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Nia: 😂

Nia: You’re fine! I’m just fucking with you. What’re you doing this weekend? I miss your face, girl

Smiling over the sentiment, I type back with a single hand while gathering my things.

Me: Dinner at mom’s tonight. Then rotting on my couch. A bath, maybe. Wanna come over and binge Love Is Blind?

Nia: Meera...

Nia: We’re still young and hot! Let’s go out?

Nope, is my immediate thought. You can’t say that to your extroverted, artist, life-of-every-party best friend, though.

It’s stupid to be this bothered that my idea of a fun Saturday doesn’t include going out, getting trashed, and enduring some red-flag-ridden dudebro staring down my blouse without any subtlety. Because it isn’t. It’s an educated opinion. I’ve made that mistake before. I should be able to confidently own that, especially to the person I consider my dearest friend.

But I guess I just haven’t yet mastered articulating that to Nia. At least not without feeling like I sound like a wet blanket who’d probably fit in very well in a nursing home.

With a sigh, I shove my phone in my bag and sling it over my shoulder. Either way, I’ve got to get through this day first.

***

“Are you on your way yet?” my mother asks through the phone sandwiched between my cheek and shoulder.

I stare miserably down the street I’ve been stuck by the side of for the past twenty minutes.

My car is dead. Again.

The check engine light flashed on back in the middle of August. I took it to the mechanic the very same week. But I hadn’t had the fourteen hundred dollars it was going to cost me to spare, because I’m a public-school teacher for the love of God. But, today, my 2011 Honda Civic with two hundred thousand miles on it, and its passenger-side window that only fully rolls down when it’s in the mood to do it, decided enough is enough. With a concerning wheeze, it died.

Of course, I can’t tell my mother that.

Gayatri Martinez doesn’t suffer fools well. Nor is she a fan of messes, tardiness, or lying. But I’m definitely not telling her what happened. I can’t. I’m thirty years old. And if I tell my mother what’s wrong, she’ll demand to know why I didn’t just ask her for the fourteen hundred dollars last month. Then she’ll tell me pride is a deadly sin for a reason. I love my mother dearly. But I don’t have the capacity to deal with the lecture.

Therefore, “Yes, Mumma,” I fib, swiping the back of my hand across my damp forehead. I tell myself it’s the better alternative. “Work ran late. I’m sorry—I should’ve called. I’ll be there soon. You don’t have to wait on me. Go ahead and eat!”

She lets loose a harrumph on the other side of the call. “Of course we’ll wait for you, Meera. Don’t be ridiculous.”

I swallow down a hysterical laugh. I manage to tell her a believable lie, and she still cuts me down. “Okay, thank you, I’ll be there soon,” I sigh. With a quick goodbye, I end the call.

‘Soon’ isn’t a real measure of time, my mother would say. But I didn’t have the heart to give her the play-by-play of how AAA is still another twenty minutes away, after which I can look forward to a twelve-minute trek to the nearest T stop. At least it is in flats, which I’m not wearing today, having opted instead for a pair of block heels.

It’s a mistake I feel viscerally once I’m finally underground, with my feet throbbing and my blouse sticking to my back.

The platform is packed with the Friday rush of commuters. I have to wedge myself into the car between a woman whose tote bag keeps whacking into my kidney and a man who’s scrolling through TikToks without earphones. As I grab the overhead rail and let the train lurch me forward, a part of me isn’t against the possibility of hitting my head hard enough to black out and forget this day.

By the time I make it up the narrow driveway to my mother’s front door, I’m over forty minutes late, definitely sporting a blister, and holding onto the last shreds of my composure like a woman clutching a handbag on a rollercoaster.

Having jogged all the way here, I have to catch my breath before I ring the bell.

My mother’s house looks the same as it always does, and it’s nothing like the one my father still lives in long after she divorced him. And not just because it’s a nice neighborhood, though Roslindale is. It’s still a three-bedroom house, though it’s a two-story home instead of a single-story one. But in contrast with memories of my childhood, the walk through Roslindale Square—with its cozy cafés, slightly uneven blocks of triple-deckers, and early 20th-century family homes—may as well be a foray into Narnia.

“Come on in, mija. It’s nice to see you,” is how Daniel, my stepfather, answers the door, adjusting the thin wire frame of his glasses against the glare of the setting sun. It’s no secret why this home, despite not being new or swanky, has an undeniable charm. I let him take my bag and press a quick kiss to his cheek. “Your mother’s in the garden. Why don’t you tell her to wash up and we’ll eat?”

“I think I might need some washing up, first,” I laugh tiredly, smoothing my hair back with both newly freed hands.

Daniel, ever the gentleman, only smiles and gestures me on. Graciously, he says, “Then I’ll get her. You take as much time as you need.”

I shoot him a grateful smile. But I still think, Yeah, right, and get moving. There’s nothing to be gained from explaining to him that his wife and my mother are very different versions of Gayatri Martinez—which is why I’ll be splashing some water on my face, fixing up my makeup at my mother’s vanity, and returning posthaste.