Unaccustomed Earth Read Free Page A

to the supermarket where her parents shopped for food, and to the homes of their friends.
    “Gasoline is expensive here,” he added. He said this matter-of-factly, but still she felt the prick of his criticism as she had all her life, feeling at fault that gas cost more in Seattle than in Pennsylvania.
    “It’s a long flight. You must be tired.”
    “I am only tired at bedtime. Come here,” her father said to Akash. He set down the suitcase, bent over slightly, and put out his arms.
    But Akash pressed his head into Ruma’s legs, refusing to budge.
    They came inside, her father leaning over to untie the laces of his sneakers, lifting one foot at a time, wobbling slightly.
    “Baba, come into the living room, you’ll be more comfortable doing that sitting down on the sofa,” Ruma said. But he continued removing his sneakers, setting them in the foyer next to the mail table before straightening and acknowledging his surroundings.
    “Why does Dadu take his shoes off?” Akash asked Ruma.
    “He’s more comfortable that way.”
    “I want shoes off, too.” Akash stomped his sandals on the floor.
    It was one of the many habits of her upbringing which she’d shed in her adult life, without knowing when or why. She ignored Akash’s request and showed her father the house, the rooms that were larger and more gracious than the ones that had sheltered her when she was a child. Akash trailed behind them, darting off on his own now and then. The house had been built in 1959, designed and originally owned by an architect, and Ruma and Adam were filling it slowly with furniture from that period: simple expensive sofas covered with muted shades of wool, long, low bookcases on outwardly turned feet. Lake Washington was a few blocks down a sloping street. There was a large window in the living room framing the water, and beyond the dining room was a screened-in porch with an even more spectacular view: the Seattle skyline to the left, and, straight ahead, the Olympic Mountains, whose snowy peaks seemed hewn from the same billowing white of the clouds drifting above them. Ruma and Adam hadn’t planned on living in a suburb, but after five years in an apartment that faced the backs of other buildings, a home so close to a lake, from which they could sit and watch the sun set, was impossible to resist.
    She pointed out one of the two bridges that spanned the lake, explaining that they floated on pontoons at their centers because the water was too deep. Her father looked out the window but said nothing. Her mother would have been more forthcoming, remarking on the view, wondering whether ivory curtains would have been better than green. It appeared, as her father walked from one end of the living room to another, that he was inwardly measuring its dimensions. She remembered him doing this when he helped her to move in the past, into dorm rooms and her first apartments after college. She imagined him on his tours, in public squares, walking from one end to another, pacing up and down a nave, counting the number of steps one had to ascend in order to enter a library or a museum.
    She took him downstairs, where she had prepared the guest room. The space was divided into two sections by an accordion door. On one side was the bed and a bureau, and on the other, a desk and sofa, bookcase and coffee table. She opened the door to the bathroom and pointed to the wicker basket where he was to put his laundry. “You can close this off if you like,” she said, pulling at the accordion door to demonstrate.
    “It’s not needed,” her father said.
    “All the way, Mommy,” Akash said, tugging at the handle, causing the folded cream-colored panel to sway back and forth. “Close it all the way.”
    “No, Akash.”
    “This is my room when I get bigger,” Akash announced.
    “That little TV in the corner works, but it’s not hooked up to cable,” Ruma told her father. “Nine is the PBS station,” she added, knowing those were the programs