Page 6 of Cakes for the Grump

“I don’t know.” They say the first few months in a new city are hard, and that if you keep enduring, it gets better. But I’m not sure how much longer I can last. I miss Mumbai. The sunrises at Juhu Beach, shopping at Chor Bazaar, the fish markets of Malad?—

Surrounded by so many people, you never feel lonely. No matter how poor you are, there is a spirit of closeness there. People help in times of need. Arms are linked. Communities forge. Dreams crack open to possibilities. It’s a place of brightly colored houses, skyscrapers, and slums.

“Do you think you could get a better job back home?” asks Mrs. Milla.

Fine dining jobs pay nothing in India. Until you have your own restaurant, the salary for chefs is abysmal. All you get are long, stressful hours.

Barcelona was supposed to be my answer to that.

“What happens when I leave?” I ask. “I don’t want to leave you alone with her.”

This last month, they’ve become so dear to me.

Mr. Albo shakes his head. “She’s worse because she knows you’ll pick up the slack. Don’t worry about us. We’ll handle Janice when you leave.”

“Not that we wouldn’t miss you,” says Ms. Baghdadi, grabbing my hand. “We only want you to do what is best for you.”

The hard part is that I don’t know what is best for me. It feels like my roads have closed in, and the clock is running down, and the more I want to do what is best and right for me—not just for my family—but for me…

The farther away my dreams feel.

We finish the evening’s chores by the time the sky turns a dusky purple. Then everyone is finally able to go rest in their apartments.

After showering, I go to bed. I decide I will call my uncle tomorrow morning. Uncle is a slight man with tired eyes and a big heart. He’s got a gray beard and a turban always tied on a slant because his arthritis in one hand is worse than the other. Having never married, the only family he has is me and his brother, my father.

I need to ask him for advice. Not that I am qualified, but he’s told me in the past he has connections to the tech industry in Mumbai. I’ve never been interested before, but then again, I’ve never been fired either. This recent failure…it’s taken a nick out of me.

How did I get here? And how did I possibly get fired? And what am I going to do to save myself and provide for my dad’s rehab?

Maybe it’s time I stop trying to cling to the dream of becoming a chef and focus on making enough money. Maybe I need to be practical about my future and accept that it won’t look like what I want it to look. Maybe I shouldn’t spend my entire life chasing after something that may never happen.

It’s silly, this fire I have inside me. How irrationally I feel close to my mother when I’m in the kitchen. I should accept that passions don’t always work out.

Don’t be a fool. Be practical.

With those thoughts contaminating my head, I close my eyes but don’t sleep peacefully.

There is very little rest and a lot of ache.

“I haveto talk to you, Uncle,” I say when he picks up the phone in the morning.

“What good fortune as I was just about to ring you up! I’m visiting your dad right now.”

My stomach cramps. “That’s…great. Great.”

“Actually, he wants to talk to you.”

I pull my legs up onto the couch until they tuck under my chin. The closest I get to crying is when I talk to my dad, which is why we haven’t had a proper conversation in a really long time. “Okay.” My voice has gone soft.

“Hello, puth,” says my dad in his familiar deep rumble.

Puth—child.

What he always calls me, no matter how old I get.

It’s as if that endearment is made to unspool me. A detangling where all things from the past fade away and hope finds its stubborn way back into my squeezed heart. I wish one word didn’t have so much power over me, but it does.

“How are you doing, Dad?”