Secret Daughter

by Shilpi Somaya Gowda

  “So, you can either keep killing yourself to get pregnant with very low probability of success, or we can start the adoption process, and this time next year, you could be holding a baby in your arms.”

  She nods again, biting her lower lip. “But would it feel like my baby?”

  “Look, there are all kinds of families,” he says. “Blood doesn’t make you a family. Do you really want our kid to have my huge nose or be left-handed?” He smiles, as he usually does to get his way, but she doesn’t feel like playing along this time.

  “You’ll be an amazing mother, Somer. You just have to let it happen.” Kris moves closer, trying to peer into her eyes, as if he might find an answer there. “What do you think?”

  What do I think? She doesn’t know anymore. “I’ll think about it, okay? It’s a lot to take in all at once,” she says, gesturing at the brown envelope. “Right now, I’d like to go for a run, clear my head a bit. Okay?” She stands up without waiting for a response.

  SOMER JOGS DOWN THE STEPS OUTSIDE AND IN THE DIRECTION of the green expanse of Golden Gate Park. She doesn’t feel like running, but she had to get out of there. Kris has been talking about adoption for months now, and she’s been putting him off. She knows she has to consider it, but it’s hard to abandon the idea of having her own child: carrying a baby, giving birth, nursing, seeing herself reflected in her own child. How can I give all that up? It’s easier for Kris. He’s not the one who has failed.

  She reaches the water fountain, panting heavily, and realizes she has already run three miles. Normally, she does a two-mile loop on JFK Drive, but today, she feels like running all the way to the ocean. She stops to get a drink from the fountain, which gurgles slowly to life and then blasts her in the face. The early evening park traffic continues past her: a Rollerblader with dreadlocks, a team of racing cyclists, moms with strollers, kids on bikes. It’s been three years since she started running this route. Three years, she’s been trying to have a baby. If her first pregnancy had survived, she would have a toddler by now. She would be like these mothers, helping her child ride a tricycle.

  Premature ovarian failure. Her eyes begin to mist, but she wipes them quickly with the back of her sleeve and starts running again. She’s only thirty-one, how did she run out of time for this? Four years for medical school, three more for residency. She did everything she thought she was supposed to. Being a doctor was the only thing she’d ever wanted in her life, until now. How could she know her body would betray her? The truth comes rushing at her as forcefully as the water from the fountain. Kris is right. The doctor’s right. She got her answer, and she can’t fix it.

  WHEN SHE GETS HOME, KRIS IS GONE. A NOTE ON THE COFFEE table explains he was called to the hospital. She sits down on the cold hardwood floor, her legs in a V shape in front of her. She leans forward into a deep stretch, and just as the tip of her nose touches her knee, she begins to choke on the sob rising in her throat. The parquet design of the floor blurs with the tears filling her eyes. She lets out the deep, horrible wails waiting just below the surface. These tears are always accumulating, intensifying inside her. She pushes them down over and over, a hundred times a day—every time she hears a child’s voice, or examines a patient’s small body—until that moment comes. It always happens when she least expects it, a moment when she’s doing nothing at all: rinsing her coffee mug, unlacing her shoes, combing her hair. And in that moment when she is unsuspecting, the tears finally rage uncontrollably, from someplace deep, deep inside her she barely recognizes.

  AFTER SHE TAKES A SHOWER, SOMER SITS DOWN ON THE COUCH AND SEES that the bottle of wine is now open. She pours herself a glass, picks up the brown envelope sent by Kris’s mother, and dumps out its contents. She reads, learning many of the children in Indian orphanages aren’t truly orphaned but given up by parents who can’t, or don’t want to, raise them. The children are permitted to stay at the orphanage until the age of sixteen, when they are forced to leave in order to create space for new children. Sixteen?

  She hears the echo of Kris’s words. You’ll be an amazing mother. You just have to let it happen. Somer fills her glass again and keeps reading.

  9

  SOLACE

  Dahanu, India—1985

  KAVITA

  KAVITA ARISES BEFORE DAWN, JUST AS SHE HAS EVERY MORNING for the past several months, to bathe and perform her puja while everyone else still sleeps. These early hours of the day have been her only solace since returning from Bombay.

