But Kavita found it hard to smile, even demurely as instructed, when interested families came to visit. Afterward, the boy always found a reason to object to the match. Only after they scraped together a disproportionate dowry were her parents able to secure a husband for Kavita, fulfilling what they considered to be their most important duty. Though Jasu could be a difficult man, Kavita knew she should be grateful. Other husbands in the village were lazy, beat their wives, or squandered their earnings on liquor. And no one wanted to suffer the fate of the poor old women who lived alone, without the protection of a man.
WITH EVERY BUMP OF THE BULLOCK CART ON THE DUSTY ROAD, another jolt of pain shoots through her pelvis. Kavita has been bleeding since soon after they began walking this morning. She wipes up the blood trickling down her leg with the folds of her sari before Rupa notices. She knows that making it to the orphanage in the city is the only chance Usha has. Usha, dawn. The name came to her in the quiet hours of early morning after the midwife left them alone. It echoed in her mind as she gazed at her baby girl, trying to memorize every detail of her face. Amid the first rays of light that crept into the hut, as the cocks crowed the daybreak, Kavita silently named her daughter.
What power there is in naming another living being, she realizes, looking at the child. When she married Jasu, his family changed her name to Kavita, which suited them and the village astrologer better than Lalita, the only name her parents had chosen for her. Her middle and last names came from her father: it was expected these would change to her husband’s. But she resented Jasu for taking her first name as well.
Usha is Kavita’s choice alone, a secret name for her secret daughter. The thought brings a smile to her face. That one day she spent with her daughter was precious. Though she was exhausted, she would not sleep. She didn’t want to miss a single moment. Kavita held her baby close, watched her small body rise and fall with breath, traced her delicate eyebrows and the folds of her tender skin. She nursed her when she cried, and in those few moments when Usha was awake, Kavita saw herself unmistakably in the distinctive gold-flecked eyes, more beautiful on her child than on herself. She could hardly believe this lovely creature was hers. She didn’t allow herself to think beyond that day.
At least this baby girl will be allowed to live—a chance to grow up, go to school, maybe even marry and have children. Kavita knows, along with her daughter, she is forsaking any hope of helping her along the path of life. Usha will never know her parents, but she has a chance at life, and that will have to be enough. Kavita slides one of the two thin silver bangles she always wears from her own frail wrist and slips it onto Usha’s ankle. “I’m sorry I cannot give you more, beti,” she whispers into her downy head.
6
A FAIR ASSUMPTION
San Francisco, California—1984
SOMER
SOMER FROWNS AT HERSELF IN THE MIRROR. SHE TRIES SMOOTHING out her skirt, but it is still snug over her waist and hips, which haven’t quite returned to normal even after a couple months, another cruel reminder of her loss. Her blond hair hangs limply to her shoulders; she cannot remember when she last washed it. As a last effort, she swaps her flat sandals for a pair of sling-back pumps, and applies a touch of lipstick. No need to look as lousy as I feel.
She arrives at the house, where two bunches of pale blue balloons tied to the porch railing announce IT’S A BOY! She takes a deep breath and rings the bell. Almost immediately, the door flings open, and a brunette in a floral dress beams at her. “Hi, I’m Rebecca, everyone calls me Becky. Come in. Here, I’ll take that.” She reaches for the pastel alphabet-covered box under Somer’s arm. “Isn’t this exciting for Gabriella?” Becky claps her hands together and bounces slightly on her toes. Somer looks around and sees a living room full of women like Becky, all holding plates decorated with blue booties.
“How do you know Gabi?” Somer asks, thinking she hasn’t heard her friend called by her full name since the first day of med school.
“Oh, we’re neighbors. This is such a great place to live with kids, you know, much easier than the city. We were so glad when Gabriella and Brian moved here. More playmates for little Richard.” She laughs, running a hand through her wavy brown hair. “And you?”
“Medical school,” Somer replies. “We were classmates.” She looks for an escape route, glancing at the buffet table, which features a punch bowl filled with a suspicious-looking blue concoction. She’s relieved to see Gabi waddling over and tries not to stare too conspicuously at her enormous belly.
