Page 135 of Cakes for the Grump

He’s sitting upright on the bed, his usual pointed turban traded in for a more casual cloth wrapped around his head. A bruise circles his right eye,and the edge of another peeks out from the edge of his white gown like a gruesome blink.

His eyes widen. “Rita?”

Noor and Kiren turn around. They’re here too. They’ve made sure he wasn’t alone.

I hold on to the wall. “I-is the surgery over?”

They didn’t have to operate. The hip will heal on its own after proper recovery. He’s made it through.

Those are the words I hear when my friends gather around me. I’m taken to a chair I sink into, and all at once, the last twenty-four hours ram into me like a truck finally released.

With my friends and family around me, I shiver and then—finally—weep.

They only keepUncle in the hospital another day for recovery. Further rest is advised to happen at home. Discharge paperwork is filed, and the list of medical expenses is tallied. This stay will certainly crush most of my savings, if not all. All that I’ve done to get ahead in Barcelona will be gone, but I’m breathing a sigh of steely gratitude. At least I can pay because Uncle surely can’t. As I ready myself to negotiate with the clerk in the main office, Kiren and Noor crowd behind me. From the corner of my eye, I see their wallets are out.

“No, I can’t let you pay,” I argue. “It’s not going to happen.”

“Try to stop us,” says Noor, wrestling to get ahead of me.

Kiren flanks my other side. “He’s our uncle too. Whatever the cost, we’re figuring it out together.”

The clerk is a petite woman in a silk sari whose bindi bridges the gap between her long, rounded eyebrows. For a woman who administers bills and likely deals with traumatized, worn-down families, she’s certainly in a good mood. A folder is handed to me. “It’s taken care of,” she says. “The payment is already made in full.”

I hold the folder against my chest. “By who?”

“Anonymous donor.”

Is it him?

If so, how did he know?

Noor and Kiren are whispering the same behind my back. Mutely, I walk over the front entrance. Uncle is waiting in a wheelchair. The attendant who brought him down leaves so I can take over. We exit the hospital by going down a ramp.

“We’ll hail a taxi,” says Kiren. “Let me haggle it down. I’m the best at it.”

There’s no need. The same private car that dropped me off to the hospital in the first place is waiting outside for us. The driver is a sun-darkened man in uniform. He’s holding his flat top cap under his arm, but quickly puts it on when he sees me. “Madam. Right this way.”

Is that how Luke figured out where we were? This driver reports to him? My hands tighten on the wheelchair handles. “I can’t afford to pay you.”

“It’s already taken care of, madam.”

The next few minutes, I try to dismiss him, but he doesn’t go. He says it’s his duty to take us wherever we need to go, and how this is the best job he’s had in a long time with the pay large enough to cover his daughter’s tuition for her last year in medical school.

Kiren and Noor are smiling. Uncle doesn’t say much, but I know he’s curious. In the end, it’s the way he’s grimacing in discomfort in the wheelchair that has me accepting the ride.

Now, I’m certain it’s Luke. He’s here without being here.

I’m so stiff, I’ll snap. I fold a hand over my heart and will it to be reasonable. To ignore the pain a little longer.

The drive home is long and circuitous. Mumbai traffic is a congested pit every hour of the day, but we don’t feel the time being in the back of an air-conditioned vehicle with ample leg room. Uncle has fallen asleep, and my friends also stay quiet after seeing the many yawns I try suppressing.

Home is a two-bedroom apartment rented in a crumbling, five-story residential building. With Dad still in rehab, Uncle has been able to take his own room, and I have my own, albeit both are only big enough to fit our sleeping cots. The neighbors are middle-class families, most of them parents with children. They come from a range of religious and cultural backgrounds, so you’ll often hear different prayers imbuing the air in the mornings. Inside, the walls in our apartment might have flaking green paint, but everything else inside is as carefully maintained as possible. Any rips on the couch have been meticulously sewn back together with pride, the pottedplants are trimmed, and delicate china plates are displayed in a grandiose wooden cabinet passed down from our ancestors. Below the furniture are blanched white tiles that reflect enough light to brighten the space so that even at night it looks to be glowing faintly.

It makes me sad that I feel like it’s smaller than I remember.

While I help Uncle into bed in his room, my friends go into the kitchen to make chai. When they come back, I’ve already lit sticks of jasmine incense and taken long, meditative gulps of sweet, comforting, fragranced air.

As though this apartment is a very familiar hug, I ease into its embrace by sitting on the couch. With the advantage of holding all my memories and how every inch of construction is one I could redraw in my mind if prompted, this place can’t be replicated or replaced. The junctures between my bones lose their tension, as if no longer needing to stay alert.