  After she and Rupa came back from the orphanage, Kavita was somber and impenetrable. She barely spoke a word to Jasu and pulled away whenever he touched her. Before, as a newly married couple, the awkwardness between them was expected. But now, their mutual avoidance was based on seeing too much in the other. After surrendering two babies, Kavita was left only with resentment and distrust for her husband. She wanted him to feel the shame and regret she carried back from Bombay in Usha’s place. And she knew her defiance in escaping his grasp, even temporarily, had shown Jasu the depth of her strength. In the months afterward, though he behaved awkwardly, he had allowed her the time and space she needed. It was the first genuine show of respect he had made toward her in their four years of marriage. Jasu’s parents made no such concession, their latent disappointment growing into relentless criticism of her for failing to bear a son.

  Kavita walks outside and spreads her mat on the rough stone steps, where she sits facing the rising sun in the east. She lights the small ghee-soaked diya and thin stick of incense, and then closes her eyes in prayer. The wisp of fragrant smoke slowly circles its way up into the air and around her. She breathes deeply and thinks, as always, of the baby girls she has lost. She rings the small silver bell and chants softly. She sees their faces and their small bodies, she hears their cries and feels their tiny fingers wrap around hers. And always, she hears the sound of Usha’s desperate cry echoing behind the closed doors of the orphanage. She allows herself to get lost in the depths of her grief. After she has chanted and sung and wept for some time, she tries to envision the babies at peace, wherever they are. She pictures Usha as a little girl, her hair wound in two braids, each tied with a white ribbon. The image of the girl in her mind is perfectly clear: smiling, running, and playing with children, eating her meals and sleeping alongside the others in the orphanage.

  Every morning, Kavita sits in the same place outside her home with her eyes closed until the stormy feelings peak and then, very gradually, subside. She waits until she can breathe evenly again. By the time she opens her eyes, her face is wet and the incense has burned down to a small pile of soft ash. The sun is a glowing orange ball on the horizon, and the villagers are beginning to stir around her. She always ends her puja by touching her lips to the one remaining silver bangle on her wrist, reconciling herself to the only thing she has left of her daughters. These daily rituals have brought her comfort and, over time, some healing. She can carry herself through the rest of the day with these peaceful images of Usha in her mind. Each day becomes more bearable. As days turn to weeks, and weeks to months, Kavita feels her bitterness toward Jasu soften. After several months, she allows him to touch her and then, to reach for her at night.

  When she becomes pregnant again, Kavita does not let herself think about this baby in the same way she has before. She does not dwell on her tender breasts or touch her growing belly. She doesn’t even share the news with Jasu right away. When thoughts of the life growing inside her come to mind, she simply pushes them away, like the dust she sweeps from the floor each day. It is a practice she has mastered in the past many months after Bombay.

  “It would be a good idea to go to the clinic this time, no?” Jasu says when she finally tells him. She detects a veiled urgency in his voice.

  A new medical clinic in the neighboring village offers ultrasounds to expectant mothers, ostensibly to check the health of the baby. But it is well known that those who go there do so to learn the gender of their unborn child. The procedure will cost
two hundred rupees, a month’s earnings from their crops, as well as a full day to make the journey. They will have to use all the money they’ve been saving for new farming tools, but despite the hardship, Kavita agrees.

  She knows if the test shows another girl growing in her womb, all of the possible outcomes are wrenching. Jasu can demand she have an abortion, right there at the clinic if they had the money. Or he could simply cast her out, forcing her to endure the shame of raising the child alone. She would be shunned, like the other beecharis in the village. But even this, becoming an outcast from her home and community, would not be as bad as the alternative. She cannot face the agony of giving birth, of holding her baby in her arms, only to have it taken away again.

  Kavita knows in her soul she simply will not survive that.

