Swallowing was quite simple really, Mrs. Patel thought as she took a gulp of water from a steel cup in order to chase the pill she had placed on her tongue. The cup was part of her wedding set, one she had received when was married off at the age of twenty-two. She couldn’t recall much from that day, nerves and anxiety had dulled the events of her wedding day to a singular memory, taking seven steps around the sacred fire with the stranger who would at the end become her husband.
Reaching over to the pills she had diligently laid out on the scarred nightstand, she grabbed another pill and placed it on her tongue, chasing it with another gulp of water. The cup in her hand had an etching of her grandparents’ names along the rim indicating the givers of the gift. She wasn’t surprised that after forty-five years of marriage, she was still using the cups. She hadn’t known much about the man her parents’ had married her off to save that he was a successful businessman with good prospects. Had she known that he was also the cheapest man on the planet, well, she would have married him anyway. She had not been one to defy her parents’ or defy anyone really.
Reaching over, Mrs. Patel, took another pill. She stared at the scratches on the corners of the nightstand. They had almost a million dollars in the bank and yet she still had the same furniture, bought used, thirty years ago. No matter how hard she tried to make it look new, some scratches could never be fixed. Still, she tried her best. No one could fault her housekeeping, even while working full-time as a bank teller for twenty-five years; she still kept a clean house and managed to make a proper meal for her family every night. The small, four-bedroom house, purchased by her husband without her input, had been her responsibility. The care, the cleaning, the upkeep rested on her shoulders. Her three daughters, when they were still living at home, helped, of course, but they had left to go off to college and had stayed away. Now the house was big enough for her and her husband to live separately, only coming together to sit at the same table for dinner. He had even converted one of their daughter’s rooms into a bedroom for himself.
Taking another pill, Mrs. Patel wondered how long this would take. She wasn’t in a hurry, since her retirement from the bank a year ago; she didn’t have many ways to fill the twenty-four hours each day provided. It only took an hour and a half to get through her morning ablutions and her prayers. After that, she tried to find things to occupy her. She read the Gujarat Samachar newspaper that came once a week by mail from India, parsing stories out so that it would last the whole of the week until the next one. She would go for a walk around their development when it wasn’t too hot or too cold or raining. Central New Jersey didn’t provide consistently beautiful days, but she did her best to take her walks. After that she would spend an hour making lunch for her husband and herself if he was home. He husband, six years her elder, had retired a few years ago and typically found ways to keep busy by leaving the house. He would go visit with his friends or, well, he never really told her where he was going or when he would be back.
The middle of the day was the hardest for Mrs. Patel, it was this time, near two pm, when her mind tuned into the pointlessness, the emptiness of her life. It was two thirty-three, Mrs. Patel noted on the small alarm clock on the nightstand as she grabbed another pill and placed it on her tongue. She hadn’t planned for this today, but today seemed like the right day. It was a Thursday and she fasted on Thursdays. It was the day for Saint Sai Baba and Mrs. Patel had been devoted to him since she was a young girl. After sixty years, Mrs. Patel finally realized that Saint Sai Baba wasn’t really listening to her, had never really listened to her. All of those years she had prayed to him, fasted in his honor, done charitable works in his name and nothing.
As a young woman in India, when her parents’ were searching for a suitable husband, Mrs. Patel had prayed to Saint Sai Baba, for a good and kind husband. Saint Sai Baba had instead given her a cheap man who had little respect for the woman he had married. Mrs. Patel had prayed to Saint Sai Baba for a son and instead in three years she bore three daughters and had not conceived since. She had prayed for and fasted for good marriages for her daughters and instead, the girls had chosen single lives far away from their parents and from each other with her eldest daughter in Chicago, her middle daughter in Los Angeles and her youngest in Miami.
Even though life had not turned out the way Mrs. Patel had prayed for it to, she had kept the faith, trusting God and Saint Sai Baba to eventually help make her life better. Now she knew that would not be. Her life was not going to get better, instead, each day at two pm, Mrs. Patel knew that she was going to feel progressively worse. This afternoon’s lunch with her husband confirmed that. It was simple really, a clear sign that her prayers were not only never going to be answered but that they were never even heard.
Like every Thursday, Mrs. Patel went to the temple in the morning and then came home. Mr. Patel was home, watching television while half-napping in his recliner.
“What would you like to have for lunch?” She asked him.
“Whatever,” he replied.
On an empty stomach, Mrs. Patel set out to make pakora, her husband’s favorite. She was feeling generous and full of God’s love and wanted to do something kind for Mr. Patel. She made the batter out of chickpea flour and added some spices. She sliced potatoes and onions and green chilies, dipped them in the batter and fried them up in oil. With great flourish, she served him his lunch while sitting there with a glass of water to keep him company.
“Did you add salt?” he asked.
“Yes,” Mrs. Patel tried not to be hurt that she had only wanted a thank you not a criticism.
“It needs more salt,” he grumbled.
“The doctor said…”
“You’re not a doctor and I know what I like. You don’t put any effort into your cooking any more. You used to be a good cook, now, it is as if you forgot how to use spices.”
Mrs. Patel sat in silence. He continued to eat the food she had lovingly prepared, grumbling his way through it, grabbing a bottle of ketchup and angrily dousing his plate with the salt shaker.
It finally dawned on her that this conversation or the variation there of had been had at every meal between the two of them for years. Tomorrow, it would be the same. After lunch, Mrs. Patel meticulously cleaned the kitchen and then went up to the bedroom. She sat on the edge of her bed for a few minutes and stared at the photo of Saint Sai Baba she had placed on her dresser. He is just and old man, she thought as she stared at the white haired, bearded Saint. She turned the frame over and left it there.
She stood up, moved to the drawer where they kept medicines. Neither her nor her husband had any ailments to require prescription medicine, but they did have over the counter pain relievers for headaches. She grabbed a bottle of Tylenol PM, emptied it on her dresser and had begun to take one pill after another. She had a steel pitcher of water that came with the water cups and one after the other she had taken the entire bottle of pills. This would be last afternoon feeling the weight of an unhappy life.
Mrs. Patel lay down on the bed and closed her eyes. There were no vengeful thoughts about Mr. Patel regretting his behavior after she was gone. He will probably feel relieved, she thought. Her daughters, well, they hadn’t wanted or needed a mother since they were little so their lives won’t be too affected. She didn’t have many close friends, one or two might miss her, but they would go on with their own busy lives after a few days. It didn’t feel good or bad, Mrs. Patel thought, to know that your absence wouldn’t make a difference to anyone.
