Read Online Sister of My Heart by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni - Free Book Online
Authors: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
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self-respect.”
I gasp. The words are like a slap so hard that for a minute it stuns the flesh. There’s a coppery taste in my mouth and my palms are clammy with a sick rage that makes me want to hurt—really hurt—my cousin. I hear myself spit out, “If you’re so full of self-respect, how come for the last thirteen years you and your mother have been eating our rice and taking up room in our house? If you’re so full of self-respect, why don’t you go tell your mother to find a home of your own?”
From the sudden pained flush on Sudha’s face, I know my taunt has hit home.
And then I’m sobbing, detesting myself. Ever since I’ve been old enough to understand such things, I’ve known how ashamed Sudha’s been of the way Aunt N goes around acting proprietory about everything in this house when we all know she has no right to any of it. It’s the one topic we’ve always been careful to avoid.
I grope for her hands, crying.
“Sudha, I didn’t mean it, I swear I didn’t. This is your house as much as mine, you know that. Sudha, I’m sorry, I said it only because I was so angry, only because I love you.”
I think she’ll pull away, or fling the earrings over the ledge onto the busy street below, to be crushed under a lorry or snatched away by street children. That’s what I would have done. But Sudha only says, in a cool, thinking kind of voice that amazes me even through my tears, “Anju, why do you love me?”
“What kind of a question is that?”
“Tell me, Anju.”
“I love you because you’re my sister, you know that.”
Sudha turns the earrings over and over in her hand. I can tell she isn’t even seeing them. “Suppose I wasn’t who you thought I was, suppose—” She bites her lip. Then she asks unsteadily, “Would you still love me?”
I start getting angry again, this time because I’m scared. There’s a certain note in her voice—as if she knows something I don’t. “That’s a stupid thing to suppose,” I say.
“Please,” Sudha says. Her eyes have gone slate-black, and I can see she really needs me to give her an answer.
I try to think of a Sudha who’s different, a stranger Sudha perhaps who’d come into my life by chance and would pass out of it the same way. I try to judge whether I’d be able to love such a person. But my entire being is so tied to my cousin’s, I can’t even imagine it.
“Anju—” Sudha’s tone trembles on the edge of anguish. What terrible thing could have happened to shake her belief inour relationship like this? The fear’s like a big boulder inside my chest now, leaving no room for breath, and though I’m usually determined to pursue a question to its bitter end, this once I prefer not to know.
But I do know what she needs to hear.
“I’d love you,” I say, “no matter who you were. I’d love you because you love me. I’d love you because no one else knows us as we know each other.”
“Would you really?” asks Sudha, her voice loosening with relief.
“I would,” I say. There’s a strange prickling—like a premonition?—along my backbone as I speak. Even to my own ears my voice sounds green and raw, too young to shore up the promise it’s making.
What nonsense! I’m getting as superstitious as Sudha.
I take a deep breath. “Because no matter what, I’m still the person who called you out into the world,” I say firmly.
Sudha leans her head on my shoulder and releases a sigh so deep I know it carries the full weight of her heart. “You are, Anju,” she says. She starts to say something else, then changes her mind and kisses my cheek instead. Her fingers brush my palm like the tip of a bird wing as she puts the earrings back in my hand. “You keep these for me. I’ll ask you for them whenever I want to wear them.”
And I know she will.
Walking down the stairs hand in hand, we discuss what to do with the money we’ve been given. It isn’t a lot, but it’s the first time we’ve had money that
I gasp. The words are like a slap so hard that for a minute it stuns the flesh. There’s a coppery taste in my mouth and my palms are clammy with a sick rage that makes me want to hurt—really hurt—my cousin. I hear myself spit out, “If you’re so full of self-respect, how come for the last thirteen years you and your mother have been eating our rice and taking up room in our house? If you’re so full of self-respect, why don’t you go tell your mother to find a home of your own?”
From the sudden pained flush on Sudha’s face, I know my taunt has hit home.
And then I’m sobbing, detesting myself. Ever since I’ve been old enough to understand such things, I’ve known how ashamed Sudha’s been of the way Aunt N goes around acting proprietory about everything in this house when we all know she has no right to any of it. It’s the one topic we’ve always been careful to avoid.
I grope for her hands, crying.
“Sudha, I didn’t mean it, I swear I didn’t. This is your house as much as mine, you know that. Sudha, I’m sorry, I said it only because I was so angry, only because I love you.”
I think she’ll pull away, or fling the earrings over the ledge onto the busy street below, to be crushed under a lorry or snatched away by street children. That’s what I would have done. But Sudha only says, in a cool, thinking kind of voice that amazes me even through my tears, “Anju, why do you love me?”
“What kind of a question is that?”
“Tell me, Anju.”
“I love you because you’re my sister, you know that.”
Sudha turns the earrings over and over in her hand. I can tell she isn’t even seeing them. “Suppose I wasn’t who you thought I was, suppose—” She bites her lip. Then she asks unsteadily, “Would you still love me?”
I start getting angry again, this time because I’m scared. There’s a certain note in her voice—as if she knows something I don’t. “That’s a stupid thing to suppose,” I say.
“Please,” Sudha says. Her eyes have gone slate-black, and I can see she really needs me to give her an answer.
I try to think of a Sudha who’s different, a stranger Sudha perhaps who’d come into my life by chance and would pass out of it the same way. I try to judge whether I’d be able to love such a person. But my entire being is so tied to my cousin’s, I can’t even imagine it.
“Anju—” Sudha’s tone trembles on the edge of anguish. What terrible thing could have happened to shake her belief inour relationship like this? The fear’s like a big boulder inside my chest now, leaving no room for breath, and though I’m usually determined to pursue a question to its bitter end, this once I prefer not to know.
But I do know what she needs to hear.
“I’d love you,” I say, “no matter who you were. I’d love you because you love me. I’d love you because no one else knows us as we know each other.”
“Would you really?” asks Sudha, her voice loosening with relief.
“I would,” I say. There’s a strange prickling—like a premonition?—along my backbone as I speak. Even to my own ears my voice sounds green and raw, too young to shore up the promise it’s making.
What nonsense! I’m getting as superstitious as Sudha.
I take a deep breath. “Because no matter what, I’m still the person who called you out into the world,” I say firmly.
Sudha leans her head on my shoulder and releases a sigh so deep I know it carries the full weight of her heart. “You are, Anju,” she says. She starts to say something else, then changes her mind and kisses my cheek instead. Her fingers brush my palm like the tip of a bird wing as she puts the earrings back in my hand. “You keep these for me. I’ll ask you for them whenever I want to wear them.”
And I know she will.
Walking down the stairs hand in hand, we discuss what to do with the money we’ve been given. It isn’t a lot, but it’s the first time we’ve had money that
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