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“I got you something,” Jack said, and slid a plain black box in front of her. “Wedding present.”
“Oooh, did you get me that fiber optic laryngoscope?” she said. “The one you claimed I’m too good to need?”
Jack snorted. “Not quite as exciting as that, I’m afraid. But I hope you like it anyway.”
She opened the box. Her brow furrowed at the gleam of jewelry, before she registered just what she was looking at – line of diamonds, framed by black beads. Her breath caught, and she looked up at him, eyes wide with surprise. “How did you know?”
“I may be what Shen has described as an old white guy,” Jack said. “But I do know how to use Google, you know. Gotta say, I kinda like the thought of a symbol you can keep on at work.”
“Could get a pack of those silicone rings,” she said absently, eyes going back to the mangalasutra before her, carefully extricating it from the box. “Certainly less expensive.”
Samira had not grown up thinking about a future spouse or wedding. Even less so as she’d grown to adulthood. She was an only child with few friends, and the sort of celebration that was often expected just made her feel awkward. What was the point? Her father was long dead. She wasn’t close with her extended family. She’d never been religious. She didn’t even speak Tamil – if someone spoke to her in it, she’d only catch every third word, and that, if she was lucky, and they spoke with just the right accent. A wedding would be a performance. A farce.
In her late teens and twenties, when college roommates and high school acquaintances were dating and falling in love and getting married, she’d been in college, med school, residency, focused on homework and exams and research and patients. People hadn’t been able to compare to the work. The only person that ever had was someone that thought it was everything, every bit as much as she did. What were wedding traditions, compared to that shared understanding, when she had held beating human hearts in her hands, when her lover’s faith in her and her skills surpassed any faith either of them might have had in any deity?
And when it was a white widower two decades older than her that she was marrying, the whole thing seemed even sillier – he’d done it all before. It would be absurd to ask him to do it again. He would, if she asked. It had taken her a long time to understand that. But he’d indulged her whims about research papers she wanted to discuss with someone, and tests she had a hunch about, and procedure practice for things that almost certainly wouldn’t come up, and somewhere between the day she’d asked him to write her a recommendation for a fellowship application and the day she’d realized how long he’d been watching her without acting and the day she’d realized she wanted him to act and the day he’d slipped a key to his house into her bag without telling her in case she ever wanted to be there, it had dawned on her: there were few things she could ask of him that he wouldn’t do.
She wouldn’t have expected him to want to marry her at all. But he had. If she’d wanted an actual wedding, he’d have jumped to ensure she got it.
Samira could only cringe at the prospect of an elaborate wedding that could only be for her and the desire to cling to a culture she’d felt disconnected from for a very long time. She didn’t like attention on her, and even if she had, how childish would her coworkers think her, to invite them to watch her play act at being a Tamilian bride?
Last time she’d gone to a wedding, she’d been twelve. The eldest daughter of a family friend, the eldest of four sisters very determined to win the joota chupai. Samira had watched as the youngest sister had stolen the groom’s shoes and run off to hide them. The middle two had negotiated fiercely with the groom, once he he needed to step off the mandap, and the bride had laughed in delight. Even then, she had wondered what it might have been like to have sisters. As she’d gotten older, with a career she loved and coworkers that didn’t much seem to like her, she’d started thinking broader – wondered what it might be like to have friends. To have someone, anyone, excited to see her; to be excited to see them.
After the long shifts during those first brutal years of residency, all the conversations with patients and arguing with Robby, meeting new people had seemed unbearably difficult, the last thing on Earth she wanted to do. She’d started branching out, eventually. Gone out with her coworkers, tentative at first, and with growing enthusiasm. Heather was nothing if not direct, and when she indicated that she enjoyed Samira’s company, Samira had no call to doubt her. Mel wore her heart on her sleeve, and Samira didn’t think she could fake that smile. Trinity was worse at not caring than anyone Samira had ever met.
It had been terrifying, getting to know them, letting them get to know her. But now she did. They did.
Mel would like the joota chupai, she thought. Trinity, too. Heather would probably not be excited about the hiding of the shoes, but she would negotiate the ransom for their return like it was the most serious business she could imagine.
But they were coworkers, friends, and just because they were the closest friends she’d ever had, just because she’d come to believe that they really did want her there when they went out after a shift, that didn’t mean they’d want to sit through her working out her own cultural angst. They certainly wouldn’t want to stand in for the sisters and cousins she didn’t have.
She was in her thirties. It was immature.
She and Jack gone to the courthouse and signed the papers. Tomorrow, they’d have their friends over for a barbecue. She might ask, tomorrow, late at night after everyone went home, if they could light a fire in the pit. No priest, no prayers, just them and a burning flame, seven circles around the fire. Jack would do it. She knew he would.
She didn’t speak Tamil. She didn’t pray. She’d long given up on the hope that one day, she’d learn how to make rasam that tasted right. And her own mother didn’t even wear her mangalasutra. No one she knew did, keeping them tucked in boxes or safes to only be worn on rare occasions. But Jack had looked up…something, and came across a tradition she knew she had never once mentioned, and he’d bought her an auspicious thread to put on at home, after their courthouse wedding. It felt more right than a wedding or a ring ever could.
