A House for Happy Mothers: A Novel

by Amulya Malladi

  Two days after she was laid off, Priya decided to take advantage of all the time she had now and do something meaningful with it.

  “What’re you doing?” Madhu asked as he stood outside the baby’s room.

  “Making beef bourguignon,” Priya said as she dipped a paint roller in a paint tray.

  “Right,” Madhu said. “So, we’re going with . . . pink?”

  “Sherman Williams calls it ‘Coming Up Roses,’” Priya said, looking up. “I’m going out of my mind. I had to do something.”

  “OK,” Madhu said.

  “The paint was on sale,” Priya added, in case he thought she was spending too much money.

  “Can I help?” Madhu asked. “I just need to change.”

  Priya shook her head. “Nope. This is my project. And once I’m done with the walls, I’m going to sew curtains.”

  “You’re going to sew?” Madhu asked.

  “Yes,” Priya said.

  Madhu nodded and turned to leave. He turned back after taking two steps. “Are you in Energizer Bunny mode?”

  “Yes,” Priya said, and focused on painting the second wall in the room.

  “This means I get lucky tonight?”

  Priya looked up from the wall and laughed. “Maybe.”

  “This whole layoff thing might just be what our sex life needed,” Madhu said as he left to change.

  “You’d better order some takeout,” Priya called after him. “The Energizer Bunny was too busy to cook.”

  In retrospect, the first week was the hardest.

  The boredom was exhausting.

  The waiting was debilitating.

  She had too much time on her hands, and maybe that was what made her come up with the idea of going to India early. It cemented itself while she was on the phone with Asha. It was ridiculous that they were talking on the phone, struggling to make conversation, when she could just be there, she thought. She could stay with Madhu’s parents. She could drive down to Asha, spend time with her, get to know her and her family, and see the belly that was swollen with her child.

  Asha had talked about the news crew that would come the following Monday. She sounded less unsure about it than she had the last time they had spoken. She had complained about some backache but had also assured Priya that the masseuse hired by Happy Mothers was helping with that.

  She said she was getting tired more easily. But she was enjoying taking the computer classes. With Asha it was always sunshine and rain at the same time. She complained about one thing while she praised another. She seemed almost afraid to bitch and moan about one thing without making a point to appreciate another. And she would always tell Priya that the baby was fine—like three to four times during one conversation.

  “I have a backache. But the baby is fine.

  “I miss my children. But the baby is fine.

  “I’m tired all the time. But the baby is fine.”

  Maybe it would be better to just be in India and check on Asha directly.

  “You’ll go out of your mind there,” Madhu said.

  “No, I won’t,” Priya said.

  Madhu had been traveling for work while she had been fermenting her Indian idea. She hadn’t wanted to discuss it over the phone and had offered to pick him up at the airport, bubbling with excitement. She hadn’t been able to wait until they were home and out of traffic to start the conversation, and got into it before she had driven them out of the airport onto the freeway.

  “My mother will drive you mad with her eat-this-and-eat-that,” Madhu said. “And the whole meet-this-person-and-that-person routine. They will try to introduce you to every relative we have in a hundred-mile radius, and that’s a lot of relatives, babe.”

  “Relatives I can handle. Do you think they’ll mind if I stayed in their house for two months?” Priya asked.

  “Mind? Hell, they’ll be delighted. Their daughter-in-law staying with them and then their granddaughter,” Madhu said, and then put his hand on her thigh. “You’ll find another job, you know. The finance geeks keep saying it’s going to get better.”

  “The finance geeks have not been very good at predicting the world’s economic health, so maybe we shouldn’t trust them blindly,” Priya said.

  “Can we think about it for just a little bit before buying a ticket?” Madhu suggested.

  And before Priya could respond, he deftly changed the topic. “Wanna hear a good story? I guarantee it’ll cheer you up.”

  “OK,” Priya said, changing lanes, her driving slightly more aggressive than usual because she was feeling impatient.

  “Something interesting happened to me in Albuquerque. Now, I’ve been traveling throughout my career. I’m a sales guy; that’s what we do. But this was the first time that a woman made a pass at me,” Madhu said, sounding very smug.

  Priya angled her head, keeping one eye on traffic and one on Madhu, waiting for the punch line.

  “So now that women are making passes at me, do you really think it’s a good time for you to leave me alone for months on end?” Madhu asked.

  “One woman is not women making passes at you,” Priya said as she took the Guadalupe Parkway exit from 101 to get on 87. “Tell me about this woman.”

  “Well, of course she was gorgeous.”

  “Of course.”

  “She worked for some pharmaceutical company. Also in sales. A Chanel suit type of person,” Madhu said.

  “And how would you know, Mr. Fashion Forward?” Priya asked sarcastically.

  “She told me in reference to taking the Chanel suit off and getting comfortable in her suite. I had a standard room. She had a suite. She was a top salesperson,” Madhu said, grinning from ear to ear.

  “Let’s hear the whole story from start to finish, and if it ends with you divesting her of her Chanel suit, you’d better tell me now so I can kick you out of the car,” Priya said.

