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Reeva’s mouth dropped. “Okay. I did not know that’s how you saw everything. But it’s not exactly fair, considering—”
“I don’tfrolic around the world,” interjected Jaya. “It’s really hard being an influencer. I got into a very competitive photography course to make my content stronger this year. And there are a lot of business skills that go into building a brand.”
Sita crossed her arms. “Are you both done?” Her tone sounded exactly as it did when she spoke to her five-year-old daughters.“Because in case you’ve forgotten, we’re here because of our dad. We need to get to the bottom of our family history—not attack each other’s life choices. The fact is that Reeva’s a lawyer, and so she’s the one who needs to get the truth out of Satya Auntie. I mean, that is your job, isn’t it—to ask loads of questions and trick people into saying things they didn’t want to? I’ve seenThe Good Wife.”
“I’m a family lawyer,” replied Reeva slowly. “It’s mainly just paperwork and a lot of awkward conversations.”
Jaya shrugged. “Last time I checked we were a family. And judging by this”—she gestured to the table and its three occupants—“we’re going to be having way more awkward conversations. Am I right?”
Reeva looked down at her cold chai. “Guess I’m speaking to Satya Auntie tonight.”
CHAPTER 4
Day 2
Reeva sat self-consciouslyat the back of the living room trying to subtly massage away the pins and needles in her feet. She was surrounded by dozens of her dad’s closest friends, legs crossed, hands clapping, torsos swaying, crooning along with the bhajan singer, who was playing the harmonium as she sang, accompanied by a young man on the tablas. But Reeva was too busy reliving her earlier humiliation to be fully present. At seven p.m. she’d stood with her sisters, greeting all the guests. But while her sisters—dressed in casually chic Indian outfits—had seemed to know exactly what to do, saying “Jai Shree Krishna” with hands in prayer gestures to a middle-aged woman in a baby-pink outfit with matching pink lipstick who had worked at Specsavers with their dad and complimenting Dhilip Bhai (“DB! Love the shirt!”), Reeva had felt like an idiot in her jeans, awkwardly waving hello. She’d tried to be hospitable, offering tea and snacks to everyone, but they’d all vehemently rejected her offers, while embracing her sisters like they were family. Which, Reeva remembered, they were. It was only when the guests had all satdown that Sita had leaned over to whisper in Reeva’s ear—with obvious relish—that guests didn’t consume food or drinks in the house of a dead person until the funeral. Apparently, it was considered impure, and it was rude to even offer. So could she please stop?
Now she was sitting there feeling like a complete imposter. Everyone was singing or at least swaying and clapping to the music. Dhilip Bhai and Kalpana Ben were crying, while Shilpa Ben was simultaneously weeping and loudly singing. Reeva didn’t know how to join in. She didn’t have any grief to cry out via group chanting; she didn’t even know the lyrics. She forced herself to at least sway in time with the music and distract herself by looking around the room. Jaya had been right; their dad was clearly well loved in the community. All these people had shown up for him, and they’d organized everything. Shilpa Ben had started the evening by giving a little speech, introducing the musicians as well as the sisters. They hadn’t expected it, but Sita had dragged them up so they all stood at the front of the room, smiling graciously at the guests, acting the part of dutiful daughters. It was kind, but Reeva had felt like a liar. She didn’t know her dad, and after spending a whole day in his house, she still knew nothing about him.
Reeva looked at her new aunt, Satya, sitting at the front of the room, looking composed and calm in her white cotton kurta and jeans as she sang along to the bhajans. She caught Reeva’s eye and gave her a tiny wink. She was everything Reeva could have wanted in a long-lost aunt: warm, kind, inspirational, andcool.She’d rocked up to the house in a bright flowing coat with her long dark hair falling loose and wavy around her face. Her nose was pierced with a tiny little diamond, and she looked almost as young as her nieces. Reeva had worked out that she was in herlate sixties and made a mental note to ask her about her skin care regime—she wanted whatever Satya Auntie was on.
