Later, as Chellamuthu lay on his mat in the great room holding his balloon snake—an irony for certain—he remembered that Chubby had promised the snake would protect him. It was a notion about snakes that he’d never considered.
That night, the first in a very long time, Chellamuthu slept soundly. He dreamed of climbing trees and chasing tigers and eating bananas and licking his mother’s curry from his freshly dipped fingers.
By morning, the snake that was to protect Chellamuthu was withered and limp. It had died in the night. Some of the other children’s balloon animals lasted longer, but by the third day, all were gone. And it was on that third day—cloudy and dreary—that hope, like Chubby, hurried out the front door.
Chellamuthu was sitting with Anu and a younger toddler who were attempting to stack a pile of rocks they had collected when Anu closed her eyes and slumped forward. Chellamuthu shouted for help, and Rajamani was instantly there. The man picked up Anu, made certain she wasn’t choking, and carried her to the white-doored room.
The doctor arrived an hour later and stayed until the sun had almost set. Eli wouldn’t allow Chellamuthu to wait inside, so the boy stood close enough in the courtyard to see the worried doctor leave with a lowered head and sagging eyes.
Chellamuthu lingered in the shadows until Rajamani spotted him. After scolding the boy for not minding his own business, he divulged that Anu was awake and improving. The man delivered brave words, but they floated to the ground like Chubby’s balloons, burdened with doubt.
Chellamuthu lay on his mat until most of the children were asleep and then crept beside Anu’s door to listen. He had to know for himself how the girl was doing.
Maneesh had arrived. He and Eli were inside.
Chellamuthu peeked through a crack. The men’s backs were to him, but he could hear their voices.
“What more can we do?” Maneesh asked, waving his hand in the direction of the girl.
Eli turned slightly. Chellamuthu could see him pinching at his lips by lamplight. “There is one other option,” he said.
“I’m listening.” When Maneesh leaned closer, so did Chellamuthu.
“We send her now,” Eli answered.
“To America? Like this? She’ll never survive.”
Chellamuthu was nodding with him in the dark. Maneesh was right.
Eli wasn’t finished. “Once the parents pay, and the child is sent . . .”
“I don’t believe what I’m hearing,” Maneesh interrupted, with noisy breath. “You’re the one now concerned about the money?”
Eli faced the sleeping girl. He spoke softly, as if his voice was swathed in cotton. Chellamuthu pushed the door open just a crack more to hear. “You misunderstand, my friend,” Eli said “I don’t care about the money. I’m trying to save Anu.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that once the family has paid, they’ll keep her, help her. American hospitals and American doctors mean more advanced tests and treatments. It’s risky for Anu to travel, but it may be the only way to really help her.”
Maneesh turned, mouth open, hands in the air in either protest or surrender. But Chellamuthu heard no words.
“How soon can we have documents ready?” Maneesh finally asked, apparently conceding.
“It will take at least a week,” Eli replied. “In the meantime, I’ll keep giving her the medicine the boy brought back. It’s the only thing that seems to help.”
“Agreed then. Do it. Make the arrangements.”
“No!” Chellamuthu shouted as he pushed through the door.
The men spun in unison. Maneesh was the first to step forward. He raised his arm to stop the boy, then grabbed him by the shoulder to twist him around.
“Let him be,” Eli said, stooping down to meet him. “Chellamuthu, if we don’t try, she could die. By sending her to America, she’ll have a chance to live.”
“But you don’t know that! I heard you say that you don’t know.”
“I won’t lie to you. We don’t know—we can never be certain. That’s how life is. Sometimes all we have is hope.”
It wasn’t good enough. “What if she dies?” he asked.
Just then Anu stirred. Her eyes opened as she motioned for water. While Eli reached for the cup in the nearby bucket, Maneesh ushered Chellamuthu toward the door. “Let’s let her rest, shall we?”
He pushed Chellamuthu outside and shoved the door closed. Chellamuthu pressed his ear up against the wood.
