by Sadie Sumner
They eased into the stream of trucks and motorized rickshaws, and Kavitha rested her hands on her belly. “We're going to meet your mommy,” she whispered in English and wondered if the baby recognized her voice.
She looked at the nurse in her too-big uniform. “Do you like your job?” The girl did not answer, and Kavitha noticed she balled her fingers into her palms. “Have you been doing this for long?”
“Six months. I just graduated nursing school.”
She looked younger than Ria and not as assured. “Do you know, from your studies, if there is a word for two unrelated children grown in the same womb?”
The girl glanced over and shook her head. “I don’t think there has ever been such a word,” she said as they pulled up outside the clinic.
A sandwich board painted with the Planete Bebe logo now stood on the pavement, chained to a pole, with a large planter of flowers by the door and the window lit up.
Dr. Devi greeted Kavitha as if she had not seen her for days. No mention was made of Ria as she followed her to the procedure room. On the examination table, her stomach seemed impossibly large.
The doctor snapped on her disposable gloves. Kavitha did not like to think of the injections to prepare her to receive the embryo, and then the transfer itself, the pain and the knowledge her body had been invaded and taken from her.
“Now, let’s see how you are doing. Then we can make a good report to our intending parents. Knees up and together,” she said in the childlike voice she used with the women. “Now let them drop open, nice and slow. Just relax.”
Kavitha tensed as she felt the cold edge of an instrument. The commissioning couple had expressly asked for a single baby. A sheet had separated Kavitha from the doctor, but she knew she had inserted two embryos. The days of waiting to see if one of them had stuck were excruciating. She remembered her relief when the first scan showed one perfect baby girl, just as her parents ordered.
“Your daughter is very spirited,” the doctor said as if they were at Starbucks, drinking chai together.
“She is like her father.” Kavitha winced as the doctor continued her examination and she felt the baby jump too.
“I remember that zeal. I too wanted to save all the woman of India,” the doctor chuckled.
“What happened?” Kavitha asked.
“Oh, I am doing just that.” She sounded surprised at Kavitha’s question. “You may not agree, but these women achieve economic autonomy, just as you are. Their daughters will go to university and will not need to be surrogates. It is a useful business. There are no unhappy customers.”
Kavitha thought of Bala’s comment that there were no happy stories in the long room of the converted factory, and she wondered how much money Dr. Devi made from each of them.
The doctor pulled off her gloves and washed her hands. “You have carried very well, Kavitha. No doubt it is your superior diet and your genes. The baby is healthy. And big I think. Do you have any worries?”
Kavitha thought about her empty flat, her lost husband and her daughter’s activism. She shook her head.
“Perhaps the birth itself?” the doctor asked.
Kavitha nodded.
“We will come right here at the beginning of labor, and we will monitor you. If the baby is late, we will do an induction, or the client can request a caesarean if they are running out of time. If all goes well, you can deliver naturally. Your last birth was normal.”
“My husband was with me that time.” Kavitha saw Arun; his shirt bunched up, his brow creased with worry as he took her to the hospital, his hand glued to the car horn.
The doctor smiled reassuringly. “This time you will have me.” She handed Kavitha a sari. “Our clients like to see the surrogates looking tidy.”
Kavitha touched the bright green silk. “But, I would never wear this,” she said and felt a light cramping in her lower back.
Twenty-One
Gil stood on the forecourt of the hotel. Monica ran out and hugged him. She touched his head and could not believe it was him.
“I went to the yoga retreat,” Gil said, “Not much like the brochure.”
Monica laughed. “I know right. India. But you’re here. What excellent timing.” She felt an overwhelming gratitude. “Can you believe this place?” She could not stop talking. “Remember we were going to come here for our honeymoon? I know, I know, it was me that made us go to Niagara Falls.”
The doorman took his bag, and Monica instructed him to leave it in her room. Gil protested. He needed a shower. But she took his arm, and the driver held the door for them. A bud of uncertainty nudged against her excitement. He was never this spontaneous and she did not know if he was still her husband.