  Madhu laughed. “I’m flattered. I was having a drink at the bar alone after dinner. And this woman came and sat next to me. We started to talk, and somehow we were talking about our spouses and how lonely it gets on the road. And then she suggested that we keep each other company.”

  “And when did she mention her suit was Chanel?” Priya asked, and turned right onto Alma Avenue.

  “Right then when she talked about us keeping each other company. She mentioned she’d been wearing her Chanel suit all day and was dying to get out of it and into something more comfortable,” Madhu said. “She asked me if I’d like to join her for a nightcap in her room. She actually said ‘nightcap.’ I told her I was tired and heading to bed. And that was when . . . Are you even jealous? Because if you’re not, this is a complete waste of my time.”

  “Of course I’m jealous. So no nookie in the grand suite?” Priya asked as she drove onto their driveway and buzzed open the garage door.

  “Not even a peck on the cheek,” Madhu said, and leaned back on the car seat.

  “You seem enormously pleased with yourself,” Priya said, and laughed. “You liked getting hit on, didn’t you?”

  “You know, you get married and get settled and you stop looking at women as you used to. And you forget that feeling you get when a woman is interested in you. It felt good,” Madhu admitted.

  “Stop feeling good,” Priya admonished, closing the garage door and shrouding them in the bulb-illuminated darkness of the garage. “You’re married with a kid on the way. I don’t want to be coming back from India to find panties, bras, and Chanel suits lying around.”

  “I only like your panties,” Madhu said as he got out of the car, and then looked at Priya earnestly while she still sat in the driver’s seat. “I don’t want you to go to India for two months. Not because you’ll go out of your mind—because I will.”

  He might not buy flowers or sexy lingerie, but Madhu knew romance.

  Transcript from message board www.surrogacyforyou.org

  Newbie1209: We’re going to Anand in Gujarat! My husband has agreed to use a surrogate. And you gu
ys have been such a great help. I even showed him the message board and the other websites you all told me about. He never thought we’d have a baby like this, but now he’s all for it. The cost of doing this in India has been most appealing . . . what with the economy and everything. In the States it’s crazy expensive. So thank you!

  LastHope77: OMG! This is great news. Fabulous. Congrats. When are you going to India?

  UnoBaby: This is wonderful news. So, what do you think of the clinic?

  Newbie1209: We’re going to leave next month. And yes, we have been talking to the clinic. It seems like a very professional place.

  NobuNobi: We’re leaving this month as well. Our SM is having our baby soon. She crosses the thirty-seven-week mark next week. We can hardly wait to see our baby boy.

  Trying1Time: My SM is not due until October, but I just got laid off and I’m thinking of going to India. My husband is Indian and he has family there, so I have someone to stay with. Has anyone done that? How does it work out?

  Mommy8774: I did. I couldn’t stand it. I’m a stay-at-home mom so it made sense. I went in the seventh month and it was actually difficult. There’s the language, of course, and I had a hard time living in India. But I got to see the baby bulge every day and it sort of gave me some peace of mind. But if your husband is Indian and you speak the language, I think you should go for it.

  NearlyMother: I would soooooo go if I could. If financially you can afford it, do it. And if you have family there . . . why not?

  CantConceive1970: Just do what your heart says. If you want to go, go. Just remember that you’re not going to become great friends with your SM. Do you want to? And what about the language barrier, like Mommy8774 mentioned?

  Trying1Time: Well, I do speak some Telugu. That’s how I have been speaking to her over the phone.

  Prietysmommy: Why is it that you want to go? What do you hope to achieve? Don’t get me wrong. I fully support your decision, but have you asked yourself why you want to go?

  LastHope77: I have been thinking about this, too. Our SM is nearly eight months pregnant but I have a job and I can’t just take time off and leave. But even if we could afford for me to go . . . still, I can’t think what I’d do there for a whole month before the baby was born. It isn’t like I know this woman or have anything to talk to her about.

  Trying1Time: I don’t know what I’ll achieve by going there, but I’m going out of my mind without a job, sitting, worrying about the baby. My husband doesn’t want me gone for two months, but I’m very tempted. I’m half Indian but have never lived in India; this could be a way to connect with my heritage and be around my baby.

  Prietysmommy: It sounds like you’re trying to run away from the fact that you got laid off. I don’t make any judgments here, but have you asked the SM if she wants you hanging around her all the time?

  Trying1Time: It won’t be all the time. Just a little bit every day.

  CantConceive1970: Look, you have to do what you feel is the right thing. It sounds like there’s more to your going to India than just the baby—you also want to discover your roots. You should go and if you don’t like it, it’s not like it’s for the rest of your life; it’s just two months.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  There were two white people and three Indians as part of the TV crew that came to Happy Mothers. They brought cameras, big awkward lighting equipment, umbrellas, and shiny round surfaces with them. They talked to one another in English and had taken over the TV room and hall. But no one wanted to watch TV, anyway. The crew talking and yelling at one another was far more interesting than anything on television.

  “Light OK?” seemed to be the phrase that was thrown around the most.