“Hi, Somer,” Gabi says, leaning sideways to try to hug her. “Thanks for making the big trek out here to suburbia. I see you’ve met Becky.”
“Gabriella, I was just telling your friend how much we love living in Marin,” Becky says. “Are you married, Somer?”
“Yes, she took pity on one of our classmates…some lowly neurosurgeon,” Gabi answers for her with a wink. Somer braces for the inevitable next question, but it comes too quickly.
“Do you have kids?”
Somer swallows deeply. It feels like someone has opened the freezer door in her face on a hot day. “No, not…yet,” Somer says, her throat tightening.
“Oh, that’s too bad,” Becky says, scrunching up her face into a look of exaggerated pity. “It really is the greatest thing. Well, when you’re ready to make the leap, come join us out here.” Becky leaves to answer the door, and Somer has a momentary vision of grabbing a fistful of her bouncing brown hair.
“Somer, I’m so sorry—” Gabi puts a hand on Somer’s elbow.
“It’s fine,” Somer says, crossing her arms. She feels the lump in her throat growing and her face getting flushed. “I’ll be right back. I need to find the bathroom.” She slips into the hallway, but rather than stopping at the bathroom, she keeps walking right through the front door, getting tangled in the blue balloons as she runs past them and down the driveway. She sits down on the street curb. She cannot face it all again. She can’t go through the baby food tasting contest, or the “guess how big Gabi’s tummy is” game. She can’t watch everyone oohing and ahhing over each darling little outfit. She can’t listen to the women discussing stretch marks and labor pains as rites of passage. Everyone acts as if being a woman and a mother are inextricably intertwined. A fair assumption, since she made it herself. Only now does she know it’s an enormous lie.
THE FIRST TIME SHE HAD A MISCARRIAGE, IT WAS A RELIEF. THEY were only a couple years into their marriage then, still in their residencies, when a pink line on the home pregnancy test ignited their discussions. They had planned to wait until Somer finished her pediatrics residency, when one of them had a steady income and reasonable hours. So when the pregnancy ended a few weeks later, they told themselves it was for the best. But somehow that surprise pregnancy, taken away as unexpectedly as it was received, changed things. Somer found herself noticing pregnant women everywhere, their protruding bellies proudly announcing themselves.
After the miscarriage, she felt guilty for ever having been conflicted. Of course, as a physician, she knew a miscarriage couldn’t be caused by ambivalence. But the obstetrics textbooks neglected to describe the enormous sense of grief that had replaced the tiny speck of baby growing inside her. They didn’t explain how she could feel utterly lost without something she had known about for only a month. Something awakened in her with that first pregnancy, a deep yearning that must have been there all along. She was raised to believe her gender didn’t have to handicap her aspirations. She spent her career thinking she wasn’t like other women. Now, for the first time in her life, she felt exactly like other women.
Somer spent all her free time reading up on fertility in medical journals—eliminating any potential causes of miscarriage, charting her ovulation cycles, and changing her diet. She reported each new finding to Kris but soon recognized the glazed look of disinterest in his eyes. He was still in his neurosurgery residency and didn’t share her intensity about getting pregnant. Fortunately, Somer had enough drive for b
oth of them, so it didn’t seem to matter that for the first time since they’d met, they weren’t forging down the same road.
NOW, SITTING ALONE ON A SUBURBAN SIDEWALK INSTEAD OF drinking blue punch, Somer knows that day, three years ago, has become the dividing line of her life. Before that miscarriage, she remembers being happy—with her work, the house with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge, the friends they saw on weekends. It seemed enough. But since that day, she has felt as if something is missing, something so immense and powerful that it overwhelms everything else. With each passing year and every negative pregnancy test, that void in their lives has grown until it has become an unwelcome member of their family, wedging itself between her and Krishnan.
Sometimes she wishes she could return to the naïve happiness of their earlier life. But mostly, she aches to go forward, to a place her body doesn’t seem willing to take her.