The first voice was Eli’s. “We still have plenty of the plant. I’ll have Rajamani give her a good dose now, and we’ll keep her on it for a week. I’ll push the family. If all goes well, she’ll soon be in America.”
Maneesh still didn’t sound convinced. “Are we saving her or killing her?”
Eli didn’t hesitate. “We’re saving her, Maneesh—we’re saving them all.”
“Hello? Anyone here?”
Arayi circled around to the front of the hut to find a boy calling. He was about twelve and stood beside an old bike whose basket cradled half a dozen packages. He glanced up and studied Arayi’s face, as if it would help him verify that he’d found the correct house. Just to be certain, he pulled a written list from his pocket.
“I am looking for . . . Mrs. Arayi . . . ?” He checked for the last name, but it wasn’t necessary.
“Yes, yes, that’s me.”
“I have a delivery for you,” he said, as he reached for the wrapped box on the bottom. “We apologize for the delay.”
Before her son disappeared, receiving a parcel would have been unusual for the family. But since the frightful event, packages had been arriving with regularity from relatives and friends. Their contents varied: sometimes food, sometimes a few rupees. Most often, well-wishers sent flowers, candles, incense or a small figurine of a god to include in the family’s humble shrine.
Arayi thanked the boy and then carried the parcel inside. She sat cross-legged on the ground to unwrap what looked to be a book. It was clad in heavy brown paper and was taped so thoroughly at each end that it took seconds of wrestling to finally convince the tape to let go. When it did, the contents slid out and dropped into the woman’s lap in full view.
Arayi pushed the wrapping paper aside. Her eyes squinted, widened, and squinted again, as if they couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Once her head had signaled to her heart that something was wrong, it began pumping blood so fast that the woman felt faint and had to touch the ground so as not to tip.
It was their family portrait, taken by the photographer at Suresh’s wedding, mounted in a gold-leafed frame that Chellamuthu had helped his mother select.
Emotions, already in full sprint, spun around to clarify: Should we be happy or sad? Even the pain that had started pressing against her ribs seemed confused.
In a city of so many people, it was doubtful that the proprietor who’d sent the box would have known about little, lost Chellamuthu. Had the man known, he surely would never have dropped off the gift so casually.
Arayi had forgotten it was coming, and considering what had happened since that night, it was a treasure, a picture of her family—with her son Chellamuthu—that she would hang on the wall of her hut to help her remember better times.
Of course, it was also a scourge. The mischievous boy smiling back from the wall would constantly remind Arayi that she would probably never see her Chellamuthu alive again.
She clutched the photo against her chest and rolled over in a ball on the dirt floor—perhaps to hide the picture, perhaps to protect it. She let go with a single hand and smashed her palm against her lips. No matter how bad it hurt to not scream out, she wouldn’t let the neighbors hear her cry again.
Chapter 13
Fred and Linda Rowland believed in second chances. How could they not? It was a second marriage for both, and this one was wor
king. Not that there weren’t differences, with both carting around their share of baggage. They’d simply learned that life was easier when two grabbed onto one handle.
“Are we ready for this?” Linda asked as Fred signed his name to the wire transfer that would send $5,000 of their hard-earned money directly to the Lincoln Home for Homeless Children in faraway India. The payment would not only deplete their emergency and vacation funds but wipe out all the money they’d saved for Christmas. And perhaps the next Christmas as well.
Fred’s head lowered as he turned. “I’d imagined that girls would be more expensive. I just didn’t realize it would start immediately.”
He wore a stern face, and the listening bank manager glanced at Linda to see if he was joking. Linda smiled.
When Fred and Linda were first introduced—teaching at the same high school—she wasn’t sure about the man either. He always appeared to be so irritated. It took her weeks to realize that his features, like those of a bulldog, were simply stuck that way. They laughed about it now, but on their first date, when he’d pasted on a fake smile to overcompensate, he’d looked so awkward and uncomfortable that she’d asked him to take her home right after dinner, certain he wasn’t feeling well.
