The Museum of Failures

by Thrity Umrigar

“Because, son, you have only two jobs in life—to be happy and to make others happy. You understand?”

For the first time, what had brought him to the city of his birth was not the undertow of the past but the tug of the future.

He pulled up a chair and studied her face and felt a sensation at the base of his throat, which spread to his chest. He examined the sensation and gave it a name: love. Now that Mummy was in this weakened condition, she had lost her ability to hurt him. The wariness that he’d felt around her for most of his life fell away. In its place, there was finally room for love.

“No, no, sir. Why to charge for something that grows free?”

“You know,” he added after a second, “my late father used to say, nothing lasts forever. He was so right.”

“No, no, why sorry? It is good to go wherever there is opportunity. After all, that is what brought our Persian ancestors to India, correct? My Jessie has a good life in the States.”

“Build your life there. Don’t let anyone curtail your dreams. Your happiness and success will be my reward, Remy. And don’t worry about your mother—I will talk to her. She’ll come around. You’ll see.”

That’s a wonderful term, by the way. American English is so evocative.”

All children believe that the world begins with their birth. But to be an adult was to acknowledge the endless circles of life that began before one’s time and would continue long after, to realize that one’s story was shaped and written by unknown others. His own history had begun so much earlier than his actual story began. Cyrus’s choices, made for reasons he wasn’t alive to defend or rationalize, had bled into his own.

Instead, he heard his ancestors whispering in his ear, telling him of their disappointments and triumphs, their joys and failures. No matter how many years he spent in America, the fact remained: he was built out of the clay of this city, out of its imperfect earth.

“Choose wisely. Believe me, ninety percent of life’s happiness comes from selecting the right life partner.”

Remy was aroused, but more than that, he was moved.

The kiss lingered; it felt more sensual than sexual. There was a hint of a promise in it—not just the promise of the moment, but something steadier than that. It was madly exciting but strangely familiar; it felt like coming home.

Why had he thought this woman was steel? She was as soft as cotton. No, that wasn’t right. Cotton was ordinary, common. Whereas Kathy seemed luminous, incandescent.

“I should’ve insisted on you going to the fire temple with me more often,” he’d once said, sitting in Remy’s kitchen in Columbus. “It’s my fault, for letting you move to America without giving you an ironclad faith.” “What difference does it make, Dad?” Remy had said. “I try to be a good person.” “You are,” Cyrus had said. “You are good. But, son, faith is like an armor. It’s for your own protection. This world can be an unforgiving place. Faith helps a man from getting buffeted around.” Be better than me, Dad had written to him.

“Mummy, were you aware of my presence at the hospital? During, you know, those early days?” Shirin looked directly into his eyes. “Does the heart ever stop feeling its own beat?”

She pulled away from him. “Tell me something. And don’t lie. Do you love him?” Cyrus’s expression was confused. “I . . . I’m not sure. I’m sure I will, eventually. It’s still a shock, okay? Just give me time, Shirin. Try to understand. I need time.” And when Shirin looked unconvinced: “Think of what I do for a living. I’m an engineer by trade. I have a God-given ability to solve problems. But I don’t know how to fix him.” “There’s nothing to fix,” she cried. “He doesn’t need fixing. Don’t you see how perfect he is?” Cyrus rose to his feet, keeping his eyes on his wife’s face the whole time. He chewed on his lower lip. “If you think he’s perfect, hats off to you, yaar,” he said at last. “But I’ll be honest with you. I dread coming home in the evening. Whereas before . . .” He brushed away his tears and left the room.

Until a few years ago, Shirin herself had been part of that privileged society. Her father’s wealth and her own beauty and intelligence had made the world seem like a benevolent place, one she could slip into as easily as a favorite armchair. But as she watched her husband stroke the back of her son’s head—a gesture that once would’ve cracked her heart open—Shirin realized something: that without knowing it, she had joined the ranks of the world’s shunned and neglected, the invisible and unseen. If they couldn’t see past Cyloo’s deformities to his spirit, to his soul, then she was happy to

relinquish her membership in such a superficial society. By treating her son as less than human, they had diminished their own humanity.

Remy fell asleep in Shirin’s lap as Cyrus drove them home. She kissed the top of her son’s sweet head, felt a tremor of love run through her. My Remy, she thought. May you always be this bright ray of sunshine. She had Cyloo’s faded moonlight and Remy’s

golden daylight. In other words, a perfect galaxy. What more could she ask for?

