Read Online Karma for Beginners by Jessica Blank - Free Book Online

up.
    â€œ Where were you? ”
    I shrug. “I went for a walk.”
    She looks at me like it’s incomprehensible I could put one foot in front of the other without her assistance or permission.
    â€œWhat’s wrong with that?” I ask her. I don’t expect an answer; it just feels good to say it.
    She paces toward me. “What’s wrong with that, young lady, is that you are not to just run off unsupervised without telling me where you’re going! You didn’t even leave a note! And don’t look at me that way.”
    â€œWhat way?” I’m not even looking at her, not really.
    â€œYou know the look I’m talking about. Don’t play games with me.” She’s annoyed I’m getting her to answer my questions and not the other way around. Ha.
    She glares at me and exhales really hard.
    â€œWhy are you even trying to sound all bossy like that anyway?” I say, half under my breath. “You sound stupid.” I don’t really want her to hear me, except I sort of do.
    She hears me. “ What did you say?”
    Right now it’s the part of the fight when I can back down and it’s over, or keep going and it isn’t. These last three years we argue often enough for me to chart the different moments that stay the same from fight to fight: where the exit hatches are, what buttons I can press to ratchet things up. I could say “nothing” right now and that would be it. I’d let her win, she’d leave me alone, and I could fold back inside myself where it’s safe. But I don’t. Instead I puff my chest up, make my face hard, square my shoulders. “I said, Quit it . Quit bossing me around.”
    â€œYou don’t tell me what to do! I will boss you around if I want to boss you around. I am your mother . That gives me certain rights. You think I like sitting here waiting for you and wondering where you are? You think it’s fun? You’re just so thoughtless. Jesus.” She yells like she can force her viewpoint into my brain if she says it loud enough.
    Secretly I know I could have left a note, but I don’t care. I’m not going to say I’m sorry, and I’m not going to say I’ll “do it different in the future.” Even though that’s what I’m supposed to say, and even though it might make the whole thing end, and even though it’s sort of true.
    Because it isn’t fair.
    â€œWhy?” I ask her. “You don’t ever leave a note. You always leave, and I sit there waiting, wondering where you are. That’s what you did tonight!” I don’t flinch. I want an answer. “Where were you?”
    And then her chest deflates; her face relaxes. She folds her arms and shakes her hair. Her chin juts up. “I was with Vrishti.” All of a sudden she’s the teenager. “We went and had a chai.”
    I just look at her. She looks at me. It should make me feel better, her realizing that she did the same thing I did; but instead it scares me, seeing her look young that way. She’s supposed to be the mom.
    After a second she folds me into her arms like she forgives me. “Oh, Tessa, I’m just glad you’re back.” She squeezes my floppy arms against my sides; my elbows poke my ribs. I think about the crickets and the shadows and the trail, how good I felt until I came back here and she got mad. I want to be alone again, quiet and contained inside my skin, away from her yelling and her leaving and the red soft beneath them both. I wish I had a door to close, a room to go away to. I stand there and let her hug me.
    The next morning I stop at the front desk on the way to seva . My heart thuds hard as I ask the lady if there’s mail for me, harder when she goes in back to check. A little bright space opens up inside me in the moment before she comes back, a little space of maybe , and I have to remind myself not to let it open all the way wide