Latest / My Playful Wife — A Tender Literary Love Story / My Playful Wife — Season 1, Episode 83: The Long Table

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My Playful Wife — Season 1, Episode 83: The Long Table · My Playful Wife — A Tender Literary Love Story

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my playful wife and i watched my wife carry her
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mother the way she has taught our son to carry
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his silently at the table in the food that was
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half her mother's recipes and i understood that
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the long table is long enough to seat the dead
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the table in our flat was bought a long time
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ago to seat two It has a leaf that folds up out
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of the middle when you need it, and for years
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we almost never needed it, and then this last
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while we have needed it every Sunday, and last
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Sunday even the leaf was not enough, and Saloni
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sent me down to borrow two chairs from the neighbor,
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and I stood at the head of the thing while it
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was being laid and counted the places, and there
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were eleven, and I understood, counting them,
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something about what we had built without ever
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quite deciding to. A marriage, when it is working,
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does this quietly and constantly, I have found.
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It builds things you never drew up plans for.
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You set out to love one person, and you end up,
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years later, standing at the head of a table
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you did not know you were assembling, in the
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middle of a life that accreted around the two
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of you like coral, until it had a shape and a
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gravity of its own that pulled other people in.
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But that is what a home turns into if you tend
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it. It stops being where two people live and
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becomes where a crowd is fed. It had assembled
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itself the way these things do, by accretion,
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nobody's plan. Samir had come by to drop off
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a thing and been told he was staying, which is
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how Samir is always told, because if he left
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it to Samir to invite himself, he would starve
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on principle at his own best friend's door. Mira
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had brought Davika. and Devika had brought a
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tray of something and an argument about an election
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that she carried on cheerfully with anyone who
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would take the other side, and several who would
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not. Kaveri, Saloni's cousin, had come in from
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the family end of things, from the blood, with
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that particular quiet she brings, the family
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quiet, the one that carries Saloni's mother in
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it whether anyone says the name or not. Piyush
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had brought sweets, as Piyush always brings sweets,
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in a specific quantity of a man who has never
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in his life correctly estimated how many people
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would be present. And my father was there, in
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the good chair, fetched by me that morning from
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across the city, because a thing had shifted
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since the afternoon Kabir asked him about the
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old lines and the man had, for once, looked up.
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The table had simply grown the way a plant grows
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without announcement, adding a leaf, borrowing
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a chair, until one Sunday you look up and there
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are 11 people eating in a flat that was furnished
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once for two people who did not expect to need
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the room. I have thought about that phrase, need
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the room, because it turns out to mean two entirely
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different things, and we have lived both. For
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years it meant the room was too big, a flat with
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more space than two quiet people knew how to
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fill, a dining table whose folded leaf was a
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small standing rebuke, an emptiness we did not
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name but both felt. And now it means the room
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is too small, that the walls press in on a Sunday,
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that we are forever borrowing chairs and turning
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sideways to pass. I know which of these problems
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I prefer. A house too small for its love is the
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finest complaint a man can have, and I have earned,
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at some cost, the right to make it, and I would
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not trade the crowded walls back for all the
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quiet space in Delhi. I want to say what Kabir
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used to be like at a table because you cannot
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understand what I watched last Sunday unless
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you know what it is measured against. When he
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first came to us, Kabir ate like a guest. Not
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a rude guest and not a greedy one. The opposite.
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The far sadder opposite. He ate like a child
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who has learned in a dozen provisional houses
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that a place at a table is a thing granted and
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not owned and that it can be withdrawn and that
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the way to keep it a little longer is to cost
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as little as possible. He took small portions.
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He never took seconds without being pressed and
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often not even then. He watched the adults for
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the signal that he had had enough, that he was
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beginning to be too much, that the welcome was
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wearing through. He said thank you too often
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and too carefully, the way you thank a stranger.
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He made himself, at every meal, slightly smaller
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than the space he had been given so that no one
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could ever accuse him of taking up more than
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his share, because a child who's been moved on
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and moved on learns that taking up space is the
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first thing they hold against you. To watch a
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small boy be a polite guest at what is supposed
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to be his own family's table is one of the quietest
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heartbreaks there is, and for a long time it
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was ours. The worst part of it was how good his
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manners were. A rude, grabbing, demanding child
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at your table is a child who feels safe. His
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rudeness is a form of trust, a certainty that
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the food and the welcome will still be there
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tomorrow no matter how badly he behaves today.
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It is the polite ones you have to grieve for.
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Kabir's exquisite carefulness, his small careful
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thank yous, his refusal of seconds, were not
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virtues. They were symptoms, the table manners
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of the dispossessed, the survival etiquette of
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a boy who had learned that the price of a place
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was to be no trouble at all. And I would sit
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across from that beautiful behavior and want,
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more than almost anything, to see my son be rude
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to me. to see him whine and grab and take me
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completely for granted, because only then would
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I know that he had finally come to believe we
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were his to take for granted. And last Sunday...
