Secret Daughter

by Shilpi Somaya Gowda

  Kris, now sitting at the table with Asha, flicks at a newspaper page with his middle finger and thumb. “I can’t believe this nonsense. They’re still fighting this thing in Florida—trying to keep this poor woman attached to a feeding tube. The woman’s brain has been dead for over a decade and they won’t let her go in peace.” He removes his glasses, exhales loudly onto each of the lenses, then wipes them with a handkerchief.

  “You think she’s really brain-dead?” Asha says, taking the newspaper from him.

  “Yes, I do. But that’s irrelevant.” He holds his glasses up to the light and, finally satisfied, replaces them on his face. “It’s a decision between her family and her doctor.”

  “What if they can’t agree?” Asha says. “Her parents want to keep her alive, and her husband doesn’t.”

  “Well, her husband is her guardian,” Kris says. “At some point, the family you create is more important than the one you’re born into.” He shakes his head. “Listen, I’m telling you both right now, if I’m ever in a persistent vegetative state, you have my permission to pull the plug.”

  “Isn’t there a chance she could still be cured?” Asha says.

  He shakes his head. “Not unless she grows a new brain. And now the politicians are trying to interfere with stem cell research too.”

  Somer observes from across the kitchen as Asha clearly enjoys engaging with Kris in vigorous debate. She calls out, “How about a puzzle tonight? I’ll make popcorn.”

  “Cool.” Asha clears the kitchen table. “I’ll get the puzzle. Hall closet?”

  “Yes.” Somer retrieves the popcorn machine from the highest shelf. “I hope this still works,” she says, energized by the familiarity of puzzle night, a regular event before Asha left.

  Somer pours the kernels into the machine, producing a loud rattling sound.

  Asha brings back a box portraying Venetian gondolas in assorted colors floating along the canals. “So what do you think of that proposition, Dad? To fund stem cell research?”

  “I think three billion dollars for research in California would be brilliant. These stem cell studies are some of the most promising I’ve seen in neuroscience.”

  “You should write an editorial on that for the paper, Dad,” Asha says, crossing the kitchen. “I bet the voters would love to hear from a neurosurgeon. I can help you.”

  He shakes his head, sorting through pieces. “No thank you, I’ll stick with medicine.”

  The rapid-fire popping slows down and Somer shakes fluffy white popcorn into a large bowl. “Salt and butter?”

  Asha tosses a piece of popcorn into her mouth. “Good, but it needs a little something.” Asha takes the popcorn bowl from her. “You and Dad start.” Somer sits down next to Krishnan, struck by how much easier it still is for him, how Asha seeks out common ground with him. Somer recalls fondly the times she played cards or Scrabble with her own father. Now, for the first time, she wonders how it made her mother feel when she blatantly favored him so.

  Asha spins the spice bottle carousel. “I’m going to make a little concoction my housemates and I cook up.” She joins them at the table and offers the bowl to Kris. “Try it.”

  Deep in concentration on several pieces of a blue gondola, he reaches into the bowl without looking up. “Mmm. Very good,” he says.

  Somer takes a piece and is shocked at its bright red color. “Oh,” she says, putting it in her mouth, “what did you—?” She is interrupted by a cough as the pungent spices hit her throat. Somer reaches for the nearest glass of water but can’t stop coughing long enough to take a drink. Her mouth burns and her eyes are tearing.

  “Spicy, but good, isn’t it? Red chili, garlic, salt, and sugar. And turmeric usually, but I don’t think you have any.” Asha takes a seat at the table with the bowl between her and Kris.

  “So, I have some news.” Somer looks up and Asha continues. “You’ve heard of the Watson Foundation? They grant fellowships for college students to go abroad for a year. I applied to do a project on children living in poverty. In India.” Asha’s eyes dart back and forth between them.

  Somer tries to make sense of Asha’s words, unsure what to say.

  “I won.” Asha’s face explodes into a broad smile. “I won, so I’m going next year.”

  “You’re…what?” Somer shakes her head.

  “I can’t believe I really won. The committee said they liked my idea of working with a major newspaper there to get a special report published, and—”

  “And you’re just bringing this up now?” Somer says.

  “Well, I didn’t want to say anything unless I won because it’s really competitive.”

  “Where in India?” Krishnan asks, oblivious to Somer’s shock.

  “Mumbai.” Asha smiles at him. “So I can stay with your family. My story’s going to be on kids growing up in urban poverty. You know, in the slums, that kind of thing.” Then she reaches for Somer’s hand, still gripping a puzzle piece. “Mom, I’m not dropping out or anything, I’ll be back to graduate. It’s just a year.”

  “You’ve…done all this already? It’s all planned?” Somer says.

  “I thought you’d be proud.” Asha pulls back her hand. “The Watson is a really prestigious award. I arranged everything myself, I’m not asking you for money. Aren’t you happy for me?” she says, an edge of anger creeping into her voice.

  Somer rubs her forehead. “Asha, you can’t just drop this on us and expect us to celebrate. You can’t make a decision like this without our input.” She looks at Kris, expecting to see her anger reflected in his face. But she finds none of the shock she feels, none of the fear riddling her mind. How can he be so calm about this?