  Asha wore the nicest sari she had, yellow pattu silk with a red border. It had been given to her at her wedding. She had asked Pratap to bring it the previous day. Divya had gotten them jasmine flowers for their hair, and the three women chosen to speak to the news crew were all dressed up as if they were going to a posh wedding.

  They all looked like they came from well-off families rather than being poor women who came from slums and were forced to carry the babies of rich people. They looked like women who were indeed doing this out of the goodness of their hearts.

  Divya checked on them, asking them if they were OK, if they needed anything, suggesting extra powder on their foreheads, even though the makeup person kept saying that she had been told to do just the minimum, especially since their faces would be covered.

  “This is a documentary, not a feature film,” the woman said.

  Divya introduced Asha, Gangamma, and Vinita to one of the Indian women in the crew. The woman wore brown pants and a loose white shirt. Her name was Farida. A Muslim name. But she didn’t wear a burka, as Asha had seen other Muslim women wear. She spoke in Telugu with them, sprinkled with many English words, most of which Asha understood. Hindi and Telugu movies these days were littered with so many English words that even India’s most illiterate could pick up some of the language.

  “If you’re not comfortable with anything, let me know,” Farida said to them in Telugu, using the English word comfortable.

  She introduced them to the others then. Asha didn’t pick up the white man’s or the white woman’s name. The cameraman, as Farida called him, was Indian, and his name was Ashok. He was young, maybe in his twenties, and wore a white T-shirt with the word BENETTON written in English. He spoke no Telugu and tried to communicate with them in a mixture of Hindi and English, which they mostly understood.

  “This will be simple,” Farida told them. “Sissy here will ask the questions”—she pointed to the white woman, who smiled at them—“and I will translate so you can answer.”

  Vinita was visibly nervous. This was her first time as a surrogate.

  “It will be just like we talked about,” Divya said to them. “You don’t have to be nervous.”

  Farida walked around with the cameraman and the white man, moving lights and a large microphone on a stick.

  The other women peeked in from the door leading into the television room. There was an air of excitement throughout the house. The daily routine was interrupted. The interviews had replaced the afternoon soap operas for the day.

  Keertana had pushed her way ahead and was shushing the women behind her, asking them to quit shoving.

  “We would also like to shoot the bedrooms,” Farida said to Divya. “Maybe we can interview one of the women there?”

  “Sure,” Divya said, and looked at the three of them, as if making a decision as to whom to pick. “Gangamma can be in her room when you talk to her.”

  “OK,” Farida said. “Maybe you could wait outside, Divya? We’ll start doing some test runs now, and it will be less inhibiting for the women to talk to us without you here.”

  Farida was speaking in Telugu to Divya, so Asha could understand them.

  “But they’re nervous, and I think they will feel more comfortable if I’m here,” Divya said adamantly.

  Vinita and Asha looked at each other. It was obvious that the TV people didn’t like it that Divya was here with them. They seemed to want her gone so they could get the “real” story from the women.

  “We’ll start with you, Asha,” Farida said, moving Asha to a comfortable chair in the TV room. They checked the lighting, taking a small device and flashing it next to her and around her, moving the shiny round surface.

  “Is this angle good? Am I out of the frame?” Farida asked the cameraman after they had moved the chair and Asha several times. The cameraman gave her a thumbs-up sign.

  “We’re ready to roll,” the cameraman said.

  Asha felt her nerves twitch and asked Farida before she could start speaking. “And my face will not show, will it?”

  “No,” Farida said. “No. We’ll hide it. I promise. After the filming you will get a release . . . a contract to sign. And even there it will say that your face cannot be shown. It will be in Telugu. You can read Telugu?”

  “
Yes,” Asha said, but put her sari’s pallu over her head, covering her face the best she could, just in case.

  The white woman started to speak in rapid English to the cameraman, and then she turned to Asha. She came and sat in a chair opposite Asha.

  “How pregnant are you?” she asked, and Farida translated.

  “Six months,” Asha said, keeping her head down.

  Divya was standing by the door, her arms folded as she stared at Asha, willing her to say only what they had practiced.

  “How did you decide to become a surrogate?” the white woman asked, and Farida translated almost before the woman was finished speaking.

  “Someone in my family had done this also and she said it would be OK,” Asha said. “And I wanted to do something to help people who can’t have children.”

  Divya had told them all not to mention money at all unless the interviewer asked, and even then she had coached them on how to answer the question.

  “You are getting paid for this. How is this money going to help you?”

  Asha licked her lips. “My son is very smart, and the money will help send him to a good school. A school for smart children. Whatever money we have left will go to buy a flat.”

  The white woman asked about their village and Asha felt a little more relaxed.

  “We had a hut, just one room, where we all slept—my husband, my two children, and my mother-in-law when she lived with us,” Asha told the woman. “Now we stay with my brother-in-law and his family. They have three rooms. In the village there were no bathrooms, but here we have one with a toilet; it helps a lot for us women.”

  “How does it help?” Farida asked.

  “You know how it is in the village, you have to look for a place somewhere and . . . this is better, more clean,” Asha said.