  10

  A POWERFUL THING

  San Francisco, California—1985

  SOMER

  SOMER SITS ON THE EDGE OF THE TUB, HER BARE FEET PRESSED against the cold aqua tile floor, her fingers clasped around the familiar plastic stick in her hand. Despite her tears, she can see the two parallel lines as clearly as she did eight months ago, when she learned she was pregnant. Today was to be her due date. It was to be a day of celebration for her and Krishnan, but instead she will mourn alone. The expressions of concern from other people trickled off a few weeks after her miscarriage. The only proof of the baby she lost is the home pregnancy test she now holds in her hand, and the persistent hollow she has not been able to fill.

  The bellow of the distant foghorn brings her back, and from the other room, she hears Kris’s radio alarm, the distinctive tones of National Public Radio’s morning news. She stands and buries the plastic stick in the pocket of her worn terry cloth robe. She knows Kris is losing patience with her, growing frustrated with what he sees as her obsession. He is eager to move on. She reaches for her tooth-brush as Kris pushes open the bathroom door.

  “Good morning,” he says. “What are you doing up so early?”

  She turns on the shower and removes her robe. “My flight’s at nine.”

  “Right. Tell your parents hello.”

  She steps into the shower and turns up the water until it’s as hot as she can bear.

  SOMER SEES THE GRAY VOLVO SEDAN AS SOON AS IT PULLS INTO the Arrivals Terminal of San Diego Airport. Her mother gets out of the car and comes around to the curb to meet her.

  “Hi, honey. Oh, it’s so good to see you.”

  Somer steps over her duffel bag and into her mother’s open arms. Instantly Somer feels herself melt into the embrace. She buries her face in her mother’s soft cardigan and the faint scent of Oil of Olay. She feels nine years old again as she begins to cry.

  “Oh, honey,” her mother says, stroking the back of Somer’s head.

  “I’LL PUT ON SOME TEA,” HER MOTHER SAYS ONCE THEY’RE HOME. “And I made banana bread.”

  “Sounds good.” Somer settles into a Windsor-back chair at the kitchen table.

  “So, Kris is on call this weekend? Too bad, we’ll miss him.”

  Her parents like Kris. She’d been unsure how they would react when she’d brought home her Indian boyfriend, but thankfully, they’d embraced him. Both her parents had grown up in Toronto during the postwar immigration boom of the 1940s, and had neighbors who spoke Russian, Italian, and Polish. They had always been open-minded, even before it became fashionable. As a physician, her father shared an immediate kinship with Kris and respected him for becoming a surgeon.

  “Your father tried to cut back on his evening office hours, but then he went back to it one night a week, then a couple nights, and now he’s right back where he started.” Her mother shakes her head as she fills the kettle.

  For as long as Somer can remember, her father has used a converted room on the first floor of their house to see patients. Some were patients he treated in his clinic during the day, for after-hours emergencies. But usually they were folks who otherwise wouldn’t see a doctor at all: new immigrants without health insurance, teen mothers kicked out of their parents’ homes, elderly people too scared to go to the hospital at night. Pretty soon, word got around that Dr. Whitman’s home office was always open and he wouldn’t charge those who couldn’t pay. Somer’s childhood was filled with memories of the doorbell ringing during dinner or a family Scrabble game.

  “Look that one up, Somer,” her dad would say as he went to answer the door after making a seven-letter word. “Use it in a sentence when I come back.”

  They often found freshly baked pies or fruit baskets left by grateful patients on the front porch, along with the morning newspaper. For her father, medicine was more than a profession; it was a calling. It was indistinguishable from the rest of his life, and Somer learned at his knee. When she was eight years old, he taught her to wear a stethoscope and listen to her own heartbeat. At ten, she could apply a blood pressure cuff. She never thought about becoming anything other than a physician. Her father was her hero. She hungered for the weekends, when she snuggled up to him in his brown leather wingback chair as he read.

  “How about you, Mom? How are things at the library?” Somer notices the crow’s-feet around her mother’s eyes.

  “Oh, busy as ever. We’re reshelving the reference section to make room for some donated furniture. I’m organizing a series of workshops next fall on biographies of famous women: Eleanor Roosevelt, Katharine Graham.”

  “That’s nice.” Somer smiles, though she has never understood how her mother stays interested in such a mundane job.

