destress after her long day at work. But soon she was interrupted by Rakesh peeking through the door.

“I don’t want to bother you, but is there a plan for dinner?” She almost had to strain to hear him. She was planning on ordering takeout again, but could not help but notice shoulders droop ever so slightly at the suggestion. But when she inquired whether that was okay, affirmations rushed out of his mouth and he quickly fled the scene. Later that night, they shared their meal– Italian this time– with the TV running. It almost felt even more awkward than before they knew each other at all, chewing in near silence. Later that night, as she got ready for bed, Deeva noticed that her skincare products had been rearranged on the shelf in order to make room for Rakesh’s own toiletries. When she moved to change into her pajamas, she found her closet space cramped, as Rakesh had clearly started unpacking while she was away. Irritation bubbled in her gut, though she knew it was irrational. Unlike the night before, she did not pretend to go to sleep before stepping into the living room for her nightly smoke. Though she did not explicitly invite Rakesh, she hoped that he would join her, that they could recreate the short but sweet bonding moment while inebriated together. But he did not. She returned to the bedroom to find him asleep, though she was glad to find that at least he had not placed a barrier of pillows between them again. 

•••

In Boston, everything was backward. Rakesh was used to driving on the left side of the road, to speaking sentences of interwoven Marathi, Hindi, and English without fear of being misunderstood, to a home full of constant movement and sound, where he did not feel like he was loudly announcing his presence with every move he made. As much as the city intimidated him, however, it did not hold a candle to Deeva’s apartment. Every corner was littered with evidence of a life that he knew nothing about. It was a space carved out fully for her, one that he was glaringly aware that he was intruding. And so, he had spent his first few days in Boston wandering alone. On his first day, he visited the aquarium, and on the next, a museum. But after just four days, Rakesh had gotten sick of the voice in his head being his only companion. Half a world away, his friends and family’s responses to his messages came at a twelve-hour delay. Deeva was the only person he knew in the city, but she was leading a full life entirely on her own. She did not need him the way he needed her. So, he requested to get back to work early so he could find solace amongst lines of code. The only pitfall was that as a software engineer, he could do most of his work from home. Without a driver’s license, he could not justify going to the office each and every day, and so, he found himself holed up in the apartment on most days.

He tried to make himself useful around the house, hoping that Deeva would not mind his intrusion if he served a purpose. He tried to reorganize the cupboards and clean the floors, and eventually, started cooking so she would not have to keep ordering food from outside the house. Home-cooked food was his only remedy for homesickness. He hoped his mother’s recipes would tether him back to his roots and spark the same warmth that he felt under the hot Mumbai sun. But Deeva had no Indian spices in her cupboard except for an unopened bag of turmeric that, judging by the faded letters on its packaging, must have been several years old. So, a week into his stay in the United States,  Rakesh made a list of all the essentials that he would need to recreate his mother’s food: garam masala, red chili powder, jaggery, and much more, and embarked on his journey to the nearest Indian grocery store. During the cab ride there, he created a menu of dishes he could cook for Deeva every day, hoping to impress her. The car pulled up in front of a large, rundown store. Unlike most other stores he had seen in America, the Desi Bazaar forewent light-up block lettering, making use of a tattered tarp to display its name. Its windows were covered in posters, ranging from professional advertisements for Indian hair oils to hand-drawn signs marketing Desi community events on A4 paper.

The first thing that struck Rakesh when he stepped inside the store was the smell of bhaji and frying vegetable oil. The store was huge, its splotchy concrete floor extending to the ends of Rakesh’s depth of vision. Several voices rang out from within the aisles, each speaking a different language. To his right, a mother chastised her child in Bangla, to his left, two men argued in Telugu over which type of Maggi noodles was superior. He walked past the produce in a daze, bumping into an old woman who muttered an irritated arre under her breath. In the very back of the store, he watched a teenage boy order do samose aur ek cup chai from a sweaty man standing over a large vat of oil. As Rakesh picked out the spices that he had come with the intention of buying, he also loaded up his shopping cart with Frutti mango juice and bags of Kurkure, aloo bhujia, and chaklis. He bought fresh vegetable puffs from the man in the back and sipped on a cup of chai as he slowly made his way through every corner of the store. 

