Family Life by Akhil Sharma Page A

Jeff saw us, paused midstep, rolled his eyes, and kept moving forward.
    I tugged my father’s hand and said, “We have to go.”
    “We brought your comics,” my father said, smiling and pointing to where they lay on the counter. “I was just telling your mother about Ajay’s older brother. Ajay’s older brother had an accident in a swimming pool and is brain damaged.”
    Jeff went to the grocery bags and, standing on his toes, peered into one.
    I tugged at my father again.
    We left the house.
    Outside it was hot and humid. We walked back toward our apartment through the town’s nice neighborhood. The houses that lined the road were large and set back, some behind tall oaks.
    “He’s stupid not to believe you.”
    I didn’t say anything. I peered at the trees and the houses beyond them. I wanted my father to not talk.
    “People are stupid, crazy,” he said. “A woman came up to me at temple and said, ‘I wouldn’t mind my son being sick if I got a lot of money like you.’” He raised his voice. “Vineeta buaji said we were being emotional. That’s why we were taking Birju out of the nursing home. I said, ‘If I’m not emotional about my own son, who am I going to be emotional about?’”
    We came to a red traffic light and stopped. “You have to ignore people like that Jeff boy. Expecting sympathy from somebody like that is like expecting sympathy from dirt.”

T he day Birju was supposed to be brought to our house, Mr. Narayan rang our doorbell at around eight in the morning. He stood in the doorway smiling, his face eager. “I thought you might have work for me,” he said.
    More people came. The morning was very bright. Cars filled our driveway and then others parked on the street along our lawn. As the doorbell rang and rang again, the excitement of having visitors gave the day some of the festiveness of Diwali in India when people, dressed formally, visit from morning till evening.
    The ambulance arrived around eleven. The cars in the driveway backed out. When the ambulance was parked, two orderlies, a large black man and a smaller white one, tugged Birju out of the ambulance on a stretcher and brought him up the cement path that curved from the bottom of the driveway to the front door.
    Birju’s room was the former dining room. It had yellow walls, a hardwood floor, and a chandelier with plastic candles hanging from the center of the ceiling. A hospital bed stood along a wall with a narrow window beside where Birju’s head would be. The orderlies rolled Birju into the room. They hefted him onto the bed. The people visiting stood against the walls. When he was on the bed, Birju raised his head and moaned, and turned his head this way and that, like he was trying to look through his darkness. My mother leaned over my brother and whispered, “You’re home.” She stroked his face, kissed his forehead. “Your Mommy is here.” I stood and watched. My chest hurt. I wondered, What now?
    The orderlies left. Mr. Narayan joined my parents at the bedside. They stared at Birju. Birju’s chin and cheeks were covered in saliva. The window was open, and its lace curtain drifted up trembling in the air. Mr. Narayan, looking moved, turned to my father. “Tell us what you want,” he said, “and we’ll obey.”
    My father stared at my brother. His face appeared swollen. He seemed stunned. I worried that he would complain. I wanted us to be dignified.
    Later, in the afternoon, in the kitchen, the women sat at the table and cut vegetables and sang prayers. The men did heavier work. They installed two air conditioners and lifted the washer in the laundry room and placed it on bricks. From outside came the roar of a lawn mower as one of the men cut the grass. All this activity made our house feel like a temple being gotten ready for a festival, when the people of the neighborhood gather and mop the floor and string flowers into garlands. Having so many visitors gave me the sense that my family was