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Intro
Eleven-year-old Eliot has been going to his new babysitter, Mrs. Sen’s, house after school for nearly a month. His mother found Mrs. Sen through an advertisement outside the local supermarket. She hired her even though Eliot has to go to Mrs. Sen’s apartment for her to watch him—Mrs. Sen can’t come to their house because she doesn’t know how to drive.
Eliot and his mother go to meet Mr. and Mrs. Sen’s at their shabby university apartment (Mr. Sen is a math professor). Mrs. Sen wears a sari and traditional Indian makeup, and she and Mr. Sen take off their shoes and wear flip-flops indoors. Eliot’s mother interviews Mrs. Sen about her experience as a babysitter. She’s concerned that Mrs. Sen can’t drive, because Eliot’s mother works 50 miles away and his father doesn’t live nearby. Mr. Sen assures Eliot’s mother that he’s teaching Mrs. Sen, and that she’ll have her license by December. Mrs. Sen also explains that they had a chauffeur when they lived in India.
Eliot enjoys going to Mrs. Sen’s—the beach house where he lives is cold and lonely in the fall, whereas the Sens’ apartment is warm. He especially likes to watch Mrs. Sen chop up vegetables for dinner. One evening, she tells Eliot that when she lived in India, she would prepare food with a community of women for celebrations—but in the U.S., she’s lonely. When Eliot’s mother comes to pick him up, Mrs. Sen hides all evidence of food preparation. Eliot’s mother seems uncomfortable in the apartment, and she tries to refuse the food that Mrs. Sen offers her. When she and Eliot get home, she always drinks wine and orders pizza for dinner.
Every afternoon, Mrs. Sen arrives early to wait for Eliot at the bus stop. She practices driving each day with Eliot in the car. She’s nervous and distracted while driving, and she’s too afraid to drive on the main road with other cars.
One day, Mrs. Sen is very happy when she gets a letter from home. She tells Eliot that her sister has had a baby girl, and she seems disappointed that the child will be three years old by the time she meets her. She asks Eliot if he misses his mother each day, but he's never thought to miss her.
Mrs. Sen is also happy when she gets fresh fish, because she can incorporate it into traditional Indian dishes. She likes to reserve fish at a market near the beach, which Mr. Sen picks up for her. One day, though, Mr. Sen tells Mrs. Sen that he won’t have time to get the fish anymore because he needs to hold office hours. Mrs. Sen is upset, and she confides in Eliot about how unhappy she is in America. Her family thinks that she must be happy and rich here, but she isn’t. Later that evening, Mr. Sen relents and drives Mrs. Sen and Eliot to get the fish.
In November, Mrs. Sen stops cooking and won’t practice driving; Eliot notices that she’s also unusually quiet and forgetful. One day, she plays Eliot a tape of her family’s voices and tells him that her grandfather died over the weekend.
A week later, Mrs. Sen starts cooking again. Mr. Sen takes Eliot and Mrs. Sen to the seaside one evening, where they buy a lot of fish and eat at a restaurant. Mr. Sen makes Mrs. Sen drive back, but she panics when she has to drive with other cars and pulls off the road. She stops driving after that.
Soon after this, Mrs. Sen and Eliot take the bus to the fish market. On the way there, they chat about what Eliot will do when his mother is elderly. On the way back, a woman complains to the bus driver about the smell of the fish.
Another day, Mrs. Sen decides to drive to the market with Eliot in the car—but she gets into an accident almost immediately, hitting a telephone pole. She and Eliot aren’t hurt badly, but the car’s fender needs to be straightened. When Mr. Sen takes them back to the apartment, Mrs. Sen goes to her room and doesn’t come out when Eliot’s mother arrives. Mr. Sen reimburses Eliot’s mother for the month’s babysitting fee and apologizes on his wife’s behalf. Eliot stops going to Mrs. Sen’s after that, and his mother admits that she’s relieved. She gives Eliot a key to the house, and from then on, he spends his afternoons alone.
