Safe harbor, p.1
Safe Harbor, page 1
Also by Padma Venkatraman
Born Behind Bars
The Bridge Home
A Time to Dance
Island’s End
Climbing the Stairs
Nancy Paulsen Books
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
1745 Broadway, New York, New York 10019
First published in the United States of America by Nancy Paulsen Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2025
Copyright © 2025 by Padma Venkatraman
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Venkatraman, Padma, 1969– author.
Title: Safe harbor / Padma Venkatraman.
Description: New York: Nancy Paulsen Books, 2025. | Summary: “Moving from India to the US is difficult for Geetha, but things start to get better when she and a new friend help rescue a stranded seal”—Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2024009563 | ISBN 9780593112502 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780593112519 (ebook)
Subjects: CYAC: Novels in verse. | Moving, Household—Fiction. | Animal rescue—Fiction. | Seals—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | LCGFT: Novels in verse.
Classification: LCC PZ7.5.V46 Ti 2014 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024009563
Ebook ISBN 9780593112519
Cover art © 2025 by Oriol Vidal
Cover design by Jessica Jenkins
Edited by Nancy Paulsen
Design by Eileen Savage, adapted for ebook by Michelle Quintero
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
pid_prh_7.0a_149905176_c0_r0
Contents
Dedication
Our Dreams
Three Years Before We Moved Across Oceans
Welcome to America
Empty Apartment
Traveling Heavy
Thoughts Twisting in My Head
My Dog, Dhurrie
The Day Dhurrie and I Met
Jet-Lagged
Walk on the Beach
Secondhand Life
Skipping Stones
Ignoring Instinct
Word Jungle
What My Family Sees in Me
Relearning My ABC’s
Patti’s Little Tiger
Bare Branches
Indians Don’t Nod
Free Library
Music Lessons Online
Practicing at Dawn
Travelers
New Patterns
Neighbors
The Complaint
Strange Creature
Stranded Seal
As Lonely as Me
Songs Can Save Us
Cut Away
Friendship Song
Different Kinds of Jam
Common Ground
Sharing My Secrets
Superstitions
Safe Spaces
Journey to the Arctic
Questions Books Can’t Answer
Hundred-Stringed Melodies
Seal Sanctuary
Hauled Out
Memory Store
Tamarind Rice
Curry
Cafeteria
Chocolate Chip Cookie
Force-Fed
Featherlight
Building Hope
Transplant
Fun Nicknames
Floating Frisbee
April
Our New Year’s Day
Sari Song
Second Try
Not-So-Fresh Start
Blistering Anger
Finding Sanctuary at School
Not the Only One
Setback
Hurting
Easier to Be Angry Than Sad
Fragile
Memories I Locked Away
Speaking Soft and Clear
Times of Agreement
Different Kinds of Sorry
Healing Music
Marine Mammal Music
Rhythms of the Sea
Seal Song
Armed with a Song
Lighting Up
Uncertain
Laughing With, Not At
Taking Care of Myself
Taking Care of Our Beach
Suddenly Like the Sun
Shyness
Miguel’s Dad
Weird Weather
Tides of Love
First Step to Stewardship
How Much We Throw Away
Second Chances
Shock
Singing Heart
Captured
Skipping Out
Cracking Eggs
No More Fish Smoothies
Up and Down
Unlucky Horseshoes
No Comparison
Happy Family
Surprising Amma
Special Days
Two Homes, One Lucky Life
Release
Unusual
Celebration
Hello, Not Goodbye
Full of Promise
Author’s Note
Resources
Acknowledgments
About the Author
_149905176_
This book is dedicated in loving memory to
Buvana Ramaswamy,
who loved animals and our environment.
Our Dreams
“Geetha, we’re almost there,” my mother whispers. I
scowl (because she woke me up)
wiggle (because the cramped airplane seat won’t
let me stretch)
yawn (because I feel like I only just fell asleep).
In my dream
(which burst when Amma’s voice poked it)
we were still in India.
In my dream
I was a famous musician
playing my bamboo flute at the Music Academy,
playing powerfully enough
to move my packed audience to stillness
before thunderclaps of applause rose
to the vaulted ceiling and my father
strode onstage and clasped me in his arms
because I’d brought him back to us
through my music’s magic.
In reality
I’m slumped in stale airplane air,
my ears popping like dosai flour on a hot griddle
as the plane drops down, down low,
landing
in my mother’s dream.
Three Years Before We Moved Across Oceans
My mother said she and my father grew apart
as if they were two branches on the same tree,
bending in different directions.
Truth: Angry storms blew apart
our family tree.
That’s why
only Amma and I flew to America.
Appa stayed behind, in India.
Now that the two of us are so far away from him,
I should stop imagining my parents
will somehow get back together.
But I guess hope is a cork that never stops bobbing
on the waves of life’s ocean.
Welcome to America
My mother’s sister, Kamali Chithi,
and her husband, Payya Chithappa,
are waiting in the airport with welcoming hugs.
Let me take that. Payya Chithappa tries to lessen my load.
I tussle with him, clinging to my backpack, although
I’m so tired, I could fall asleep standing up
in spite of the clackety carts, clickety shoes,
chattering voices.
I’m sure I can trust my uncle, but I want to hold
my old moss-green backpack tight
because my fragile bamboo flute is inside.
Welcome to the land of the free!
Payya Chithappa shrugs,
lets my backpack go, and leaves
me to ca rry my burden on my own.
Empty Apartment
Isn’t this great? my aunt exclaims as we
walk into our new place.
I trudge through the poky kitchen,
two tiny bedrooms with a bathroom squished in between,
and something my aunt calls the family room,
although most of our family is in India!
