I brought you into this world, and I can take you out . . . My Indian Mother
The greatest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude – Thornton Wilder *
My mom was a force to be reckoned with when she was angry with my brother and I, a frequently-occurring event in our household. We often got into trouble . . . ‘just wait till we get home’ was an oft-repeated threat of hers. It happened right in the neighborhood supermarket called Super Big Bazaar. My brother and I got into a scrape over a bag of Cadbury’s chocolate eclairs. I pushed him, he pushed me back . . . smack-a-dab into a Haldiram’s can display. I went sprawling and so did the can of rasogullas, tumbling everywhere like the walls of an old haveli attacked by a bulldozer. I regained my upright position and disappeared into the shelves of food just as mom’s eyes went wide with horror, her lips thin with anger. “Just you wait, Missy,” she shouted at me, cuffing the back of my brother’s head who was not so quick to escape.
Calling All Star-Crossed Lovers; A Valentine\’s Day Story. . .
“Think of yourself as a tree,” her therapist says, “a tall, sturdy oak with its roots deep in the soil.” This is the visual she is supposed to imagine anytime she feels stressed by how her eighteen-year-old daughter treats her.
“Oh, for crap’s sake, Guinevere,” she complains, her lips pursuing. “Sorry, pardon, my French, “ she mumbles, when she sees Guinevere cringe at her choice of colorful words.
Guinevere is probably sixty years old, a throwback to some bygone age in how she has decorated her home-office tucked away on the corner of Tiptoe Lane in downtown Pleasanton. Shiny new linoleum graces the kitchen floor and dainty white doilies adorn the arms and backs of the mohair green sofa and matching chair in the living room where Jaya is seated. Jaya runs her hands over the white-fringed, chenille spread covering the sofa where the outline of a large yellow and pink flower flows from the center giving the room a focal point.
Guinevere doesn’t have to deal with the hell-child who’s too much like her father, only meaner.