I Buried Him Today – A Short Story By Rachana

I buried him today.

Not the physical kind. But deep in my thoughts never to surface again.

The first time I spotted him checking me out at a kid’s birthday party was in March.

For the purpose of this story, I refuse to spell out his name. Because we both were engaging in the most forbidden act in a marriage – infidelity, or did we?

–

Before I met him, I had always assumed that this sort of a thing between two people from different marriages only happened in the movies. You stay committed to your spouse no matter what and offer yourself no other ambivalent definitions to marriage in the form of affairs or flings.

My memories of Indian movies showed the woman having an affair, usually a steamy intimate one, getting caught red handed trying to adjust her saree back in place or the man jumping into his pants zipping them up at a quick pace all the while keeping up with his mad rush to the door.

American movies taught me a few things or two, explicit scenes like a couple caught in bed or, on the other hand, had subtle depictions of the wife finding a lady’s underwear in the back seat of her husband’s car.

–

One Saturday evening at a farewell party to one of our friends in early June, we even took it a notch higher with our boldness.

As we gathered at a friend’s club house in Norcross, I waited for his family to show up. As I saw his daughter Diya run up to greet Maanya, who was in my arms, I felt heat climbing up my neck to my face.

Eventually, I spotted him hanging out with my husband and a few of the dads on the upstairs balcony. As soon as our eyes met, I saw him moving quickly toward the door that led to the stairs. I took a gulp of the peach margarita in my hand and walked inside hurriedly into the foyer area where he could have a view of me if he was headed downstairs.

In a few seconds, I could hear footsteps approaching me and a heightened sense of men’s cologne near me. When I turned sideways to see who it was, I saw him standing at the bar just beneath the staircase and asking for whiskey and ice.

He was speaking the bartender, but his eyes were one me.

Hmm. Hard liquor drinker, I thought.

I turned away as if to look for my purse and walked towards a big formal dining table full of high back cushioned chairs. I sat down in one of them which was well in his line of vision and adjusted my fancy saree and ostentatious gold jewelry for a long time with an in-definitive purpose, but which might have seemed quite definitive to onlookers.

As I sat there, Maanya and Diya came running towards me. As they crashed into my lap, the timbre of his voice echoed in the largely empty room. That voice that has left me sleepless in melancholy most nights for the past 3 months. I saw him setting his glass on the counter and put both hands in his pockets and walk towards us. He gently knelt next to Diya and asked, “Baby, are you having fun?” He was eye challenging me the whole time he said this.

I smelt his breath and his skin which was only inches from me. Watching his face, I realized that it meant much to me that I could make his face so bright. I forced myself not to drop my eyes. After all, his gender needs a little consolation, a little assurance to his ego, my heart seemed to tell me.

As the kids ruffled with my saree pleats and tugged at it, I put the kids back on the floor to pick up my glass that I had put on the table.

The girls eventually ran away, and he returned to the bar.

My lips met my glass and my eyes met him. As if on cue, he lifted his glass and air toasted it to me.

I immediately dropped my eyes and started looking through my purse. I pretended to look for my phone as I pressed my upper teeth on my lower lips to stop them from shivering.

Friends passed by and kept saying hellos and chit chat once in a while, but in my complete distractedness, I was scheming something else in my head.

If I had his phone number, I wondered, would I have the courage to ask him what kind of infractions he was up to in his head at the moment. If he was thinking something I too was imagining, I wanted to assure him that I would not have suffered at that thought. And the libidinal restraint that we were showing at the moment felt impressive to me.

I have no recollection of what Maanya wanted from me that time or what I had said to both the girls. For that matter, I don’t even remember much about that party.

–

After those first few times, I returned to parties with more commitment to this affair than to my marriage, and many more times just to fill in on these intense tremors that I felt inside me.

When I wasn’t around him, I thought of him everywhere, in crowded office meetings, driving Maanya to ballet, and while making dinner in the evenings. If only I knew what made me so attractive to him.

Don’t get me wrong, but this relationship is very sacred to me. Atleast we were both honest in what we wanted from each other. Unlike those “best friends” bond I shared with my girlfriends where we spent a lifetime of pure jealousy comparing our kids and their academics. And gatekeeping our best personal and professional secrets so we can get ahead of each other.

Give me a break.

Whatever they say in research and surveys that happy people cheat is most likely true. This is a story of how I began my second marriage with my husband when my first one to him had died, so he deserves some footage in this story.

As an Indian husband he has a ton of relational entitlement. He is OK with anything about life. Did I mention he is amazingly boring in bed? Without this information, I run a risk of being judged without sympathy.

But, in his defense, in my future, I won’t be seeing us breaking up over money. He might be removed and unemotional, but extremely attentive when it comes to our 4 year old Maanya. In short, my marriage to him is convenient cohabitation.

