By Sreenath Nagireddy
Phoenix, 2008
The kettle whistled just as Asha reached for the canister of tea leaves. She turned off the stove, letting the silence settle like the layer of steam on the kitchen tiles. The small two-bedroom apartment smelled faintly of turmeric and Lysol—a combination that reminded her of trying to make something sterile feel like home.
She lived here now—on the third floor of a brick building with cracked mailboxes, faded door numbers, and a neighbour who didn’t say hello. The hallways always smelled vaguely of other people’s dinners, none of them hers.
Asha had been in Arizona for six months. Her husband, Abhinav, came two years earlier on an H1-B visa to work as a systems analyst. They used to talk on the phone every day, sometimes twice. She would sit on her parents’ terrace in Vizag, watching the sky darken over the Bay of Bengal, listening to him describe snow he’d never seen before, traffic patterns, the taste of a burrito. But after she came, the words had started to thin out like overused thread.
Now they sat across from each other during dinner, nodding politely, asking about work. His replies were short — “busy today,” or “nothing special”. He didn’t complain, didn’t shout. But he had stopped asking about her dreams. Somewhere between the visa interviews and the flight and the unpacking, they had become polite strangers sharing a lease.
She poured the tea into two silver cups, added milk, and crushed a cardamom pod between her fingers—her mother’s old habit. Back home in Vizag, her mother would brew tea each evening, calling it her “pause for the soul.” Asha had once dismissed it as drama. But now, standing in this quiet kitchen with its humming refrigerator and fluorescent light, she understood.
She placed a cup near Abhinav’s laptop. He was on the couch, scrolling through code, earphones in. He nodded without looking. She stood a moment longer, watching the steam rise and disappear, then returned to the kitchen window.
Outside, a tree was shedding its leaves. Orange and gold pirouetted to the pavement. She had never seen autumn before this year. The first time she touched a fallen maple leaf, it crumbled like a memory in her hand. Everything here was so temporary, so willing to let go.
Her phone buzzed. It was a message from Maya Aunty, a family friend from Tucson: “Come for lunch Sunday. We’ll make Biryani. Bring Abhinav if he agrees to socialize.”
Asha smiled. Maya Aunty was the closest thing she had to home here—her voice too loud, her saris too bright, but her affection sincere. She had a way of filling rooms that made loneliness impossible, at least for a few hours. Abhinav never liked going. He said those gatherings were a waste of time, full of women gossiping and men complaining about taxes.
Still, Asha replied: “Yes, I’ll come. Maybe Abhinav too. See you then.”
That night, as they sat across from each other over reheated sabzi[1], she asked, “Do you want to come to Maya Aunty’s house Sunday?”
He shook his head, scooping rice. “You go. I have a deadline.”
She had expected that. Still, she had asked. It was important to keep asking, even when you knew the answer.
They ate quietly. The news on TV murmured in the background—something about traffic and an upcoming storm. The weatherman’s voice was cheerful, as if storms were just another entertainment option.
After dinner, he returned to his laptop. She washed the plates slowly, running her fingers over the floral pattern on the china—part of the wedding gift set her mother had packed with such hope. “Start a life with this,” she had said. “You’ll need beauty when you’re far away.”
But some days, Asha felt like everything beautiful was now in another language. The sky here was wider but emptier. The silence is louder.
Sunday
She wore a green georgette saree and a pearl chain. The apartment smelled of her sandalwood perfume, a scent that felt like an argument against disappearing. She kissed Abhinav lightly on the forehead before leaving. He didn’t look up.
Tucson was a long ride on the commuter train. The landscape rolled past—brown, flat, dotted with cactii that looked like they were raising their arms in perpetual surrender. At the station, she sat beside a young woman reading an Agatha Christie novel. Asha wondered if she should start reading again. She used to read in college—Yaddanapudi Sulochana Rani, James Hadley Chase novels that made her mother shake her head in mock disapproval.
At Maya Aunty’s house, the air was warm with ginger, cloves, and nostalgia. Women laughed in the kitchen, the pressure cooker hissed, and the television played an old Telugu song that made Asha’s throat tight.
“You’re glowing!” Maya said, hugging her.
“I’m just tired.”
“You need to eat. And talk. Come, sit with me.”
Over lunch, Maya talked about her daughter in Seattle, about growing desert plants that refused to die, about how this country gave you everything and yet made you feel invisible. “You work, you pay bills, you exist,” she said, “but where do ‘you’ live?”
“Does Abhinav talk to you much?” she asked gently, after a pause.
Asha shook her head. “Not really.”
“Men here, they carry stress like skin. But you must not disappear. You must not become a shadow in your own life.”
That line stayed with her. It echoed in the train on the way home, in the empty apartment that evening.
Two Weeks Later
Asha began taking walks in the evening. She bought a notebook and wrote small things—memories, recipes, dreams she had stopped sharing. The act of writing felt like reclaiming something. She emailed an old professor in Hyderabad about doing a remote literature course.
He responded in all caps: “YES, WRITE AGAIN. SEND ME SOMETHING.”
She didn’t tell Abhinav. Not yet. Not until she found the words that would hold.
One evening, she made adrak chai [2]with extra cardamom. She handed him a cup, as usual.
This time, she didn’t walk away.
“I’ve started writing again,” she said.
He paused, looking up from the screen. “Writing?”
“Just… notes. Short stories. Memories.”
He nodded, sipping the tea. “That’s good.”
Silence.
Then: “The cardamom reminds me of your mother’s tea.”
It was a small sentence. But it cracked open a window.
She smiled. “Yes. She used to say it made the soul pause.”
He looked at her for the first time that evening—really looked, the way he used to during their terrace conversations, before the distance taught them to look away.
“Maybe I need to pause,” he said quietly.
The tea was still hot. Outside, another leaf fell from the tree. But this time, Asha thought, maybe it wasn’t about letting go. Maybe it was about making space for something new.
She didn’t say anything. Just set her hand on the couch between them, palm up.
After a long moment, he put his hand down next to hers. Not quite touching. But close.
[1] Indian style vegetables
[2] Ginger tea
Dr Sreenath Nagireddy is a physician from Phoenix, Arizona. A versatile writer, he explores genres ranging from humour and adventure to thriller and science fiction. His works have been published in 365tomorrows, Kitaab, Twist and Twain Magazine, among others.”
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