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Chapter Twenty-Eight

Shantal

D ay after day, even when we travel to Singapore, Celina and I devote extra time to getting Darien back to a steering wheel. Celina runs him through the crucial motions he needs to be able to pilot the car: pull, push, extend, bend, pronate and supinate. I modify the sim set-up that we bring with us so that the steering weight is turned down significantly, and screw around with the program till I end up with something gentler than the beast that is the modded Heidelberg Hybridge Ring. It’s not exactly where I saw this system going, but the flexibility of the set-up is unbelievable. Even with Darien’s injury, we think the sim will be able to fully accommodate and re-learn with him. The brilliance of it all has cost me multiple sleepless nights and taken the team hours of video calls to perfect tweaks, but it’s going to be worth it. I know it will be.

The only issue is that I have no idea if Darien will ever so much as touch the sim set-up we’ve prepared. He’s struggling. I wonder if his reaching out and taking my hand that night, what felt to me like a miracle, was only a fluke, but I know I cannot afford to think like that. Not when this season hangs in the balance for Darien. I watch the frustration creep into his face in the form of a grimace, when he’s on the verge of tears trying to lift a weight or do something as simple as grip the handle of the rowing machine. Things that were so easy for him mere weeks ago, and now take much more than a modicum of effort to even begin doing.

And so at the end of the week, closing in on the first race that Darien won’t partake in, I decide that for many reasons, it’s time for us to take a break.

‘You should come to Chinatown with me,’ I tell Darien on Friday morning, as we walk down the hall outside the hotel gym.

‘Chinatown?’ Darien cocks his head at me like I’ve lost a handful of screws. I’m almost thankful for the return of some of his sass. ‘You gonna drive twenty minutes through race day traffic just for fun?’

‘Don’t question it. I want you to get out of this place for a minute. Not to mention I have business to take care of.’

He just stops walking and gives me an even more sceptical look. ‘In the traffic ?’

I roll my eyes. ‘Will you go?’

Dramatically, he gives me a massive roll of his eyes, although he’s smiling. ‘Fine.’

True to his word, Darien joins me for the drive out from the hotel and through the city, one we endeavour in my small grey company sedan. ‘What are we looking for, exactly?’

‘A temple.’ I scrunch my nose in concentration, glancing over at the GPS. ‘Where the hell is this place?’

He cuts his eyes my way as we get further into the streets, far enough that my car is starting to putter anxiously from the stop and start of the traffic jams. ‘Let’s start by asking if it exists.’

It does. A sign pops up off to our right side: Sri Mariamman Temple , first in English, and below in another language that looks like it might be Tamil. I hang a quick turn down the narrow alley leading in.

We almost immediately end up in a tiny parking area before what looks like a piece of architecture out of a history book. The base of the building itself looks fairly discreet, until you get a look at the massive pyramid-like spire on the top. An array of coloured carvings of figures – so realistic you have to do a double take – forms the spire, with similar figures all around the border of the roof: gods and sacred animals. Gold pillars rise from the very top of the spire, glimmering in the sunlight. It’s different from the few mandirs I’d seen, but extremely beautiful.

I stop the car. ‘You can wait or come,’ I offer Darien. ‘I just wanted you to get away from the stress for a day. Have you been to a Hindu temple before?’

Now he shakes his head no. ‘Never. Why?’

‘Do you want to?’

He looks up at the carvings, takes in the massive spire with an air of curiosity. ‘Sure.’

We walk side by side up to the wooden door, carved with intricate traditional designs. Inside, a small cloakroom holds a couple of pairs of shoes, sandals and sneakers. I slip off my own and add them to the mix, my tote bag and dupatta swinging off my shoulder. The thin scarf is a translucent baby blue complement to my white kurta , a long-sleeved tunic top, and matching palazzo pants, loose trousers that flutter slightly in the wind.

‘Go on,’ I tell Darien.

He gives his freshly shined white Dunks a look of longing that makes me chuckle, but uses his feet to slip them off beside my slippers. I toss my dupatta over my head, throwing one loose end beneath my chin and behind me, before pushing the door to the temple itself open.

