Rearranged

Book 5: Home

"Mummy coming?" Mrs. Patel asked Jenny as they waited for their luggage.

Jenny clenched her bag her father and Donna walked towards her, no sign of her mother.

"You can go," Jenny told the Patels. "My dad is here."

Neha hugged Jenny and said, "I totally understand if you don't want to work in the shop anymore."

"I'll be there," Jenny said. "I just need a few days off."

"Ok," Neha said. "I'll tell the boss."

Jenny could sense Neha wanted to say more, but she playfully pushed her away and said, "I'll call you."

Jenny met up with her dad and asked, "Mom didn't come?"

"What, no hello?" he joked, pulling her into a hug.

"I just thought she'd be here."

Jenny's father picked up her bags. Donna put an arm around her shoulders and asked, "So how was the wedding?"

"There was no wedding," Jenny said, shrugging off Donna's perfumed arm.

Jenny pretended to sleep in the back seat. She just wanted to see her mother, not deal with these two. When she got home, her mother wasn't waiting at the door as she expected.

"Mom!" Jenny called, walking to the kitchen.

"Hi hun," her mother said, sitting at the kitchen table. "Welcome home."

Jenny waited for her mother to ask about her father, if he had picked her up, if he was coming in. Nothing.

"Why didn't you come to the airport?" Jenny asked.

"He got you, right?"

"Yeah, but I thought you were both coming."

"I knew he'd get you," her mother said. She held out a plate of chocolate chip cookies. "I made these for you."

Jenny looked past the cookies to the car keys on the table, next to a pile of dirty tissues.

She pulled out a chair and sat down. "You saw them."

Her mother put her head in her hands and cried. "I couldn't stay. I'm sorry, hun." They squeezed each other tight. "I know," Jenny said, her mother's tears for her father running into her own for Anand.

* * *

"Anjali is having party again," Mrs. Patel said. "Pool party."

They had been home a week. Neha sat at the kitchen table, rolling dough into perfect circles on a wooden disc. Mrs. Patel reached back, took a circle and tossed it onto the skillet.

Neha's Columbia course catalog was on the table, a light snowfall of flour sprinkling the blue cover. Her classes were set, and she was even allowed to live on campus – on two conditions. The Patels asked that Jenny be her roommate and she come home every weekend. Neha had no problem with either request.

"Her mother call to invite us," Mrs. Patel said as she flipped the roti.

Neha relished the feel of the soft dough under her fingertips. She was calm now, steady. Even the news about Anjali's party didn't shake her.