Read Naming Maya for Free Online

was safe,” she says. “He thought no man or god could harm him, and so his pride grew monstrous. And in the end who killed him? Devi! No man or god, do you understand?”
    I understand. I sip the clear sweet coconut juice, and I am grateful for Mami, who seems every bit as fierce as any goddess.
    â€œKilled him, just like that,” she says with relish, and the shopkeeper warns her, “Shh. Please. My customers.”
    Mami waves him away and carries on. “Devi, mother of us all, she’ll take care of you.”
    Sometimes Mami talks to the shopkeeper, who is still nearby. He is wearing a strained look by this time, trying to assure concerned customers that everything is fine. And sometimes it seems to me, although I can’t be sure of it, that she is talking to no one at all.
    Â 
    Of course Mom goes into a flap when I return home with great splotches of blood all over my kameez . “Oh,
no, Maya! Are you all right? Oh, my God, look at all that blood.”
    Exhausted, I lower myself onto the broad wooden seat of the oonjal, the swing that hangs at one end of the dining room. It is so big it could hold half a dozen people. Giant chains suspend it from hooks in the ceiling. Mom brings me a glass of water, and the sight of my bloody kameez makes her go shuddery.
    â€œYou’ve not had one of those in so long. I’d hoped—”
    â€œYeah, me too. But it’s okay. Mami helped me.” Mami is out of help mode now. She tells Mom in detail all about it, and how she’s looked after lots of children, and never seen anything like this. Do many children in America have nosebleeds? Maybe it’s the food. Or the cold weather, very unhealthy.
    Mom tries to answer the questions, but it is a bit like trying to stop one of the city buses by waving at it. And anyway, Mami isn’t waiting for answers. She is recapping how she cussed out the people who tried to gather around while I lay bleeding to death on the sidewalk. I can’t tell if I am imagining it or if she’s really talking too much, too loud, too long. I decide I’m just tired. Finally she runs out of steam and wanders away to get laundry off the clothesline. Mom and I are left alone sharing an awkward silence.

    I twiddle the pages of a book lying open on the oonjal.
    â€œMaybe you shouldn’t have gone out in the heat,” says my mother at last.
    I really don’t think she means anything by it. It is something to say.
    But I have had it. The day, the dreadful sticky hot nosebleed, the dust, the dirty sidewalk, Kamala Mami and her ramblings, the crowds of people—it is all too much.
    â€œOh, sure.” My voice comes out sharp and highpitched, what Joanie calls my “tangry voice,” teary and angry. “Blame me. It’s my fault! I had the nosebleed because I chose to go out, right? You weren’t even there!”
    â€œMaya!” I’ve stopped her in her tracks. “You know I didn’t mean—”
    But I swing my legs off the oonjal, fling the book to the floor, and march out, noting with terrible triumph that my words have landed smack on target, every single one.

The Cottage at the Beach
    The days get hotter. Mom gets busier. She also gets nervous when I venture anywhere outside the house. We have conversations that go like this:

    Me: I’m going to walk up the street and take some photos, okay?
    Mom: I’ll come with you.
    Me: It’s all right, I’ll be fine. I thought you had to go get those papers notarized.
    Mom: Yes. Well, maybe Mami can go with you.
    Me: Maybe I’ll just go another time.

    I don’t even go to the store with Mami when we run out of beans and rice because Lakshmi Auntie picks
up groceries for us on her way home from work. She insists it’s to save Mami the hassle of walking to the shops in the heat, but I think maybe Mom has told her about my nosebleed.
    I do make my way up onto the flat terrace roof and get some