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At the long table, with eleven people and the
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borrowed chairs, I watched my son reach across
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Samir without a word of apology, take the last
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aloo tiki off the serving plate, as though it
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had been put there by God specifically for him,
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and eat it in front of everyone with the bottomless
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entitlement of a child who has never once doubted
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his welcome. And I nearly wept into the dowel,
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because Samir being Samir, roared in mock outrage
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and put Kabir in a headlock. And Kabir shrieked
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and elbowed him and called him a fat cheater.
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My son called my enormous oldest friend a fat
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cheater to his face and got a laugh out of the
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whole table for it. And then the two of them
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squabbled over the next plate like brothers,
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like a boy who has an ancient unshakable right
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to squabble. And nobody at that table saw anything
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remarkable in it at all, which was the single
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most remarkable thing about it. The deepest kind
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of acceptance never announces itself. That is
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how you can tell it is real. Nobody at that table
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turned to Kabir and said, warmly, how wonderful
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that you feel at home enough to snatch the last
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tiki. The instant anyone said such a thing, the
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belonging would have evaporated. Because to be
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told you belong is to be reminded that your belonging
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was ever in question. Real membership is the
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thing that goes without saying. It lives in the
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not remarking, in the way Samir wrestled him
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for the plate exactly as he would have wrestled
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a nephew of his own blood. The absence of specialness
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was the entire gift. Kabir had finally become
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unremarkable, and I could have wept at how long
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we had waited for him to be nothing special.
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Kabir had stopped being a guest. Somewhere in
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the last months, without a ceremony. Without
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anyone marking the day, he had stopped saying
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thank you like a stranger and started taking
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the last ticky like a son. He argued. He interrupted.
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He took seconds and then thirds and complained
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about the vegetables and demanded to know why
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Piyush always brought the sweets he didn't like.
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And every ungrateful, entitled, magnificent one
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of those small rudenesses was a brick in the
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same wall. And the wall spelled out, if you knew
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how to read it, the one word we had been building
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toward for two years, which was mine. This is
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mine. This table is mine. These people are mine.
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This welcome is mine and cannot be withdrawn,
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and I will prove it is mine by being as gloriously
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rude at it as any child who is never for one
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day in his life afraid of losing it. I looked
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down the length of the table then. past Samir
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with his headlock and Avika with her election,
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and my father telling Tara, who had been dropped
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off for the afternoon, the same thing about the
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old tram lines he had told Kabir, and I understood
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a thing about adoption that no court had told
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me. We had adopted Kabir, Saloni, and I, in a
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room with a judge, on a Tuesday, with a stamp.
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But that was only the legal husk of it, the outermost
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and least of it. The real adoption, the one that
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actually makes a child yours, is not performed
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once by two people in a courtroom. It is performed
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continuously over years by a whole table full
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of people who each, in their own way, decide
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to hold him. Samir adopted him with a headlock.
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Mira adopted him by always, quietly, without
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ever saying so, saving him the crispest piece
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of whatever there was. My father adopted him.
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with the old tramlines. Devika adopts him a little
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every time she argues with him as an equal, and
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Kaveri every time she folds him into the blood
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quiet of the family and without a flicker of
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the word step or the word adopted crossing her
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face. I do not think any single one of them knew
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they were doing it, and that too is the point.
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If you had stopped Samir on his way out and told
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him he had spent the afternoon performing an
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act of adoption, he would have laughed and called
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it a headlock. The great holding acts of a life
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are almost never experienced as anything grand.
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They are experienced as a headlock, a saved piece,
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an argument about an election, a story about
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tramlines. That is both their mercy and their
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disguise. Belonging is built by people who have
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no idea they are building it, which is exactly
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why it holds, because a thing done without any
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self -congratulation is a thing that will simply
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be done again next Sunday and the Sunday after,
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without anyone ever deciding to keep it up. A
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child is not made to belong by two parents and
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a magistrate. He is made to belong by a plural.
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A crowd, a long table's worth of ordinary people
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who set him a place and keep setting it until
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the place is so obviously his that he will fight
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you for the last thing on it. Belonging, I understood.
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Watching them all hold my son without any of
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them thinking they were doing anything at all
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is not singular. It was never going to be enough
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for Saloni and me to love him. He needed a table.
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It was Saloni, of course, who had made the table,
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not the furniture, the thing, the gathering,
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the held, and holding whole of it. She was up
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and down the whole meal in the way she is seen
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to everyone, and it was only when she finally
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sat for a moment at the far end that I caught
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the thing that crossed her face, and I knew it
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because I have learned to read her. At the fullest
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table she has ever sat, with eleven people she
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loves eating the food she made, Saloni was. for
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one unguarded second, looking at the one empty
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place. Not a laid place, there was no laid place,
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but the place her mother was not, has not been
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for more than twenty years, and never more loudly
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not than at a table this full. Because that is
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what a great fullness does. It does not bury
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the one absence, it holds it up to the light.
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The dead are never so present as at a feast.
