by Jasmin Kaur
“It was my mistake to listen to Prabh’s mom,” she pressed on. “You should have never been alone with him.”
I said nothing. I wouldn’t beg her to believe me.
“Does your chachi know? Did you tell anyone? Please tell me you kept your mouth shut about this.”
My eyes met hers for the first time. “Why would I tell the family? To be called a liar?”
“Good.” She breathed a sigh of relief. This was why she’d come: to save face. “We’ll schedule the abortion.”
Then she left the room just as suddenly as she had entered, and it was as if a tidal wave had hit me once again.
it’s not a terrible thing
to be alone
when you have
at the very least
yourself
but i didn’t.
but i didn’t.
i’d never even
spoken to
that girl.
another universe
the palest green envy curdled within me
when i met joti’s mom
her kind questions had nothing to do with
my weight or worth or achievements
her soft arms cradled a warmth
that carried into her smile
she filled the kitchen with savory laughter
and held joti like her very existence was a miracle
when she hugged me
it was as if we’d known each other forever
and i couldn’t help but wonder
what life would be like if i was hers.
searching for my spine
Two days cramped in a house with Mom was enough to make me want to run to Joti’s place and stay there until well past sunset. In the forty or so hours that Mom had been in Canada, she’d quietly danced around her anger when my aunt and uncle were nearby. As soon as they were out of sight, though, she’d eye me like she’d never seen anything more miserable. Whenever the house was empty, save for us, she’d hole herself up in my bedroom—our bedroom as long as she was here—and make calls to abortion clinics, as if the pregnancy was hers. As if the choice was hers. When Mom hovered near me, I did my best to keep it together. I saved my silent melt-downs for the bathroom.
A tangled garden of family photos filled the otherwise blank walls of Joti’s bedroom. I was transfixed by the portrait in the center. A short, turbaned man and a young, round-faced woman in a salwar kameez had their arms wrapped around two young girls. They all appeared to be caught on camera mid-laugh. Something about the picture made my heart swell and sink at once.
“Your dad?”
Joti smiled sadly. “Yep. That’s Taran Singh.”
“And that’s Deepi?” I pointed to the little girl in a frothy pink dress standing in front of Aunty Jee.
“Yup.” She was a head taller than Joti and wore her hair in a long braid. Joti, who couldn’t have been older than five, had her hair in two tiny pigtails below her ears. Her gray T-shirt was emblazoned with a grinning Daffy Duck.
Joti ran her fingers over the portrait as if she was trying to absorb the happiness that emanated from the preserved moment. Then she shook her head and returned to the room. On her bed was a hot bowl of buttery popcorn, two unopened cans of root beer, and an elaborate array of DVDs and VHS tapes.
“Are you feeling Bollywood or Hollywood?” Joti asked.
I pushed aside Kate Winslet’s and Leonardo DiCaprio’s sappy faces on the Titanic DVD and reached for Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. Kajol, my favorite Bollywood star, smiled next to Shah Rukh Khan, the bane of Joti’s existence. “I thought you hated this movie . . .”
“It’s my sister’s.” She sniffed at the VHS in disdain. “But I’m up for a critical feminist viewing if you are.”
Soon, Rahul and Tina appeared on the miniature TV screen resting on Joti’s black dresser. Tina was lying in a hospital bed holding her newborn daughter. In a white hospital gown, with tears welling in her eyes, she kissed the newborn’s forehead. With little time to live, Tina hoped that young Anjali would remember her through letters. Rahul joined his wife at the bed, refusing to look at her.
“Okay. Not gonna lie. This part is sad,” Joti murmured.
“Is Rahul really so bad?” I mumbled. A lump formed in my throat as he grabbed Tina’s hand.
“He’s the worst. Tina, though?” She sighed. “She’s worth the tears.”
Ten-year-old Anjali was now on the screen preparing to give a speech. She reached into a bowl to pull out a random topic. When she froze, petrified by the word that she’d chosen, so did I.
I knew what was coming and tried to hold it together. The only word to escape her mouth was mom.
Tears overtook the little girl and her father delivered her speech on her behalf. He told the audience how a mother’s love was incomparable. How Anjali’s mother was everything. How her absence had hollowed them.
Then I did something I was beginning to hate.
I began to cry. I cried because Rahul’s words felt both familiar and foreign. I cried because I wanted to be held. Because I was aching for a different life—one in which I could leave all my sorrow in my mother’s lap. I cried because I desperately wanted a mother. A family. Someone to call my own.
“Kiran,” Joti whispered. “You okay?” I suddenly remembered my surroundings.
“Yeah . . . um . . . that scene just gets to me.” While Joti was a little teary-eyed, my cheeks were dripping wet. The salmon walls of her bedroom slid in and out of focus as I tried to blink away my hurt.
