“Where is all this from?” Aria asked him. The emotional feel of the food had made her suddenly curious about his heritage.
“This is Punjab food. Which is part of India, close to Pakistan, where my family’s from. Do you like it? You can tell me if you don’t like it, it’s OK,” Omkar said.
“No, I love it. Can I try this one?” Aria asked, reaching toward the yellow stew.
“Yes,” he said, dipping his bread into it first to show her it was OK.
The second stew was both chalky and creamy; its filling consistency reminded Aria of split pea soup. But it was sunrise yellow. Toasted cumin hid in its thickness. It was comforting to eat and Aria imagined it would be even more comforting if it were a familiar flavor, like it must be for Omkar.
The chapati was slightly blackened at the edges. It reminded Aria of Mexican tortillas, but it didn’t taste like tortilla. The dust from the flour glazing it came off on Aria’s hands. She nibbled around the edges. One of Aria’s little quirks was that she had always loved the flavor of burned bread. Aria pulled open one of the little bubbles in the bread and imagined herself inside it. She imagined what it would feel like to live in the soft light of the little dough cave. The bread was unmeasured. It felt rustic. As with all the food in his culture, the amounts of the various spices and ingredients were determined only by the fingertips of the cook. It was an emotional art form, not a science. Aria could taste his grandmother’s hands in the bread. The war of potent flavors in the food that was laid out before her had reconciled into a harmonious dance.
Although it made her feel shamefully unsophisticated, eating Omkar’s food suddenly opened up a whole new world to her. It had never occurred to her that every culture and country might have its own foods; foods which, unless someone traveled to that part of the world, they would never see or taste in a lifetime.
“Have you ever tried Indian food?” Omkar asked, surprised by the way that Aria was acting.
“It’s kinda embarrassing, but no. I mean, I’ve seen Indian restaurants and stuff, but no one has ever taken me in one,” Aria responded. She felt ashamed to admit it, afraid of how Omkar would see her once he discovered just what kind of unsophisticated life she came from.
Omkar sat back, watching her relish the food like a hungry animal. He guessed she ate with such fervor due to hunger as much as because she liked the taste of the food.
“So tell me about your family,” he said. Aria felt herself at a crossroads. She could skirt the issue or she could tell it to him straight. Aria wanted him to love her. She wanted him to hold her in high esteem. But then again, she would rather have him decide to reject her now rather than after she had already become attached to him. So she threw the truth at him as if it were a test for him to pass.
Omkar stayed silent as she spoke for over an hour.
“Well, I guess you could say I don’t have one. I mean, I don’t even know if my mom’s alive, and I never met my dad. No one ever chooses to end up like this … like me … Poverty fuels the whole system. Anyone who says otherwise is fucking stupid. People who can’t make ends meet just end up coping in whatever way they can. No one can take care of kids when they can’t even figure out how to survive themselves. But no one helps them. They just come down and take their kids away, and that doesn’t help them. It just makes their lives even harder ’cause now they’re dying both inside and out.
“Then they throw you in a group home, which is just a modern orphanage. You’re under constant surveillance by the social workers and psychologists and courts, but none of them really care about you. You’re just one big charity case that most people take advantage of so they can feel good about themselves. It’s nothing but rules and regulations instead of love. Some foster parents are OK – the good ones just want you to behave yourself and act like everything is fine now – but a lot of them are even worse and more abusive than the parents they take kids away from to begin with. No one hears you or cares what you say you want or need. They decide your life for you and they tell you you’re gonna see your parents again, but we all know it’s a goddamn lie. And when you’re like eighteen, you just age out of the system with no support and no skills, so a lot of ’em just end up repeating the same cycle. They follow in their parents’ footsteps because there aren’t any other footsteps to follow. The entire system is fucked.”
Aria told him the truth about her mother and Travis, the truth about the state taking her away, the truth of what it had been like in foster care and group homes, and the truth of what had made her run away.
Omkar did not break his focus from her. Instead, he leaned toward her, letting the surges of painful truth after painful truth hit him so as to not leave her alone in them. When her confession came to an end, he held her head against his chest and said, “I’m so sorry.”
There was nothing more to say. Nothing he could say would have been good enough. So he let the comfort of his body do the talking and Aria let him hold her. Though she didn’t cry, she felt some small child within her crying. It was crying with the release of finally being contained between the protective walls of a person who
