“Because you live in London, silly boy,” said Chiti.
Vish cast his eyes around the kitchen, with its tasteful powder-blue walls and gleaming metal appliances, the polished marble countertops, and large farmhouse sink complete with a separate sparkling water tap Avery had paid to install at great expense.
“Not this London,” he said.
—
Later that night, Avery lay in their deep claw-foot bath listening to the radio. She didn’t care what was on; she just needed some noise in the room to prevent her from being alone with her thoughts. This was something she remembered from early sobriety, how unbearable it felt to even brush her teeth without having something to distract her. She would blast the television while she showered, hold a hairdryer in one hand and a book in the other, scroll the news while she ate, and lie in bed with headphones piping music into her ears late into the night. Over time, however, her mind had become a more peaceful place. She had even been on meditation retreats, whole days spent simply being present with herself, paying attention to her breath, letting thoughts drift through her mind like clouds in a clear sky. Not anymore. Now, when she closed her eyes, she saw every mistake she had made leading up to this moment. Her inner weather, once calm, had become stormy again.
Avery sank beneath the surface of the water and listened to the liquid murmurs around her ears. She stayed under for as long as she could, then burst forth gasping for breath. When she opened her eyes, Chiti was standing above her.
“Can I join you or is this one of your solo baths?”
“Of course you can.”
Chiti unbuttoned her pants and linen tunic and let them crumple around her feet. Her naked form, once so thrilling to Avery, was now as familiar as the furniture. Chiti unwound her waist-length black braid and twisted it into what she called a bedtime bun, a plump swirl on the top of her head. She had the kind of hair people stopped in the street to admire, its length a perpetual performance and party trick. Chiti was thirty-nine, almost seven years Avery’s senior, but from behind her hair gave the impression of someone either very young or very old, which was fitting given one of the earliest things Chiti had told Avery about herself.
The first time they met, Chiti had sat across from her in her old therapy office, a notepad in her hands and her ankles crossed. It was Avery’s first therapy session ever and they had been talking for just under an hour. In answer to why she was there, Avery explained that she had kicked a heroin addiction, graduated from law school, and moved to London to join one of the most prestigious firms in the world, but she could not force herself to sleep at night. As they began to wrap up, Avery found, to her surprise, that she did not want the session to end.
Can I come again next week? she asked.
I’d like you to, if you’d like to, said Chiti.
So, you can help me?
Chiti nodded.
I think so.
I’m not beyond help? Avery clarified.
Chiti sat back in her chair and regarded her.
Can I tell you something personal? I don’t usually talk about myself with clients, and I likely won’t again, but I think it might be helpful for me to explain myself this way.
Avery nodded. She had been intrigued by Chiti immediately and wanted to hear anything she had to say.
The people I have the hardest time treating are the ones I cannot imagine as a child, she said. Because of the circumstances in which I was born and raised, I had to be a pretty adult child and I would like at least some part of me to be a pretty childish adult. I often see the same desire in my patients.
And what about me? Avery asked. Can you see what kind of child I was?
Chiti nodded.
And? Avery asked.
You dissembled, she said. You still do.
Avery could have been offended, but she was not. It was true.
And how do I stop? she’d asked.
Chiti dropped her notepad into her lap and caught Avery in her cool, still gaze.
You tell the ugly truth, she said.
And she had. She had told Chiti the truth for years, long after she stopped being her patient and became her partner. That truth, that Chiti had been her therapist first, was harder on Chiti. She didn’t see herself as someone who would fall in love with a client, had judged it when teachers had warned of the powerful pull of countertransference during her training course. She had stopped seeing her supervisor because of it, had spent many anguished sessions with her own therapist trying to understand why she was willing to risk her reputation, perhaps even her career, for this young American woman who had come to her office complaining of insomnia. The most unethical thing Chiti had ever done was fall in love with Avery. But she did love her. It wasn’t a choice; it was the ugly truth.
