But soon after his father died, Mr. Jha and his mother could no longer afford to live alone. They ran through Mr. Jha Senior’s savings in a year, even without going out for dinner, and they had no option but to move from Bihar to the outskirts of New Delhi to move in with Mr. Jha’s father’s older brother and his wife. Even at that age, Mr. Jha always understood that they were an imposition, an addition. They didn’t belong in Delhi. He never felt comfortable lingering in the bathroom, and he noticed that his mother always woke up when it was still dark outside so she could shower and use the bathroom before anyone else was awake. His mother taught him to take his dishes to the kitchen after every meal, wash them, and put them on the rusted metal rack that sat near the sink, even though a cleaning lady would come and wash all the other dishes later.
As a child, he often felt anger toward his mother for making them live their whole lives as guests. As he got older, he felt guilty about that anger and so he worked. He studied and he worked hard to make sure he could give his mother a home that would be her own, and a reason to wear uncomfortable shoes again. And he had mostly succeeded. He had a nice wife, a son, and a stable job that gave him a small but reliable income every month and a domestic holiday every year. For years Mr. Jha had been the manager of a franchise of a Technological Training of India (TTI) center and supplemented his income by teaching specialized computer programming classes there on Saturdays. His mother saw all that, but she died before he managed to give her a full-length mirror to check the pleats of her sari.
“How do you manage to tie your sari so well without a mirror?” Mr. Jha asked.
“When you do it every day, it becomes the same as pulling on a pair of pants,” Mrs. Jha said.
“But it’ll be better for you to have a full-length mirror, right?”
“I suppose so, yes,” Mrs. Jha said. She knew what was going through her husband’s mind. “Are you thinking about Ma-ji?”
“She would have enjoyed tonight’s dinner,” Mr. Jha said. He sat down at the edge of the bed, tired after the evening and the adrenaline and the performance of hosting a dinner party. He took his glasses off and placed them on his side table. This bedroom was less than half the size of the master bedroom in Gurgaon. In here, there was room only for the bed, the attached wooden side tables, and two metal cupboards in which they kept all their clothes. One of the metal cupboards had a small built-in safe that was big enough to hold all their valuables. In Gurgaon, he had had a safe the size of one of their cupboards built into the wall of the master bedroom, and he was determined to own enough valuables to fill the whole thing. He rubbed his eyes. “She would have really enjoyed the new house. Forget traveling outside India, she died without even seeing the fancy side of Delhi.”
“A lot of people do,” Mrs. Jha said. “That’s not something you need to feel guilty about. You gave her a very good life.”
Mr. Jha pulled the sheet aside and got in under the covers. The Usha fan creaked overhead on every turn. Mrs. Jha reached across her pillow and placed her hand gently on his shoulder.
“It was a good night, Anil,” she said.
Mr. Jha nodded.
“I’m glad Rupak was here,” he added after a brief silence. “America is suiting him. Just imagine if he gets a job with a big multinational after finishing his MBA. I’ll throw a party for the whole city when he gets a job—all our friends from here, and our new neighbors from Gurgaon.”
“We must book our tickets,” Mrs. Jha said. She had to go and see her son in America soon. She worried every day about how he survived on his own. He needed someone to take care of him while he studied. He had to do his own laundry, make his own food, even change his own bedsheets. She wanted him to come home after his degree so she could fuss over him for a little while. What was so bad about working in Delhi?
“Right after we are settled in, we will go,” Mr. Jha said. “In business class, Bindu. We will lie flat on our backs while flying through the skies.”
“Don’t be crazy!” Mrs. Jha said. She gently slapped her husband’s shoulder. “Business class tickets are ten times the price of economy! For what? Hardly twenty hours. We’re getting carried away.”
Mrs. Jha laughed, turned off the small lamp near the bed, and pulled the white sheet up to her shoulders. She ran her large toe against her husband’s ankle and said, “Good night.”
Mr. Jha rested his hand against her thigh.
“Why are you whispering?” Elizabeth said on the phone.
“My parents are still awake,” Rupak said, and regretted it immediately.
“And you haven’t told them about me yet.”
He had promised Elizabeth that he would tell his parents about her this summer, and now the summer was almost over and he had still not told them. He also had not told them that he was starting his second year on academic probation because of his shockingly low grade point average the previous semester. They would both be so disappointed. He knew how proud they were that he was studying in America and seemed poised on the brink of a bright future. He had decided it was best not to tell them; he would work to get his grades back up this semester and they would never have to know.
It was all his own fault, Rupak knew. He got to America soon after his parents became wealthy, and he immediately fell in love—not with Elizabeth, but with the whole country, and with the bank account that his father kept replenishing. He found himself falling into a version of what he thought life in America was meant to be. He signed up for sailing lessons on Cayuga Lake and golfing lessons at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Course. But he didn’t end up going for the golf classes, and now a thousand-dollar golf club set sat unused in his apartment. He bought an iPhone and an iPad and a GoPro camera. He downloaded Final Cut Pro and spent his time filming his life in America and creating his own mini film versions of the shows and movies he had grown up watching.
His parents were under the impression that after his MBA, he would find a job with a big bank or consulting firm and then they would find him a suitable Bihari match. When Mr. and Mrs. Jha were introduced in 1989 through Mrs. Jha’s uncle’s friend who was the head of the Bihari Ladies’ Club of East Delhi, Mr. Jha was finishing a master’s in electrical engineering and Mrs. Jha had recently finished a bachelor’s in social work and was working with a local organization to help collect and distribute free school supplies for slum children in the area. From what Rupak had heard, his parents had been allowed to meet alone once before they decided to get married. They were going to push for a contemporary equivalent for Rupak. He would be given at least a few months to get to know the woman and would technically have the right to refuse. Even though the word dating would never be used, they would be allowed to go out for dinners and movies alone and the final decision would be theirs to make, but Rupak wanted to do it his own way. However, he still had not managed to say anything to his parents, and he knew that was going to upset Elizabeth.
“What are you doing all day?” Rupak said to change the topic. She was spending the summer doing an internship in the finance department of Doctors Without Borders in New York, but he pictured her lying in her bedroom in Florida, her dog on the floor beside the bed. He sometimes thought he was more fascinated by her life in Florida than she was by his life in India.