A House for Happy Mothers: A Novel

by Amulya Malladi

  Priya had not expected Mona to have much to offer beneath the surface. She looked like someone whose idea of exerting herself was getting to her facials, pedicures, manicures, and haircuts on time. Apparently there was merit to the statement “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” Priya was impressed.

  “They think it is so much work, which it’s not,” Mona said.

  “It’s very commendable what you do,” Sush said. “I’m proud of all your accomplishments.”

  Mona promised to help with setting up an IQ test for Manoj in the next few weeks, and then work with them on finding the right school for him. She warned that most of these schools were in big cities, and she doubted that Manoj would be able to live at home. A boarding school would likely be the only viable option.

  Mona came with Priya the next time she went to Srirampuram. This time Priya felt surer about her visit. She had something to convey to Asha. Mona had set up an IQ test with MENSA. They had to talk to Asha and see if they could take Manoj to Hyderabad and let him take the test there. Then they would bring him back. But Srirampuram was two hours away, which meant that there would be an overnight stay involved, and Priya wasn’t sure how Asha would feel about Manoj staying with strangers for the night.

  “Maybe we can bring Asha along as well,” Mona suggested on their drive to Srirampuram.

  “I don’t think the clinic will allow that,” Priya said. “And honestly, I wouldn’t want it, either. She’s nearly eight months pregnant, and I don’t want to risk it.”

  “And in any case, she needs to learn to be away from the boy,” Mona said. “I found two schools in Hyderabad and one in Visakhapatnam that someone at MENSA told me would be the right school for this boy . . . that is, if his IQ is over one forty.”

  “He’s five and he can read and write fluently,” Priya said. “And he’s been doing it for a while both in English and Telugu. His math skills are pretty high as well. The test he showed me he got a one hundred in had division and multiplication, beyond his years.”

  “Well, he needs to be tested so we can be sure,” Mona said. “And the schools will want to test as well. Might as well do it now with MENSA and avoid any hassle later.”

  It had been good for Priya to work with Mona on this, because it took her mind away from the baby and worrying about all the legalities and official nonsense they had to get through before they could take her home. She had been seriously thinking about extending her stay with the Parikshits until this was resolved, but even as she had broached the subject on the phone with Madhu’s parents, she could hear Prasanna’s disappointment, so she scrapped the idea. She had spoken to Mayuri, who had all but pleaded with Priya to come as soon as possible—her parents were driving her mad.

  “Now that I don’t live in London, don’t have a work visa or a job, they think the best thing for me is to get married,” Mayuri said. “They put my profile into the database of a local matchmaking agency. They’re determined to find a ‘nice boy’ for me.”

  “What’s wrong with that? You’re what, thirty? You’re not getting any younger, and since you don’t have any long-term relationships in your past, maybe arranged marriage is the best thing for you,” Priya teased.

  “Oh, fuck you,” Mayuri said.

  They sat on the veranda again. Divya sat with them, and Priya wondered why the woman had to be with them all the time. It was obvious Divya was spying on them—making sure that Asha didn’t say anything untoward about Happy Mothers. The thought sent a chill down Priya’s spine. What were they doing here that they were so worried about? Had all their phone calls with Asha also been monitored?

  “So what do you think?” Priya asked Asha as Mona and she laid down their plan for Manoj.

  “He’ll be alone with you?” Asha asked.

  “Well . . . my mother will be there, and so will Mona’s in-laws,” Priya said. “Maybe your husband can come along?”

  “He has to work,” Asha said numbly.

  “Of course,” Mona said. “But we will take good care of your son. We promise. He can stay at our house. My in-laws love children.”

  Asha seemed skeptical, so Priya asked her to talk it over with Pratap and get back to them. She would be back again next week, and they could talk more then, firm their plans.

  Asha was even more reluctant to send Manoj with them when Mona said that most of the schools for special children were in the city, which meant that the only option for the boy would be a boarding school.

  “Unless you move to Hyderabad,” Mona said. “Would you be able to do that?”

  “I don’t know,” Asha said. “I don’t know how easy it would be for Pratap to find work there, and it’s also so expensive. Here we can afford to buy a flat. There we won’t be able to do that, will we?”

  And then she sighed and leaned back on her chair, stroking her belly. She looked at Priya and smiled. “She’s kicking; you want to feel?”

  Priya walked up to her tentatively and put a hand on her belly. She felt the tiny touch of her child through Asha’s flesh and felt an answering tug inside her. She put both her hands on Asha’s belly, naked under her blouse, her cotton sari’s pallu caressing Priya’s hands.

  “Oh my God,” Priya gasped. “Oh my God. Hello, baby. Hello, my darling.”

  Her eyes filled up as the baby kicked again as if responding to her touch. Oh how I wish you were inside me, she thought. Nothing, just about nothing compared to the feel of touching her child like this, and Priya knew then that holding her baby in her arms would be the single most important thing in her life, a defining moment, an all-encompassing emotion.

  The baby stopped kicking, and Priya reluctantly removed her hands.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “It’s your baby,” Asha said softly.