At the checkout counter, he made small talk with the cashier, a girl who must have been in high school, in Hindi. She wore her hair in a tight braid down her back, practically dripping with coconut oil that he was sure her mother had lathered onto her scalp earlier that morning. With three full grocery bags in hand, he tried not to cry as he left the store. The next day, he returned. He told himself he had to, he needed cardamom. The day after that, he went back in search of mustard oil. Eventually, he stopped searching for excuses and walked through the aisles of the store every time he felt that familiar, lonely pang in his chest.

•••

A few weeks into living with Rakesh, Deeva felt as though she was slowly beginning to lose her mind. She liked to live in organized chaos, but suddenly, nothing was where she left it. Instead, she would find random bits and pieces of Rakesh scattered everywhere: his papers always splayed across the coffee table, his unfinished mugs of coffee left abandoned on every surface. Even the benefits Rakesh’s presence brought their own unique set of annoyances. When he offered to prepare their dinners every night, Deeva was delighted by the proposition. But she soon realized that Rakesh’s ventures in the kitchen resulted in a nightmare. She came home to steaming pots of food and a mountain of dishes in the sink, splotches of spilled dal on the countertops, grains of rice splayed across the floor where she could only discover them when they dug into the soles of her bare feet. 

Rakesh himself, however, was like a ghost. She would often come home to find a pot full of food for her dinner, but Rakesh was nowhere to be found. When he was home, she struggled with his timidity. Despite weeks having passed, he moved through the apartment with an aura of insecurity. His back snapped upright like a slingshot every time she entered a room. Rakesh could barely even pour himself a glass of water without scanning the room, riddled with unfounded guilt. When Deeva mentioned the dishes to him, he apologized so profusely that she, in turn, apologized to him for broaching the subject in the first place. And when Deeva noticed a thin, oily layer of grime coated over some of his poorly washed plates, she did not even bother to bring the issue up to Rakesh, in fear of making him uncomfortable. She felt like a perpetual host in her own home, constantly showering the guest that is her husband with reassurance that he is free to do and take whatever he pleases. With Rakesh’s hesitance to take something as simple as the snacks he wanted out of the pantry, Deeva was beginning to give up hope that he would ever take her by the hips and pull her close. She yearned for any form of affection, but she could not imagine a world where Rakesh would feel bold enough to reach out and touch.

She could not pretend that she didn’t notice the dark circles that now seemed to be permanently etched into the skin under his eyes, the tired curve of his spine, and how he seemed to cave even further into himself when they locked eyes from across the living room. But he always insisted he was okay, and she was growing too irritated by his presence to push for answers. It felt like a blessing when her sister said she would be visiting Boston for the weekend. Typically, when Rina visited, she would stay in Deeva’s apartment. The two women would share her twin-sized bed and stay up through the night gossiping like little girls. However, with Rakesh now around, there was not enough space in her tiny apartment for the three of them. When Deeva told Rakesh she would be staying at her sister’s hotel for a night during her visit, she shared the look of relief that spread across his face.

The first thing Rina said when she opened the door for her sister was, “Your hair looks dry, are you okay?” with genuine concern in her voice.

“Fuck you. Does it really?” Rina nodded sadly in confirmation. 

“Sorry. I’ve missed you,” Rina enveloped her younger sister in a hug and Deeva latched onto her like a lifeline. The pair rocked back and forth in the doorway of the hotel room and before she knew it, tears were streaming down Deeva’s face. Rina made a noise of understanding, almost as though she could read her younger sister’s mind. She cupped Deeva’s head in her hands, ready to console her sister, but her nose scrunched up in reaction to what she found under her fingertips.

“It’s a good thing I brought coconut oil. Your hair is seriously a disaster.”

“I actually hate you,” Deeva said, before leaning back into her sister for another hug.

Deeva sat at the edge of the bed while Rina stood behind her, a bottle of virgin coconut oil in her hands. Their mother used to oil their hair religiously when they were children, despite Deeva’s constant complaints that the kids at school made fun of the smell. She stopped, however, when Deeva came home at fourteen with a head full of terribly bleached hair. She had gone to the store and bought the bleach herself, using a tutorial from a magazine to try and recreate her childhood friends’ perfect blonde locks on her own head. Instead, she ended up with a patchy, bright orange mess. Their mother was so furious that she refused to touch it, and instead, Rina took her place. Just like when they were young, Rina massaged the oil into her little sister’s scalp as she spilled her heart out for her.

