The Whole Story of Half a Girl (20 page)

“Is that what you really think?” I ask.

“I thought it on the day you were born and I only think it more every day.”

“You should have told me that before,” I say, and walk over to the side of the bed where the slippers are.

“You’re right. I should have.”

And then without thinking about it, I walk over to the slippers. I take off my uncomfortable black loafers and put the slippers on. I sit down on the bed and swing my feet back and forth. The slippers are still warm inside and feel exactly the way I remember them.

“Why don’t you ever want to go back to India?”

He thinks for a minute. “Did I say that?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t mean it.” He thinks some more. “I went through some sad things there. We lived through the partition. We had to leave our home. My parents died there. But I don’t mean to make it a sad place for you. India will always be where I became the person I am, and a part of who you are too. It’s funny. I’ve lived in this country for twenty years, and people still look at me as a foreigner. I don’t even have an accent anymore. Sometimes it can be, well, tiring, to always feel different.” He takes a deep breath like he’s tired just saying it.

“Yes, I know.”

“You do know, don’t you,” he says, and squeezes my arm.

“Sometimes it feels like I’m the only one like me.”

“We all feel like that for one reason or another. But I’ll tell you one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“There is only one Sonia. And the rarer the thing, the more special it is.”

“Like the Taj Mahal.”

“Exactly,” he says.

I think of the Taj and its mind-boggling wholeness. I think about all the parts needed to make it the way it is, the slabs of marble and stone, the thousands of jewels, the mortar, the dirt underneath. The image spins around and around in my head, all those pieces coming together to make one thing—one beautiful whole thing.

Dad sits next to me and we both stay quiet for a while until Mom, Natasha, and Roger come back in. Roger talks about the meetings we’ll have once a week as a family once Dad comes home. Dad says his company is giving him a few months off, and after that, he’ll see if he’s ready to go back. He’ll continue to see Roger once a week by himself. I ask him if he’s ever going to leave us again. He says he might have times when he feels sad during his life, but he understands himself a lot more now. If he ever feels that low again, he’ll spend some time at the hospital instead of leaving. It’s scary to think he could feel that way again. But there are no hard
secrets anymore. Nothing is too scary to talk about, Mom says to me and Natasha.

After a while I’m not really listening, though. I’m just thinking about the slippers on my feet and how, when I leave here today, I’m going to ask Dad if I can take them with me.

And how I know he’ll let me without even asking why.

Then we go home, Mom, Natasha, and I. It’s hard to say goodbye to Dad, but I wear the slippers in the car and I wear them to bed. That night I dream about being a princess. I can fly in this dream. I fly over Dad at the hospital and he sees me and waves. I fly over school and see Alisha and Kate. I fly back home. Except home isn’t my house. It’s the Taj Mahal, and my entire family is waiting for me. Mom, Natasha, and Dad. They’re having a picnic. I come and sit down and suddenly we’re all back home, at my real home. When I wake up this is what I think: We need to go somewhere, my family and I, when Dad gets home, somewhere really nice like the ocean. We’ll have a picnic. It won’t matter if it’s cold. We’ll just bundle up and stay close. If we do that, I think we’ll be okay.

It takes a village to raise a child
and
to publish a book. I would like to send out my grateful appreciation to the village that helped make this book possible. To my very wise editor, Françoise Bui, who believed in Sonia’s voice and helped me give her an even bigger one, and to everyone at Delacorte Press who supported this book. To my agent, the ever-encouraging Sara Crowe, who plucked me out of the pile and put me on the map. To my friends Alexandra Cooper and Gwendolyn Gross, for their early reads and great editorial advice. To my supportive family, who always believed in me—my parents, Anita and Hiro Hiranandani; my sister, Shana Hiranandani; my sister in-law, Netania Shapiro; my in-laws, Phyllis and Hank Beinstein; my sister- and brother-in-law, Debra and David Stein; my niece, Sophie Stein; and my nephews, Zev and Leo Hiranandani and Fred and Julius Stein. Most of all, I’d like to thank my children, Hannah and Eli, and my best reader and best friend, my husband, David Beinstein. I couldn’t have done this without you.

Veera Hiranandani started writing stories pretty much as soon as she started reading them. She received her MFA in fiction writing from Sarah Lawrence College and has written fiction for children and adults. Besides being a writer, she is also a Montessori teacher. Veera lives in New York with her husband, daughter, and son. This is her first novel for young readers. Visit her website at
veerahiranandani.com
.