Rob finished his eggnog. “I’m glad to hear that, glad he’s doing well for himself down south,” he said.
“Tom would love to talk to you about his life in Atlanta, if you asked,” Sameera said, and Rob seemed thoughtful. Maybe he would listen to her. Then again, habits were hard to change, as she knew all too well.
Sameera started chopping onions, wondering how she had wound up on sous-chef duty while Esa and Cal got off scot-free. Barb came over to help, and Sameera joked that the first step in Indian cooking was to open a bag of onions and keep dicing until Tahsin told them to stop, whereupon they would have roughly half the onions the recipe required.
“Don’t listen to Sameera. She can’t cook,” Tahsin said, in full generalissimo mode. “Cut those very fine,beta, no one wants an onion wedge in their channa.” Her mother was a whirlwind, simultaneously washing spinach, dicing tomatoes, and opening a giant can of chickpeas.They had decided on karahi chicken, marinated in a flavorful blend of yogurt, green chilis, and coriander, plus garam masala; a savory vegetable biryani made with fresh produce; channa chickpea curry cooked in a rich brown gravy; and palak saag, a North Indian dish that was her mother’s favorite and involved slowly simmering spinach and mustard greens with aromatic spices.
Sameera and Barb worked companionably, making their way through the onions before mashing garlic and ginger together into a paste. “Maybe Tom will join us,” she said. Barb threw her husband a quick look before leaning close.
“Tom doesn’t like to cook when Rob is around. I think he’s out helping Emily with something.”
Sameera nodded, keeping her face lowered so Barb wouldn’t notice her consternation. Tom hadn’t mentioned that the reason he didn’t cook in Wolf Run was because of his father, but it made sense. He also hadn’t said anything about helping Emily when they were filming in the guesthouse. Not that he owed her an explanation, of course.
Barb turned to her, expression earnest. “You don’t have to worry about Emily, you know.”
“Tom and Em go way back,” Rob chimed in from the dining table, where he had clearly been eavesdropping. “Dated all through high school. I thought for sure they’d get married. They were good for each other. When he came home halfway through his sophomore year, we all expected him to pop the question. Instead, they broke up.” Rob shook his head. “They even had one of those cutesy couple names. What was it, Barb?”
Barb must have noticed how quiet the kitchen had gotten. “Who can remember? It was years ago. Ancient history.”
“‘Tomily,’” Rob said, snapping his fingers. “Catchy, right? Don’t know what happened there, but Tom likely screwed it up.” He disappeared through a door, muttering something about looking for the linen napkins.
“I’m sorry about that,” Barb said quietly. “Rob can be critical. He can’t help but snipe whenever Tom comes back to visit, though I’ve told him again and again that he’s pushing the boy away.”
Sameera’s eyes were on her parents now. Though their conversation was muffled by the hiss of mustard seeds popping in oil, her eyes were drawn to their faces, the lines on her mother’s forehead, the gray that almost entirely edged out the brown in her father’s hair. She remembered thinking the same thing.If only Mom would stop criticizing me. If only Dad would stand up for me. If only they tried to understand me instead of condemning or trying to control me.
“Believe me, I understand,” she said, matching Barb’s somber tone.
Barb smiled, and it transformed her face. “You and Tom are a much better match. I truly believe that when you’re meant to be with someone, things have a way of working out. I wasn’t born in Wolf Run; I came here to visit a friend. But then Rob and I found each other and decided to build a life together. That’s the key, my dear—love isn’t a magic bullet. It just opens a door, but you both have to do the hard work to walk through it together.”
Sameera was touched by Barb’s words, but also alarmed by how far away she was from the truth. “I don’t know about that,” she hedged. Mindful of the bet she had recently lost, she settled for a weak, “It’s early days yet.”
Which, naturally, her mother overheard, judging by her tightening lips.Great.
“You’re being modest, my dear. Tom came home to us, all because of you. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a lot of each other from now on,” Barb added happily. She looked up to see what Tahsin was up to, muttered something about turmeric on the counter, and hurried away, leaving Sameera alone with her thoughts.
As a desi girl, Sameera was no stranger to guilt. But what she felt now made her want to dig a hole in the backyard and let Atlas eat her for lunch. Quietly excusing herself, she made her way outside, wrapping her arms tightly around herself for warmth. Luckily, the sun was out,though not for much longer; she raised her face to the sky, closed her eyes, and breathed deeply.
She didn’t want any of this. Not her mother’s ill-advised interfering or her father’s peacemaking. She definitely didn’t want Barb to attribute Tom’s reappearance in Wolf Run to their “relationship,” as if she were the sort of good little woman who could inspire a family reunion. Sameera knew her role and who she was—the black-sheep daughter of a respectable desi family, the one who had cut her parents off for years. The one who had terrible, terrible taste in men.
Her pattern of avoiding conflict and keeping secrets hadn’t started with Hunter. Her first boyfriend in middle school had told the entire student body that she was his girl, and she had been so flattered to be picked, to be wanted, that she had gone along with it for an entire week, until he showed up to school holding hands with another girl.
Then there was her high school crush, who had “let” her do his English homework for two semesters while publicly mocking her to his friends. A few others in high school and undergrad were more typical relationships, though they hadn’t lasted long.
Each time, Nadiya had counseled her to guard her heart, to be less naive and willing to believe her boyfriends’ lies. Hunter’s betrayal was only the latest heartbreak in a long line of them. In the end, it hadn’t even been that surprising, really. On some level, maybe she thought she had deserved it all because she hadn’t been the daughter her family wanted.
Tom’s estrangement from his family and her own situation as his faux-girlfriend were both bringing back a host of unwelcome memories she had no idea how to process—not without Nadiya. As supportive and kind as Bee was, she didn’t know her like her sister. A sudden wave of fatigue hit her, and she cleared snow from a bench in the backyard and sat down.
She was tired. It wasn’t just the jet lag, or the discomfort of being in a strange house far from home, or even the stress of keeping track of her family, or the realization that she would have to work all evening and maybe even all night to make a dent in her billable hours and to put the finishing touches on her pitch for Andy Shaikh.
All right, it was all of that, but also so much more. Bee was right: This had to do with Hunter. More than that, it had to do with what he represented.
Hunter’s departure had blown down the house of straw that was her life. While it was true she hadn’t seen the signs of his gambling addiction and the serious financial problems it caused, a truer assessment could be that she hadn’t wanted to see them. Hadn’t wondered why they never had any money left every month, despite their reasonably good jobs.
Even before he abandoned her, their relationship wasn’t perfect. But there had been happy moments, too, when he would tease her and hold her close and make her laugh. He could be surprisingly generous, such as when he came home with concert tickets to a favorite band, or decided to splurge on a fancy dinner out or take her dancing. Hunter was her first love, her first long-term relationship, and she had thought the highs and unpredictability of being with him were all normal.
It wasn’t until she and Bee had grown close and Sameera had a chance to observe the easy camaraderie and deep affection between her friend and Lorenzo that she started to suspect the anxious overthinking Hunter always seemed to inspire in her wasn’t healthy. And yet she had stayed.
Over time, his comments about her family started to resonate with a small, resentful part of her that agreed with his words: Why didn’t her parents try harder to understand her? Why hadn’t they talked about things like relationships and dating when she was younger? Had they truly not realized she was struggling with her faith and identity? She started to agree with Hunter’s assessment, even when she knew it was unfair: Her parents were old-fashioned, stuck in their ways; they were too stubborn to change; they would never understand her, so why bother trying?