“It’s awful, Rina Didi,” she whined.

“I’ve heard marriages often are,” her sister responded, always knowing better.

“How would you know?” Rina had been dating the same man for the past five years, but to their parent’s chagrin, the pair had still not tied the knot. Her boyfriend, Arjun, was completing his medical residency, and the couple was waiting for him to be done before getting married. Of course, Rina would shack up with a doctor.

“All I’m saying is that it's only been a few weeks,” Rina responded. 

“You don’t get it Didi, I don’t even hate him. I honestly wish I hated him, but he’s like lukewarm milk.”

Rina barked out a laugh, “You are such a bitch.” 

Against her will, Deeva found herself laughing as well. “I’m not trying to be! But he gives me nothing to work with. I’m living with a stranger.”

“So is he!” Rina exclaimed. 

“So why doesn’t he want to change that?”

“Maybe he wants to but he just can’t,” Rina’s hands continued to work against her little sister’s head, lathering oil from her roots to her split ends.

“That is such bullshit,” Deeva moaned. 

“Men are bullshit, Deevu. And he’s probably having a hard time adjusting, he’s fresh off the boat, remember?” 

“I just don’t know what to do.” Deeva crumpled against the bed.

“Stop! You’re going to get the bedsheets oily!” Deeva stayed exactly where she was.

“I just feel so useless,” her voice came out muffled, “I want to fix things but I don’t know how.” Her sister flopped down on the bed next to her. 

“I know you do. Maybe you just have to take the first step,” Rina slotted her body against Deeva’s. Deeva groaned but opened up so she could cuddle into her sister’s side.

“I feel like I’m still a teenager. I don’t know how I got here,” Deeva whispered into the tight space between them. “Isn’t it supposed to be easier than this?”

“Deevu, what’s meant to be will be.” Rina held her sister’s face in her hands and wiped away her tears.

“Stop, you have tel on your hands, you’re going to give me pimples,” Deeva wailed as she leaned into her sister’s touch. For the first time since the wedding, she let herself cry.

•••

Rakesh was shocked when Deeva asked him to go shopping with her. Lately, he had become a shell of who he once was. His once quiet nature had completely clammed up. Though he shared a roof with Deeva, he lived in isolation. He began avoiding her eyes, began going for long walks during the times that they would typically share a meal. He had lost weight, his skin sinking in where it was once full and gray where it would once have a golden-brown sheen. He did not want to ostracize his wife, but the biting Boston air was eating away at him. He wanted his home, his family, his friends. He wanted to play cricket like he did as a teenager, to hold those round marbles in his hand again, to find joy in the simplicity of rolling them just right. When Deeva came to him, unexpectedly shy, he wished he could have said yes to her request with more enthusiasm. She explained that, as part of her friend’s bridal party, she needed to buy a new dark teal gown, something original since Marissa was trendy and wanted her bridesmaids to mix and match. Rakesh did not know what dark teal was, much less “mix and match,” but he went along. While getting ready to leave for the mall, Deeva asked Rakesh if he would like to drive. It never occurred to him that she did not know that he could not drive in this country, at least not yet. Not until he had someone to teach him. Rather than admitting this to her, he simply told her that he would prefer not to. He watched as her eyebrows furrowed together ever so slightly, just for a split second, before she forced her facial muscles to relax once more. 

The couple played the radio on blast in the car. Deeva sang along quietly to the songs, many of which Rakesh didn’t know, while he peered out the window, taking in new Boston sights. At the store, Rakesh trailed behind Deeva as the shopping assistant pulled dress after dress off the clothing racks. He took every potential option out of her hands, and eventually, the pile of silk and chiffon in his arms was almost tall enough to obscure his view. He took his place on the sofa outside the changing room as she tried on each gown, one by one. It felt remarkably domestic. Rakesh relished the feeling. After several minutes of him scanning the room from left to right, trying to find anything to occupy his attention, Deeva stepped out of the dressing room in a blue strapless gown. The fabric dipped slightly at the neckline and clung to her waist before ballooning outwards and gathering in a small pool by her feet.

