The World We Found by Thrity Umrigar Read Free Book Online Page A

she has a brain tumor?” he said at last.
    Laleh made a growling sound. “And what caused the brain tumor, stupid?” she said. “Why does a healthy woman who is not even fifty suddenly get a tumor?”
    A bell was clanging inside Adish’s head, and it was getting louder and louder. It was beginning to dawn on him what Laleh was talking about, but the thought was so preposterous, so far-fetched, that he let the clanging of the bell drown it out. He opened his mouth to speak but could only shake his head.
    Laleh had an expression on her face that reminded him of another day from long ago. But he couldn’t think of that now, because he was confused. And distracted. Because despite the disheveled hair, the eyes swollen with tears, the chewed-on lower lip, Laleh looked beautiful. Adish’s eyes wandered to the spot where her long, dark neck met with the collar of a white shirt, worn over the black pants that she’d bought during their last trip to Thailand. The stone in Laleh’s ring caught a flash of the sun and cast a fleeting rainbow on the wall. “Lal—” he ventured.
    “It’s happened, Adish,” she said fiercely. “It took years and years to catch up with me, but it did. You know what I’m talking about. You were there.”
    He flinched, as if she had slapped him. He stared at her, at a loss for what to say. Despite her occasional penchant for drama, Laleh was the most pragmatic person he knew. Over the years he had learned to count on the coolness of her judgment on almost everything, from choosing the color of the upholstery to helping him decide to quit his job and start his own business. She had a way of clarifying the world, of reducing problems to their most basic roots, and then solving them, that he had always envied. He suspected it was one of the reasons she had always resisted the allures of the religious faith that he had found more and more compelling as he grew older—she was afraid that it would cloud the clear-eyed way in which she saw the world.
    And now his wife was sitting on her bed telling him tearfully that she was responsible for Armaiti’s fatal illness. He saw now that what he’d thought was grief and shock at hearing the devastating news was really guilt. The past coming back to haunt them. The past, which he had believed they had beaten down, like cotton stuffed inside a mattress.
    “Laleh,” he said. “You’re not making any sense.”
    Her eyes were big and round. “It was the blow from the laathi, Adish,” she whispered. “You remember when she was in the hospital? The bastard police officer had hit her right in the head. Don’t you remember her amnesia?”
    “It was thirty years ago.” His voice was louder than he’d intended, and for a second he wondered where the children were. Then he remembered. Ferzin was at a friend’s house. Farhad was at the gym. “And it was just a concussion. The amnesia was temporary.”
    “That’s what Kavita said also. But I still remember how black-and-blue her forehead was. She probably bled internally. And there was probably scar-tissue buildup over the years. And that . . .”
    He grabbed her wrist. “Laleh. Shut up. Shut up and listen to me. You’re not making sense. You’re not a doctor. This is just a coincidence—a very sad coincidence. You have to stop torturing yourself like this.”
    She said it so softly, he almost didn’t hear her. “So is this how we absolve ourselves?”
    He shot up from the edge of the bed and stood, towering over her. “What did you say?”
    “Nothing.” And then, with a defiant look in her eyes, she repeated what she’d said, louder this time.
    Adish shook his head. “I won’t let you do this. I won’t let you drag me into whatever bullshit’s swirling around in your head.”
    “That’s up to you. You have to face your own conscience. I know that I made a Faustian bargain. And that I’m paying for it now.”
    He held back the tears that were lining his eyes. “So what are you