7
SHANTI
Bombay, India—1984
KAVITA
WHEN THE BULLOCK CART DRIVER DROPS OFF KAVITA AND RUPA in the city, the sun is high and they are parched and hungry. They are engulfed by chaotic noises: honking lorries, yelling vendors. The street is crowded with overflowing trucks, assorted livestock, intrepid bicycles, rickshaws, and scooters. They stop to share a single coconut, first drinking the water, and then waiting while the tender coconut flesh is cut from the shell. On both sides, the road is lined by makeshift shacks with corrugated tin roofs; women squat in front, cooking over small fires and scrubbing clothes in buckets of dirty water.
Rupa asks the chaat-wallah for directions to Shanti Orphanage, but he simply shakes his head as he takes in the two women with their conspicuous bare feet and rural garb. She asks a cabdriver leaning idly against his car, who spits betelnut juice onto the road and looks Kavita up and down. They all try to ascertain whether the baby is deformed, or Kavita is unwed or just too poor to keep the child. Finally, a bearded old man roasting peanuts on the corner helps them. He shovels the warm nuts into hand-rolled newspaper cones, and in between his calls of “sing-dhana, garam sing-dhana,” he tells them where to go.
Rupa takes Kavita’s hand tightly in hers and ushers them through crowded footpaths and across busy streets. Kavita struggles to keep up with her sister, stopping only once to nurse the baby. Rupa looks up at the darkening sky and at the people scurrying around them. She leans in and says, “Challo, bena, hold her like this.” Rupa helps her position the nursing baby so she can keep walking. “We have to hurry. It won’t be safe for us here after dark.”
Kavita obliges, walking faster. A few hours from now, she knows, after Jasu has finished his evening meal and sat around the fire drinking and smoking beedis with the other men, he will come looking for her. She will tell him only that he need not worry about the baby, it has been taken care of. He may be angry, perhaps he will even beat her, but what punishment is that compared to what she will already have suffered? For nearly two hours, Kavita and Rupa walk without speaking. Finally they come to the two-story building with peeling blue paint. Standing outside the gate, Kavita’s legs feel like lead and her feet drag with each step. She turns to her sister, shaking her head. “Nai, nai, nai…,” she repeats.
“Bena, come, you must,” Rupa says softly. “There is nothing else you can do. What can you do?” Rupa pulls her by the hand up to the door and rings the bell. Kavita stares at the red-lettered sign, carving into her memory the illegible markings that promise SHANTI, peace. An elderly hunchbacked woman in a faded orange print cotton sari opens the door, holding a short-handled broom.
Kavita watches Rupa speak to the old woman, but all she can hear is the ringing sound in her ears. Who will take care of my baby? This woman? Will she love Usha? Kavita’s mouth feels dry and dusty. The old woman gestures for them to follow her inside and leads them down the hallway to the end. A tall woman in a blue silk sari stands in the doorway of the office.
“Shukriya. Thank you, Sarla-ji. See you next time.” A man’s voice comes from somewhere within the small office. The tall woman turns to leave. In her elegant sari and diamond earrings, she looks as out of place in the orphanage as a Bengal tiger. Upon seeing the sisters, she smiles and nods slightly, then continues past them.
Inside the office, a middle-aged man with a mop of black hair is squinting at a typewriter through horn-rimmed glasses. “Sahib,” Rupa says, “we have a baby for your orphanage.”
The man looks up toward the door. His eyes focus first on Rupa, then on Kavita standing behind her, and finally rest upon the baby in her arms. “Yes, yes, of course. Please have a seat. I am Arun Deshpande. You must have had a long journey,” he says, noting their disheveled appearance. “Please, will you take some tea or water?” he asks, gesturing to the old woman to bring it.
“Thank you, yes,” Rupa answers for both of them.
At this small show of kindness, Kavita begins to cry silently, the tears tracing two lines on her dust-streaked cheeks. She is thirsty—yes, of course she is thirsty. Her head is throbbing from heat and hunger. Her feet ache with cuts and blisters from walking through the city. She is exhausted from the journey, and from the childbirth, and from the hours of labor before that. She has slept little in the past few days. She is tired from all this, and even more from the looks she has seen on so many faces she has encountered today, looks of shame.
