Louisiana Catch by Sweta Srivastava Vikram

Author:Sweta Srivastava Vikram
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Loving Healing Press

- 17 -

Next morning when I woke up, it was still dark outside. I looked at my phone: 5:05 a.m. My body was sore, as if I had climbed a hill five times the night before. The sound of my own breathing hurt my head. I tied my hair into a knot and quietly went into the bathroom.

Looking at my face in the mirror, I noticed my eyes were swollen. “Crying doesn’t look good on you, beta,” Mumma would always tell me and wipe my tears with her hands. How I wish she had let me fight my battles and wipe my own tears instead of turning me into an overprotected, oversheltered weakling who felt clueless at every difficult juncture in life.

I brushed my teeth and tried to relax my entire body as I sat on the toilet. Thinking about my meltdown at the club, I felt embarrassed. I looked at the clock: 5:20 a.m. I jumped into the shower and got dressed for a 6:30 a.m. yoga class. The past week had been a lot, and I needed deep inhales and exhales to jumpstart my weekend. I pined for Mumma and wished more than anything she could join me on the mat. Two years before Mumma died, for Mother’s Day, I had ordered a Manduka yoga mat for her. She had yelled at me when she found out I had spent close to $200 on the colorful, eco-friendly, top-quality yoga mat, a few accessories, and shipping. But Mumma took that mat with her everywhere. Every conference. Every trip. Every vacation. “It’s music to my knees, beta,” she would say.

I changed into my purple yoga pants and a black halter tee, and wore a hoodie on top of it. Tiptoeing around the apartment, so as not to wake up Naina and Josh in case he had spent the night, I put my keys and money in my jacket pocket.

I went into the kitchen to fill up my water bottle. Carefully moving through memories and the dark living room, I wore my sneakers and quietly opened the main door so it wouldn’t squeak.

“Good morning,” I greeted the doorman on duty in the lobby.

When I stepped out into the streets, my bare legs felt cold. But my lungs and heart filled with gratitude—there was no one staring, throwing insults, wolf-whistling, stalking, or groping me. How often women in New Delhi were reminded that public spaces were not for them. How effortlessly I asserted my claim of public spaces in New York.

I liked reaching the studio early in the morning and sitting on the stairs of the brownstone, watching the world not move. I checked my phone: 5:45 a.m.

I heard someone call my name. I didn’t pay any heed. There was no one in New York who would look for me at this hour. I heard my name again. I finally looked up and saw the last person I had expected to see: Rohan Brady.

He was crossing the street and simultaneously calling out to me.

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