  They went back to talking about schools for Manoj, Mona telling her how many schools there were in the state of Andhra Pradesh and their caliber.

  “A boarding school—but then he won’t be with us,” Asha said. “And what about the money—won’t it be more expensive?”

  “It won’t cost you anything,” Mona said. “We’ll find a scholarship for him.”

  Asha shook her head, as if trying to sort through what they were really saying. “Sometimes I wish Manoj were a normal boy. Now he has to go to a boarding school, and how will I stand it, not seeing him every day?”

  “That’s why Swati Atha suggested the school close to Srirampuram. They even have a school bus,” Divya said.

  “But it’s not a school for gifted children,” Priya said.

  She had done her research. It was a private school. What was more, she had learned, Doctor Swati’s husband, Doctor Ravi Gudla, was a board member. She couldn’t understand why Doctor Swati had made a big deal about the weight of her recommendation while also saying that he couldn’t get in this year. This was a new school, looking for new students. In fact, Priya wondered why Doctor Swati didn’t waive tuition altogether for Manoj. After all, having a child of a high IQ in their school would only raise the school’s image.

  “But it’s a good school,” Divya said. “We have a lot of connections there. We can get Asha’s son in.”

  “But it’s a regular school,” Priya repeated. “And if Manoj has to go to a regular school, he might as well go to the one he’s going to now.”

  “That’s not a good school,” Divya said peevishly. “I know the schools in this area, and that is a third-rate school.”

  Priya saw Asha’s face fall.

  “It’s a good school,” Asha said. “We pay five hundred rupees a month for it.”

  Divya shrugged. “Look, it’s up to you. Swati Atha pulled a lot of strings for your son—but if you want to send him to another school, that’s up to you.”

  “If Manoj has a high IQ, this school will not be able to handle his education,” Priya said, wanting to shut Divya up. She gave her the creeps, sitting here all the time, interfering in their conversation and manipulating Asha.

  Divya just shr
ugged again and went back to the magazine she was reading.

  Priya wasn’t sure she liked the doctor or her niece. Were they trying to push Asha into sending her son to this school, where she would have to pay an exorbitant amount of money for an ordinary education? Would Doctor Swati’s husband profit from this as a member of the board? And how would poor people like Asha and Pratap continue to pay tuition? Probably—she hated to think of it—by coming back to Happy Mothers to be a surrogate, where Doctor Swati was sure to gain a profit again.

  Priya wondered if Doctor Swati would mention the school when they talked later, but she didn’t. Instead, she said something about being careful with bringing too many presents for Asha.

  “I understand your need to give her gifts, but don’t bring something every time you come here,” Doctor Swati said. “There are other women in the house, and we don’t need jealousy brewing among them, do we?”

  Priya had always liked Doctor Swati. But now, face-to-face, she didn’t seem quite as noble and sincere as she did over Skype.

  Once Priya apologized, promising to be more circumspect in the future, Doctor Swati talked about the labor and delivery and how they should proceed after that.

  “We will call you when she goes into labor,” Doctor Swati said. “Since you’re here, I’m assuming you will come to the hospital.”

  “Yes, absolutely,” Priya said. “Madhu might be here then as well, depending on when it happens.”

  “I don’t know if you can be in the delivery room. It depends upon Asha, and usually the women like to just have someone from their family there,” Doctor Swati said. “But then all our parents usually get here right after the baby is born. You are an unusual case.”

  “So no one comes here before the baby?”

  “Oh, they do, but a week or two before at the most . . . but you can’t plan delivery, so sometimes the baby comes early and they are here right after,” Doctor Swati said. “I can ask Asha, if you want to be in the delivery room.”

  Priya thought about it and said, “No, please don’t. I don’t want to pressure her. This is such a private thing, and I don’t want to impose any more than we already have.”

  “OK, I’ll respect your wishes,” Doctor Swati said. “To be frank, I’m relieved, because that would complicate things for us as well.”

  “How come?” Mona asked. She had been quiet the entire time, but she spoke now.

  “It’s never easy to have the biological mother and surrogate in the same room when the baby is coming—we want to focus on the baby, and I could tell you stories of full-blown hysteria in the labor room, and not from the woman giving birth,” Doctor Swati said.

  Mona nodded in response and gave Doctor Swati a small smile for her attempt at humor. She hadn’t said anything to Priya, but Priya had felt Mona’s displeasure at seeing all those pregnant women squeezed into the surrogate house.

  Priya was affected as well. She had been here before; still, it surprised her, the dilapidation around her. She didn’t quite remember it like this. Then, she had been wearing rose-colored glasses. She didn’t know Asha. The house had seemed cozy. Now it seemed dingy, beaten down, worn out and ill maintained.

  “Maybe we should give her more money,” Priya said to Mona as they drove back to Hyderabad.

  Mona shook her head. “No, no more money. People think giving money is the solution. It’s not. Giving tools is the solution. Giving a scholarship to her son is the right thing. You think she will allow him to be tested?”

