Latest / My Playful Wife — A Tender Literary Love Story / My Playful Wife — Season 1, Episode 24: What Comes After

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My Playful Wife — Season 1, Episode 24: What Comes After · My Playful Wife — A Tender Literary Love Story

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Some people do that, I said, with things that
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are true. They find the maker and they follow,
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because true things are rare and when you find
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a source of them you don't let go. Is that what
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you think it is? She said. My Playful Wife. Episode
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24. What Comes After. Written by Mia. What comes
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after is the thing I am still learning. And the
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honest answer is that I expect to be learning
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it for the rest of my life. This is worth saying
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plainly because there is a lie that stories tell,
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and the lie is that things resolve. That there
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is an arc, and the arc completes, and after the
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completion comes a state called after in which
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the difficult thing is finished, and you live
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in the calm that the difficulty earned you. The
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year had an arc. I could see it now, whole, the
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way you see a mountain from the plain. But what
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came after the arc was not resolution. It was
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continuation, which is both simpler and much
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harder than resolution, because resolution lets
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you stop and continuation never does. You do
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not finish a marriage the way you finish a book.
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You keep waking up inside it. You keep choosing
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it or failing to every single day, and the choosing
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does not get crossed off a list. It comes back
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every morning, fresh, like the dishes. So, what
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came after? Saloni finished the second collection.
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Caveri showed it in March, smaller than distance,
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quieter, more precise. The year woven into it
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where only the two of us could read it and where
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everyone else would simply feel something and
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not have the word. It did well, in the particular
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way that the second thing does well, with less
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noise and more certainty. the work of an artist
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who no longer has to prove she is one. And one
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piece, a corda in the new terracotta she had
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sketched in the worst of the rainy season, a
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color like fired earth, like something that had
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been through a kiln and come out harder and warmer,
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sold immediately, on the first evening, to the
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woman from a metabot. The same woman, the one
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who had wept over the rose -dark langa from the
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first collection. She's following the work, Selene
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told me that night, marveling. Some people do
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that, I said. With things that are true, they
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find the maker and they follow, because true
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things are rare and when you find a source of
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them you don't let go. Is that what you think
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it is, she said. True things. Yes, I said. Exactly
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that. She's not collecting clothes. She's collecting
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the truth you keep accidentally telling. She
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can feel it in the cloth even though she'll never
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know it's the year. She just knows it's true,
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and she follows the true thing home. I thought
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about it. I'd do the same. I did do the same.
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I followed the true thing home and married it.
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Saloni threw a cushion at me, but she was pleased.
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She is always pleased when the dangerous one
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says a thing she'd have called sentimental from
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anyone else. Piyush and Mira settled into their
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married life with the specific ease of two people
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who had chosen well and knew it. He called now
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with the frequency of a man who has found his
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footing still regular, still warm, but lighter,
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the weight gone out of it. For a long time, through
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all the months of the year, his calls had carried
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a freight, an underthing, a question he was always
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half -asking and I was always half -answering.
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Are we alright? Is this alright? Did I break
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it past fixing? The freight was gone now. The
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calls had become simply calls. We talked about
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nothing, his work, a film, a thing Mira had said,
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a cricket match, and the nothing was the whole
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point, the nothing was the luxury. Two brothers
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who could finally afford to talk about nothing
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because all the somethings had been said and
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settled. I had not known until it lifted how
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heavy the freight had been, the way you do not
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know the weight of a thing until you set it down.
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He visited in April. One visit, one week. Just
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in this time, Mira had work she couldn't leave,
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and the geometry of that week was the simplest
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it had ever been. There was no charge in the
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flat. There was no triangle. There was just my
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brother, staying in the guest room, the three
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of us. And then it struck me that it was not
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three of us in the old fraught sense, the sense
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that had defined the worst of the year. It was
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just family, the ordinary, unremarkable fact
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of a brother visiting a brother, the kind of
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thing that happens in a million households and
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goes unrecorded because nothing is happening
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except love. The first morning of that visit,
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I woke early and went to the kitchen and made
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chai for everyone. This is the whole scene. There
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is nothing dramatic in it. It is the most important
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thing in this episode and possibly in this entire
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account, and it is only a man making chai. I
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made it the way I had learned to make it, properly,
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nearly as good as hers. I heard Piyush's voice
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from the guest room. On the phone with Mira,
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the low, warm murmur of a married man calling
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his wife first thing, and I heard her laugh come
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tinny out of the phone. all the way from Bengaluru
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into our Delhi kitchen. And I heard Saloni's
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feet, and she appeared in the kitchen doorway
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with her hair undone and her eyes still half
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asleep, in the specific dishevelment of a woman
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who has not yet decided to be awake, and she
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looked at the chai I was making and then at me.