“What do you think?” Deeva looked at him with hopeful eyes.

“It’s quite nice,” Rakesh said. 

“Is that it?” Rakesh didn’t know what else to say, so he remained silent. Deeva strode away and went to try on something else. Next, she tried on a loose dress with a halter top, then an A-line, full-sleeved one, then a sleeveless one with a plunging neckline, all of which received much of the same reaction. “Are you serious right now?” Deeva raised her voice, attracting the attention of the employee standing nearby.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Rakesh replied, feeling incredulous. Heat rose up his neck as the couple continued to attract more attention.

“Literally anything that isn’t completely lukewarm–”

“I think this one is really flattering on your figure!” interjected the shopping assistant, her perky tone rising at the end of her sentence. 

Rakesh looked at her and then back to his wife before agreeing, “Yeah.”

“Fine, I’ll just take this one then.” Deeva stormed back into the dressing room and used all her might to shut the curtain behind her. When she emerged in her casual jeans and t-shirt, she did not spare Rakesh a glance and headed straight for the cashier. The two did not share another word until they were back in the car.

“That was mortifying,” Deeva spoke up first.

“I can’t believe you would act like that in public,” Rakesh snapped back, his face still bright red from shame after the scene they caused in the store.

“Was it that hard to give me a compliment?” Deeva pressed forward, choosing to ignore Rakesh’s accusation. 

“I did. What else did you want me to say?” Rakesh’s voice started to rise in angry disbelief.

“I know we aren’t exactly a real couple, but you could try a little harder.” Deeva stared ahead at the road, her knuckles growing white where they clenched against the steering wheel.

“Of course we’re a real couple, we signed all our documents.” Rakesh’s volume started to rise.

“Is what’s on paper all that matters to you?”

“What else is there?” Deeva scoffed at Rakesh’s response.

“I can’t fucking believe this.” She reached for the volume knob and turned it all the way up. Rakesh swore under his breath and ran a hand through his hair, frustrated beyond belief. They drove home with their anger festering in their bellies, Katy Perry blasting through the car’s speakers.

•••

When Deeva’s coworker Lisa had initially invited her and Rakesh over for a dinner party at her house, Deeva had been excited to show off her husband. She wanted to bring the man from the pictures, the one with a beaming smile who seemed to love her. However, just hours after their altercation in the car, her stomach was twisting with nerves at the thought of facing her friends. Lisa was a nice woman, but she was the only one Deeva would know at this party. Rakesh would not even have that. The car ride to Lisa’s apartment was deathly silent, neither of them daring to even turn the radio on. Only once Lisa opened the door to greet them did a smile snap onto Deeva’s face. Rakesh, on the other hand, remained stoic.

“You have such a lovely home!” Deeva and Lisa exchanged pleasantries before her coworker’s gaze drifted to her husband.

“You must be Rakesh, we’ve heard so much about you!” Rakesh’s eyes widened ever so slightly in shock, subtle enough to evade Lisa’s notice but not Deeva’s. He smiled half-heartedly before extending his hand. However, as Lisa probed him with questions– about his job, his background, how he liked America– he responded with clipped answers before excusing himself to use the restroom. Deeva fought back the urge to apologize on his behalf. She had not realized that she had been digging her nails into her palms, leaving small crescent moons in their wake, until he was gone. In attempts to dampen her rage, she mingled with Lisa’s friends, using her energy to over-enthusiastically greet each and every one. She decided to put Rakesh out of her mind, at least temporarily. It wasn’t until Lisa approached her once again that she grew worried.

“Is your husband okay?” Lisa asked. “He seems a lot quieter than you described.” Deeva looked to the corner to see Rakesh staring out the window, away from the crowd. He was chewing at the skin around his thumb, looking like a scared little boy and not the tall dark fantasy Deeva had accidentally created. She excused herself and made her way to her husband.

“Are you okay?” Deeva asked. Rakesh did not look at her.

“I’m fine,” He responded, his voice small.

“You’re clearly not fine,” Deeva whispered through gritted teeth.

