The following is an excerpt from Every Happiness by Reena Shah. She is a writer who lives in Roosevelt Island, NY, with her family and teaches in a public school. Her work has appeared in Masters Review, Electric Literature, Joyland, BBC, the American Prospect, National Geographic, and the Guardian.
Every Happiness follows Deepa and Ruchi as they form an intense friendship as girls in India that follows them into adulthood and immigrant life in suburban Connecticut. As marriage, motherhood, and class differences strain their bond, a dangerous secret about Deepa’s husband forces them to confront the true cost of loyalty and love. It is available now from Bloomsbury.
Ruchi
August 1992
Ruchi Mehta and her family arrived late to the Jains’ annual beach party, as usual. A sign in Deepa Jain’s florid script pointed them around to the back where a wedding-sized tent covered the porch, though most people gathered around smaller tents that dotted the dark sand. The party unfolded like playacting, everyone perspiring and working hard to simulate enjoyment. So many people, too many to greet and too many to notice them, which, in its way, was a relief.
“They’ve hired waiters. Like this is a restaurant,” Naren said.
“Why should this bother you?” Ruchi said, though her husband was right, the waiters were new. They passed dry-looking dumplings, chalky chutney triangle sandwiches, wedges of brie—a cheese Ruchi had never understood, given its off color and smell of old milk. She’d stopped bringing dishes years ago.
She felt sorry for the waiters, who trudged through the sand in long-sleeved
button-downs, smiling only when they approached guests. Sanjay, Deepa’s husband, was talking to one of them. He looked preoccupied and rumpled, and Ruchi wondered if anyone else noticed. Deepa was nowhere to be seen.
Overhead, the sun was a white-hot disc. “A horrible day for a
party,” Naren muttered.
“You’ll feel better after you eat and drink.”
Her husband grumbled unintelligibly. Golden beverages sloshed in clear plastic tumblers. Separate tables for alcohol and soft drinks, just as there was separate onionless, garlicless food for the strict Jains.
Sweat dripped down Moksh’s face and into his hoodie. Her son refused to wear anything else. Days passed when she hardly heard her son’s voice, though she made a point of seeing him at least once in the morning and once at night. She looked up at him and was shocked anew by his height: almost six feet tall and still four months shy of seventeen. “Dikra, aren’t you uncomfortable in this heat?” she asked.
“It’s not even hot,” he said.
It felt laughable to suggest he eat, so she didn’t. As if she never had, as if motherhood was a series of forgettings.
“All the young people are over there,” she said and pointed to the rocks. “And look. Anu Jain is home from college. She cut her hair. Very short.”
“Stay close by. We’re not staying long,” Naren said. “I don’t want to go hunting for you.”
“It’s not my fault we’re here.” Moksh raised his eyebrows and dragged his bottom teeth across his upper lip. He never left his scars alone.
“No one is saying it’s your fault,” Ruchi said. “We’ll have fun.” Though really it was her fault. She’d insisted they come to these parties, that it was rude to decline invitations. She took in the tent and waiters, all these guests with their important jobs, their Caribbean holidays and gym memberships, thriving medical practices and healthy retirement accounts, their children with strong biodata, and her resolve wavered.
But how else to see Deepa, to take her aside, to speak, for once, at last?
She watched Moksh lope around the perimeter of the party toward the rocks, avoiding the tents entirely, until he became a thin, dark slash. If only he would eat. Anu tugged at her tufts of hair and pulled at the cuffs of her blouse that clung to her thickened middle. She made room for him, and the two of them sat apart from the other kids.
“We’re very late,” Ruchi said. She and Naren remained at the edge of the party, like interlopers.
“It doesn’t mean we’ll stay later,” Naren said.
“We have to eat something.”
“Then eat first.”
They approached the blue food tent. Two banquet tables lined the tent with trays of food that couldn’t be passed: soupy enchiladas, deepred pastas, browned broccoli. AMERICAN CONTINENTAL read a label alongside pale-rose napkins exquisitely fanned.
Where was the cake? At previous parties, there was always a general cake from which Deepa hand-fed Sanjay and Anu while everyone clapped, though it was never anyone’s birthday. But today not a single sweet.