“Put it on for me?” she asked, and Jack obliged, clasping the necklace around her throat, pressing a kiss to the nape of her neck. Her hand went up to touch it. She didn’t even wear earrings to work. This was…elaborate.
“A little much for work, Jack,” she teased, not quite nailing the light tone she’d aimed for, and he grinned.
“No ring,” he pointed out. “Can tuck it under your scrubs. No one has to see.”
No one has to know.
“Thank you,” she said, thumb running back and forth along the pendant. “Very unnecessary. Not nearly as useful as a fiber optic laryngoscope would be. But I love it.”
“You didn’t want a ring,” he said again. “Let me have this one.”
He kissed her head. “And you’re getting the laryngoscope for your birthday.”
She wore dark red to the barbecue, a silk dress she’d had and loved forever, but rarely got the chance to wear. It was a little over the top, for a gathering of friends in the backyard, but she liked it, and maybe that was all the reason necessary.
“Congrats on locking her down before she starts that new job,” Trinity said. “Smart move. She’s way out of your league, old man.”
Jack narrowed his eyes at her. “Watch it. Don’t forget, I’m an attending, I can make your life miserable.”
“For what, exactly?” Trinity scoffed. “Thinking your wife is cooler than you?”
Samira’s face warmed, and she had to look down to hide her smile, grateful as always that she didn’t visibly blush. Having friends was very nice.
That sentiment only grew stronger as the afternoon went on, as it turned to evening, as their coworkers hugged them and congratulated them, as they ate and drank and laughed. Samira had expected people to start heading out as the sun went down. It was rare that so many of them didn’t have to go in for a shift. But no one seemed in a rush to leave, even as the air cooled enough that Trinity started pretending she wasn’t shivering.
“I’ll light a fire,” Jack said, and got to work doing just that.
“Don’t you need a burn permit for that?” Mel asked. Jack pressed a finger to his lips as he got back to his feet.
“Shh,” he told her. “Don’t be a narc.”
Jack caught Samira’s eye and flicked his gaze over to the fire, then back at her, circling a finger in the air, pointed up at the sky. She stared back at him, eyes going wide, a lump rising in her throat. He really had done his research. She nodded, more minutely than she had intended, but it didn’t seem to matter – he seemed to catch it anyway, heading over to sit next to her and take his shoes off.
“You really shouldn’t walk without shoes like that,” she warned. “Even setting aside proper prothetic care, mosquitoes are going to eat you alive.”
Jack waved it off, setting his shoes neatly to the side. “Nah, I’ll be all right. Come on.”
She nudged off her own shoes, leaving them beside his, and got up, pulling him to standing with her. Before they could even take a step towards the fire, Trinity snatched Jack’s shoes and took off at impressive speed. Mel giggled, but no one looked surprised or confused. Samira had to laugh, not even surprised herself anymore, but filled with an unbearable fondness for all of the people around her. She was very lucky.
She led Jack around the fire. Once, twice, thrice, and then took a step back so he could lead her four more times. She didn’t remember what the circles represented, or the mantras they would have been reciting had they been religious. But it didn’t matter. All that did was Jack’s hand in hers, that he’d built her this fire, that he’d cared to ask if she’d care to walk it.
The lump in her throat had eased as they walked, and even though the night air was cool now, as they stepped away from the fire to head back to their friends, seated around the patio table, between the lingering warmth of the flames, the amount of beer they’d all drunk, and the sheer joy of having people like this in her life, Samira didn’t think she’d ever felt warmer.
Jack raised his eyebrows at Robby. “Weren’t you supposed to be rescuing my shoes?”
Robby shrugged. “Santos took the keys and locked them into your car.”
“You know,” Samira said, settling in the chair next to him, “I think tradition indicates you should be trying to get those back for him instead of just letting him pay.”
Robby shrugged again, eyes crinkling. “Nah, I think he can afford the ransom.”
As if to prove the point, Jack handed Mel three crisp hundreds, straight from the ATM. “Can we just skip to the end, please?”
Trinity folded her arms across her chest and said, “Not good enough.”
Mel passed the bills to Heather and mimicked the gesture. “Given your annual income, and the several years you have on Samira giving you a great deal of time to accumulate wealth, we think you can do better than that. Samira is an extremely intelligent and beautiful woman, and you are celebrating your union. Is that all?”
She glanced back at Heather as if to confirm. Heather nodded.
“That is a very creepy way to phrase that, Mel. You…do know you’re selling him back his shoes, not selling him me, right?” Samira called, but they all seemed to ignore her.
“Good point,” Jack conceded, and handed Heather another three hundreds. She exchanged a look with Trinity and Mel, then nodded at Jack, regal as any queen, and passed him back his car keys. She waved the stack of cash above her head so everyone could see it.
“We’ll see you all at Bridges and Bourbon in thirty minutes! Drinks are on Dr. Abbot tonight!”