  Her mother brings two steaming mugs over to the table, accompanied by thick slices of banana bread. “So, what’s going on, honey? You seem preoccupied.”

  Somer wraps her hands around the mug and takes a sip of her tea. “Well, we…I…can’t have a baby, Mom.”

  “Oh, honey.” Her mother puts a hand on Somer’s arm. “It’ll happen, just give it time. It’s very common to have a miscarriage. Lots of—”

  “No.” Somer shakes her head. “I can’t. We went to a specialist for tests. I’m going through early menopause. My ovaries aren’t producing eggs anymore.” Somer looks in her mother’s eyes for the explanation she has not been able to find anywhere else, and sees them well with tears.

  Her mother clears her throat. “So that’s it. There’s nothing more you can do?”

  Somer shakes her head and looks down at her tea.

  “I’m so sorry, honey.” Her mothers clasps her hand. “How are you doing? How is Kris?”

  “Kris is very…clinical about the whole thing, ever the doctor. He thinks I’m too emotional about it.” She stops short of saying that she can’t talk to him about this anymore, that she worries if she doesn’t find a way to move on, she may lose Krishnan too.

  “It can be hard for men to understand,” her mother says, looking down into her mug. “It was hard for your father.”

  Somer looks up. “Is that why you didn’t have more kids?”

  Her mother takes a sip before answering. “I had one miscarriage before you, and then after you, I never got pregnant again. There weren’t any tests back then, so we just accepted it. We felt so lucky to have you, but I did feel badly about not giving you a brother or sister.” Her mother brushes away a tear.

  Somer feels a rush of guilt for every time she wished for a sibling. “It’s not your fault, Mom,” she says. Not your fault. Not my fault. They sit in comfortable silence for a few moments before Somer looks up at her mother. “Mom, what do you think about adoption?”

  Her mother smiles. “I think it’s a wonderful idea. Are you considering it?”

  “Maybe…there are all these kids over in India who need families, need homes.” She looks down at her hands, twists her wedding band around her finger. “It’s just hard to think that I’ll never give birth, I’ll never create a life.” She chokes on tears rising.

  “Honey,” her mother says, “you’ll be doing something just as important—saving a life.”

  Somer’s face crumples like a
tissue and she begins to cry. “I just want to be a mom.”

  “You will be a great one,” her mother says, covering Somer’s hand with her own. “And when you are, I promise you, it will be the most important thing you ever do.”

  ON THE FLIGHT HOME, SOMER LOOKS THROUGH THE MATERIALS from the Indian adoption agency, focusing on the earnest faces of the children. It would be a powerful thing to change the course of one of those lives: to create opportunity where none exists, to make someone’s life better. It reminds her of why she became a doctor. A quote from Gandhi graces the inside of the brochure, “You must be the change you want to see in the world.”

  Maybe there was a reason for all our pain. Perhaps this is what we’re meant to do.

  11

  SPEND AND SAVE

  Palghar, India—1985

  KAVITA

  THE MORNING OF THE PROCEDURE, KAVITA IS ANXIOUS, HER stomach unsettled. She holds a protective hand over her swelling abdomen as they approach the clinic. Outside the door is a placard—SPEND 200 RUPEES NOW AND SAVE 20,000 RUPEES LATER—a transparent reference to avoiding the wedding dowry associated with a daughter. Other than this, the nondescript door through which they pass could belong to a tailor or a shoe shop. Inside, pairs of women and men stand together. Kavita notices she is the farthest along in her pregnancy, now in her fifth month.

  Jasu approaches the desk clerk and exchanges words, then pulls a bundle of bills and coins from his pocket and hands it over. The clerk counts the cash, stashes it in a metal box, and with a sideways jerk of his head, sends Jasu back to the waiting area. Kavita shifts over to make space for him against the wall. While they wait, she keeps her eyes focused on the rough concrete floor. The sound of muffled sobs compels her to look up, and she sees a woman rushing toward the front door from the back of the clinic. The woman’s sari is draped over her head, and a solemn man follows behind her. Kavita looks back down at the spot on the floor, and out of the corner of her eye, sees Jasu’s toes squirming.