Rohan's Birthday Wish

It was eight o’ clock. Papa was going to knock at the door any moment now. Rohan felt his heartbeat rising, and his feet start to twitch. But they were not supposed to, so he dug into them with his nails. Ma didn’t like it when she caught him fidgeting. And she was already pissed. Sammy was fidgeting in his crib. Ma had just put him to sleep and was putting on make up. Not that she needed to. She was already so beautiful. But Papa didn’t think so. That’s why he didn’t give her any time anymore. They had spent the whole afternoon fighting. He called her a ‘bipolar bitch’, and she called him and ‘escapist and a liar’. And it was his birthday. And everything needed to be perfect. Because… because if everything wasn’t perfect… something really bad was going to happen.

But it was going to be fine. He had prayed real hard to god last night. And God came to him in his dream. He didn’t remember his exact words, but he said that if Rohan did everything right, that if he was a good boy all through his birthday, he would grant him his birthday wish. That’s why he had spent the whole day helping Ma out with the vacuuming, the dusting, and the mopping. He hoped Ma would smile for once. When she was happy, Ma lit up the entire room, but when she was angry, bad things happened.

He quickly lit up the candle and made his wish. “Please let Ma and Papa agree on something, anything, for once.” He didn’t want to be greedy. He didn’t want something impossible. It didn’t work like that. He took a deep breath, and blew out the candles in one swift blow. He couldn’t make the wish in front of them, because Ma would make him tell her what he wished for, and then the wish would be ruined. Ma didn’t like secrets. That’s why his room didn’t have a lock.

After he blew out the candle, he looked around the room to see if there were things he could fix. The room looked like someone unloaded a truck full of junk in the center, and then someone else tried to pile them up into clumps. Ma said it’s because Papa had no taste or class. But half of the things were hers.

A quarter of the room was a haphazard pile of old books which were collecting dust and breeding termites for months now. There was an empty shelf next to it, with an assortment of porcelain show-pieces on top of it. Ma wanted to put them in the showcase, but she hadn’t decided yet where the showcase would go. Ma had shouted at Papa almost everyday to clean up the mess. But they’re books from his college life. So he could’t through them away. Just like Ma couldn’t throw away Maya’s litter box, or her toys. There are so many memories connected to them. The problem was, you could only have so many sentimental things before your house started to look like a dumpster had thrown up. No. That was a bad thought. He pinched himself on his thigh as punishment. Throwing things out - even thinking about throwing things out, things that his parents loved - was bad. He tried to focus on the positive.

The drawing room was less of a mess than usual today. They cleared out part of the center and wiped the table so that it could have the cake and the candles. She’d taken out the good china and silverware.

“Clear out the books,” Ma told him. He knew she wanted it done a particular way but was not sure exactly how. Most of these were textbooks from where Papa did his skin-disease specialization, so the covers were full of disgusting images of oozing skin, pustules and parasites. But he got upset every time he tried to move them to storage. And Ma went postal every time she looked in that general direction. Of course, nobody bothered to do something about it.

They were going to go at it again tonight. He felt it in his gut. And it was his birthday night. 

Every problem has a solution, Leela said. If only he were smart enough, he would figure it all out. But every problem didn’t have a solution. Like when you’ve had enough of everything and can’t deal with it anymore and when the infernal cat wouldn’t stop rubbing itself on your leg, and you kick her so hard that…that she never wakes up no matter how much you cried or pleaded. Once something really bad happened, there is no changing the outcome. 

Ma had chucked her bipolar medication in the trash today. The slightest thing was going to trigger her. And she would start to scream. Honestly, he preferred her slaps to her shouting. The slaps stung, and left a mark when they happened. But her words, they stung forever. When she started, it sounded like a thousand nails scratching against a thousand chalkboards. And the words she said, they played in his head forever and forever and forever. He couldn’t have it today. He had to be good, good enough to keep her happy. And, if everything went well, his wish would come true.

Any other day, he could put loud music on his earbuds, and listen to evanescence to zone out the noise. But today, it wouldn’t work. Because firstly, Ma didn’t know about the earbuds because it was a gift from Leela. Ma didn’t like it when he talked to girls. She once caught him sharing his tiffin with Alana, and the next day, she admitted him to a different school. 