“Are you sure?” Joti paused the movie and turned to face me, features stained with worry. “If you want to talk, I’m here.”
What was I supposed to tell her? Where did I even begin? I supposed I should address the elephant in the room. Or, perhaps, the embryo.
“I, um, I’m pregnant.”
“Oh . . .” Her mouth formed an O shape and she blinked a few times. “Okay. That’s . . . wow.”
“Yeah.” The words landed one atop the other, like Joti’s seed of care had broken a dam in my throat. “Things have happened that have gutted me. Like, completely emptied me out and turned me into a shell and I’ve been so alone and confused and I know I can’t ask my family for help and that’s the most painful part.”
Joti gently nodded, waiting for me to go on.
“I was too scared to tell my mom when I was in Punjab, so I waited until I got here. She literally flew all the way here just to set me straight. She . . . wants me to get an abortion. She’s already calling clinics.”
“And what do you want?”
I paused.
I thought back to the pregnancy test I took in the damp bathroom stall of a McDonald’s miles from my house. Panic strangled me but so, too, did another emotion: a painful desire to love and be loved without betrayal. “So much shit has happened that’s been outside of my control. The only thing I’ve felt sure about is the fact that I want this baby.”
“What about the father?” she whispered. “Does he know?”
Joti genuinely cared. It showed in her eyes. In her hands that reached intuitively for mine. But there was something about the story that wouldn’t allow me to speak. Each time I had tried to tell the truth only to be called a liar, something shifted within me. Something burned a little hotter. The story had dug itself a hiding place within the earth of my mind. Sunk deeper into a place I was too scared to reach into.
“No” was all I could say.
“Kiran, I—I can’t act like I know what you’re going through. But I want you to remember that your body belongs to you. Whether you choose to keep the baby or not, the decision should be yours.”
“I’ve been trying to tell myself that.” I pulled my knees close to my chest and pushed away the memory. The moment that sparked this whole sickening mess.
“What’s your plan? I don’t know how you’re dealing with this when school’s about to start . . .”
“I have some money saved up. And I can work and study at the same time. Once my st
omach gets bigger, I doubt I’ll be able to stay at my chachi’s house. I’ll have to rent a room somewhere. But the thing is, my mom is sleeping beside me for the next two weeks. There’s no conversation we can have that won’t end ugly. When she’s decided what to do, it’s like I’m not even there.”
“Kiran, I say this with complete love, okay? If you really want this, you’ll have to find your spine and stand up for yourself. You need to be direct with your mom and make it crystal clear that she can’t decide what to do for you. If you don’t, you’ll be under her thumb forever.”
I exhaled, the truth stinging.
“This isn’t gonna be easy, but you won’t be alone. I’m here for you. However I can be.”
I shook my head and a cold tear dripped into my trembling hands. “Why?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why do you want to . . . help me?”
She found my hand and stilled it within her grasp. “Because I don’t know what my family would’ve done when Dad died if we didn’t have each other. We got through it because we had shoulders to cry on and ears willing to listen. Because we had support.”
joti told me
that love was a heavier anchor
than the currents that tried
to force us apart
that humans were not as weak
as their weakest moments
that family could gather
to form a lighthouse
or maybe just a flashlight
when we needed them most
that i was not as alone
as i thought i was
that maybe chachi
would be there for me
if i gave her a chance
to hear my story
weighing my options
my head was a tangled mess
and maybe writing it all down
would help me unravel things.
on a fresh sheet of paper
i listed every reason to tell chachi
and every reason not to
reason to:
joti said i needed to stop
believing that everyone
would fail me.
reason not to:
this was my mess and
i was not her burden.
she didn’t owe me a thing.
reason to:
her home felt like a home.
i didn’t know what that was
before i got here.
reason not to:
to tell this story
was to reopen a wound
and i was so tired of
cleaning blood.
reason to:
what other choice
did i really have?
a cup of cha and light conversation
if mom’s greatest fear
was our whole family finding out about what was inside me
i was lighting a match dangerously close to propane
when i said
chachi, can i talk to you?
the story left me in serrated glass shards
that scraped my esophagus
even though i didn’t tell her everything
(the truth of the conception died in my throat)
as chachi listened
the warm cha in her hands went cold
her wrists trembled
like the story was too much to carry
and she told me that she was better off not knowing
that there was nothing she could do to help
that my chacha would blow a fuse if he knew
that my family could be torn apart by this
but for something to tear apart
i thought to myself
it would have to be together
in the first place.
spilled milk
when mom walked into the kitchen
chacha and my cousin trailing behind her
a grocery bag in each of their hands
chachi stood up way too fast
nearly taking the turquoise tablecloth with her
(i caught the cup of cha before it tipped)
she tried to busy herself with frozen pizza
and boxes of cereal and heads of lettuce
that needed putting away
her voice was shrill and high
and not at all suspicious
whenever she spoke
did you find the chili powder i needed?
