Page 80 of Six Days in Bombay

She opened the door wider and smoothed her dress with her free hand. “I’ve made tea.” She said it as if we had an arranged meeting.

Directly in front of me was a set of stairs that I assumed went to the second floor. To my right was a small drawing room. A sofa and two armchairs flanked a stone hearth. She closed thefront door and indicated with a gesture that I might take a seat. Then she ducked her chin and excused herself to get the tea.

On the fireplace mantel were photographs in silver frames. One was of a man in a British army uniform, his beret at an angle over his right ear. He sported a small mustache. His high forehead and the hollows of his cheeks were so much like my own. It was a formal photo, the kind the military took. It must have been taken years after the one my mother kept, when he was a younger version of the man on the mantel. I could see the toll the years had taken on him.

I moved to the next photo. The same man, a little younger, stretched out on a sandy beach on his side, one arm supporting his head. He was wearing a T-shirt and knickers, smiling at the little girl in front of him. Her back was to the camera. She couldn’t have been more than three years old, the same age I was when he left India. I could have been that girl. I felt a longing for him so intense my chest hurt. The girl had a bonnet on her head. A shirtless boy of five or six, his head resting on the man’s legs, squinted at the photographer, whom I imagined was the woman who greeted me at the door. A clock on the mantel trilled the half hour.

“Brighton Beach.”

I whirled around. She was setting the tea tray on the sofa table. “The children loved it there.” She tucked her dress under her before sitting down. “So did Owen,” she said as she poured a cup of tea for me. She held the cup and saucer up for me to take from her hands.

Was I dreaming all this? This woman, her invitation to take tea, the clock. It seemed like something I’d conjured.

I took the offering and perched on the edge of an armchair.

“I was afraid you would come someday.” Her eyes avoided mine as she poured a cup for herself. “And half hoped you wouldn’t.” When she looked at me again, her eyes were shining with tears. “I didn’t know about you and your mother.” Shelooked away again. “Well, that’s not entirely true. I knew there was something. His letters gradually grew more distant after he’d been in India awhile. I had to do something to bring him home again. I made up an excuse. I told him our son was out of control and needed his father. If Owen didn’t come home, we’d have to send Alistair to military school. So Owen came home. To his family.” She took a sip of her tea.

His family? What about my family? How dare he leave us with nothing when he seemed to be doing quite well here in London. The house, the neighborhood, the wedding ring his wife wore. For Rajat’s birthday and mine, he could only spare a pittance? My cup rattled on the saucer. My hands were shaking with rage.

“He was different when he came back. Distant. He was happy to see the kids right enough. But with me… Well. We changed houses. Thought a new environment would help. Eventually, we got back to things. The kids’ schooling. Lucy’s dance classes. Alistair’s cricket.”

She set her cup on the tea table and smoothed her dress with her palms.

“Then one day, I found the drafts from the bank. And a photo of two children. A baby and a girl of about two, whom I imagine was you. At first, I was in denial. Then, I was consumed with hate. For him. For your mother. I burned his clothes, his books, all his military papers. I saved nothing for my children. How could he have deceived not only me but his children? Why couldn’t he love them enough to stop himself from…”

I couldn’t bear to hear her go on any longer. My tea had gone cold. I stood up and set the cup on the table. My hands curled into fists. “Where is he?”

She looked at the photo of him on the mantel, the older Owen. “He died seven years ago. Cancer.”

Thedhobisin India slap wet clothes on rocks—thwak!—to loosen the dirt on them. That’s the sound I heard in my headwhen my father’s wife told me he was dead. Died the year of my sixteenth birthday. All those years of hating him. And for what? I wasn’t going to be able to call him a coward. Nor would I ever get an apology. “But I’ve been receiving letters from him for twenty years.”

She touched the collar of her dress. “When I found the drafts and realized he had been sending you money, I was furious. That was money my children could have used.”

My father’s wife dabbed her lips with a napkin. “Then I held you in my hands. The photo. It must have cost Owen a lot of money to pay for it. On the back were your names. Sona. Rajat. You existed. I couldn’t hide from you any longer. No baby deserves to be deserted. I thought about all the years you two had missed out on a father. I told myself your mother had probably found someone else and married. Perhaps you did have a father after all. But the more I thought about it, I knew that was another lie I was telling myself.”

Her eyes filled. Her voice trembled. “I thought about my own children. How they would feel if they’d grown up without Owen. Even if we’d divorced and I’d remarried, they would have known their father deserted them. They’re older than you. They would have remembered. And perhaps hated him and longed for him at the same time.” She played with the wedding ring on her finger. “I think I finally understood how you must have felt.” She directed a wet gaze at me. “You’re here now because you wanted to tell him what a heel he was. And also to see if he still cared about you. That’s what I wanted when he came home from India. To know if he still cared about us.” Her tears were creating a wet blotch on her dress.

Her gaze went to the framed photos on the mantel. “He should never have taken on another family. Of course, he knew that. It’s the sensible thing, the right thing. But that wouldn’t be fair to you, would it? You exist because of him. You are apart of him.” She was quiet. She fished out a handkerchief and wiped her eyes and nose.

I did understand. But that sludge of resentment sat heavy in my stomach. Now, not only did I hate him, I hated her. She kept him from us, my mother and me and my brother. Sheknewwe existed—or at least some version of us—and she made him choose. As if it was a choice. They were his first family. He was only on loan to us.

In Dr. Stoddard’s case, there had been no first family in En­gland to claim him when he fell in love with Deva. Breaking off with his fiancée had been as easy as a handwritten letter. The obligation to return home hadn’t taken precedence. Was that how my father had made his decision? The first family, the one he’d committed to long before he met my mother, was the one he had a greater obligation to be with. In some way, he was honoring a long-standing code, same as he would have honored a military code. Did that make it easier for me to understand his leaving?

“If my father is dead, then who has been sending those letters?” Surely, it couldn’t have been my mother, trying to spare my feelings? Mum’s look of shame when she admitted keeping the letters from me suggested otherwise. She believed my father had sent them.

“I have.” She wiped her eyes again. Her mascara left a smudge under each eyelid. “The last few years, I realized you might need more. You were probably going to school or studying for a profession and would need it.”

I swallowed. I may have been angry with my father, but his wife had tried to atone for his mistake. She had no obligation to. Should I be grateful to her? Thank her? But did a few pounds a year make up for her deception in all this? The fact that she had lied to get her husband back? For her, it hadn’t been atonement but guilt. No, I would not thank her.

“My brother was a year and a half younger than me. He diedafter your husband left.” I wanted to see her reaction, for her to feel the pain I felt whenever I thought of Rajat.

“Oh,” she said, the tears coming faster now. “I’m so sorry.”

I turned to the photos on the mantel. A young man wearing a dark robe and a mortarboard had his arm around a young woman. Both were grinning at the camera. I could see the resemblance in their faces. It was like looking in my mirror.

“That’s Alistair’s graduation from Imperial College. Lucy was eighteen at the time. Of course, that was a few years ago. Alistair is twenty-eight now. Lucy is a year younger. She has a daughter. My granddaughter.”

I heard her voice behind me, but it sounded far away. All I could think was that these were my father’s children. Which meant they were my siblings.I had siblings. I had a half brother and a half sister. And I was their half sister. I almost laughed. Would everything be ahalf-halfin my world for the rest of my life?

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