Gil leaned back and ran his hand over his shaved head. “I did it at the airport in New Delhi. I don’t know why.”
The traffic caught them like a flood, and they were pushed forward, sandwiched between a truck and another taxi. Monica took out her Rescue Remedy as the taxi turned into the quieter side street.
Monica saw the pavement sign. “Oh, we’re here. Look, it’s the same logo. I didn’t realize. It feels like a first date. Does it feel like that to you? What if there’s no chemistry? I should have brought her a gift.” She was breathless. “Why, oh god why, didn’t I bring her a gift?”
The driver ran around and let them out. The heat rose from the pavement and engulfed them, and they stood together, not moving in the rush of the street. Monica took Gil’s hand as the clinic door opened. Inside, the noise and smell and heat of the city disappeared.
“Thank god for air conditioning.” Gil stood a distance from Monica. The doctor greeted them both. She twisted a button on her white coat as she led them through to a small sitting room. Kavitha stood by the window, her body lit from behind with sunlight. Monica leaned against the doorframe. Nothing could have prepared her. It was as though she had never seen a pregnant woman before. Suddenly she wanted the baby inside her. She wanted to feel her skin stretched and the weight and pull of it. And she saw herself standing outside a magic circle that encompassed every messy detail of real life and knew she had put herself there, every day, her entire life.
Gil shook Kavitha’s hand. “Hi, I’m Gil. And this is my - this is Monica.”
Monica had never felt so flustered. Kavitha’s belly seemed to fill the room as if nothing else existed. Kavitha smiled at her, and Monica reached out to touch the baby and shuddered.
“Let’s all sit.” The doctor intervened.
“What is wrong with you?” Gil hissed into Monica’s ear.
“I’m sorry. I’m Monica. It is so good to meet you finally. You look well.” The sound was like an echo of her real voice.
Kavitha lifted the weight of the baby into position. “I am very well, thank you. They take good care of us.”
“Kavitha is a model patient.” The doctor smiled, and Monica saw her teeth were perfect. “Your baby is healthy; she’s big, already very advanced.” She took out an envelope. “We have a new scan. Would you like to see?”
The baby was clearly visible, perfect in every way, her fingers and toes almost as clear as a photograph.
“Is she moving? Have you been eating well?” Monica gazed at Kavitha. “What does it feel like?” Her voice dropped to a whisper.
“Monica, stop interrogating her.” Gil coughed and entwined his fingers and leaned towards Kavitha. “We are so grateful for your gift. Your kindness, it leaves me, leaves us, speechless.”
“You are welcome.” Kavitha rested her hands on the rise of her belly.
The desire to place her hands there made Monica’s fingers burn. “May I?” she asked.
The doctor moved over so Monica could sit between them and Kavitha took her hand and placed it over the baby. Monica felt a shiver beneath her palm and then a small bump. She pulled her hand away in surprise. Kavitha laughed. “It is her foot, I think.”
Monica looked at Gil. “Come. Feel our baby.” Gil shook his head and Monica turned bac
k to Kavitha. “What does that feel like?” She smiled and moved her hand to follow the baby’s movement.
“It feels - I cannot answer you. Sometimes she kicks under my ribs, right here.” She showed Monica. “Then it hurts, just a little.”
Monica felt an overwhelming desire to lay her head against Kavitha’s stomach, to stroke her taut skin and to croon to the child within. “Can I, could I, be at the birth?” She blurted it out.
The doctor shook her head. “It’s not in the contract. We don’t advise it. But, well, let’s see how it goes. You can be here, though, in the waiting room.”
Monica saw herself gloved up, in a white smock, her arms outstretched ready to catch the newborn like a scene from late night television. “But I could be the doula, you know. I could help.”
“It’s a beautiful idea,” Dr. Devi said. “Let’s wait and see how it goes? Baby is not due for three weeks.”
Kavitha stood, and Monica saw how tiny she was and she wondered if Nina would remember Kavitha.