how was our day? it was great!
oh, good! you got milk! i forgot to add it to the list!
mom studied chachi in that calculating way
before her gaze drifted, inevitably, to me
her back remained to chachi
when she said, sharp and exact,
bali, you just got a new job at the hospital, right?
what unit was it again?
maternity
chachi whispered
and the jug of milk in her hands
slipped through her fingers
splintering and splattering
all over the floor.
an ultimatum
“It was a mistake, Joti. A huge mistake. I shouldn’t have told Chachi,” I whispered into my phone. I sat on the white carpet of my bedroom, back planted against the lockless door so that I could hear footsteps climbing up the stairs. Streaks of golden-hour light poured over my toes in the otherwise-dim room.
“Shit. Shit-shit-shit. I’m sorry, dude. I really thought she would’ve been helpful.”
“And Mom definitely knows I told.” I shivered. “It was all over Chachi’s face. She dropped a whole jug of milk ’cause she was so nervous in front of my mother.”
How could I have been so stupid?
Tension had wound itself tight around every corner of the house. I was certain that Chachi would let the news slip to Chacha soon. Then Dad would hear about it. And then the tumbling inferno of this situation would be far beyond any remnant of my control, a vicious wildfire so much greater than me.
“I need to start looking for bedrooms to rent,” I whispered soft into the receiver. “Do you think you can help me?”
“Just—just come stay at my place, Kiran.”
“What?”
“Listen. I talked to my mom about you staying at our house. Like, renting out Deepi’s old bedroom—”
“Wait, what?” My heartbeat thrummed in my ears. “You talked to your mom? When?”
“A couple days ago. After our movie night.”
I sat up a little straighter. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t wanna get your hopes up if she wasn’t cool with it.”
“And . . . is she?” I held my breath.
“Yeah. I explained the situation to her and—”
“What? What did you say?” My eyes bulged in panic as realization dawned on me. “Joti, you weren’t supposed to tell her about the pregnancy!”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I just needed to tell her what happened so that she would . . .”
“Feel sorry for me?”
Silence sat between us for a few long seconds. “No, Kiran.” She swallowed. “So that she would understand what was up and know why you need to be in a safe, supportive place.” She paused, her exhale audible. “She’s with you, Kiran. She wants you to come stay. We were trying to rent the room, anyways. No one feels sorry for you, trust me.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, eyes watering, fear casting long shadows on this tiny thread of hope. “Completely and positively sure?”
“I’m sure. We’re ready when you are.”
“Okay.” I nodded into the now-dark bedroom. “I’m going to think through this.”
As I made my way downstairs for dinner, Joti’s offer spun in my mind. My eyes glazed at the thought of her kindness. And her mom’s. I knew that no family was perfect, that Joti’s life was far from easy. But there was still a twinge of envy within me. She and her mom almost seemed like friends. The thought of Mom and me having a heart-to-heart (or talking about anything besides s
chool, work, marriage, and my appearance) was unthinkable.
A memory from Chandigarh fluttered in my eyes. In the spring, Mom had been chatting on the veranda with Naseeb Aunty. She told Aunty that she didn’t know how she’d deal with my doli, the part of a South Asian wedding when the bride officially leaves her parents’ home for her partner’s. Nothing was more awkward than the image of Mom crying as if she’d lose something in my departure.
When I stepped into the kitchen, the lights were out. Confused, I fumbled in the darkness for the light switch.
“SURPRISE!” came a chorus of voices. Mom, Chacha, Joban and Harpreet stood behind the table decorated with pink and blue balloons. A white, sprinkle-covered cake sat before them.
Chachi placed her hands on my shoulders from behind and said, “Happy birthday, Kiran!”
“I—what? You guys didn’t need to do this,” I gasped, fresh tears threatening to form. Guilt flooded my veins, injecting me with the word selfish. Maybe I didn’t deserve these people—any of them. Maybe I was everything that Mom had named me. My family sang “Happy Birthday” loud and melodic, and Chacha told me to make a wish.
I wished for help. For a clear path. For just one thing to be easy.
That night, I lay staring up at the white-stucco ceiling. Mom’s back was to me. She grazed my shoulder with each inhale.
“Everything that we’ve done has been because we want what’s best for you,” she murmured.
My breath was the only noise in the bluish darkness.
“Daughters are like diamonds. They’re precious. They must be protected from those who want to steal them. Or damage them. That’s why we only wanted you to talk to Prabh. Their family . . . we’ve known them all our lives. They’re respectable. They would make your life so easy. And yet . . . you choose to go and do this.”