  And, in that moment, it occurs to her. He knew.

  THE PUZZLE LIES UNFINISHED ON THE KITCHEN TABLE DOWNSTAIRS while Somer strips off her clothes in the darkness of their closet. She runs the water in the bathroom faucet, listening for the sound of their bedroom door. She scrubs at her face in a way her dermatologist has warned against. When Kris enters the room a few moments later, she is fuming.

  “So, you really have no problem with this?”

  “Well.” He stands at the bureau and removes his watch. “I think it might be a good idea.”

  “A good idea? To drop out of college and travel halfway around the world by herself? You think that’s a good idea?”

  “She’s not dropping out. It’s just a year. She’ll come back and graduate, so what if it takes an extra semester or two? And she won’t be alone, she’ll have my family.” Kris untucks his shirt and begins unbuttoning it. “Look, honey, I really think this could be good for her. It’ll get her away from those liberal arts teachers, filling her head with the idea that journalism is a glamorous profession. My father can take her along to the hospital.”

  “That’s your agenda? You still think you’re going to make a doctor out of her?” Somer shakes her head.

  “She can still change her mind. She’ll see a whole different side of medicine over there.”

  “Why don’t you just accept her for who she is?” Somer says.

  “Why don’t you?” he shoots back, in a tone quiet yet accusing.

  There is a moment of silence while she stares at him. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, she wants to go to India. She’s old enough to make that decision. She can spend time with my family, get to know her Indian culture.”

  Somer stands up and heads toward the bathroom. “I can’t believe you. You are such a hypocrite. If she was talking about going anywhere other than India, you would be just as upset as I am.” She spins around to face him again. “Did you know about this?”

  He rubs his eyes with his fingers and sighs heavily.

  “Kris? Did you?” She feels her stomach knot.

  “Yes!” He throws his hands into the air. “Yes, okay? She needed a signature on the form and she didn’t want to get into it with you if she didn’t win.”

  Somer tightens the belt of her robe and wraps
her arms around herself, suddenly cold. She closes her eyes and takes in this news, the admission of guilt. She shakes her head. “I can’t believe you did that. You went behind my back and—” She breaks off, unable to continue.

  Kris sits down on the armchair in the corner and his voice softens. “This is part of her, Somer. Just like it’s part of me. There’s no denying that.” There is silence in the room for several moments before he speaks again. “What are you afraid of?”

  She forces down the lump in her throat and ticks off the reasons. “I’m afraid of her leaving college and going halfway across the world by herself. I’m afraid of her being so far away we won’t have any idea what’s happening with her.” Somer runs her hands over her face and then up over her head, continuing with a fresh string of concerns. “I’m worried about her safety, being a girl over there, going into those slums…” She sits down on the bed again and clutches a pillow to her chest. Kris doesn’t speak and doesn’t move from his chair in the corner, where his head rests in one hand.

  After several moments of silence, she clears her throat and speaks again. “Do you think she’ll try to look for…them?” She cannot bear to use the word parent. It assigns too much importance to people who have no connection to Asha other than biology. They have become shadowy figures in Somer’s mind over the years—nameless and faceless, distant but never far away. She knows there is no risk of them showing up one day, wanting a role in her daughter’s life. Rather, it is Asha she has always worried about. She has waited in fear for the day her daughter reaches a point of dissatisfaction with her or Kris, and goes in search of more. Somer has tried to be faultless as a parent, but still she worries that in the end, all her love for her daughter will not compensate for the loss she suffered as a baby.

  “Who? Oh.” Kris rubs his eyes and looks at her. “She might, I suppose. She’d have a hard time finding them in a country like India, but she might try. She’s probably curious. It doesn’t really matter, does it? You can’t still be worried—”

  “I don’t know. I realize we can’t stop her from looking if that’s what she wants, but…” She trails off, twisting a tissue around her index finger. “I just worry, that’s all. We don’t know what will happen. I don’t want her to get hurt.”

  “You can’t protect her forever, Somer. She’s practically an adult.”

  “I know, but we’ve put all that behind us. She’s in a good place now.” Somer cannot give voice to her real fears. That she will lose Asha, even a little bit. That the bond she’s worked so hard to build will be tainted by this ghost. This, after all, is the outcome she has tried to avoid all along—why she hasn’t wanted to go back to India, why she’s never encouraged Asha’s questions about the adoption. It is at the core of almost every decision she has made since Asha came into their lives.

  31

  SAME AS ALWAYS

  Mumbai, India—2004

  KAVITA

  THE TAXI DRIVER PULLS INTO THE DRIVE OF THEIR NEW BUILDING. They’ve lived here for over a year now, but Kavita still finds it strange to have someone waiting to open the car door for her, and another standing outside the lift to ferry them up to the third floor. Vijay insisted they move to a bigger flat a couple years ago once his business began to prosper. “I’m nineteen now, Ma. I think it’s time I have my own room,” he said.

