MaNan : Love is Just a Word

14. Seesaw

Aarav is throwing his spoon on the floor when Manik walks into the kitchen. He seems delighted to have an audience who isn't his mom and claps his sticky hands with gusto, waving them in Manik's direction.

"Busy morning?" Manik asks, eyeing the collection of spoons in the sink.

Nandini grunts in reply.

The newest spoon is sparkly pink, an eyesore but Aarav's favorite. He's started feeding himself, mostly by the fistful, but he's fussy this morning so Nandini scoops rice onto the spoon and Aarav eats some of it, most of it ending up on his cheeks.

The kettle goes off. Oil sizzles in a pan, ginger scents the kitchen, and the slowly blooming lilies on the windowsill really do make the air more breathable to Nandini, purer.

Nandini gets some broccoli on the spoon. Aarav pokes his tongue out, and goes cross-eyed examining it. Nandini laughs, but Aarav scrunches his mouth closed, whimpering with a resounding, "Ba - ba!"

She sighs.

Aarav pouts, tucking his face into his shoulder when Nandini tries to feed him. " Ba ." He is not cooperating at all and Nandini is on the verge of breaking down because why feeding a kid is this hard, she doesn't get it. She wants to understand her kid but she wants him to understand her too.

"Hey," says Manik, smiling when Nandini looks up at his too-awake face. "So, it's Saturday. We should go to the park."

Nandini glances at her untouched breakfast, her kid's barely eaten. The sun stretches across the kitchen and bounces off the metal sink, the bright countertops, and the mismatched tiled floor, Manik's eyes.

Aarav knocks the spoon out of her hand.

Nandini lets out a sigh and agrees, "Yeah, okay."

~

"I thought it was the terrible twos, not the terrible one and a half's. That's what American TV says, anyway", Nandini said as she remembered the tough age for toddlers to deal with.

Manik clicked his tongue and said, "That's a generalization. Some babies start the terrible twos at birth. Others never have them."

Sitting on a bench, they watch Aarav toddle on an obstacle course littered with different-sized geometric shapes. He's probably too young for it but Nandini grew up with woods as her backyard, stretches of beach with coves and caves, and learned safety by being in some not-so-safe places. This is about as unsafe as Aarav will get to be in a city like this.

Nandini bites into her bagel, sesame seeds clinging to her teeth. She's not the biggest fan, but Manik was pleased when they'd spotted the cart outside the park and while Nandini doesn't always understand America's fascination with bread even a few years in, some days she just wants to stuff her face with as much refined white flour as possible.

The younger let out a whine, "He's spoiled me. He's been perfect since he was born and now he's going into his rebellious phase and I won't know how to deal with it. My baby has spoiled me. Isn't it supposed to be the other way around?"

Manik licks cream cheese off his thumb and brows thoughtfully. "Is it? Someone who unconditionally and immediately loves you? Who doesn't judge or know all the terrible things about you? Doesn't care to. Not yet anyway. I think parents are just as spoiled," he says.

She thinks for a minute and stares at him, "I don't think I've ever heard that a child's love is unconditional."

The older shrugs, "Even if your kid says they hate you, they still love you. And even if they grow up to genuinely hate you, it's because they're angry you didn't love them the way they needed you to," he says it simply and she has no reason to argue to with him anymore.