The mandir is generously air-conditioned and an entire section of it open to the outside, making it both a good and bad thing that Darien has a hoodie and sweats on. Maybe it looked different at first, but inside, it’s beautiful. The interior pillars and rafters are strung with fresh flower garlands, the high ceilings painted with murals of gods and goddesses amid myths I recall from my childhood.

Ahead of us is an expansive hall, with brightly coloured statues of deities all around us. We cross the hall together to reach the murtis at the altar of the temple, ornately dressed idols with delicately painted features standing beneath a gold-gilded awning. Each idol is dripping with orange, yellow and pink cloth and gold jewellery. In the centre is Amman, one of the primary patron goddesses in the south of India. To one side of Amman, a group of three stands beneath an arch of carved wood: Shri Ram, Sita and Lakshman, my family’s patron deities. Both Ram and Lakshman hold gold-gilded bows, the weapons with which they fought to win back Sita, wife of Ram, from the demon king Raavan. Far off to the right side of the hall is another altar for Draupadi and the Pandavas from the Mahabharat, with a murti for Shri Krishna as well.

There is no lack of lore about the gods, lore that we grew up consuming even as Indo-Guyanese kids raised Hindu. Stories of gargantuan labours and epic battles, good against evil and brother against brother. But my favourites were always the love stories. The gods and goddesses would literally move heaven and earth for one another, the gold standard of the purest kind of love. Ram and Sita, Krishna and Radha, Shiva and Parvati. I liked to think that was not completely myth, at least before last year.

A table at our side is laid out with shiny silver thaal plates, fruits and nuts, diya candles in clay pots, and flowers. I take a thaal for our offering, and arrange the flowers, food and candles around it. I light a match. It sparks up right away, and I touch it to the wick of each diya .

‘I hate to ask,’ whispers Darien, touching my arm lightly, ‘but what, exactly, are we doing?’

I pick up the thaal and bring it to the altars with care, stopping at the rail separating the devotees from the murtis . ‘Making our wishes known.’

Darien’s brow furrows as he follows my gaze to the idols. ‘Our wishes?’

‘An offering for healing.’ I shield the flickering diyas , trying my best to keep their burgeoning flames intact. ‘For you.’

As I begin to circle the thaal before the altar, mouthing the aarti devotional under my breath, my hands shake, and I feel my eyes start to well up. This is the first time I have come to the temple on my own, without Sonia. I remember her making these offerings, doing the aarti , and following her motions. I swallow on a throat as rough as asphalt. I know what’s compelled me so strongly to return, despite knowing the pain I face whenever I tread on memories of my sister. With every memory, I continue to rip open a partially healed wound, the hole where my heart used to be. But as I offer aarti , I project my questions in my prayers. Why? Why have you brought winds of change into my life now, when I am out of options?

A near silent sob leaves my lips, bouncing off the ceiling of the mandir . The thaal tilts dangerously in my unsteady grip, threatens to fall.

But then another hand holds mine, levels the silver platter.

Darien.

He meets my eyes wordlessly. And he guides my thaal with his right hand, the diyas burning like stars in an otherwise dark night sky. I watch his arm make the careful, controlled movement, muscles flexing to hold up the heavy platter. It’s like earlier that week – it isn’t something he notices. His gaze is only on me, one of concern, brow furrowed, big brown eyes full of worry.

He doesn’t probe my grief, asks not a single question. He just stays, until I’m ready to set the thaal down at the feet of the Ram-Sita murti , and then he turns to me. His fingers skim my arm as he takes the end of my dupatta and brings it to my cheek, brushing away my tears.

I keep it together the entire walk out the temple, all the way to the car. I don’t have it in me to hold myself up any more than that.

I lean in to Darien, and I squeeze my eyes shut. He wraps his arms around me, smooths down my hair. He keeps me close, his chin resting against my forehead, my cheek to his chest as I release every emotion I have felt since getting here and since before then, and I know he knows what it is like.

He doesn’t owe me words. I have everything I need.