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Where You’re Meant to Be

May

‘ T ell me the story, Mumma.’

My mother laughs, leaning back against the couch and tipping her head over against mine, where it sits on her shoulder. ‘Which one?’

‘The only one.’

‘My dear May. You are all grown up now. You don’t need me to tell you stories.’

‘This one, I do.’

‘Sure.’ Mumma pretends to roll her eyes. My mom is a sweet woman at her core: forgiving, kind, but fierce when it comes to her family, and determined to make sure I stand on my own two feet sooner rather than later. Nevertheless, she won’t ever pass up an opportunity for me to be her little girl again, even for a moment, and I can tell from the quiet smile on her face that she’s glad I’m still asking her to tell me this story. Her story.

I’m glad she’s glad. Selfishly, I just need someone to assure me that somehow, it all works out. Always. No matter how.

‘Once upon a time, a young woman came to America for university from Canada, when she was just four years younger than you are now.’

‘And?’

‘And she met a young man in Oklahoma, where she was going to school. She asked him where she could get a really good double-double around here. He looked at her, laughed, and took her out for coffee. It was not a double-double. And as you know, nothing can top Timmie’s. But it was really delicious. So they got more coffee together. Again, and again, and again, and they fell in love.’

‘Did she fall in love with the coffee, too?’

‘Not as much as she did with the double-double. But she adapted,’ quips Mumma.

‘Good stuff.’

‘Of course. The two of them dated for four years. They had all their best-laid plans straight. A house on his family ranch in Eagle Rock, which he would inherit, their agriculture management degrees in hand, ready to take the family business to the next level. They would have a couple of chickens, some cattle, horses and, best of all, just one child, hopefully a daughter so she could teach her dance …’

‘My deepest apologies, Mumma.’

My mother just shoots me a look before she continues. ‘Accepted. They wanted to get married. Except there were quite a few issues, but the greatest was that her family had no idea, and she insisted they must not come to find out. She was a Punjabi Sikh, he a Catholic. In neither of their religions would the two of them be permitted to have a faith-based wedding ceremony. And both their families … if they knew, they would certainly object.

‘So, against all odds, she got married to him in a tiny, tiny ceremony in Oklahoma City. His friends, and her friends. It wasn’t that they hated their families, they each loved them very much. But both of them knew they would not allow this. And each of them couldn’t live with the idea of, well, living , without the other.’

I squeeze my mom’s hand as a vice grips my chest. ‘And then?’

Mumma points to the photo on the mantel. Mumma, in a red and gold salwar-kameez, small gold umbrella-shaped kaleere dangling from her bangles, stands arm in arm with my papa, who wears a simple suit and a red tie to match her – along with, of course, his cowboy hat. They have the broadest grins of all time across both their faces, and if you look closely in the background, you can see just how small that ceremony was: maybe twenty chairs total. ‘That was that. He came clean to his family first, and they weren’t happy, but that was before they met her. Certainly, she was so charming and lovable and beautiful—’

‘Oh, certainly .’

Mumma grins. ‘So beautiful that she won them over immediately. The two of them moved onto the ranch, and they adjusted to life out there on the farm. She struggled, though. No neighbours. No one but themselves for miles. At first, she felt so isolated, so … displaced. But she learned to love the farm, the same way her parents—’

‘Nanaji and Naniji.’ My maternal grandparents.

‘Exactly. The same way they had learned to love it when they first married and moved onto Nanaji’s family farm in Gurdaspur. And maybe that was the reason that Nanaji and Naniji, when this young woman told them about her husband, were so gentle, and willing to accept this new development – not without some drama, of course, but eventually willing. Because they saw a part of themselves in their daughter and son-in-law.

‘And eventually, the woman began to feel less and less lonely. She went into town, found friends in the other women, many of whom had started out feeling just as isolated as her. She fell for the ranch the way she’d fallen for her husband. She started teaching dance out of a barn studio he built for her, and slowly but surely, her side hustle blossomed. A few years later, the two of them had their daughter. Their one and only.’ Mumma lays a kiss on the top of my head, poking my ribs with every word. ‘Manmayi. Corina. Velasco.’

‘Mom,’ I laugh, batting her hand away.

‘May,’ she shoots back. ‘They taught their daughter to love the farm, too. They taught her the importance of hard work, of passion, and of chasing your dreams. Most importantly … they taught her to never, ever let the odds keep her from believing that somehow, some way, everything will end up right where it’s supposed to.’ Mumma’s warm smile is a salve, taking away everything that stings and replacing it with hope. ‘Just like us.’

‘Will it?’ I whisper, curling up so my head is in my mom’s lap. ‘Even if it seems like we made the wrong decision? Like I made the wrong decision?’

‘Oh, puttar .’ Mumma strokes my hair, her rings clicking together in synchrony. ‘It may feel wrong in the moment. It often does, for that matter. But every decision you make brings you closer to where you’re meant to be.’

Where I’m meant to be.

What if I’m meant to be in the MLL? What if I’m meant to be in Colt’s arms, in Colt’s truck, in Colt’s life? What if my mom is wrong, and I never end up there? Because it really seems like I won’t. Ever again.