“You seem to have forgotten, Shirin. You are a mother, yes. A very good mother, in fact. But”—Cyrus’s face crumpled—“you are also a wife. You’ve forgotten that part.”

Yet Shirin knew that the woman she’d been was gone. She was now divided into parts, many parts, a small piece of her belonging to each of the four men in her life—her father, her husband, her two sons. If she had to choose, if Cyrus forced her to, she knew who she would choose. As if he knew what she was thinking and was afraid to push her, Cyrus, too, fell quiet. They drove home the rest of the way in silence, the sound of Remy’s breathing filling the car.

But almost four years after Cyloo’s birth, she knew that it would never be. It was the bitterest of life lessons—the realization that you cannot force someone to love what you do.

“I’m sorry that I spend so much time with your brother. It’s only because . . .” “I know,” Remy said, nodding his head. “Daddy told me. It’s because Cyloo is not well.” She took his hand in hers. “But both of you own my heart. No matter what happens, I want you to remember this, always. Promise?” “Promise,” he said.

For the first time since Cyloo’s birth, Shirin felt despair. “Why, God?” she said out loud. “What did I ever do to you? Why did you give me this challenge?” But even as she asked the questions, she knew that the challenge was not her disabled son. The real challenge was her husband, from whom she had to keep secrets.

What kind of fortitude, what kind of self-control did this take? The decades of secrecy, suppression, and silence had taken their toll. The secret had erased the loving, kindhearted mother Shirin had been and left behind the shrewish, brittle shell that Remy had known most of his life.

Remy looked at his mother with new eyes. She had loved his father enough to protect Cyrus from his son’s contempt. She had loved Remy enough to protect him from his disillusionment about his father.

This was what held the world together, this unsung army of silently suffering standing women.

Remy’s heart flooded with love. That was what it felt like: a warm, watery gush that swept away every lingering pebble of resentment he had harbored. I am free, he thought. Free of the hurt I’ve carried around all these years. All his life, he had foolishly believed that love had to be declared—expressed and made visible with words and gifts. But in one day, Shirin had taught him a transformative lesson: love was also restraint. What it must have cost her all these years to hold her silence, to not reveal the secret that would’ve turned him against his father.

She turned his gift over in her hand, looked intently at Cyloo’s picture before setting it down. “This is a single frame. I need a double. So that I can look at both my sons. One with each eye.”

The truth is simple: I loved your father. Or, more accurately, I felt for him a stew of every human emotion imaginable: hatred, love, anger, guilt, sadness, compassion, remorse, regret.

But here, I must catch myself. You are now on the cusp of starting your own family. All this happened a long, long time ago. It is the strangest thing—we become so many different people in one lifetime. But in the end, when everything else has been stripped away, only one thing remains. Let us call it love.

Here’s what I want to say to you: Do not waste your life hating your father. Forgive him. If possible, forgive your old mother, too. Not for her sake, but for yours. I know only too well the price one pays for bitterness.

When you leave here, Remy, leave with your head held high. Leave us behind—our frailties, our secrets and failures, our shameful, stunted humanity. This is our story, mine and Cyrus’s. Do not make it yours. Write your own, beautiful story, emblazed with stardust. This is the last thing I ask of you.

Kathy was silent long after he’d finished. “Hello?” he asked at last. “I’m here,” she said quickly. “I just . . . It . . . Oh my God.” “I know.” “I mean, everything we believed about her. All these years.” Kathy began to cry. “I know, Kat. I know.” “I can hardly take this in.” “I know. Me too.” “What’re you going to do?” “I don’t know.”

It was disconcerting to be almost thirty-seven years old and find out that your life had been predicated on a lie.

Shirin looked at him for the longest time. “I don’t know,” she said at last. “I’m tired, and I’m old. People always think that we get wiser as we age. But the opposite happens. Everything gets more complicated.” She rubbed her face in a weary gesture that broke Remy’s heart. “Ask Kathy what she thinks.”

How strange, Remy thought. He had come to India to find a child. Instead, he had regained a mother.

But what doesn’t change is this: All children have the same needs, to be fed, sheltered, clothed, and loved. Most of all, to be loved.” Still, he was not convinced. “You wait until you become a father,” his mother added. “Loving a child is the most unremarkable thing. The easiest thing. You’ll see.”