  They found it hard to argue with that, especially when Vijay said they could continue to pay the same rent they did at Shivaji Road and he would pay the difference. Kavita doesn’t know what this new flat actually costs, and she isn’t sure Jasu does either. They have their own bedroom now, as does Vijay, who comes and goes as his business requires when calls come in on his pager and mobile phone at all hours. Kavita appreciates the extra space, and the modern kitchen with its always hot running water. But still, she misses the old place on Shivaji Road, the neighbors to whom they had grown close, the local shops where they knew her.

  The best change to come out of their move is in Jasu. A weight seems to have lifted off him, and even his nightmares have abated. “I feel as if I can finally relax a little bit,” he said. “Our family is stable, our son is grown. It is a good feeling, chakli.” Kavita doesn’t feel the same. It is unsettling to see her son as a grown man, living independently under their common roof, transacting business as an adult she barely recognizes. She still worries about Vijay spending so much time with his partner Pulin, the strange hours he keeps, the wads of cash, and various other things that enter her mind at dark times. As the elevator jolts into movement, she wonders if she will ever stop worrying about her son.

  She wonders too about her daughter. Usha will be grown by now, perhaps even married. On the question of whether her daughter might now have children of her own, Kavita allows herself to speculate for just a few moments, only the duration of the elevator ride. Once the doors open, she will force her mind to change course. She has learned to make space in her daily life for such thoughts, which come without warning, without allowing them to take over completely. Kavita learned long ago she needed to find a way to live in the present while silently honoring the past, to live with the husband and child she has without resenting them for what is gone.

  The elevator doors open and the operator steps out to allow Jasu and Kavita to exit. As they walk down the hallway, Kavita senses something is awry. “Do you hear that?” She turns to Jasu, gesturing with her chin to their apartment at the end of the hall.

  Jasu keeps walking, swinging the key ring on his index finger. “What? Vijay probably has that television on. I don’t know how he falls asleep with it so loud.”

  Kavita slows down, not reassured. By the time they reach the doorway of their apartment, they both know something is wrong. The door is ajar and the loud voices inside definitely are not coming from the television. Jasu holds his arm out behind him to keep Kavita back, and pushes open the door with his toe. He disappears inside, and she follows him quickly. It is the debris they see first: the familiar bits and pieces of their lives scattered about, as if Kali, the goddess of destruction herself, has paid a house call.

  “Bhagwan,” Jasu says under his breath as he steps over the broken glass of his dead father’s portrait, which once graced the front hallway, intermingled with crushed marigold petals from the garland Kavita hung on it every morning. The loud voices come from the bedroom at the end of the hallway. Vijay’s room. In the center of the common room, the table is overturned. The couch cushions have been slashed with a knife, their white synthetic stuffing belching out. In a trance, Kavita walks into the kitchen and sees the burlap sacks of basmati rice and lentils have suffered the same fate as the pillows, their contents spilling onto the concrete floor. All the cupboards are opened, and one of the doors hangs off its hinges.

  “Kavi, listen to me,” Jasu whispers hoarsely from the living room. “Go next door and wait there. Go, quickly!” He ushers her out of the apartment before she can think to ask whether she should call the police. She knocks on the neighbors’ door, but there is no answer. She waits in the hallway for a few minutes, then returns to their apartment and walks down the hallway to the bedroom at the end, stopping outside. There are two men in tan uniforms standing inside, lathis in hand. Who called the police? How did they get here so quickly? A policeman is questioning Jasu. She steps to the side of the doorway so she is out of view.

  “Mr. Merchant, I am going to ask you again, and this time you will tell me the truth. Where does Vijay keep his supply?” The officer jabs Jasu’s shoulder with his lathi.

  “Officer Sahib, I am telling you the truth. Vijay has a messenger business. He is a good boy, very honest. He would not do what you are accusing him of.” Jasu looks up earnestly from the bed on which he sits. Only then does Kavita notice that coils are springing out of a huge diagonal slash across the mattress. What are they looking for?

  “Okay, Mr. Merchant. If, as you claim, you don’t know what type of business your son is into, then surely you can at least tell us where to find him. Heh? At t
his hour of night? If he’s such a good boy, why isn’t your son home?”

  Kavita peeks around the doorway. She hasn’t seen Jasu this fearful since the police raid on the slum. “Sahib, it is Saturday night, not even eleven o’clock. Our son is out with his friends like most young men.”

  “Friends, heh?” The officer snorts. “You might want to keep a closer eye on your son and his friends, Mr. Merchant.” He pokes Jasu’s shoulder again. “You tell him we’re watching him.” The officer nods curtly at Kavita as he leaves.

  LATER THAT NIGHT, KAVITA IS JOLTED AWAKE BY JASU’S SCREAMS. She turns to see him struggling to sit up, clawing at the sheets on top of him, yelling “Nai, nai! Give it to me!”

  She touches his shoulder lightly at first—“Jasu?”—and then shakes him. “Jasu? What’s wrong? Jasu?”

  He stops thrashing and turns to her. His glassy eyes do not register anything, as if he doesn’t know who she is. After a moment, he looks down at his open palms. “What did I say?”