Latest / My Playful Wife — A Tender Literary Love Story / My Playful Wife — Season 1, Episode 22: The December Wedding

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My Playful Wife — Season 1, Episode 22: The December Wedding · My Playful Wife — A Tender Literary Love Story

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because the hand is always there it's always
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there i said i know she said that's the whole
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of it that's the marriage the hand is always
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there my playful wife episode 22 the december
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wedding written by mia December arrived with
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a specific solemnity of a month that has been
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looked forward to for a long time. The wedding
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was in Bengaluru, Mira's city, Mira's people.
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The right choice in a negotiation between two
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families that had, against the odds, been conducted
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with more grace than most such negotiations manage.
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There had been the usual frictions over the usual
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things, the geography and the guest lists and
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whose customs would govern which hour of which
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day, and they had been resolved the way good
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families resolve them, by each side conceding
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the things that mattered less to them than to
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the other, until what remained was a wedding
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that belonged to everyone and resented no one.
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My parents came up from Nagpur with the particular
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charged energy of people who have been anticipating
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something for months and are finally, gloriously,
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permitted to feel it. I had been bracing a little
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for my mother. The phone calls of the past months
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had been full of the things she did not ask,
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the trailing sentences, the careful weather,
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the question about whether Saloni and I were
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okay that she circled, and never quite landed
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on. I had wondered how it would be in person,
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whether the unasked things would crowd the air
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between us. But I had underestimated the wedding.
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A wedding is a flood. It does not leave room
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for subtext. My mother arrived, took one look
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at Mira, really looked, the assessing look of
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a woman who has been reading faces for 60 years,
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and delivered her verdict in four words. Good,
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she said. She has good eyes. From my mother,
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this was a coronation. She did not say she is
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beautiful or she is from a good family or any
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of the things other mothers say. She looked at
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the eyes where the person actually lives and
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approved of the person. Mira, who missed nothing.
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understood exactly what she had been given, and
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bent and touched my mother's feet, and my mother
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put a hand on her head and held it there a moment
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longer than the form required. My father said
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nothing, which was expected. My father is a man
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of long considering silences. But he took Mira's
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hand in both of his and held it and pressed it
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and looked at her, and that two -handed clasp
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was, for my father and entire speech, the collected
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works, more than he had said to most people in
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his life. Piyush watched it happen and had to
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look away. And to me, in a quiet moment on the
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first evening, my mother said only, You look
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well, Beta. You look like yourself again. And
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then, after a pause, with her hand briefly on
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my cheek, better than yourself. And that was
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the closest she ever came to asking the question,
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and it turned out she didn't need to ask it because
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she could see the answer on me, the way she'd
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always been able to see weather coming. She had
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been worried about me for a year, from 1 ,500
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kilometers away, without evidence, the way mothers
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worry. Now she had the evidence in front of her,
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and she put the worry down, and we never spoke
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of it, and we didn't need to. The wedding itself
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was three days, and I will not try to describe
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all of it, because weddings are like monsoons.
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They have to be lived through to be understood.
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The sheer density of color and sound and food
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and feeling defeating any attempt to reduce them
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to a line of narrative. I will give the parts
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that stayed. The Mendi, the first evening, the
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women in a loud bright knot around the bride,
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Mira's palms filling with the dark intricate
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script of it, and Saloni in the middle of them,
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folded completely into the circle of Mira's women
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as though she had always belonged there, laughing,
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getting her own hands done, the sister -in -law
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from Delhi who had become, over a Diwali, and
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a winter of letters and phone calls, one of Mira's
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own. I watched from the men's side of the evening
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and felt the particular pleasure of seeing my
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wife happy in a place that had nothing to do
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with me. It is a specific and underrated joy
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that to watch the person you love be fully alive
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in a room you are not in the center of. The Sangeet,
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the second night, the dancing. Piyush danced.
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My brother, who dances the way a chair would
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dance. threw himself into it with the whole of
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his graceless heart, and Mira laughed at him,
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and then danced with him, covering his lack of
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rhythm with her own the way she covered everything,
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and the families mixed on the floor, Nagpur and
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Mysore finding a common time signature, and at
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one point I was pulled in despite myself, and
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at another point Seloni was beside me and we
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danced, badly, both of us, the way you dance
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at the wedding of someone you. Love, and she
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put her forehead against my shoulder in the middle
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of a song, and I felt her laughing and I thought,
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we are at my brother's wedding and my wife is
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laughing into my shoulder. A year ago, I could
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not have written that sentence without my hand
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shaking. And there was a moment. Late on the
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Sangeet night, when the music had gone soft and
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the crowd had thinned and I found myself standing
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at the edge of the lawn with Mira, the bride,
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the two of us briefly outside the noise. She
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had a glass of something and the dark mendi on
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her hands and the slightly stunned look of a
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woman at the center of her own wedding. You came,
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she said, the same two words Piyush always said.
