I wake in the middle of the night to the sound of her teeth grinding. Scared and a little annoyed, I tap her, light, and she turns over. The grinding stops, for now.
By morning she’s buried. Under the pillow, under her silky bonnet, just the edge of it peeking out. I’m tempted to leave her be, to let her sleep until she surfaces on her own. Instead I call out. Laddu, wake up. We have to take Felix out. She opens her eyes. She gets up, fixes her side of the bed, and we go down.
The routine is the same every morning. Laddu and I take Felix out. He sniffs the grass, begs humans to pet him, cavorts with squirrels, gets slapped by our neighborhood cat, vents his anger on the birds, and eventually stops to pee and poop along the way. I walk him. She picks up after him. We come back and I make kaapi.
I log in to work and emerge from the study every hour or so, and I see her. On the swing, a book in her hand. Beside Felix, phone in hand. Sometimes I hear squeals float up the stairs and I can picture the whole room, her and her friends doing skincare, sharing tea, every now and then dragging Felix out for a walk.
We go to the library, to our local Trader Joe’s. I indulge all the kids but especially her. Her mochis, her pack of Dubai chocolate, a basket full of books. She religiously tracks the books she reads, crossing off squares on the reading bingo. She has her eyes on the electronic basket with a Kindle in it.
Amma, do you have nonfiction I can read? I offer a selection. She picks a book I assembled. A book of essays that will show her amma grow from a naive bride to the person she sees now. I am thrilled and afraid in equal measure. If Pattu took a picture of me standing by the window with Felix in my arms, Laddu is plumbing my depths, watching me peel back my layers, exposing the inner core of who I am.
Yesterday, she came to me. Amma, you’ve written so much about akkas. Why haven’t you written about me on your blog?
It made me pause.
Our twins made me a mother. I was processing motherhood for the first time. I chronicled every bit of it, not only for myself but for their mother, Kat, too. With Laddu, everything felt familiar. There were firsts, of course there were, but nothing that pressed on me, nothing that said, write this down before it goes.
That doesn’t take anything away from the joy I find in watching her bloom, watching her grow from a tiny being into this spunky, cheerful, vivacious girl. She is everything I hoped for in a daughter.
I stood at the stove, and she stood beside me, my little sous chef. I was making chutney. I chopped the tomatoes, the onions, the curry leaves, the ginger, and she watched me work, just as I watched my mother at her age. I set the pan down and waited for it to heat, walking her through it as I went. How to touch the pan. How to tap the rim and know when it’s ready. She stood there, absorbing, learning. She stood the whole time as I sautéed, as I ground the chutney, as I made the dosai and served her siblings first and then ate.
At night, when we take Felix out one last time before he goes into his crate, she’s there. My shadow. Watching, learning, absorbing.
And that is the scariest thing of all.
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