Outside the clinic, Monica and Gil tried to walk, but the heat and the crowd overwhelmed them, and they hailed a taxi.
“Why did you not want to feel her kick?” Monica asked. Gil looked out the window. “Gil!” Monica felt her confidence in him dissolve. “What the hell is wrong with you? Why would you not feel her kick?”
“I’m tired.” He ran his hand over the stubble of his hair again.
“Why are you here? Where’s Dog?”
“Let me take a shower and change my clothes. We can talk after. Dog is with Chloe.”
Monica felt a sudden urgency as if this moment mattered more than any other. “In there, you couldn’t even call me your wife. Clearly nothing’s changed, so why are you here?” she repeated the question.
“You seem to have no idea how unhappy I’ve been. For years.”
Monica felt the pressure behind her eyes and realized their other life was truly over. “Oh for god’s sake Gil. Everyone’s unhappy.” She didn’t care that she was yelling. “That’s why we’re having a baby. How could we be ‘unhappy’ with a baby?” She made quotation marks in the air.
They pulled up outside the hotel. “We are not having a baby. You are. And I hate it when you do the quotation mark thing,” Gil’s voice was croaky from flying.
“How about when I do the slamming door thing, do you hate that too?” Monica got out and slammed the door. She needed to think about the baby, instead, she was in the middle of another argument with Gil. From the bar, she could see the forecourt and watched as Gil made a phone call and spoke to the driver, who pulled the car to the side. Gil laid his head back and appeared to fall asleep. Monica ordered a sparkling water then changed her mind.
“Campari and soda, one ice cube.” She held up a finger in emphasis. The drink arrived, and she sipped and somehow the taste transformed into her most favorite thing, a taste of Dotty, and she watched the car until Gil woke with a start and paid the driver. Monica shrunk back in the chair and tried to see him as a stranger might, a tall man, handsome in a pared back way, but somehow too thin for warmth.
“I’m sorry,” he said when he found her. “Jetlag. God, I’m so tired.” He sat opposite and eyed her drink, and ordered the same.
“Do you remember how Dotty wore a gold sari to our wedding?” Monica twirled the thick red liquid around her glass. “It was shiny, and she knew I was wearing silver. I always thought she did it to upstage me.”
Gil frowned. “I must be having an out-of-body experience.”
“More likely last minute nerves.”
He looked around the bar and the lobby. “It’s not nerves; I can’t have a baby. I don’t want a baby.” He took a large envelope from his bag and placed it on the table.
Monica felt her throat constrict. “We are so far past the choice stage. It’s not as though we can return her and get our money back.” She sucked on the remains of the ice cube
Gil leaned towards her. “You. Listen to me. I am so sick of being polite. This is your baby. Not mine,” he whispered and handed her the envelope. “Divorce papers,” he said before she could ask.
A burst of bright light erupted behind Monica’s blind eye. “I don’t think I know you.” Her marriage was over. She saw the baby, her hair a shock of black, her eyes dark and shining, nestled in Kavitha’s arms.
Gil stared into his drink. “I’m sorry. I just keep saying sorry. I need a shower. Let’s talk over dinner.” The corners of his mouth drooped, and his skin was sallow.
He left and Monica gazed blankly at his untouched drink, and a girl took his seat. Her eyes were black with kohl, and she pointed at Monica.
“We need to talk.” She picked up Gil’s drink and sniffed it. “You’re paying my mother to have your baby. Do you know how much money she’ll make?”
Before Monica could answer, the waiter returned and asked if she needed assistance and grabbed the girl’s arm.
“Two percent. Two percent of all that money you paid.”
“What do you mean? Who are you? How do you even know this?”
“I’m at university. How much did you pay?”
“It’s none of your business,” Monica said and instructed the waiter to let her go.
“You made it my business when came to my country and exploited my mother.” Ria tasted Gil’s drink.
Monica could see she was nervous. “It’s been nice talking to you. I think you should leave.” She indicated the security guard who watched them from beside the revolving door.
