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Sita rolled her eyes in response.
“Can I see?” asked Alisha quietly.
Sita picked up her daughter. “I really hope I’m not scarring them for life.”
“Wow,” breathed out Alisha. “A dead man.”
Reeva tried not to laugh as she caught Satya Auntie’s eye.Her aunt was chanting along with the priest and trying—but failing—to ignore the domestic scene right in front of her.
“What’s that slimy stuff?” asked Amisha. “Can I see?” She stuck her hand out in the priest’s direction. He carried on chanting “Om Namah Shivaya,” ignoring her.
“It’s just ghee,” whispered Reeva.
“But why is the old man putting it all over Bapuji?” asked Alisha. “It’s for cooking.”
“I guess because they used to burn the bodies,” said Reeva. “I don’t know why they still do it though.”
“You’re going to burn Bapuji?”cried Amisha.
This time the priest stopped chanting.
“Great,” sighed Sita.
“No, no,” said Reeva desperately. “It’s just, um, an old tradition. We’re not going to burn him. It’s all good, gorge—uh, peanut.”
“I’m not a peanut,” cried Amisha.
Jaya frowned. “But we are cremating him. That’s burning.”
“I just didn’t think the girls needed to know that detail,” said Reeva.
“You can’t lie to them,” said Jaya. “Think about the damage our parents’ lies have done to us!”
“Burning him is so cool,” cried Alisha as Amisha nodded fervently. “Burn! Burn!”
Sita glared at her sisters before turning back to the priest. “I’m very sorry. Please continue.”
The priest continued slathering different pastes onto their father’s feet as the twins watched in utter fascination. Reeva observed them and thought how sad it was that her dad had never had the opportunity to meet them. He’d never even known hisown daughters. It was all sosad.She felt a pang of emotion at the pointlessness of it all. Life. Pain. Sacrifice. And then this—lying in a coffin in the middle of a semidetached house with a family who barely knew you while a Hindu priest covered you in paste.
“Girls?” Their aunt’s voice cut through the rumblings of the priest’s chants and all three sisters whirled to attention. “Do you want to get the flowers and start to scatter them in the coffin?”
Reeva nodded mutely. They’d already prepared some flowers to put in the coffin—a selection of roses and tulips. She doled them out between herself and her sisters, giving a few fistfuls of petals to the twins, then they all approached the coffin.
“Reeva, you can go first,” said her aunt.
Reeva gently placed a flower into the coffin at her father’s feet. He seemed so small and peaceful. She felt a chill run through her body as she realized that one day, that would be her too. A lifeless corpse, dressed in her favorite outfit, with a handful of people chucking flowers into her coffin. She closed her eyes briefly as she lowered the rest of the flowers into the coffin, going in a circle around her dad’s body, internally saying a Sanskrit prayer she’d been taught as a child. It felt appropriate to at least try and honor the rituals happening around her.
Bye, Dad,she added to the prayer in English.I’m sorry we didn’t get to hang out. I’m sorry for the way it all turned out. But... I’m grateful to you. For the fact that you obviously cared about us all these years and saved all your money for us. I know it was your way of saying you loved us.She paused, feeling her eyes water. She didn’t even care anymore if her dad had cheated. Or attacked her mum’s lover. Or whatever. None of it was relevant. He was her dad. And he was gone.I wish I’d had a chance to know you. But I... I love you. I love you, Dad.She brushed away a tear and walked away from the coffin so her sisters could take their turns.
“Lift me!” Amisha tugged on Reeva’s dress. “To do the flowers.”
Reeva obediently took her niece over to the coffin.
“There!” Amisha flung a handful of petals right onto her grandfather’s face. “Better!”
“Uh...” Reeva looked up to the priest, who glanced at her in irritation. “Um, I guess I’ll just take those off his face...” She gently brushed the petals into the silk coffin lining. His skin was so cold. And so thin. It felt as delicate as tissue paper. The expensive kind from Smythson.
“Me now,” said Alisha as she approached the coffin in her mum’s arms. Unlike her sister, she delicately laid out petal after petal around the body.