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They must talk, I thought. It is the thing they
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both fix on, the coming. I told you I would,
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I said. You held him to Bengaluru. I held myself
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to this. She smiled the slow smile. And then
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she said because she was Mira and because the
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night and the wedding had loosened even her precision.
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Can I tell you something? That night in your
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kitchen, last October. When I said the thing
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about complicated people, I went back to the
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room after, and Piyush asked what we talked about,
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and I said nothing, the weather. And then I lay
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awake half the night thinking I'd overstepped,
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that I'd said too much to a man I'd known for
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four days. She turned her glass. I'm glad I did
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not say it. I've thought about it since. I think
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you needed someone from outside to tell you that
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you weren't the thing you were afraid you were.
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So, I'm telling you again, on a better night,
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you're not. Whatever you were afraid of being
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that year, you're the other thing. I did not
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have words for that, standing on the dark lawn
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at her wedding. So, I did the thing my father
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does. I took her hand in both of mine and held
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it and pressed it, and that was the speech. The
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morning of the wedding I helped my brother get
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dressed. This is a thing brothers do. In our
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family, on this one morning, the older helping
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the younger into the clothes, the small fraternal
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ritual that predates all of us and means more
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than anyone will admit. I went to his room early.
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He was already awake, had been awake for hours,
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sitting on the edge of the bed in his undershirt
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with the wedding clothes laid out around him
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like the disassembled parts of a more confident
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man, and he looked up at me with naked terror.
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Bia, he said, I can't do the Safa. I watched
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a video. I can't do it. Nobody can do their own
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Safa, I said. That's why you have a brother.
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Seek. So, I tied his turban. I stood behind him
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and wound the long cloth the way our own father
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had wound mine, on a morning years before, in
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a different city, for a marriage that had been
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a comfortable arrangement between two people
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who liked each other and had no idea what they
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were in for. My hands remembered the folds. I
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tucked and tightened and shaped it, and Piyush
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sat very still under my hands the way you sit
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still for the people you trust to handle you,
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and in the mirror I watched his face slowly change,
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the terror organizing itself into something more
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like resolve as the turban took shape and made
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him, fold by fold, into a groom. There, I said,
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settling the last of it, look at you. He looked
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at himself in the mirror. He looked at me behind
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him in the mirror, and then his face did the
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thing it had been threatening to do for three
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days and finally did, and he turned around on
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the bed and put his face against my stomach the
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way he had when he was eight years old, and I
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put my hand on the back of his turbaned head,
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careful not to disturb my own work, and let him
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have the moment. I'm scared, he said muffled.
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I know. Not of her. Of being enough. For 50 years.
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Of being the thing she thinks I am. You won't
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be, I said. Some days you won't be the thing
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she thinks you are. That's not the job. The job
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isn't to be enough every day. The job is to keep
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showing up on the days you're not. To let her
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see you not be enough and stay anyway, both of
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you. That's the whole of it. I promise you, that's
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the whole of it. I tipped his head back to look
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at him. I'm an expert now. Trust me, the man
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who keeps showing up wins. It's the only rule
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there is. He looked at me, and we both knew the
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freight that sentence carried, the year folded
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inside it, the showing up I had done that he
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had been the cause of and the witness to. You
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kept showing up, he said. I kept showing up.
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I said. And look, we're here. I'm tying your
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safa. It all keeps going. Now stand up and let
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me look at you before Ma comes in and starts
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crying, because once she starts, none of us will
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be any use to anyone. He stood. He was magnificent,
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my graceless brother, transformed by cloth and
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fire into a groom, and I straightened his collar.
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The small proprietary gesture, the one Celonie
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does to me. I had caught it from her without
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noticing and held him by both shoulders at arm's
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length and looked at the whole of him, the boy
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and the man at once. Good, I said. It was the
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word my father would have used. It was the word
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I had said in a kitchen a year and more before
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that had started all of this good and meant it.
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I said it again now. to my brother on his wedding
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morning. Good. And he understood the whole of
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it, everything the small word held, the way Saloni
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always understood it. Thank you, Bia, he said.
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Stop thanking me, I said for the hundredth time,
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for the last time, and we went out together to
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find the fire. When I came out, Settled and shaken,
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Saloni was in the corridor in the gold silk,
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not yet gone into the women, waiting as though
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she had known I would need finding. She read
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the whole scene off my face without a word. The
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room, the turban, the boy against my stomach,
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all of it. You tied his safa, she said. I tied
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his safa. She reached up and adjusted something
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in my own collar that did not need adjusting,
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the excuse touch, her way of putting her hands
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on me when there was something she couldn't say.
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Your father tied yours, she said. You told me
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once, the only thing you ever told me about our
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own wedding morning, in three years, that your
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father tied your Safa and said nothing, and you
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understood everything anyway. She smoothed the
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collar. Your family says everything by tying
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turbans and saying good. I married into a clan
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of mutes who love each other violently and express
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it through haberdashery. It took me years to
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learn the language. She was smiling. Her eyes
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were not entirely dry. I'm fluent now. You're
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fluent, I agreed. Go, she said. turning me gently
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toward the noise and the fire. Watch your brother
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get married. I'll be beside you. Find me. I'll
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be the one in gold, feeling everything at once.