I feel further from home than ever before.
I squint out a grimy window
at the squat gray buildings, crouching
like a flock of pigeons
on a narrow gray street below a dull gray sky.
My uncle cranks open a window, and tangy sea air
whooshes in, making my skin tingle.
Isn’t it nice, Geetha? Our new home?
Amma’s eyes sparkle.
Yes! I say real loud. Yes! I repeat
as if shouting something
more than once can make it true.
Traveling Heavy
My aunt and uncle have filled up our
super-tall American fridge with
super-big American fruits and vegetables.
Now we have butter instead of ghee,
cheese slices instead of paneer cubes,
milk in cartons, not bottles, and a container of
butter pecan ice cream—a flavor I’ve never heard of.
After they hug us goodbye,
saying, Call us if you need anything, see you soon,
we eat and unpack.
Then I go straight to bed,
where I lie awake thinking of all
I couldn’t carry with me:
Our tall tamarind tree
with its sweet fruit and shady canopy
under which I felt safe.
The room lined with shelves full of books
that I loved to touch and smell and read and reread.
Books full of stories and poetry and
facts about animals and nature.
I wanted to bring my favorites with me, but Amma said,
Sorry. We can only bring what we really need, Geetha.
She kept taking books out of my bag and
I kept sneaking them back in, till finally
she hugged me close and said,
There are weight limits on what we can carry.
But there’s no limit on how much
you can dream for in America.
There, if you work hard enough, you can
be anyone you want, do anything you want.
So I packed light
and we flew across the sea
with my little suitcase, my old backpack,
and my weighty heart.
Thoughts Twisting in My Head
My favorite cousin, Vishnu, sulked when I left.
My patti and my thatha
didn’t want us to leave either.
I heard them say so. I overheard them arguing
when they thought I was asleep.
I heard Patti tell Amma, Please think.
What will happen if…you get depressed again?
You are not like other mothers.
I heard Amma’s voice drop to a growl,
more fearsome than if she had raised it.
I heard her say, You think I’m weak
because I need medicine to stay well? You think I can’t
take care of my own daughter?
I’ll show you what a good life I can give her.
Don’t forget—I married the man you
wanted, and look how that turned out.
I heard my grandparents’ silence
after Amma said those words.
I can’t imagine fighting with my mother
like she fought with hers, no matter how
angry I am with her for making us move.
Would it feel good to yell at her? I wonder.
For now, I just twist and turn under layers of blankets
in a strange bed in a strange room.
My Dog, Dhurrie
Back home, when I was sad or angry,
I’d let my hand fall over the edge of the bed
to where my dog, Dhurrie,
always slept next to me.
I’d stroke his rough coat and he’d
perk up his ears as if he could hear
the words that choked my throat like smoke,
words I never spoke aloud, like
I miss Appa. I want him to come back.
Dhurrie would lick and lick my hand
with his slobbery tongue
so that all I could think of as I fell asleep
was how his kisses were as warm and gooey
as sweet semolina pudding.
The Day Dhurrie and I Met
When we went to the shelter, the other dogs
snorted, whined, barked, howled, but he
waited quietly, as if he knew
I’d pick him. He wagged his brown tail, thumpety-thump.
I wanted to hide in his kind, dark eyes.
One of his ears perked up and the
other ear folded down,
like origami artwork just starting out.
He sniffed my hand with his wet black nose.
His floppy red tongue lapped at my fingers.
I tickled him under his chin and
didn’t mind his river of drool.
Sort of liked it because it showed he liked me.
I named him Dhurrie because his coat felt
comfortable, like the handwoven dhurrie rug
in Thatha and Patti’s home, where we’d moved
after Appa left us.
I’m pretty sure Thatha only let me get a dog
because he wanted to help cheer me up.
Ever since my father moved to another city,
he’s never written or spoken to me.
He only ever called to argue with Amma.
He stopped caring about me, and I tried pretending
I didn’t care either. But Thatha could see
straight through to my heart.
Jet-lagged
The American night is filled with sounds
so different from home:
the hum of the huge refrigerator,
the hiss and clank of the radiator.
After a while I sleep, but I wake up too early.
I tiptoe across the too-cold-for-bare-feet floor and try
to calm myself by doing yoga in the family room,
stretching up like a tree,
the way I’d do each morning with Patti.
But there are no warm breezes here.
It’s really cold.
Then I have a better idea. I find my flute,
lift it to my lips, and blow softly. Steadily.
I fill the American air with Indian music.
As the notes rise, so does the sun.
And slowly, my spirit lifts too.
Walk on the Beach
Down the street from our
Equal Opportunity Housing apartments
(which are surrounded by unequal humongous houses)
is the Atlantic Ocean.
I’ve never seen a beach so empty—except
during a monsoon downpour.
Instead of hawkers shouting about their wares,
seagulls squawk and soar and circle us.
Isn’t it lovely we live so near the sea? Amma says.
She’s in one of her happy moods.
I do love being by the water and hearing
the swish of the sea,
but now I’m just trying to stay warm,
huddled in the heavy coat my aunt gave me.
Come on! Don’t look so glum, Geetha!
In spite of the cold,
my mother takes off her shoes and wades into the water.
She lets out a shriek and I burst out laughing.
Her silliness is catching.
Yelping, I dip a toe into the wide, watery blanket,
which spreads all the way to the shores of Chennai city,
where Patti and Thatha and Vishnu and Dhurrie
must be sleeping.
I imagine this gray Narragansett Bay
turning into the blue Bay of Bengal: a connecting thread
carrying my touch close to them.
And the thought warms me.
Secondhand Life
We’re going to a garage sale, Amma announces.