“You have no idea, do you?” Ria started to cry. Monica raised her hands. “Tears? Oh god.” She handed over a paper napkin. “So Kavitha is your mother?”
Ria sniffed and introduced herself, her bravado gone.
“She is a very kind woman, your mother, very altruistic. Not everyone would do such a generous thing.” Monica finished her drink.
“Do you really believe altruism is why women are doing this?” Ria took a brochure from her bag. “Have you read this?” Her tears were gone and she’d found her balance.
Monica glanced at it. “Your mother doesn’t look poverty-stricken.”
“They weren’t. They managed a clothing factory, that was off-shored back to America.”
Monica caught the waiter’s eye. “I didn’t know that.”
“Do you know anything about my mother?”
Monica wanted to shrug, but it was a valid question, and she felt compelled to answer. “I guess not.”
Ria fiddled with the ends of her hair. “How would you feel if all you had to sell was your body?”
A fresh drink arrived, this time with a piece of orange on a toothpick. “I think that’s a little extreme. It’s not prostitution. I imagine your mother doesn’t know you’re here.”
Ria shook her head. “I went to the hostel.” She rubbed at her eyes and Monica thought she might cry again.
“Bringing a baby into the world like this is a very special gift, you know.”
“You read that on a bullshit surrogacy website. They probably forgot to mention baby farming and exploitation of poor women?”
Monica ate the orange slice. “You must be very upset with your mother.”
“You should come and see,” Ria said.
“I have. I met Kavitha today. But you know that. You must have followed us.”
“I did. The clinic is a shop front, like a boutique with a factory elsewhere. The rooms you saw, they’re only for show. The women live in an old factory on the edge of the slum. If you don’t believe me, I’ll take you.”
“Let me buy you an early supper?”
Ria shook her head.
“Come on,” Monica said, “You have to eat.”
“Are you not even a little bit curious?” Ria took a big swig of Gil’s drink and screwed up her face. “You like this?”
Monica smiled.
“Do you think if you fill out all the forms and pay over the money then it must be just fine?” Ria pushed.
Monica felt the itch of d
ried sweat on her back. This really was too much. “Oh for god’s sake. If I cared about every issue in the world, I’d never shop at Zara. I’d never get my nails done by those Vietnamese girls or buy vegetables from a supermarket. Just exhausting.”
“But this isn’t a bunch of carrots or new clothes.”
“You have a lovely name, Ria. You know, I’m not child free by choice. If I could have my baby, myself, I would. Even if I come with you, what can I do? I’m going to wait till she’s born and take her back to Vancouver. I’ll remember your name, but all this will fade.”
Ria stood up. “Have you always been amoral or is it a new thing?”
“I guess you’re not studying business at university?”
“I am actually. And sociology, politics and ethics.”
Monica looked over the brochure. She thought about Gil upstairs, knocked out with jetlag and wondered how they would if her marriage would still be over when he awoke. “Alright. I’ve got nothing else to do. Come on then, show me this evil thing I’m doing.”
Twenty-Two
Ria pointed to her scooter, chained to a tree at the edge of the forecourt and held up her helmet. Monica could not imagine herself on the back in rush hour. “Do up the straps,” Monica said when Ria put her helmet on. She held up her hand for a taxi, and they followed closely behind Ria as she wove through traffic, past the market and a Starbucks. They drove past Planete Bebe, and Ria slowed and pointed, and Monica saw the flower planter, and pavement sign was gone, and there was no light in the front window.
The broad road quickly became a jumble of small streets dense with people and makeshift huts built from the scraps of other people’s lives. Dogs and handcarts and banks of parked up scooters cluttered the pavements.
They pulled onto a paved strip in the middle of the road. Wild trees grew from broken concrete and canopies were strung between them, creating shadows but little shelter for the thin women and small, naked children who stopped their play to watch Monica. The sun was low, and the sky zipped and swooped with kites of every color and shape. Their strings shimmered in the blue-tinged air. Monica was mesmerized as two kites crossed, and one fell to the ground amidst a roar of excitement from the children.