“Don’t cause a scene.”

“I’m not causing a scene, I just wanted to see what’s wrong with you,” She responded, keeping her voice low though she could not prevent her anger from bleeding through. 

“What’s wrong with me?” Rakesh scoffed.

“I didn’t mean it like that, you know I didn’t.” Rakesh didn’t respond. “Look-”

He cut her off, “I think I’m going to go home.” Deeva took a deep breath to steady herself, her vision starting to blur.

“Please don’t do this.” Rakesh stepped away from the window.

“Tell Lisa I had a lovely time but I’m not feeling well.” With those parting words, Rakesh turned his back to his wife and slipped out the door.

•••

Deeva’s mother only gave her three days' notice that she was going to visit her and Rakesh. She wanted to check in on them, she said, to see how the happy couple were doing. They had not spoken in four days and Rakesh had stopped leaving meals out for her on the kitchen counter. By the time she would get back home, he would be fast asleep, the pillow barrier built between them once again, like the first night they shared together. Deeva waited till she left the house before she texted Rakesh to let him know of her mother’s impending arrival. He did not respond to her message, but when she returned home that night, she found him waiting for her on the couch. 

Rakesh skipped greetings and directly asked her, “What do we need to prepare before your mom gets here?” 

“It’s not a big deal, she’s just coming for dinner,” Deeva responded. In all honesty, it felt like a huge deal to her. She felt a deep fear that her mother would see right through their smitten facade. 

“Do you want me to cook for her?”

“You don’t have to, I usually take her out somewhere fancy.” 

“Let me cook for her. I think it would be nice,” Rakesh’s tone softened. 

“Yeah. Fine. Whatever.” Deeva was tired of fighting. Three days later, Rakesh left the house in the morning and returned with bags of the freshest pomfret fish and prawns he could get his hands on. He spent all afternoon puttering around the kitchen, marinating his fish and soaking lentils, and making roti dough from scratch. In the evening, he started on his mother’s ambat varan recipe, dripping ghee and aromatics in the tadka he recently bought. The scent of curry leaves and ginger, tamarind, and a slew of spices, permeated throughout the house. Deeva’s mouth watered as she maniacally cleaned. As she was straightening the pillows on their couch for the fifth time, she heard a soft humming from the kitchen. She looked over to find Rakesh handling four different dishes at once, as though he had four sets of arms instead of just one. All the while, he was singing under his breath. She had never seen him look so at peace, every muscle in his body relaxed as he switched his focus from one task to the next. She tried to ignore her heart’s thumping.

By the time the doorbell rang, Deeva had checked her reflection in the mirror enough times to feel generally content and Rakesh had plated every dish except the dal, which he left on the stove to keep warm. When she opened the door, Deeva’s mother wrapped her in a tight hug. Deeva burrowed her face into her mom’s hair and as she took a deep inhale of her shampoo, she felt some of the tension in her body drain away. Rakesh waited for them to part ways before he stepped forward, bowed down, and touched his mother-in-law’s feet. She stared at him with the eyes of a lovestruck teenage girl when he rose and enveloped him in her arms as well. She placed a kiss on the side of his head before letting him go. Deeva wished she could find joy in her mother’s adoration for Rakesh. Her mom’s eyes widened as she breathed in the smell of Rakesh’s food.

“Arre wah, ye kya hai? Deevu, did you order catering?” Her mother asked. Rakesh laughed sheepishly before stepping forward and admitting that it was he who had made the food. Deeva could basically see the cartoon hearts popping out of her mother’s eyes at the confession. The three of them served themselves on Deeva’s nicest plates, the ones with floral detailing around the edges that she only took out for special occasions. She tried to tamp down her embarrassment when the three of them sat on the couch, with her in the middle, holding their plates in their laps. But her mother didn’t mind. It seemed as though nothing could dampen her mother’s mood now that she had Rakesh’s hard work in her hands. She made exaggerated noises of satisfaction with every bite that she scooped into her mouth, causing a pleased blush to darken Rakesh’s cheeks and paint his ears a deep red. Once Deeva’s mother finished every morsel of food on her plate, Deeva took all their dishes to the sink and offered to watch them. 