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Chai, she said. Ready, I said. She came and took
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her cup. the right temperature, the right hand,
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the way she had handed me mine for three years
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before I learned to hand her hers, and she stood
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beside me at the counter, her shoulder against
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my arm, and looked out the kitchen window at
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the day coming in at its usual angle, the April
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light, the same light. Good morning, she said.
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Good morning, I said. And that was all. That
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was the entire thing. My brother on the phone
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with his wife in the next room. My wife's shoulder
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against my arm. Two cups of chai I had made correctly.
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The ordinary April light coming in the window.
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There is no drama in it. There is no scene. A
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year and a half before, this kitchen had been
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the site of the worst morning of my life. Now
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it was the site of this. Of nothing, of a Tuesday,
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of chai on a shoulder and good morning. And I
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understood standing there that this was what
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I had been fighting for the whole time, through
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all of it, without ever being able to name it.
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Not a resolution. Not a triumph. This. The ordinary
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miracle of a kitchen on an unremarkable morning
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with the people you love nearby and nothing happening
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at all. I had spent so long bracing for catastrophe
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that I had nearly missed the thing catastrophe
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is for, which is to teach you the unbearable
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preciousness of the morning when nothing happens.
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You cannot see it from inside an ordinary life.
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The ordinary makes itself invisible. You can
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only see it from the far side of having nearly
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lost it. The year had been the price of admission
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to this kitchen this morning, this good morning.
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It was an obscene price. I would, I understood,
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pay it again. I would pay anything for the mornings
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when nothing happens. That week with Piyush had
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the texture of the visits we'd never had as adults.
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The ordinary ones. The kind brothers who live
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near each other have all the time and don't notice
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that we had skipped by living in different cities
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and different silences for a decade. We did nothing
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of consequence. That was the luxury. One afternoon
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we went into the old deli we'd both half known
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as Young Men, the lanes near the Jama Masjid,
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and ate too much at a place he'd been told about
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and got lost on purpose. And he bought a stupid
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hat from a stall and wore it the rest of the
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day. We argued about a cricketer. We argued about
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our father's driving. We argued about whether
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a film we'd both loved at 15 was actually any
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good, concluded it was not, and were both a little
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wounded by the conclusion. In one of the lanes,
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we passed an old -style photographer's shop,
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hand -tinted portraits in the window, and Piyush
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stopped and said we should, and before I could
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refuse, he had pulled me in, and we sat for a
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portrait. The way our father and his own brother
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had once sat for one that hung in our grandmother's
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house all through our childhood. Two young men
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in their good shirts looking solemnly into a
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future they couldn't see. We did the same. The
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man told us not to smile. It wasn't that kind
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of portrait. When it came a week later in the
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post, it showed two men in their 30s, a little
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tired, a little gone in the eyes with everything
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they had been through, sitting close, not touching,
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looking out. And it was the truest picture of
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us I owned, because it had the not touching in
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it, the carefulness, and also the closeness,
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the sitting near, both at once, the whole truth
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of brothers. Walking back through the heat, sweating,
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his stupid hat between us, he said, We don't
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do this enough. We've never done this, I said.
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Not once as adults. This is the first time. He
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was surprised to find it true. How is that the
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first time? We're 35 and 32. We were busy being
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careful with each other, I said. For years, even
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before any of it. And then the year happened,
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and we were careful in the other direction. This
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needs you to not be careful. You only get the
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ordinary nothing once you've stopped being careful.
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We finally stopped. Took us long enough, he said.
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Took us everything we had, I said. But we got
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here. I call my mother that week, too. while
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Piyush napped off the old deli lunch like the
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boy he still partly was. The calls with her had
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been changing since the wedding. For a year,
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and more they had been full of the unasked, the
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trailing questions, the careful weather, the
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worries she could not name and I could not address.
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But she had seen me at the wedding. She had put
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her hand on my cheek and said, better than yourself,
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and set the worry down, and the call since had
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a lighter air, the held breath let out. Piyusha's
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sleeping, I told her. He ate half of old deli
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and surrendered. She laughed, the particular
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laugh of a mother hearing that her grown sons
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have spent a day being boys together. Good, she
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said. You too. Finally, I used to pray for it,
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that you'd find your way back to each other.
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Mothers can tell when something's wrong between
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their children, even when no one says. For a
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while there, I thought she stopped. She would
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not go all the way to the thing, even now. I
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thought I'd lost something I couldn't fix from
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this distance. You didn't lose it, I said. It
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got tested. It came out stronger. Things do,
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she said, when they don't break. The testing
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makes them stronger if they don't break. The
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trick is the not breaking. A pause, and then,
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with the offhand precision mother's deploy at
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the ends of phone calls, the real thing folded
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into the goodbye. You took care of it. Whatever
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it was. I don't need to know what it was. I can
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hear that you took care of it. That's all I ever
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wanted for you, Beta. That you be the kind of
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man who takes care of the thing instead of running
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from it. Your father is that kind. I married
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it on purpose. Another pause. You turned out
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to be it too. It took you a while, but you turned
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out to be it. I sat with the phone a while after
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she had gone. I wrote it in the notebook later.