He put on a mask and began to dust the books one by one. He put each of them into the shelf, sorting them by size. Then he placed some of the china show-pieces in front of the spines that were more disgusting. It took him just fifteen minutes, but the corner was nice, and didn’t look like a library had diarrhea.

Ma was done with her make up, and came and slouched on the sofa. Her eyes scanned the room and for a second she was confused. Her eyes darted from one end of the room to another, as if looking for something, but she couldn’t seem to find what was wrong with it. He felt his heartbeat rise, partly in anticipation, partly in dread.

“What did you do to the books? Did you toss them out?” Her jaws tightened.

“No.” He tried to sound normal. “I put them in the shelf.”

“Oh.” She looked at the shelf now.

“Where am I supposed to put the China now?”

“They're all in there.”

Her eyes scanned the rest of the room. “You touched those dusty books? What if they gave you an asthma attack?”

“I wore a mask.”

“A mask isn’t enough.”

“I got one of the N-95s.” He said.

“Go wash your hands. No. Take a shower.” She said.

“But…” the sharp slap on his cheeks stopped him before he could even start to protest.

He ran to the bathroom, trying hard not to cry. 

He turned the shower on, then sat down on the toilet seat, fully clothed, crying. Slaps were nothing new to him. But he didn’t deserve it this time. “It’s okay,” he told himself, “She’s going to love me again when she realizes how nice the drawing room looks.”  

He took out his cellphone and texted Leela and Dev in their group chat. “Thank you.”

“Partying hard?” He said.

He increased the shower. “Yeah.”

“Sure you are. How’s Lady Hitler today?”

He almost laughed out loud, but felt bad immediately.

“Don’t call her that! She’s doing well. She tidied up the house. Got us a cake. Will bring it to class tomorrow.”

“Isn’t your drawing room virtually impossible to clean?” Dev said.

“Like… doesn’t it look like hurricane Sandy went over Fresh Kills?”

“Shut up.” He responded, smiling.

“Shut up.” Leela typed at the same time.

He felt the anxiety begin to dissipate. Leela’s dad had a drinking problem so she wasn’t new to being slapped around, and Dev lived with his mom in a trailer house with some pretty interesting people. Ma said public school was temporary, until they could afford a proper school again. But Rohan didn’t mind his new school. It was nice to have friends again. He just had to make sure Ma didn’t sense it. She always had a valid excuse, but the fact of the matter was that every time she sensed he had good friends, she would whisk him out of the school. 

He got out. 830 pm. Dad was late, but hopefully he would be here soon.

The plan was to decorate the cake together, the three of them. But Ma had written Happy Birthday Rohan by herself. In the remaining time, she had thrown all the books into a pile, which explained the dust.

She saw him looking at the pile, and the shelf, and said, “you did very good work trying to tidy up the room, Sweetie, but the vibe was all wrong. We will get something else for the books.”

“Sure you will, Ma.” He said, to which she laughed shrilly. She had been telling him that since his last birthday.

The bell rang. Papa was here. He ran and opened the door, expecting at least a ‘happy birthday’ and a hug for him. But he only looked confusedly at his nice T-shirt.

Then he saw the birthday cake and the balloons.

“Oh,” he said. “Happy birthday.”

He hugged him. Papa had forgotten that it was his birthday, but it didn’t matter. Mr. Smeethers, the therapist at his previous school said that Papa had some form of autism, that it was a spectrum and it was hard for him to fathom the importance of social connections. But it didn’t matter now. They were all here, and there was just enough time to cut the cake and still make it to the reservation.

Papa went straight to the bathroom without a second glance at Ma. He heard the shower turn on, and after a while, he came out in his pajamas.

“Have you forgotten that we have a reservation at Mr. Tans? “ Ma said, her voice cold and calm. The atmosphere was changing again. 

Papa smirked and shrugged.

“What the fuck does that mean?” Ma asked.

He smirked and shrugged again. 

“What? Are you tired? Do you not want to spend time with your son?”

He waved his hand, like he was in no mood to argue, and went to the dining room and opened the fridge, looking for dinner.

“There’s nothing here, because we planned to go to Mr. Tan’s. It was you who suggested it last week.”

“Mr. Tan’s is closed. They shut it down for food safety violations.” Papa was lying. He always did that when he didn’t want to do something, but didn’t feel like arguing.