For seven years, they were happy together. That first time making love, Avery had lain with her head hanging off the bed as Chiti explored the secrets of her body and let tears run backward down her face. The evening sun stretched lazily across the bed in golden bars; when Avery closed her eyes, it glowed like honey behind her eyelids. I didn’t know, she kept saying, in wonder, in mourning. I didn’t know. Chiti’s head appeared above her, surrounding her in the swishing, whispering folds of her hair. She was flushed rose gold. Didn’t know what, my darling? But Avery couldn’t explain it in words. She didn’t know that love could feel like this, so honeyed, so sweet. That her body deserved such tenderness. They held each other as the light drained from the room, saliva and sweat cooling on their skin, and Avery felt it then, that longed-for sensation, love, yes, but safety too; she was safe at long last.
Harmony was the best word she could think of to describe their life together. They had their arguments, like any couple, but their daily life was harmonious. Their natures complemented each other. Chiti, naturally more of a nurturer, did the cooking when they ate in, took care of the garden, and made their house feel like a home. Avery, ever pragmatic, filed their taxes, paid their bills, and planned their holidays. Neither of them particularly enjoyed cleaning, so they hired a cleaning service to come every other week. Avery had previously thought love was built on large, visible gestures, but a marriage turned out to be the accrual of ordinary, almost inconsequential, acts of daily devotion—washing the mugs left in the sink before bed, taking the time to run up or downstairs to kiss each other quickly before one left the house, cutting up an extra piece of fruit to share—acts easy to miss, but if ever gone, deeply missed. For years, Avery and Chiti prided themselves on not missing them.
Then last year Nicky died, and Avery changed. She wouldn’t drink over her sister’s death; she knew she couldn’t do that. But the grief. She didn’t know how to handle the grief. It was the surprise that hurt most. She had lived her entire adult life minimizing risk to avoid being caught off guard by pain, yet she had not protected herself from this. Avery had been in recovery for almost a decade when Nicky died; how could she not have known how deeply her sister was struggling? How could she have missed the signs? She was the big sister; it was her job not to miss things. A part of her, which she never said aloud, feared it was because she had been so busy noticing Chiti.
At Nicky’s funeral in New York, Avery took a book of prayers from the church. It had been years since she had stolen anything, but the feeling was the same. Her heart rate quickening, the sound of blood pumping in her ears. No thoughts but the weight of that book pressed snugly into the waistband of her black pants. When she returned to London, she kept doing it. Nothing big, a chocolate bar from the corner store, a lipstick from Boots, a pair of sneakers from the charity shop next door. Stealing from a charity shop on her salary. It was abhorrent, she knew.
So she moved on to the bigger Bond Street stores, the Burberrys, Guccis, and Chanels. It was so much easier than when she was in her early twenties in San Francisco, stealing to get by. Now, she could use a new strategy. Now, she was a successful woman in her thirties, a corporate lawyer who could afford any of the beautiful goods she trailed her fingers over as she smiled knowingly at the shop assistants. She accepted flutes of champagne without taking a sip, made a show of asking for the glass cases to be opened, inspected herself in the mirror, then feigned an appointment and, in a whirl of thanks and promises to return, made the indiscreet exit of someone with nothing to hide. All the while her purloined prize—a quilted wallet, a gold chain bracelet, an embroidered silk handkerchief—nestled snugly against her skin like an animal searching for warmth.
Above her, Chiti dipped a foot into the water and winced.
“You always make it too hot.”
“That’s how I like it.” Avery shifted to one side to make room for Chiti, who bobbed herself in and out of the water with a yelp. “If I’m not struggling to maintain consciousness by the end, I don’t consider it a real bath.”
Chiti finally submerged herself and rested her head against the lip of the tub.
“Only you could make something supposedly relaxing a fight for survival. How long have you been stewing in here?”
Avery raised her hand to show her pruned fingers. Chiti took it between her own and stroked along the frills of wrinkled skin.