  “I do. I mean, she cares about his future so much. It’s so important to her. She’s pregnant with our baby for it,” Priya said. “But oh, it would break a mother’s heart to send her child far away. And he’s so young. Wouldn’t it mess him up?”

  “It’ll mess him up more not to be challenged,” Mona said. “Gifted children tend to be very impatient and need constant stimulation, otherwise they become aggressive. Vishal, my brother-in-law, his son is a member of MENSA. He’s sixteen and has a one fifty IQ. Very smart kid, and when he was young they didn’t want him to go to a special school. They wanted Kabir to go to school with his sister, Mira. But then Kabir, who is three years younger than Mira, would be in her class. And then he started getting into trouble because he was so bored. They had no choice but to move him. It was for the best. He’s already in university, will have a PhD by the time he’s twenty-one.”

  Priya thought about that for a moment and said, “But Asha and Pratap don’t have the possibilities your brother has. He’s a doctor in New York. Pratap is a painter in Srirampuram supplementing his family’s income through surrogacy. I wonder if Manoj can really have the future a child like him deserves.”

  “If he’s got the smarts and we make sure he gets the right guidance, why not?” Mona said. “I know it looks hopeless. You look at the poverty in India and you think it’s so massive, so huge, there’s nothing we can do. But I believe that we can make a difference, one child at a time, one single mother at a time.”

  “You’re very passionate about helping people,” Priya said with a smile. She had not expected Mona to be passionate about anything but Prada boots and her family, in that order.

  Mona grinned. “I know, I know. People look at me, see a twenty-three-year-old girl who married into a wealthy family and decide I must be a trophy wife. But the fact is that I come from money. I would’ve always married into a wealthy family unless I fell in love with a bus driver, which only happens in the movies. Because, really, when would someone like me take the bus?”

  She wasn’t being snobbish, just honest and genuine. She grew up with money and married into money, and she didn’t see what the fuss was all about.

  “I choose to have this life,” Mona said. “I don’t feel guilty about having money. I like money; it buys us things and makes our lives very comfortable. But I can also use it to do good. And not just our money; I throw all these fund-raisers to get Papa’s friends involved in our foundation, too.”

  “Excellent philosophy to live by,” Priya said. “And if you can help Asha and her son, I’ll be indebted to you for life.”

  Mona laughed. “And I will call on that debt,” she said. “So be forewarned.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  One sixty.

  They kept saying that number, kept repeating how high it was. Asha didn’t understand what it meant. Priya was very excited. She said that the other woman, Mona, who had come with her the previous week, was looking into arranging a scholarship for Manoj.

  “It was so much fun, Amma,” Manoj said. “Mona’s parents have such a big house. And I got to sleep in Priya’s room, with Priya.”

  Priya smiled at him and touched his face gently.

  Not your baby. This one is mine, Asha wanted to say, but Manoj was oblivious to her jealousy.

  “They have so many servants, but the best was Mona’s father-in-law. He used to be a general in the army, and he was so funny. We played cricket together in the garden. I threw the ball sideways and broke a window . . .”

  “Oh my God, were they angry with you?” Asha asked.

  Manoj shook his head as if that were a strange question. “No. But he said that we would pretend when Romila, that’s his wife, asked, that we didn’t know what happened.” Manoj laughed then. “But she knew and she gave me a chocolate anyway.”

  Priya sat on a charpoy by the swing where Manoj sat with his mother, his excitement spilling out of him in waves of conversation.

  “He was a perfect angel and everyone is in love with him,” Priya told her. “He could’ve had a room of his own, but I thought five might be too young.”

  “And it was such a great room,” Manoj said. “And I played on Priya’s iPad. It’s like a computer, but the size of a magazine. Priya downloaded three games for me, and I won them all.”

  Asha just wanted to hug him and ask him to stop talking. He was speaking too fast, about things she didn’t know.

  “He had a good time,” Priya said, smiling. “He’s a great kid.”r />
  “And the test, was the test difficult?” Asha asked Manoj.

  Manoj made a face. “Of course not. It was very easy. I have an IQ of one sixty, Amma. They told me. That’s a high IQ.”

  He was already not her Manoj, Asha thought. One night, just one night he was gone, and there was a different swagger to him. He spoke differently. He seemed to have already changed.

  “Oh, and the school was . . . fantastic.” Manoj said the sentence in Telugu but said fantastic in English like they did in the movies.

  Asha hated the idea of a boarding school. He would not be able to live with them and would see them only once every three to four months unless they moved to Hyderabad, and even then they could see him only every Saturday and Sunday. Priya had said that was the only way. It broke Asha’s heart to think about not hugging her son every day. But was there a choice for her?

  “Are we supposed to move to Hyderabad?” Pratap wondered later.

  When Asha had asked him about them taking Manoj to Hyderabad for the night, he thought it would be OK; why not, he’d said; his son would enjoy driving in a big air-conditioned car, staying in a fancy house, showing these rich people how smart he was. But now it was turning into a reality—this whole dream of sending him to a school for smart children—and Asha could see that Pratap was wavering. “I don’t know about Manoj going to a boarding school,” Pratap said.