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Ma said I take care of the thing instead of running
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from it. Said... I turned out to be my father,
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the highest thing she knows how to say about
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a man. She'll never know the whole story and
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doesn't need to. She read the result off my face
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at the Wedding the Way Caveri reads cloth. Mothers
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and Caveri. The ones who see in people. They
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never need the map. They just touch the fabric
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and know. I did not tell my mother any of the
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year, and I never will, and that is not a failure
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of honesty between us. It is its own kind, the
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honesty of sparing. There are people you tell
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everything and people you spare, and the sparing
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is also love, is sometimes the harder love. Saloni
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gets the whole house. My mother gets the result,
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red off my face, which is all she asked for,
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and the right amount, the amount that lets us
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both keep standing. The evenings that week were
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the proof of the thing, if the days were the
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gift of it. We ate together, the three of us,
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late, the way you eat in April before the heat
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drives dinner to midnight. Saloni would come
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from the workroom with chalk on her sleeve, and
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Piyush would have cooked, properly. It had stopped
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being a novelty and become a fact, and we would
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sit at the table that had been the site of so
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much, the table where I had once sat in the dark
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deciding which road to take, and just of dinner.
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Three people who loved each other. passing dishes,
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arguing mildly. Saloni and Piyush had their own
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rhythm, the long sibling -in -law rhythm I no
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longer listen to for danger because there was
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no danger in it now, only history made safe.
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One night Piyush raised his glass, water. We
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are not drinkers, and said, to the table, apropos
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of nothing, a little embarrassed by himself.
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Saloni understood. the way she understands and
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raised hers, to the table. I raised mine, and
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we drank to the table, the three of us, to the
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literal furniture, which had held so much and
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not broken, like everything else that mattered,
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and which had earned, by not breaking, the right
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to be toasted on an ordinary April night. I did
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not explain why my eyes did the thing they did,
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raising water to a table. Piyush didn't ask.
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He had learned, somewhere in the year, the thing
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Mira always knew and Selenie taught me, when
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to look away and let a man have his unwatched
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second. It is I have decided, the truest measure
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of love I know, not the looking, the knowing
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when to stop. Later that week, Piyush and I sat
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on the balcony, the two of us. while Saloni was
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at the workroom and the evening came down over
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the colony. You're different, he said. He said
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it carefully, an observation he'd been saving.
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Since I've been here, you're... I keep watching
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you and trying to work out what it is. You're
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not performing it anymore. The being okay. Last
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year, even when things got good, I could see
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you doing it, holding it up, making sure everyone
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could see you were fine. Now you're not holding
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anything up. You're just fine. It's not a performance.
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When did that happen? I thought about it. He
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deserved the real answer. He had been there for
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the whole thing, had caused the whole thing,
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had earned the real answer more than anyone.
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When I stopped keeping score, I said, For a long
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time, even after it got good, I was still keeping
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score underneath, still tracking who owed what,
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still half -waiting for the bill. And keeping
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score is a kind of performance, even if it's
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only for yourself. You can't be at peace and
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keep score at the same time. They use the same
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muscle. I looked out at the city. Somewhere this
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winter, I just put the ledger down. There's no
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bill. Nobody owes anybody. We all just did the
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best we could with an impossible thing and came
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out the other side loving each other. That's
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not a debt. That's just a family. I stopped keeping
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the books and the performance stopped because
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there was nothing left to perform. He was quiet
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for a while. I'm glad you put the ledger down,
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he said. You were carrying it a long time. longer
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than I needed to, I said. Most of the suffering
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was the ledger, in the end, not the thing itself,
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the accounting of it. The evening finished coming
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down. Somewhere below, the colony's dog started
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up. Saloni's light was on in the workroom window,
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and I could see her shape moving behind it, making
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the next true thing. What comes after? Piyush
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said. half to himself, trying the phrase. What
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has come after? This, I said. This is what comes
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after. More of this. It doesn't conclude, little
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brother. It just keeps being this. Every day,
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as long as we're lucky. That's the whole secret.
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There's no after. There's just more days, and
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you choose them, and that's the entire thing.
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He nodded slowly, taking it in. My younger brother,
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who had caused the whole thing and survived it
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alongside me, and was now sitting on my balcony
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at 32, trying to understand the shape of an ordinary
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good life. Below us the dog settled. Saloni's
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light burned in the workroom window. More of
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this, he said, trying the phrase on, deciding
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he liked it. More of this, I said. And there
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was more of it. That is the entire happy ending,
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and it is enormous. There was simply more of
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it, and then more. The days arriving and getting
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chosen, one after another. World without drama.
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Amen. To be continued in episode 25. Still here.
20:06
Playful Wife. If this story is staying with you,
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Thank you for listening.