One Saturday evening, a few weeks into the visit, my mother sent me and my father to the grocery store to pick up some items before dinner. “Don’t be too long,” she warned as we walked out to the garage.
We sat in the car, both of us enjoying the brief silence after weeks of entertaining. The planning, the reunion, the late nights, the weeks of altered home life had been intense. We were weary. I admitted to it first. “I’m really tired of all the Indian food.” My father smiled knowingly and looked at me before replying. “What do you think? Want to go to Braum’s and get a hamburger?”
In those days, my father never wore jeans and was almost always seen in a shirt and tie. He lost his parents when he was 15, after which he and his three other siblings supported themselves in dire circumstances. Somewhere along the way he left religion and found a way to go to medical school. In America, he drank coffee instead of the prescribed tea of his culture. After I was born, there was a miniature tree for Christmas, costumes for Halloween, swimsuits in the summer.
I wonder if his journey made him understand that I could not possibly grow up as his mother, sister and even his wife had. That I too, would have to have different ways, different traditions, a different definition of culture. Maybe he wanted to show me that it was O.K. Maybe there was a part of him that could relate.
We hardly ever went to Braum’s, a popular burger and ice cream place in town, the epitome of American food. We didn’t really eat hamburgers. In fact, fast food was not a concept my parents condoned. But I think my father and I needed some time away, some time together, and something profoundly not Indian that day.
“Really? What will Mom say?”
“Never mind what she will say. We won’t tell her.”
He parked in the restaurant lot and we walked in, his arm around my waist, leading me. Once inside, we paused at the counter to regard the menu, finally choosing for one another what each would like.
We sat at a corner booth by the window, both of us with our hamburgers and an order of fries between us. Those first few bites were the best, tasting of conspiracy and America. We laughed together at our small deceit. We couldn’t afford to stay too long. Already the sun was beginning to set and my mother was sure to get suspicious. But it was just enough of a break. Our minds were free once again, each of us feeling as if we had done it for the other. We walked out holding hands, bound in solidarity, still in disbelief about what we had just done.