The volume level in the living room seemed to boom after her departure. Rakesh and her mother broke out into animated conversation, though their Marathi moved too quickly for her to discern what they were saying. She had only learned a few basic phrases growing up, ones that she no longer attempted to say out loud as she knew her pronunciation would be mocked. She tried her best to eavesdrop, but all she could make out was her name being thrown around every few minutes, often followed by bellowing laughter. Her fingers tingled with anxiety. Rakesh had never spoken to her with such excitement in his voice and her mom had never spoken to her so comfortably, always having to translate her sentences in her mind before she voiced them to her daughter. At that moment, felt a surge of jealousy, though she did not know if it was targeted towards her mother or her husband. When she rejoined them, their voices tapered away, and they were back to talking in controlled English sentences. Deeva dug her long nails into her palms to control her emotion.

Once the dinner was wrapped up, Deeva offered to walk her mother downstairs to her cab. Before leaving, her mom gave Rakesh another hug and planted a fat kiss against his cheek, leaving behind the faintest mark of her dark brown lipstick. As they approached the car, her mother turned to her.

“You’re a very lucky girl, you know,” she said. Though she did not speak with malice, Deeva felt burned by the comment. She nodded in response, afraid to speak in case the thick lump in her throat caused her voice to break. Her mother smiled and rested her palm against Deeva’s cheek. “I know it’s difficult, that much is clear. But he’s a good man, Deevu.” Her mother reached forward, placed a kiss against her forehead, and disappeared into the cab. 

•••

Deeva snapped the morning of Marissa’s rehearsal dinner. Though they had gotten engaged just a few months prior, Marissa and Jason decided to marry as quickly as possible. It would officially be the first time that her friends would be meeting Rakesh. Quite frankly, she had tried to keep them separate for as long as possible, especially since she and Rakesh were still not quite on speaking terms. She had been on edge since the morning and everything felt as though it were going wrong. She had gone to her hairdresser for a trim, which ended up with her losing several inches of the hair she had been growing out for months. Then, she returned home to find Rakesh trying on his new suit, only to see that his pants were far too baggy. She could already imagine Marissa’s judgemental looks. The final straw was a small one, minuscule even. She entered their kitchen to find the dishes done, but upon closer inspection, they were sticky to the touch. Months of suppressed rage escaped all at once.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Deeva’s voice boomed through their small apartment. A confused Rakesh, still in his oversized pants but now with an old pajama shirt over the top, stepped into the living room and stared at her, wide-eyed. “You did the dishes wrong. Again.” She grasped at one to hold it up in front of Rakesh, but it slipped through her fingers and crashed to the floor. Shards of porcelain scattered. She stared down at the remains, stunned. Before she knew what she was doing, she had another in her hands. She let it fall. Then the next, then the next. 

Enraged, Rakesh shouted, “What the fuck are you doing?” He rarely ever swore at her. As she reached for the next plate, he surged forward, grabbing at her forearm to make her stop. “Have you lost your mind?” He was ready to keep fighting, but before he knew it, Deeva crumpled against him, her body shaking. Through howling sobs, she explained that she had told him time and time again that he needed to fully rinse off the plates before placing them in the dishwasher. That he keeps loading it wrong, that she has a system and he has ruined all of it. That the dishes stink in a way they never did before and she feels disgusting and she can’t take it anymore. Baffled, Rakesh stood frozen as his wife half-heartedly thumped her fist against his chest, repeating her words over and over again. He did not press her harder against his chest, nor did he whisper comforting words in her ears. Yet, he also did not pull away. Deeva cried like a woman freshly grieving and he just stood there, soaking it all in. When her breathing finally slowed, she just whispered fuck, fuck, fuck. Once he knew she would not shatter, he retreated. Rakesh turned his back to Deeva, grabbed his key off the coffee table, and left the apartment. 

Rakesh walked all the way to the Indian grocery store. He knew his outfit looked ridiculous but he could not bring himself to care. The twenty-minute drive ended up being a forty-five-minute walk, during which he turned his brain off completely. He could not fathom the state of his life. He walked past hoards of college students and buskers, rushing businessmen and young parents pushing their kids in strollers. He walked across parks and down alleyways, his feet never stopping and his mind numb. When he reached the grocery store, he was coated with a thin layer of sweat. He let the air conditioning cool him off as he walked aimlessly through the aisles. He went to the stall in the back, where the worker knew him by name at this point, and ordered a samosa. He ate one, then two, then three. Then he drank three cups of chai. By the time he returned home, the sun had already set and it was almost time for him and Deeva to leave for dinner.

