Page 63 of Cakes for the Grump

Right now I’m weak. Lying back in bed, I go through photos that Mumbai’s Lotus Healing Center have sent of my dad, trying to imagine what would happen if I said I couldn’t afford more payments.

He’s not smiling in a lot of the shots. His face (which has gotten a lot less ruddy) is concentrated, but there’s also nothing in his stout body language telling me that dad has mentally checked out, or is resisting the treatment.

All the buttons of his dress shirts are properly closed, shirt tucked in, and turban tied as neatly as I’ve ever seen it. In one photo, he’s even contorted his body in an attempt to do yoga.

Yoga.

My dad voluntarily trying to twist himself into a pretzel?

He’s actually trying, I think.

Hope tries finding root in my heart, but I don’t let it. I can’t allow myself to imagine him being sober. I won’t dream like that, because disappointment doesn’t faze you if you are prepared for it. Life is a crooked wheel going down an unpaved road. If I remember that, then I can’t be mad. Or hate a person I am supposed to love.

Not that Punjabi parents ever make it easy to hate them.

If only it were as easy as that.

“Dad, your leg is hurting.”

I look at him, trying to massage his own thigh, clearly wincing.

“It’s nothing, puth.”

It’s not nothing. He drives a bus for twelve hours straight so I can go to school. Waking up before me and coming back so late in the evening, his body is hunched over by the toil of it all.

“I looked up on the Internet some exercises for you,” I say. “They can help with your pain. Do you want to do them together with me?”

“Maybe later. Can you do me a favor, though?”

“What is it?”

“Pour your dad a little drink.”

I do it, and as I hand it over to him, he pulls out a surprise for me. It’s a bootleg copy of the latest Punjabi movie everyone in class has already seen in cinemas. I’ve been feeling so left out whenever they talk about it, but I haven’t complained about it or anything.

I’m jumping up and down. “You got it?”

He laughs. “Come on, let’s watch it together.”

By the end of the night, we’re out of our seats, shooting the dialogues back and forth at each other. Then my dad rewinds the movie to the song we liked the most so we can dance to it again. He’s swinging me around and then strumming a fake guitar while I hop over all the cushions on the couch.

Everything is so fun.

I don’t even miss not having a mom.

“It’s all worth it,” he says after. “Keep laughing and being happy. Then I don’t care how much I have to work. It’s all worth it if it means you are never sad.”

“I won’t ever be sad,” I promise him.

“Always follow your dreams,” he whispers.

“I will, Dad.”

“And don’t let life defeat you.”

“I won’t.”

When I go to sleep, he goes back to the living room and rolls out his bedding. Stacked pillows make a less flimsy barrier between him and the ground. Soon another day will start. People fighting on the bus, his leg falling asleep every hour, standing in line at the life insurance office trying to get them to see reason. To see that he needs the money they promised him after my mom passed away. That he’s afraid of not being enough on his own.