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I used to find that unbearable. When I was younger,
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and thought grief a problem to solve, the way
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a celebration would sharpen a loss instead of
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dulling it seemed to me a design flaw in the
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world. I understand it differently now. The dead
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come to the feast because the feast is where
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they were always most themselves, presiding,
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feeding, fussing, filling a room. A woman who
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lived to gather people does not stop being summoned
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by a gathering simply because she has died. Saloni's
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mother was in that flat on Sunday more surely
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than one or two of the living were, in the recipes
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and the way the table was laid and the particular
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loud generosity that Saloni learned from her
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and is now, without noticing that she is doing
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it, teaching Kabir. We do not, it turns out,
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carry the dead as a weight. We carry them as
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a way of doing things. And I watched my wife
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carry her mother. The way she has taught our
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son to carry his, silently, at the table, in
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the food that was half her mother's recipes,
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and I understood that the long table is long
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enough to seat the dead as well, that it must
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be, that a table which could not make room for
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the missing would not be worth sitting at. She
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caught me watching. She did not look away, or
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wipe her face, or pretend. She just held my eye
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down the length of all those people, our people,
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and let me see that she was, in the same breath,
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completely happy and quietly grieving, which
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is the only honest way to be at a table like
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that, and then Kabir shouted something and she
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laughed and got up to see to it, carrying her
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mother with her, the way you carry the ones you
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have lost, which is everywhere, always, and especially
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where there is joy. I wrote it that night in
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the sixth notebook. The borrowed chairs returned,
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the leaf folded back down, Kabir's second marigold,
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the one he is growing to give to Terra, still
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just leaves, still refusing to flower on any
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schedule but its own, standing sentry on the
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sill. That we did not save Kabir, that is the
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thing the long table taught me, that I had got
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slightly wrong all this time. Saloni and I did
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not save him, not alone. Not the way I had privately
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imagined it. The two of us against his whole
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hard history. A child is not saved by a rescue.
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He is saved by a settling, by being lowered slowly
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into a net of people so wide and so ordinary
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that he stops being able to find the edge of
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it, stops checking for the edge of it, forgets
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there was ever supposed to be an edge. We gave
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him a household. But the table gave him a world,
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a crowd of the casually devoted, a Samir and
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a Mira and a Devika and a Kaveri and a thawing
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old grandfather with his tramlines, none of whom
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he can lose, because you cannot be unadopted
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by a headlock, cannot be evicted from a saved
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crispy piece, cannot have the old tramlines taken
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back. He is not held by two hands anymore. He
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is held by a table's worth, and a table's worth
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does not let go, and somewhere in the last months
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he felt the difference in his body and put down,
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at last, the terrible carefulness of the guest,
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and picked up the last ticky like a boy who owns
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the earth. And this is the quiet correction the
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long table made to the story I had been telling
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myself, the heroic story. the one in which two
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people reach down into a child's hard history
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and lift him out by main strength. It is a flattering
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story, and it is mostly false. We did not lift
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Kabir out of anything. We lowered him in into
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us, into the noise, into the ordinary Sunday
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crowd, into a belonging so wide and so unremarkable
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that its edges simply disappeared. Rescue is
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a single dramatic act, and it makes the rescuer
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feel large. But a child is not actually mended
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by a dramatic act. He is mended by 10 ,000 undramatic
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ones, by the boring, repeated evidence of a hundred
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ordinary Sundays that this table will be here
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next week, and he with it, and that no one is
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counting whether he has earned his chair. Then
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the working line, the sixth notebook open, the
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flat quiet and overfull and smelling still of
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everyone who had been in it. A child is not adopted
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only by two people and a judge. He is adopted
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slowly and without any paperwork at all by everyone
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who sets him a place and saves him the good peace
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and teaches him the old lines and puts him laughing
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in a headlock. Belonging is plural. You will
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know the wounded one has finally arrived not
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when he is grateful at your table, but when he
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stops being grateful, when he takes the last
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piece without asking, argues, sprawls, complains
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about the vegetables, and behaves at last like
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family instead of a guest. So set the longer
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table. Fold up the leaf. Borrow the chairs, lay
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the extra places, and gather more people than
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the room was ever meant to hold, because no household
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is a wide enough net and a child needs a whole
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world to fall into. And keep room, always, for
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the ones who should be here and are not, because
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the fullest table carries its dead as surely
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as its living, and a table that could not seat
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the missing would not be worth the sitting. I
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kept the pen. and went to look in on Kabir, who
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was asleep sideways across his bed in the boneless,
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total sprawl of a child with nothing left to
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guard, one foot off the edge, the metro map on
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the wall, and Tara's future marigold on the sill,
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and, downstairs in the drying rack, eleven people's
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worth of washed plates. And I stood there in
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the doorway, at the near end of a very long day,
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and I thought about the table that had been bought
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for two, and about how the leaf would be needed
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again next Sunday, and the Sunday after, and
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I found that I was no longer counting the places
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with any anxiety at all, only with a kind of
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wonder, the wonder of a man who set out, once,
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merely to save one boy, and looked up two years
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later to find that the boy had. In the being
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saved, quietly built all of us a home. To be
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continued in episode 84, when it flowers. All
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rights reserved. That was episode 83 of My Playful
19:28
Wife. If this story is staying with you, the
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next episode is already waiting. Subscribe so
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my Patreon. Links are in the description. I'm
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Mia. Thank you for listening.