But the best thing about Satya Auntie was her story. She was Hemant’s older sister, and while he’d followed his parents’ expectations every step of the way, getting into a British university and studying optometry, she’d done the exact opposite. At twenty-one she’d eschewed higher education and, even more shockingly, marriage. Instead, she’d gone traveling. To Reeva, her life sounded like a series of endless gap years. To Satya Auntie, it was “a path of self-discovery.” She’d worked in an ayahuasca retreat in Peru, meditated in Bali long beforeEat, Pray, Love, and, upon “recognizing the separation between herself and her ego,” joined a Buddhist monastery in Nepal, where she’d stayed for over a decade.
She’d been an actual nun until she’d left the monastery to go and reconnect with her optometrist brother in England. She’d become estranged from her whole family when she’d left India to travel, even her brother. None of them could understand her life choices, not least her refusal to marry a suitable boy. But Satya Auntie had always loved her younger brother and had decided to leave her life as a nun to reconnect with him out in the real world—aka Leicester. From what Reeva could tell so far, it had been a success. She seemed to be a much-loved member of the local community as well as the only one who could lay claim to ever having been a Buddhist nun.
—
“When are yougoing to speak to her?” hissed Sita as everyone around them sang and clapped to a well-known bhajan. “We told her to come an hour early so you could get answers about Dad, not quiz her about her life story.”
“I’ll do it afterward,” Reeva whispered back. “I can’t make her miss her brother’s prayers. And it felt weird to interrogate her when she was just trying to get to know her nieces.” The three sisters were sitting cross-legged at the back of the room, strategically positioned next to the kitchen door. Their choice of location had received some raised eyebrows from guests who wanted to know why they weren’t sitting at the front where family should be, until Sita had charmingly shaken her head, cast her eyes down to the ground, and said, “We want the people who saw him every day to sit there. You all meant so much to him. We’re so grateful.” It was firsthand insight into how Sita handled her in-laws.
“I don’t think she’d care,” said Jaya, without lowering her voice. “What? I can’t whisper. It’s a thing. Look, just ask her. Satya Auntie!”
Satya Auntie—and a handful of other guests—were now looking over at the sisters with blatant curiosity. Reeva, trying to ignore the heat rising on her cheeks, gestured to the kitchen.Can we talk a moment?she mouthed. She hated that she was giving in to her sisters so easily, but the truth was that she wasn’t sure how much more of these prayers she could stand. It was so much worse than sitting through school assembly as a child; at least then she’d felt like she had a right to be there.
Her aunt gracefully stood up, making her way through the seated guests, before following Reeva through the swirled glass doors.
“I’m so sorry,” apologized Reeva when they were both in the safety of the small kitchen. “I hope it’s okay to take you away from the prayers for a moment. My sisters were... anyway, I just wondered if we could have a chat.”
“Oh, I was as desperate to leave as you were,” said Satya Auntie, heading straight to the kettle. “Tea?”
Reeva laughed in surprise. “Uh, yes, please. How come you wanted to leave too?”
“I could say I’m just used to praying in my own way, and I’d prefer to do it alone rather than following a lot of rituals. Which is true. But what’s even more true is that I was a little bored.”
Reeva laughed again. Her aunt was not what she expected. “I didn’t think Buddhist nuns could get bored. I mean, sorry if that sounds ignorant. I just thought you were too enlightened for that.”
“Oh, I’m a long way from enlightenment,” said her aunt, smiling as she opened the exact cupboard to pull out two beige mugs. “I’m still very much a human being with all the same feelings everyone has. I suppose the difference is that my spiritual education means I can recognize the difficult feelings and work to let go of them. But that doesn’t mean I alwaysenjoythem.”
“I can’t believe you have shitty feelings too— Sorry! Difficult feelings. I always thought you didn’t get them if you became spiritual.” She sighed theatrically. “There goes the Buddhist backup plan.”
Satya Auntie’s eyes twinkled. “I’m afraid that’s not exactly how it works. If you want to get rid of the shitty feelings, I recommend feeling them.”
“What do you mean?”
“The quicker you embrace the shitty feelings, the quicker they go. Sort of like pulling off a bandage quickly. It works, but it’s more intense.”
Reeva’s brow furrowed. “How do you embrace them? I don’t get it.”
