Free Lovetorn by Kavita Daswani

shoulders.
    “Asha, I’m really sorry if I offended you,” Mr. Jeremy said. He had put down his spoon and fork, and looked up at my mother apologetically. “I didn’t intend to hurt your feelings. If I can help in some way, please tell me.”
    His sincerity touched me, and I hoped it would soften my mother’s stance. But she didn’t sit down.
    “I’m not feeling well,” she said. “Good night.” She went back upstairs, and we heard her shut the door firmly behind her.
    I felt my stomach drop out of my body, as if there was nothing holding me together. All these weeks, my mother hovered at the periphery of our lives. She was there sometimes—in the kitchen, or in front of the TV—perhaps taciturn and unsmiling, but at least a shadow of her was present. And she would never, ever be rude to a guest, or walk out in the middle of a dinner gathering.
    Now, tonight, after this outburst, I knew that a big part of my mother’s identity was gone. I wondered how I’d ever be able to reach her again.
    A few days later as I was scrubbing the pressure cooker after dinner, the phone rang. I raced to it, hoping it might be Vikram.
    “Hey! Is that Shalini or Sangita?”
    It was Mr. Jeremy.
    “It’s me, Shalini,” I said. “I’ll go get my dad for you.”
    “No, wait!” he said quickly. “I was actually calling for you.”

Chapter Eleven
    THE FOLLOWING SATURDAY MORNING, my father, Sangita, and I loaded up the car with Pyrex dishes full of food, a thick blanket, a soccer ball, and some fold-up chairs. Half an hour later, we pulled into a large, grassy park with playground equipment at the far end, a basketball hoop off to one side, picnic tables, and barbecue pits in the center. Mr. Jeremy was laying out plastic plates and cups. He looked over at us and waved. Next to him was an Indian couple about my parents’ age and an Indian girl who was about mine. She was wearing a white sweater, black jeans, and boots. Her hair was cut to about her chin. Even from a distance I could see she was pretty. I approached with my sister and my father, and she waved as if she had known us forever.
    “Great, you made it!” said Mr. Jeremy, shaking all of our hands.
    He made the introductions. Haresh Idnani; his wife, Poonam; and their daughter, Renuka. Old friends from Philadelphia, living now in LA.
    “Hello, uncle, aunty,” I said, addressing the elders first as I had been taught to do. “It’s very nice to meet you.” Simply being able to call someone “uncle” and “aunty,” with all the familiarity that that conveyed, was a treat.
    Aunty Poonam asked where my mother was. My father replied that she was “not feeling herself” and left it at that.
    Renuka reached out to greet me with a hug. Tiny crystal earrings dangled from her lobes.
    We helped ourselves to food; we had prepared traditional Indian snacks while Renuka’s family brought green salad, garlic bread, pasta, a box of tangerines.
    “Run off, girls; get to know each other!” cooed Aunty Poonam, smiling widely, the way my mother used to smile. Uncle Haresh started telling my father about his aerospace engineering job. Renuka feigned a yawn, and I giggled. We took our plates and settled down on the blanket.
    “You just got here from India, right?” asked Renuka, folding a piece of lettuce into her mouth and looking at my sister and me as if we were curios in an antique store.
    “Yes, from Bangalore.”
    “Wow, that’s epic,” she said. “I can’t even imagine what it must be like, coming from there to here.”
    With very little prompting from Renuka, Sangita chatted enthusiastically about how much she liked school and her new friends, how easy the homework was. She talked like a kid who had just returned from Disneyland. I envied her happiness.
    “What about you?” Renuka asked, turning to me when Sangita went off to get some juice. “How do you like it?”
    “It’s not a bad place,” I said, my tone markedly flatter than my sister’s . I turned