“Just a few questions,” he says, picking up a clipboard and a pen. “Child’s name?”
“Usha,” Kavita says quietly. Rupa looks over at her, a startled sadness in her eyes.
Arun makes a note. “Date of birth?”
These are the last words Kavita hears clearly. She holds Usha close, the baby’s head tucked under her chin, and begins to sway slightly. In the distance, she hears Rupa answer him. Kavita closes her eyes, and her crying becomes louder until Arun’s questions and Rupa’s answers fade to a background murmur and she almost forgets they are there. She almost forgets where she is. Kavita continues like this, weeping and rocking, oblivious to the persistent ache in her pelvis, and the bloodied, cracked soles of her feet, until she is interrupted by Rupa shaking her shoulder.
“Bena, it’s time,” Rupa says, gently reaching for the baby in Kavita’s arms. And now, all Kavita can hear is screaming. As she feels Usha pried from her hands, she hears only the screaming inside her head, then the shrieks coming from her own mouth. She hears Usha wailing. She sees Rupa yelling at her, watches her mouth moving, making the same silent words over and over. She feels Rupa firmly pulling her up by the shoulders and pushing her down the hallway toward the front door. Kavita’s arms are still outstretched, but they hold nothing. After the metal gate clangs shut behind them, Kavita can still hear Usha’s piercing wail echoing inside.
8
OUT OF OPTIONS
San Francisco, California—1984
SOMER
“HONEY, DID YOU HEAR ME?” KRIS HOLDS BOTH OF HER HANDS in his lap as they sit facing each other on the sofa in their living room. Somer tries to recall what he just said.
“I said, we have other options,” he says.
She looks around the room and notices he has lit some candles and drawn the window shades. A bottle of red wine and two glasses sit on the coffee table, next to a thick brown envelope. She hears the sounds of rush hour traffic and the N-Judah streetcar squealing outside. When did all this happen? Wasn’t it just an hour ago we were sitting in the doctor’s office?
Somer had finally insisted they go to a fertility specialist. She was tired of waiting for nature to take its course, fed up with opening a bottle of wine every month as her consolation prize for another negative pregnancy test. If they knew what their problem was, she reasoned, they would be able to do something about it. She suspected it was her fault. Kris came from a big family, and each of his brothers already had a couple of children. Somer was an only child, though her parents never discussed the matter.
This afternoon in the doctor’s office, they were given the diagnosis she had been dreading. It was
her fault. Premature ovarian failure. Early menopause. It all made sense now. For the past year, she’d been having irregular cycles: missed periods followed by heavy ones. She thought it was her hormones fluctuating with the symptoms of early pregnancy, but all this time, it was her reproductive system slowly grinding to a halt. Within another year, the doctor said, her menopause would be complete. By the time she reaches the age of thirty-two, she will no longer have the ability to bear children, the one thing that defines her as a woman. What will I be then? She has spent her whole life competing with the boys, compensating for her femininity, tempting fate it would seem.
“Have you given any thought to what we discussed?” Kris asks. “Adopting? My mother says the orphanage can move quickly—maybe even less than nine months,” he says with a lopsided smile. He’s been intent on this orphanage in Bombay where his mother is a patron. The process is supposed to be quick if at least one prospective parent is Indian and can show proof of sufficient assets.
“That’s not funny.” She lays her head against the cushions. “You’re giving up on us.”
“No, honey, I’m not…”
“Then why do you keep bringing this up? We can keep trying. The doctor said—”
“—the chances are extremely low.”
“Low, not impossible.” Somer pulls her hands back into her own lap.
“Honey, we’ve tried everything. Dr. Hayworth said you’re not a good candidate for that new in-vitro technique, and even if you were, I don’t want them experimenting on your body. Honey, look at what this is doing to you. This isn’t good for us. Look, you want to have a family, don’t you?”
She nods, digging her fingernails into her palms to hold off the tears.