Dev Dreams, Volume One by Ruth Madison Read Free Book Online Page A

he asked. They slept on opposite sides of
the bed all night.
    In the morning, while Deepak was in the
bathroom, Priyanka stood in front of her little suitcase and had no
idea what to wear. She didn't have many clothes, her aunt either
couldn't afford to buy her a treassou or didn't want to waste the
money on it. She didn't know what was expected of her here. Did
Deepak want a traditional wife? He didn't live with his parents.
Would they be coming by to check that she was wearing sari and
cooking roti? They didn't seem to be too concerned with that. They
must be progressive people to have come to America, to have pushed
a crippled son to achieve the same goals expected of normal
boys.
    She had bought a skirt and two short kurtas
that looked like something she could imagine Julia Roberts wearing
in America. But today, just in case, she selected a sari and
expertly wrapped it around her body, tucking the pallu end into the
waist. When Deepak emerged, she followed him to the kitchen.
    “I will make you breakfast,” she said. She
opened his cabinets, but found very little. A few boxes in the
cabinet below the sink. Nothing in the cabinets above, which she
quickly realized he couldn't reach.
    “You don't need to do that.”
    “Do you have a steamer?”
    “For idli? No. Listen, I have to get to work,
but I'll take you to the grocery store when I get back. There's an
Indian one too. I'm sorry to disappear on you, but there are books
and the TV and I'm going to have a friend stop by to check on you
at noon. She'll take you for lunch, okay?”
    “Sure, sure,” Priyanka said. She watched out
the kitchen window as he rolled down the ramp on the side stairs
and into the garage. After he drove away, loneliness settled into
the pit of her stomach.
    She busied herself doing the things she had
been told were wifely things. She wet a towel and scrubbed the
floors, finding tire marks throughout the house. She dusted the
bookshelves and entertainment center. Her eye caught on a book
about language acquisition in adults and she sat on the sofa to
read it, a dust rag forgotten on her lap.
    At noon the doorbell rang. Priyanka peered
through the kitchen window again and saw a young woman who must be
the friend Deepak spoke of. She unlocked the door.
    “You're Deepak's wife?”
    She bobbed her head side to side.
    “You speak English?”
    “Sure, sure, no problem.”
    The woman came in and sat down on the one
chair at the kitchen table. “He's a great guy. God, I can't believe
he's married. You've known him how long?”
    “From two weeks.”
    “Wow, I can't even imagine marrying someone
I've known two weeks.”
    “It is a different way,” Priyanka said,
shrugging.
    “I'm Rachel, by the way.”
    “I'm Priya.”
    “Let's get some lunch, then. Do you want to
change?”
    “It is not okay? This?”
    “Just looks kind of uncomfortable.”
    “No, no, it is fine.”
    As they drove to a restaurant, Priyanka
missed the chaos of home. Everything here was too orderly. Rachel
was good company, telling Priyanka stories about what Deepak was
like in college.
    Over the next several days, Rachel came over
each afternoon. On the second day Deepak left some money and told
them to buy Priyanka some western clothes. Feeling that was some
kind of permission, she started wearing jeans and short kurtas and
even leaving her hair down.
    Priyanka learned how to find the grocery
store and the Indian food store. She cooked a dinner for Deepak
each night. Sometimes he arrived home when it was ready, more often
she reheated it late at night when he got back from the hospital.
She quickly discovered that he would eat anything and she enjoyed
trying to find exotic dishes and unusual ingredients to shock him.
She was unable to find anything he wouldn't eat.
    Each evening he told her about his day while
she oiled her hair and they went to sleep on opposite sides of the
bed.
    One night Deepak told her, “We need to go to
this fancy function at the hospital where I