He knew it was a lie, because he had himself made the reservation. He knew Papa would forget. He felt his anger rising but he had to stay calm. It was his birthday, and if he could get through this one, perfect day, the rest of the year would go smoothly. God had made him that promise.

But the argument had gained full momentum now. It was mostly Ma shouting at her husband, with the pauses filled in by sarcastic smirks and jabs from Papa, adding fuel to the fire.

“Eating at a Chinese restaurant,” Ma sobbed. “That’s all your son wanted. And it’s too much to ask?”

“If you want to cut the cake, cut the cake?” Papa grunted. “We can do to the stupid restaurant.”

“Are you dense?” Ma said,”Can’t you see you are ruining the whole mood?”

Papa just made a face and snorted again. “The fact is that you need to do your shouting session.”

That resulted in several kore minutes of Ma’s outbursts,

highlighting every aspect of Papa’s character.

To be honest, at this stage, Rohan didn’t care. He was hungry, and all he wanted to do was to get some food and go to sleep. There was no scope of going to the Chinese place anymore.  

“They are going at it again.” He texted his friends.

“Why?” Leela said.

“Why what?” He texted.

“Why did Kattappa kill Bahubali?” Dev said. He could hear the sarcasm through his screen. “What are they fighting about? Who forgot to wear the condom that night?”

“Dev!” He imagined Leela’s horrified face, and covered his face, trying not to laugh.

“Well, did you have cake at least?” 

“Not yet.” He sent her a picture of the cake.

“What’s that written on the cake?” Dev said. “Looks like prescription. Now I believe you. Your mom was indeed a doctor.”

He laughed out loud. His friends were the only thing that gave him some peace, some solace. He suddenly noticed that the room was silent.

“Why are you laughing?” Ma said, her eyes going down from his face to his phone, which he instinctively flipped over.

“The phone is for your online classes.” Papa said. “That’s what you promised when we gave it to you.”

“I was just… discussing homework.”

“Sure you were.” Ma grabbed the phone. 

“Who is Leela? Who is Dev?”

“My friends from class.”

“What are their class rankings?”

“Leela is number 7, Deva 14.” 

“And you are texting them? No wonder your score dropped so much.” Ma said, shaking her head in disbelief.

“I still scored the highest…”

The slap came before he could even finish the sentence. He took a deep breath, fighting back the tears. 

“Hey hey, let’s not do this today. It’s his birthday, after all.” Papa said, his voice suddenly kind as he patted him on his shoulder. 

“Yeah, NOW you’re suddenly dad of the year.” Ma said, squinting to read through the text chain.

He shoved his dad’s hand away from his shoulder. Ma had every right to hit him. She was the one always at home taking care of him. She was the one who was always there. Ma also calmed down a bit, and lit the candle, lighting up suddenly into a smile.

“Let’s cut the cake and blow out the candle.” 

He sighed as he followed her orders.

“What did you wish for?”

“To have cake for dinner.” He lied. 

“Let’s bring Sammy in and get a selfie.” She said.

She brought him in, and he woke up, screaming and crying.

“Perfect,” he thought.

They sang the happy birthday song to him while he cut the cake. They cut it into three pieces, and had cake for dinner.

“Hey, your wish came true.” Ma said.

That drew a few laughs.

The next few moments passed silently, as they put away the cutleries and the plates in silence, while Sammy cried in the background.

As they retreated to the bedrooms, Ma made the declaration almost casually. “No more smartphone for you. You can borrow mine if you need to watch lectures online. And definitely, no texting. I’ll have a word tomorrow with the parents of your ‘friends’.”

He looked at Papa, who just shrugged. “Friends are a waste of time. You go to school to study.” Papa just wanted to sleep, he could tell. He didn’t care about any of this.

“But Ma, they are good kids. They get me.”

“They get you? That’s because they don’t know about your cat incident. Do they?” Ma said, softly. “There’s a lot you need to learn about controlling your impulses, Rohan."

Papa nodded.

He heard them talking to themselves, as if it was just another day, as Ma tried to tuck Sammy into bed. 

Rohan sobbed silently into the night as he realized something. He had failed to keep his parents happy. The bad thing, the thing he was worried about, had happened. He couldn’t be friends with Leela and Dev anymore. Because when Ma would tell them about the cat, they would immediately know how bad he was. As the tears rolled down his cheeks, he suddenly realized something. 

His wish had come true.