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Side by Side

Anita Kushwaha
Chapters (50)
  1. Cover Page
  2. Half Title Page
  3. SIDE by SIDE
  4. Dedication Page
  5. Epigraph
  6. Part I: Fall
  7. 1.
  8. 2.
  9. 3.
  10. 4.
  11. 5.
  12. Part II: Crawl
  13. 6.
  14. 7.
  15. 8.
  16. 9.
  17. 10.
  18. 11.
  19. 12.
  20. 13.
  21. 14.
  22. 15.
  23. 16.
  24. 17.
  25. 18.
  26. 19.
  27. 20.
  28. 21.
  29. 22.
  30. 23.
  31. 24.
  32. 25.
  33. 26.
  34. 27.
  35. 28.
  36. 29.
  37. 30.
  38. 31.
  39. Part III: Rise
  40. 32.
  41. 33.
  42. 34.
  43. 35.
  44. 36.
  45. 37.
  46. 38.
  47. 39.
  48. 40.
  49. Acknowledgements
  50. About the Author

Cover Page

Cover: Side by Side, a novel by Anita Kushwaha.

Half Title Page

SIDE by SIDE

SIDE by SIDE

a novel

ANITA KUSHWAHA

Logo: Inanna poetry and fiction series, by Inanna Publications and Education Inc.

INANNA PUBLICATIONS AND EDUCATION INC.
TORONTO, CANADA

Dedication Page

To N and J
For brotherly blessings

Epigraph

And I know you feel isolated

And I feel what you won’t say

I don’t care if the disbelievers don’t understand

You’re my pretty boy

Always

—“Pretty Boy” by Young Galaxy

Part I: Fall

There is an hour, a minute—you will remember it forever—when you know instinctively on the basis of the most inconsequential evidence, that something is wrong. You don’t know—can’t know—that it is the first of a series of “wrongful” events that will culminate in the utter devastation of your life as you have known it.

—Joyce Carol Oates, A Widow’s Story

1.

Kavita slumps beside her husband on the curb outside her parents’ home where hours earlier an Ottawa police car had idled. A mild late-summer breeze, as light and downy as dandelion seeds, grazes across her skin. A bright half-moon hangs in the clear night sky. Crickets and grasshoppers chirp their nocturnal music. The kind of velvety, soul-sighing evening that reminds her of countless others spent with her brother Sunil, jogging through the quiet streets of their neighbourhood under the buttery glow of streetlights, hearing the beat of their even strides against the pavement and the rhythmic huff of their synchronous breath. As she sweeps away her tears, she knows running through the streets is futile now. The time for searching is over.

Her brother is gone.

The police came on the tenth day after Sunil’s disappearance. A Thursday. The day of the week dedicated to the worship of Lord Vishnu, the peace-loving deity of the Trimurti. For her mother, a day of fasting, of quietly holding a prayer in her heart, and yellow offerings, such as marigolds, since they are in season and can be plucked from the garden, those blooms that burst with the colour of happiness and peace. A day that used to end with prayers and halwa by the light of a diya. On this Thursday, however, the Guptas were not graced with the blessings of a gentle god. This Thursday, they felt only the quake of Shiva’s destruction.

“I can’t think straight,” she says, pressing her knuckles into her swollen eyes. Curtains of dark curls hide her face. Despite the mild evening, her bare arms and legs swell with a fine layer of goose bumps like textured leather. Although hindsight has no power over their present fate, she scours her memory of their last days together for clues, the way a detective might link scattered bits of evidence on a cork board with tacks and string in an effort to uncover relationships, causality, reason—to make sense of chaos.