While he was gone, Deeva had cleaned the broken dishes up shard by shard. She brushed away every last speck of glass dust, then rewashed all the remaining dishes. She took an hour-long shower, destroying her blown-out hair. By the time she was done, Rakesh was back home. She watched him from the doorway of their bedroom in silence as he struggled to loop together a clean knot on his tie. She imagined a world where she could swoop in front of him and take that tie in her hands, their faces a breath away from each other in comfortable intimacy. Playful teasing and easy flirtation, the tender domesticity in helping each other get ready. They would kiss ever so briefly, as though they had kissed each other so many times it was second instinct to them. She’d loop the tie together skillfully, like she was used to doing this for him every morning, and pat his chest lovingly like the wives in Hollywood movies do. But instead, she pretended not to notice that his knot was lopsided and misshapen. She got dressed and did her makeup half-heartedly, wondering all the while if he would say anything to her. He didn’t. 

Rakesh and Deeva arrived at the country club where Marissa and Jason were hosting their rehearsal dinner. They walked through the grand oak doors to the ballroom a safe distance apart from one another. As soon as they stepped inside, a waiter walked past them with a tray of hors d'oeuvres. Deeva reached for the devilled egg topped with caviar and ate it in one bite, hoping it would quell the nervous churning in her stomach. Right at that moment, Marissa locked eyes with her across the room and lit up. Deeva struggled not to choke as Marissa rushed over to her, Jason in tow, and barely managed to swallow her food by the time her friend was right in front of her. She watched Marissa’s eyes flit down to Rakesh’s pants. The corner of her mouth turned up. She reached her hand out to Rakesh who, still dazed from the day’s events, waited a moment too long before grabbing it. After curt introductions, he excused himself, saying he needed a drink.

“He’s a little-” Marissa hesitated purposefully, “-peculiar, is he not?” 

“I guess he is,” Deeva responded, her mind elsewhere. She looked around the ballroom for him, but could not see him anywhere. “I’m sorry, I have to go.” Deeva rushed away from her friend, suddenly struck by the need to find her husband. She weaved through the crowd of people, barely remembering to greet the ones she knew, but could not find him. She then burst through the oak doors once again, and ran out, calling his name. She eventually found him sitting on a bench outside, staring at the stars. Slowly, as if approaching a wild animal, she took a seat beside him.

“Are we doomed?” He asked, his face still tilted up at the sky.

“I don’t know,” she answered, honestly. They sat in silence for a little while before Deeva spoke up once again, “Can I tell you something?” Rakesh nodded yes. “I was really upset when you broke my snow globe.” He hummed in understanding but did not interrupt her. “My seventh-grade crush gifted it to me. Tommy Morrison. He was my first kiss. I don’t know why I kept it for so long. But I think I felt my first heartbreak when you broke it.”

“I’m sorry,” his voice barely above a whisper.

“I know.” She paused briefly before continuing, “I think that your first love can be the most important one.”

“Was he yours?”

“No. I don’t think I’ve been in love yet.”

“Me neither.” Another silence. “I’ll buy you another one.”

“Thanks.”

“Can I tell you something now?” Rakesh asked. He did not wait for Deeva to answer. “I don’t know how to drive on the right side of the road.” 

“Oh.” She looked at him but could not really make out his features in the dark. She turned her head back up to the stars. “I don’t know if we can make this work.”

“Me neither.”

“But I also don’t know if we’ve even really tried yet.” Rakesh remained quiet. They listened to the cicadas sing. “Maybe we should go on a date tomorrow.”

“But tomorrow’s the wedding,” his voice lilted in confusion.

“Yeah. Maybe that can be our first one.”

“Okay.” At that moment, Deeva did not want to kiss Rakesh. But she imagined herself grabbing him by his cheeks with love, and squeezing until the blood vessels under his stubbled skin burst into a thousand tiny constellations.