by Jasmin Kaur
Dedication
for Gayatri,
whose wisdom guided
so much of this work
trigger warnings
sexual assault
police brutality
immigrant trauma
victim-blaming
domestic violence
alcoholism
depression
anxiety
Foreword
This story was imagined and written prior to Covid-19. For an in-depth discussion on how the pandemic would have affected protagonists Kiran and Sahaara, please see the notes section. If you wish to avoid spoilers about key plot points, do not read the notes section until you have completed the novel.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
trigger warnings
foreword
kiran: august 2001–march 2002
i wasn’t exactly sure
when i landed the earth did not immediately shatter
like morning sickness choices felt foreign to my body
the phone call home
so i simply spit out the two words she needed to know
the reason
lost and found
the morning after
in the kitchen
biology major
freshie
funland
hey, kiran?
a lovely family dinner
sometimes i wondered
the talk
it’s not a terrible thing
another universe
searching for my spine
joti told me
weighing my options
a cup of cha and light conversation
spilled milk
an ultimatum
dear mom,
this isn’t a poem.
the vaginal exam
three months
six months
nine months
ਸਹਾਰਾ / sahaara (n)
the social worker
on the perfect mom
our paths diverged
and so i stayed there
kiran: january 2005–september 2005
a very long day
how i survived
august 4, 2005
the tragedy of september
sahaara: august 2012–june 2019
being a kid sucked.
grade five
grade six
grade seven
then came my anger
my heart crashed into the rocks
google search
a confession
another confession
jeevan
welcome to eighth grade
the anxiety came heaviest at night
sahaara, can we talk?
grade nine
the wounded deer
grade ten
learner’s permit
grade eleven
sahaara: august 2019–january 2020
an introduction
just before i left the party
grade twelve
halloween
the house party
ਪੰਗਾ / panga / trouble
trigger
so how was your night?
by the end of november i’d already told him too much
an honest self-portrait
flirting with temptation
things to do when the boy you liked couldn’t make it (again)
all the reasons why i am enough
selfie
it was an unspoken rule
january 1, 2020
revelations
why didn’t you tell me?
sahaara: march 2020–august 2020
the unexpected blooms of spring
my grandmother’s smile
for a child to sponsor their parent’s immigration
choosing one half of my heart
the doe
just look at me
coping
my random-point-in-the-year resolution
a thread of joy, severed
prom
grad caps & feels
we didn’t go to dry grad
this summer
the last days of august were slipping through our fingers
the fight at the restaurant
the butterflies in my stomach
an impossible woman
financial planning
dead prez bumped
my mind was a whirlpool
a series of collisions in the parking lot
desperate measures
kiran: midnight, september 1, 2020
beneath a moonless sky
behind the veil
the veil tears
sahaara: september 2020–february 2021
if i tell you the truth
the unspeakable
hari ahluwalia
tonight
the next morning
waking from a bad dream
i google his name again
we mail the pr application
sahaara: february 2021–june 2021
i have never known a rage like this
the letter
i didn’t mean to find the letter
conflicted
nervousness flutters in mom’s voice
speaking sach to power
helpless
before i get into my bed
on sunday, the world will know my truth
perspectives
at the gurdwara
of course, the aunties weigh in
hope
despair
depression feels like
at four in the morning
i am unraveling
questions for an absent mother
we knock on the door
project (re)proposal
the water in his eyes
how do you know it’s real?
what would lisbeth do?