“Food and more food. That’s all we do at these parties,” Naren said, stabbing a spiral noodle. He filled his plate with a little of each item, while Ruchi followed behind him. She was too nervous to eat.
At the end of the table, Ravi Ravichandran was gesturing between bites to Minal and Varun, a couple Ruchi had met at the opening of Deepa’s Bharat Friendship Association three years ago. Pious and opinionated, Ruchi remembered.
“You have to get them into the extracurriculars,” Ravi said and waved his plate in an arc. Ruchi sometimes picked up files from his practice. At the Association’s Diwali events, he made a show of praying to every god and reciting all the pujas, then partner-danced with young girls. Deepa said these were perks she allowed him for being their biggest donor.
“I pay my life for guitar lessons and Latin lessons and this camp and that camp.” Ravi tugged his nose, smiling. It was more show. His eldest was an honor society tennis star who trained in Florida during school holidays. With Moksh, nothing had stuck, not the Hindi classes or the baseball or the clarinet, which seemed to signal Ruchi’s own deficiency.
Naren sipped his fizzy drink. His eyes went misty as he stifled a burp. “All this spending and then what?”
“Then they go to college. Then they make their own money,” Ravi said good-naturedly.
Varun chimed in with, “Ere, boss, then there are no more worries. Then we live the life.” He jerked his wrist and didn’t notice his drink splash onto Naren’s shirt.
Naren flicked off the liquid. What was this “live the life”? There would always be worries, though no one talked about them. Everyone was nice and everyone was rich, with children who would also be nice and rich. Happy children who made them proud.
“Deepaji’s Association has such good functions. We are looking forward to Ganpathi Chaturthi,” Minal said. She poked at her shiny slab of brie.
“Not just functions. Your dues are for seva, too,” Ravi said. “We just sent money for the Ram temple back home. One gold brick!” Everyone nodded in unison.
“We are very involved,” Naren said. “My brother in Bombay is a local leader, with my help of course.”
Ruchi’s body fizzed with irritation. It was all fake piety. She should tell them how Deepa used to detest temple and the stinking swamis and the greasy prasad they were forced to eat. In Bombay, Gujaratis never celebrated Ganpathi Chaturthi as much as the Marathis did, but here all festivals were on equal footing. Ruchi attended in case a vengeful god perceived her thoughts. The old superstitions persisted. Eat plain curd before trips. Never walk out the door in the middle of a sneeze. Mark your child with an eye pencil when you catch him asleep, and press hard because will you get another opportunity? Naren poked fun at the habits, asking what good they did. The question wasn’t mean-spirited, was maybe even right to ask, but it stung nonetheless. That was the problem with any precaution. There was no knowing the dangers you missed.
But she wasn’t here to give speeches; she’d never been good at them. She was here for Deepa and later none of this talk would matter.
The beach house was off-limits this year, but who was going to stop her? Ruchi followed the property line around to the front where the heavy door, robin’s-egg blue, was unlocked. Inside, every room was ablaze, overhead lights clashing against streaks of sun. Drooped and dry plants in the foyer, thick-stalked, moon-faced leaves begging for water. Out of habit, Ruchi had taken off her shoes at the door; crumbs stuck to her soles. Someone had spilled orange juice across a counter and not bothered to clean it up. Someone had cluttered the coffee table with mugs and granola bar wrappers and a bowl of orange peels. Ruchi ran her hand up the banister, the wood soft as gum. If downstairs was overly illuminated, upstairs was dimly lit, blinds down and curtains drawn. Laundry sat in a pile in the middle of the hall. The mauve carpet needed vacuuming. It should’ve been satisfying seeing the house diminished and ugly. It should’ve made her feel better, a sense that some great but imperceptible wrong had been righted.
It would’ve been easier if Ruchi had come here to coolly witness Deepa’s misfortune and insist that all would be fine, the way Deepa had insisted over the course of their long friendship. Next time will be better, next time we’ll do this, we’ll do that. Lunches. Afternoons. Next time. It would’ve been easier if Ruchi had come here to relish the mess Deepa’s husband had gotten them into. Ruchi had been right, which should’ve offered a little thrill.