When I met him in the promise of an arranged marriage, his looks had an edgy intellectual intensity about them. But as with any package that is unwrapped, I eventually found out that collectively, we were going to have zero ambitions, and our lives would make even the most mundane lives seem exciting. The spark and then the raging fire of the honeymoon phase has fizzled down pretty fast in the last 8 years.

–

It’s now December. I have gotten used to this strange little world I have created in my head. I have managed to make an entire affair out of glances, proximity, imagination and restraint.

Today was the kids’ annual Holiday party. A few of us had still managed to arrive in sarees. This is the part of the Desi parties that always amuses me. Whatever happened to – When in Rome, party like a Roman?

We began with the kids’ gift exchange. I stood near the long table where the Secret Santa chair had been set up, helping the younger ones hold still for pictures while the dads tried to keep the line moving. Someone had put out trays of samosas and gulab jamun that were already half gone.

Where is he, I wondered, as I finished my second glass of wine and felt the warmth settle behind my eyes a little too quickly. His daughter and wife were already here. Was he visiting family in North Carolina?

A few minutes later, I overheard his wife bragging about how adorable her husband looked in the Santa’s costume.

Ah, I will not get a chance to see his handsome face today, I thought.

When the kids were finally parked in front of a movie, a few of us started gathering the White Elephant gifts on the U-shaped dining table. Looking at the paper bags, and mismatched wrapping, I rolled my eyes because I already knew they would be the usual scented candles and gag gifts.

As a few of us were sorting through other things around the table and the hall, I saw Anjali walk in bringing her 2 year old daughter and a big rush of the freezing December air along with her.

She was at least a few years younger than most of us and dare I say, a stunner? And as always made the rest of us feel slightly overdressed and underwhelming at the same time.

I could never feel that connection with her that I had felt for many others of my mommy group. After all, meetup dot com, where I had joined this mommy group could only hook us up with promises of friendships that started a little more like a mass mothers’ blind date.

As she greeted us, none of us specifically, she carried her daughter directly across the other hall to place her in “Santa’s” lap.

From my vantage point, I could see all three of them interacting. Anjali had placed her daughter in his lap and took a picture of them. After that they both helped her daughter pick her gift.

Then Anjali, still laughing, sat down in his lap herself. He put both hands on her waist and squeezed. Whatever he mouthed to her made her throw her head back and squeal in a fit of uncontrollable laughter.

What must it be that he had quipped? Surely, it must have been a euphemism for prostitute.

I quietly tiptoed my way up to the door of the hall while squeezing at a White Elephant gift still in my hands and watched them. Little kids were giggling and running around. Some were watching the TV. But, no adult supervision for these two shameless people! Where is her damn husband??!

I saw him get up and dust off the red velvet of his costume, and walked with her toward the door that led to the backyard.

Her shiny mini skirt caught the light as they disappeared behind the back door.

I glanced at her daughter who had plopped on the floor, and she started opening the gift she had just got.

I set the box in my hands down carefully on the floor, but I didn’t care that it didn’t belong there. I walked over to where Maanya was sitting with the other children very close to Anjali’s daughter, took her hand, and pulled her up without explanation.

She protested about the picture and pointed at the remaining toys and the empty Santa chair. I didn’t answer. After what I had just seen, I wasn’t going to let her sit on his lap.

I looked around briefly for my husband and texted him that I had a sudden headache and that he should stay and enjoy the rest of the party without guilt. Then I walked out into the cold.

I have never once left a Desi party early and walked home in a saree. The cold air cut straight through my thighs and face. Maanya kept asking why we were leaving, and why my hands were shaking.

“Amma, chali? Chali?” She was asking me if I was cold. I told her I was fine. The wine was making the streetlights foggy and I just had to turn the corner to my house and jump into my bed.

How did she know where exactly he would be sitting? I was asking myself, and that’s the only thing I remember about the walk. I think my husband had called me if Maanya was with me, I can’t remember for sure if he did.

–

I wanted to tell Anjali that men are assholes, and he will get over her in about 9 months, just as long as his attention lasted for me.

Call me insecure, but when someone can be unfaithful in his infidelity, doesn’t he deserve a tart’s company? Who else would wear a mini dress and sexy boots to a Desi family holiday party?

What if she has always been involved in the business of making men happy?

For my part, I really have no despair. Why should I?

Even if I lose the stare I still keep my house, my husband, my job and Maanya. Moreover, I no longer have to worry about my fear of falling in love, or the fear of disappointing my parents and my husband anyway.

I’ve always kept up with the sparkling hyphenated immigrant persona – the model minority woman, the expert techie, the good mother, good wife, and always doing what was expected of me.

And I still get to keep that image intact.

The hardest thing to bury will not be him.

It will be the woman I became when he looked at me.

–

Originally written: Aug 29th, 2015

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