after all this running
the night before the flight
mom’s rules for mumbai
departures
the plane builds speed
my daughter sleeps in my lap
mom is drifting off against my shoulder
customs
arrivals
the taj hotel
i suppose it’s beautiful
please
miss dhanjal
motherhood is
just before sleep steals her away
the silence is haunting
sleepless, i check whatsapp
a rough start
wrong move
aasra shelter
the interviews
portrait ii: khushi
portrait iii: saima
portrait iv: radhika
an afterthought
friendship
sahaara is getting her makeup done
now or never
that which is etched into my bones
you are not your dna
dear universe
hardeep
closure
lotus & bee café
amid darkness, a glistening moment
the city is in motion
the physics of my honesty
checkmate
on the napkin
breaking free
dear body
while mom sleeps
him
jeevan
i’ve been poring over priyanka’s book
the rest of the painting
election day
to be read aloud
Notes
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Praise
Books by Jasmin Kaur
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&n
bsp; Copyright
About the Publisher
some stories
bury themselves so deep
within the flower bed of the mind
that the earth trembles. throbs.
when they are dug out.
Deep breath in. Deep breath out.
You’ve done this before. You can work through a panic attack.
Focus on something specific. Something that can bring you back down to earth.
I remember my daughter’s eyes. They are oceans of deep brown, but if you catch them in the light, they are liquid amber. Round as my own and glistening with a hopefulness that is foreign to me, they are so very similar to another pair that still appears in my dreams. A pair of eyes that she will never meet, although their owner still breathes. She has a smile that digs deep into her cheeks, a smile that soothes my trembling hands more times a day than I can count. Her mess of wavy, jet-black hair is just as unruly as mine. It frames honeyed brown skin that illuminates beneath the sun and hides a tiny, rose-shaped scar just above her right ear.
And then there’s her jaw.
It is a sharpened blade so unlike my rounded chin. I suppose I should confess that there are moments when the resemblance is too much. When, out of the corner of my eye, I think I see someone else hidden there: the man who has, unknowingly, placed me in the back seat of this police vehicle.
kiran
august 2001–march 2002
i wasn’t exactly sure
if this could be considered
running away from home
when my parents were the ones
who put me on the flight
and waved goodbye at the terminal
go to school
study hard
come home
don’t get into any trouble
in between.
when i landed
the earth did not
immediately shatter
and wasn’t it dizzying
how my aunt and uncle picked me up
from vancouver international airport
and i made perfectly polite small talk
all the way to surrey
as though absolutely nothing was wrong
as though i could, in fact, be the girl
mom had always expected:
the well-behaved girl
the masked girl
the studious girl
who would go to school
and then marry the perfect man
from the perfect family
just for her mother’s
nod of approval
as though i hadn’t thrown up twice on the plane
and rehearsed the phone call exactly eleven times
(i still wasn’t ready)
i’d left chandigarh
the only home i’d ever known
at the height of a humid august
with a tiny secret blossoming in my belly
and canada greeted me with chilly wind
dry as bark against my unexpecting skin
as if the earth herself needed to remind me
that nothing would be the same.
like morning sickness
choices felt foreign
to my body
my parents’ demands usually
came packaged as suggestions:
biology is the best field to enter.
don’t you want to be successful?
good families want foreign-educated
daughters-in-law with homegrown morals.
you should study in canada.
imagine how easy
your life would be if you
married into the ahluwalia family.
go meet their son for lunch.
get to know him more.
the engagement doesn’t
need to be soon.
why don’t you marry prabh
after you finish your
university program?
when i missed my period
two weeks after xxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
that day i needed to scrub
from my mind forever
when i smuggled the pregnancy test
from a shop where no one
would recognize me
when i stared at that little +
unblinking, unmoving
something cracked
beneath my chest
i knew i needed
to make a decision
—and quick
i knew that this decision
could only come from me.
the phone call home
there was no blueprint for it
no easy way to tell my mother the truth
when we were two icy continents
who only knew each other from afar
i didn’t know how to say
that the boy i thought i loved
had called me a liar
that his brother had done something
i needed to burn from my memory
that my body had become an enemy
i was forced to live with day and night
that i was terrified and shattering
and ached to be held
that i needed my mom.
so i simply spit out
the two words
she needed to know
i’m pregnant.
what do you mean?
i mean—i’m
pregnant.