But mostly she felt sad. She’d come here with an idea, a hope.
A choked sob from the bedroom. Ruchi waited but didn’t hear it again. She pushed open the door. The bedroom had become shabbier over the years: the dresser sun-faded, the perfume bottles half-filled, lampshades dust-caked, and a bed that probably creaked. The vertical blinds were drawn, one panel flipped wrong. The light was swampy. Sitting on the floor and leaning against the bed frame was Deepa. One bare leg splayed out in front of her, the other tucked underneath. Her dress rolled up past her underwear. She swept tears from her cheek with the heel of her palm.
Ruchi took a single step into the room and swung the door shut behind her. Her whole body ached. She was grateful for it, for the stricture in her throat, her cold hands, a sign that she wasn’t empty yet. She was grateful that face-to-face, her pulse quickened.
And still Deepa was a mystery, no more known to Ruchi than she had been thirty years ago. What did it mean to know a person? Really know them on the inside? It was an impossible thing, a person; one could live close to your heart and remain a riddle.
“Ruch.” Deepa arranged her face into a smile. A mask of ease with salt-crusted eyes. “You made it. How nice. I’m just getting ready.”
“Aren’t you well?” Ruchi asked. Slowly she stepped closer. Her red toenail skimmed the wrinkled sole of Deepa’s foot, the one folded under her thigh.
“Nothing like that.” Deepa patted the spot next to her. “Come, sit with me.”
Ruchi slunk down to the floor. She thought Deepa would edge over to make space, but she didn’t. Their shoulders and upper arms brushed. She was aware of Deepa’s bare thighs and the puckered skin of her knees. A black streak where her calf met her shinbone and a white shine on her forehead and chin. The bones of Deepa’s big toes, mangled from too-tight heels, jutted out like peninsulas. Ruchi saw these details in quick glances, careful not to stare, not to take in too much. Then she saw the papers that Deepa clutched in her fist, like a child.
So. Deepa knew.
“The host should always give time for guests to mingle on their own. Is the party going well? Have you not tried the food?”
“Deepa,” Ruchi said softly and turned to face her. Freckles had formed under Deepa’s eyes, little brown islands in the fragile, smoky skin. Ruchi gestured to the papers and disorder.
“A mess, as you can see,” Deepa said. A muscle in her temple fluttered.
“I’m sorry.”
“So you also know?”
Ruchi nodded.
Deepa’s eyes narrowed. “How?”
Ruchi hadn’t expected the question. “I handle Dr. Sharma’s billing. I’ve told you that.”
When Deepa didn’t respond, Ruchi rambled about how she’d unwittingly come across the bills. Then she lied and said she hadn’t told anyone else in the medical suite, not even Dr. Sharma.
Deepa laughed a throaty, spiteful laugh. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“I was planning to.” She hated that she couldn’t keep the quiver out of her voice. Deepa tossed the papers onto the stack beside her.
On the wall behind Deepa and above the bed, Anu’s framed pencil drawing of Shiva Natraj hung by a corner. Behind it, the safe was cracked open. Inside were stacks of bills banded together as bricks, more gray than green. The simpleness of wealth disappointed her.
“Let’s put all this away,” Ruchi said. “Come. I’ll help you.” She reached for the papers, but Deepa caught her wrist.
“You said you were planning to tell me. Planning. Planning what?”
Her grip was tight. Ruchi held her breath but was sure Deepa could feel her pulse pounding.
“Sanjay might be caught. Already the authorities might know,” Ruchi said, but it wasn’t how she’d wanted to start.
“And so?”
Ruchi stared at Deepa’s pruned knee, a crescent scab, the vulnerable patella. Her wrist burned where Deepa held it. “You don’t have to stay in this marriage.”
Deepa’s eyes were tearless and fully awake. “You want me to leave my husband?”
Ruchi whispered, “Yes.”
“And then?”
And then? Ruchi didn’t know what to say. They lacked the language for intimacies. Whoops and chatter from the party punched through the window. Ruchi had thought it would be simple, that explanations and plans would be unnecessary. Her friend wasn’t miles away, inaccessible like an out-of-reach dream. She was just here only, a hair’s distance.