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I walked out into the bright chaos of it with
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the feel of my brother's turban still in my hands
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and my wife's voice still in my ears, and I thought
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that I had, without ever quite deciding to, become
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the still point the people I loved organized
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themselves around on the hard mornings. The one
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who ties the turban. The one you find in the
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crowd. It was not a role I could have claimed
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a year before. I had not been steady enough a
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year before to hold anyone. I was steady now.
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The year had hammered me into something that
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could be leaned on, and on my brother's wedding
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morning two people had leaned and I had held,
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and that was, in the end, the whole of who I
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had become, and it was enough. The ceremony was
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on the second day, the actual one, the fire,
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the words that make a thing official in the eyes
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of whatever is watching. I sat beside Saloni
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for it. We were close to the front, family, and
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the fire burned between the priest's words and
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Piyush's face was doing the thing a groom's face
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does, the terror and the joy of it indistinguishable,
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and Mira beside him was steady, was the steady
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one, the way she would presumably be the steady
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one for the next fifty years. The mantras went
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on, ancient and half -understood, the smoke rising.
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the marigolds, the heat of the fire reaching
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us even where we sat. And somewhere in the middle
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of it, the seven steps, the circling, the binding
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of the knot between them, Saloni reached over
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and took my hand. She held it. She held it for
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a long time, through the fire and the words,
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her grip tightening at the moments that mattered,
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and I understood that she was holding it for
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reasons too various to name. The way the embrace
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in the summer kitchen had been too various to
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name. Joy for them, real and clean. And under
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it, riding alongside it the way the difficult
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things always rode alongside, the several other
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things, the chamber of her that was hers alone,
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watching a door close in fire that had once,
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for her, been briefly open. I did not need to
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know which feeling was uppermost. I only needed
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to hold the hand, and be the steady thing she
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could hold onto while she felt all of it at once,
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the way she had taught me to be steady, the way
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I had spent a year learning. I looked at her
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once, in the firelight. She was wearing the silk
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she had chosen for the day, not rose, not one
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of the collection pieces, nothing with the year
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woven into it, something new. Something gold,
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a color she had bought fresh for this, and this
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only, a deliberate clean slate of a color. She
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had thought about it, I knew. She had chosen
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gold the way you choose to begin again. She felt
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me look and turned and met my eyes over the fire,
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and neither of us said anything, and her hand
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stayed in mine. And I thought about the question
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Mira had asked me in our kitchen in October,
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more than a year before. Are you okay? I mean,
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actually, not the answer you give people, the
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actual answer. I thought about what I had said.
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I'm something better than okay. I don't have
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a word for it, but it's real. It was still true.
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It was, if anything, more true. Here in the firelight
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at my brother's wedding with my wife's hand in
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mine, and the gold silk catching the flame. Better
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than okay. Still no word for it. Still real.
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The ceremony went on. The fire. My brother's
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face. My brother who had cried at cartoons and
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hidden a cat and caused, all unknowing, the largest
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rupture of my life. Now bound in smoke and marigold
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to a woman with good eyes who would have the
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benefit of everything the rupture had taught
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him. The priest said the words. The knot was
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tied. It was done. They were married. The thing
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that had been coming all year had arrived. The
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way everything arrives and changed the weather
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entirely. Saloni squeezed my hand. I squeezed
18:18
back. The better than okay held. Held through
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the fire and the rice and the rising of the married
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couple. Held through the congratulations and
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the weeping ants and the long, bright, loud remainder
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of the day. That night, late, In the hotel room
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with the wedding still ringing in our ears, Saloni
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sat at the edge of the bed in the gold silk and
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was quiet for a while, and then she said, He
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looked happy. He looked happy, I agreed. I'm
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glad, she said, and then, simply, without wait,
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setting it down where I could see it, I felt
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everything today, all of it at once, the whole
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year. in one afternoon, while the fire burned.
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She looked at me, and then I held your hand,
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and it was bearable, more than bearable. It was
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good. I felt all of it, and it was good, because
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you were there to hold the part of me that needed
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holding. She reached up and began, slowly, to
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take the gold silk off, folding it as she went,
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the practiced fold. That's the difference, you
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and me. I can feel the whole thing now and not
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drown. Because of the hand. Because the hand
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is always there. It's always there, I said. I
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know, she said. That's the whole of it. That's
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the marriage. The hand is always there. She folded
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the gold silk and set it aside, worn once, and
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we slept. Finally, in the city where my brother
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had just married, the wedding done, the year
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nearly closed the hand. Hers and mine, mine and
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hers, always now there. To be continued in episode
20:28
was episode 22 of My Playful Wife. If this story
20:33
is staying with you, the next episode is already
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waiting. Subscribe so you don't miss it. The
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plus bonus chapters are on my Patreon. Links
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are in the description. Thank you for listening.