this is why i told you
to be careful
when you are alone with prabh!
it doesn’t matter whether
you are engaged or not.
a man is still a man.
i hesitated for a moment.
i couldn’t bring myself to tell her.
the reason
when mom asked
whether i’d scheduled the abortion
it wasn’t so much a question
as it was a matter of fact
in what universe
would her teenage daughter
who had just crossed an ocean
plan to raise a baby?
she would never know
how my frost-coated heart
pined for someone
to call its own.
lost and found
between the pages of a story
i could hide from all of them
and me
but in poetry
i found a mirror
a place where light
could return to my chest
on this endless, tearful night
the sea of my stomach churned
as i searched for rest
in a bed that wasn’t mine
and i tried not to shiver
thinking of the storm brewing
in my mother
slowly but surely
the star-drenched words
of hafiz and rumi
steadied my breath
asking me to trust
that stiller waters could exist
somewhere in this body.
the morning after
My thumb traced over the words printed on yellow-worn paper as a fresh tear betrayed me. Rumi’s Sufi poem insisted that what I sought was also seeking me.
I wanted, so painfully, to believe him.
A fat droplet slipped through my fingers and landed directly on the ghazal. Over the months since the violation, it had almost become a ritual to cry into this book. Dried tears jutted from its pages like ribs peeking out from skin. Each tear was an emblem of a lonely night when I wanted to break free of my body. They were evidence of hurt but also proof that I could solidify and survive.
I was seeking safety. If safety was seeking me in return, I would kiss its hands in gratitude. In my eighteen years of existence, I’d never felt more alone, more vulnerable, more heart-shatteringly afraid.
Last night, my aunt and uncle picked me up from the airport and drove me to their home in Surrey. Sitting in what would be my
bedroom while I was living in Canada, I made the most terrifying phone call of my life.
I told Mom that I was pregnant. My mom. As in, Hardeep Kaur. As in, the woman who once told me that I couldn’t use tampons because they’d take away my virginity.
There was no going back, no more delaying the inevitable series of catastrophes that would arise from her only child being pregnant out of wedlock. What was going through her mind? What was she doing? Where was she sending her earth-rumbling rage now that I was no longer in arm’s reach?
I dabbed at the fallen tear with my gray cotton sleeve and reluctantly closed the book’s saffron cover. Its spine couldn’t support me forever. Chachi had already knocked on the bedroom door twice, asking if I was ready for breakfast.
It was nearly noon.
With a sigh, I dropped The Musings of Rumi among the perfectly folded chunnis and jeans and hoodies sitting in my oversized suitcase. I would try to unpack later today. Perhaps it would help me settle into these new surroundings.
Right now, I had to put on a show for Chachi. It wouldn’t be long before she’d return to the door, wondering if everything was okay. I’d be forced to sit with her in the kitchen and make small talk without:
a) Bursting into tears because of the cells proliferating in my abdomen and my mom’s burning anger and, well, my entire catastrophic life
b) Projectile vomiting, courtesy of violent morning sickness
Two very difficult tasks, but if Mom had prepared me for anything, it was holding it together before an audience. Composure, she would say. You keep your composure no matter what. Digging through neatly packed stacks of clothing, I carefully drew out a thick black shawl that could hide my blooming stomach.
At nearly three months pregnant, I was starting to show. I mean, I didn’t think I was showing until Mom made those putrid comments outside the security gate at Delhi Airport. In my mother’s typical fashion, she went on a heated tirade about how I didn’t look like a girl worthy of marriage into the Ahluwalia family. Kiran, you need less butter on your praunté and more sit-ups in your workout routine, she had said. At the acid of her words, I squeezed my nails into my sweaty palm, willing my tongue not to snap back. I was about to leave her and Dad’s side for the first time in my life. Four years of university in Canada. Four years of oxygen. Four years to figure myself out without the fire of my parents’ scrutiny hot against my skin.