The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing: A Novel by Mira Jacob Read Free Book Online Page A

with my mother nagging you all the time?” Thomas raised his hands into the air. “Impossible! She’s made it impossible. It’s not fair to you or the children. No wonder everyone is fighting!”
    “A beach like Hawaii?” Akhil asked. “Does the hotel have TV?”
    “Yes, I believe it does.”
    “Does it have a swimming pool?” Amina asked.
    “It has a very nice pool,” Thomas informed her. “I believe there’s even a bar in the middle, where you can swim up and order a fizzy drink.”
    Amina gulped, dizzy with possibility.
    “Thomas,”
Kamala said sharply. “We can’t just go.”
    “Why not?”
    “You know why not!” She raised her eyebrow at the bedroom door, as though it were Ammachy herself. “Have you told her?”
    “Don’t worry about that! I will explain tomorrow. I’m sure she’ll understand.”
    “Tomorrow? Understand? Have you lost your minds? Besides, what will the neighbors think? Everyone will talk!”
    “Who cares what the neighbors think?” Thomas scoffed.
    “Everyone cares what the neighbors think!”
    “Kamala,” Thomas sighed, rubbing his neck. “It’s not such a big deal. We’ll be leaving a few days early to go to the coast, that’s all. Don’t make it into a federal case, okay?”
    Kamala got off the bed and opened the bedroom door. She looked at the children. “Out.”
    “What? No, Mom, this is a family
discussion
, right? We’re entitled to—” Akhil started.
    “OUT.”
    Akhil and Amina scooted off the bed as quickly as the marblesand bedsheets would allow, walking straight across the hall into their own room. They waited exactly five seconds after Kamala shut the door to slide out onto the verandah, where they could watch their parents but remain hidden in the dark.
    “—can’t. It’s just not done,” Kamala was saying.
    Thomas opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off with the flat of her hand.
    “Bad enough the son leaves for America, then he comes home and stays for all of
three days only
?”
    Thomas sniffed. “Don’t let’s start with all that.”
    “I am not starting anything! You yourself started this business!”
    “Enough, Kam. I am warning you.”
    “You don’t warn me when I’m warning you!”
    “She
lied
to me!”
    “So what, now you want to run away? All because Dr. Abraham came?”
    “She told him I wanted a job!”
    “And you told her you would come back after studies! So? You are two liars! So what?” Kamala spun toward the window and Amina ducked, but her mother wasn’t looking at her. She was scooping up loose marbles and placing them in the game box.
    “I did not
lie
, Kamala. It’s not as though I planned this.”
    “No, of course not, His Holiness of Sainthood and Angels! You would never do such a thing!” Kamala shoved the top onto the game box. “You just studied the one branch in all of medicine that would be difficult to practice here and were shocked to death to learn that you
could not practice it here
!”
    Thomas’s mouth hung open. He blinked several times before answering. “You
saw
me, Kamala. I asked at Vellore. I checked in Madras. I even looked in Delhi, for the love of God!”
    “Yes, you said.”
    “And what? You think I’m lying to you now?”
    “No,” Kamala said, uncertainty creeping onto her face.
    “The technology is not here yet! What do you want? You want me to work some miserable job just so we can be here?”
    “I am just saying—”
    “Answer me! Is that what you want? How about if I become a dentist? We can live right here, upstairs.”
    “That’s not what I—and anyway, what’s so bad? So you don’t do the surgery! You are still a doctor! We could still have a good life.”
    Amina had not known, until that very moment, that her father could look so bloodless, the color draining from his face until it looked like an angry husk. “What is so wrong with your life, Kamala?”
    “We are not talking about me!”
    “What is it that you long for? What opportunity have you