Both had long since grown accustomed to his façade, a look that had served him well, considering his occupation. Fred Rowland was a boys’ PE teacher.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t have achieved more in life. When they’d met, he had already earned a master’s degree in exercise science from ASU and a doctorate in biology from Stanford. He could have taught at almost any university. But when all was said and done, Fred Rowland, the man Linda fell in love with and married, was a man with a tolerant heart who wanted to make a difference teaching boys.
There was more. In addition to PE, he taught biology and early morning driver’s ed. In his spare time, he coached the Mountain View High School All-State Wrestling Team.
If Fred was the gritty bulldog, Linda was the social poodle. The tiny blonde was attractive but unassuming, ambitious but teachable, focused but inclusive. In reality, Linda could have run a small country if given the chance. She was also a believer, a woman of faith who wasn’t afraid to jump into a problem and get her hands dirty whenever God was slow to do His part—which was fairly often, in her estimation.
After teaching high school, she moved on to the university. When she grew weary of the bureaucracy (too many smart people in too small a space), she decided to try her hand at sales and was soon the managing broker at a local real estate firm.
There was nothing she couldn’t do—except have children.
After eight years of trying—prayers, potions, pills, and positions—they gave in and adopted their first baby, a boy, Rux, from Arizona, whose birth mother was only fifteen. A year and a half later, another call came—why were they always at 2:00 a.m.?—and a second boy, Josh, from Nevada, was added to the family.
Like most mothers, she yearned for a daughter to giggle with, take shopping, stay up with until all hours talking boys, first kisses, pierced ears, and fashion. When the third call came from a corporate attorney in Albuquerque asking if they were interested in adopting another child, her hopes bloomed. The man had learned of Fred and Linda through a mutual friend, and when Linda asked why he seemed so insistent, he confided that the teen mother placing the baby for adoption was his granddaughter and that she wanted the baby to go to a loving family.
Linda’s first question was obvious. “Is the baby a girl?”
It was still early in the pregnancy and ultrasounds hadn’t yet determined the gender. By the time they had, Linda had already made space in her heart and her home. The baby, a boy they named Jarem, joined the family.
With three active boys, the Rowlands considered themselves done—until a family they’d met when adopting their first child (adopting parents are a tight-knit group) called to announce they were finally getting a baby girl through an orphanage in India. They encouraged Linda to at least inquire.
It took three weeks for Linda to collect enough nerve to write a letter, and even after it was mailed, she wasn’t sure she’d be ready for the response. When it came and a little girl’s picture dropped out of the envelope, Linda cried for two days.
It was finally happening! They would fax back the application, wire their payment, and hopefully within a few short weeks their family would be complete.
Linda squeezed Fred’s hand. A little girl in India needed them. More important, they needed that little girl. Finally, after so much hope, so many prayers, and such painful longing, Linda Rowland would be getting a daughter.
Anu spent most of the week resting in the room behind the white door. Chellamuthu knew she’d be leaving for America soon, and not knowing if the news would make her happy or sad, he said nothing.
On Saturday night before the children went to sleep, she told Chellamuthu that she was feeling better and asked him if he would go to the kitchen and get her more Kootu.
On Sunday morning, when he walked over to ask if she’d be strong enough to sing with the children by the fountain, her room was empty. Chellamuthu checked the kitchen, the lower office, and the room where Rajamani kept his things. He asked Mrs. Sundar, who was folding clothes in the courtyard, but she claimed to be too busy to talk and shooed him away a bit too quickly.
One last time, Chellamuthu ran back to the room where the children slept, thinking perhaps Anu was resting under a mat in the corner and that he’d just missed seeing her. When she wasn’t there, Chellamuthu even climbed the stairs alone to check in Eli’s office, a place where the children were forbidden to go.
One thing was certain—Anu was gone.
Three hours later, well after singing time should have started, the door beside the gate clanked open, and Eli and Rajamani trudged in.
“Shall I gather the children by the fountain?” Chellamuthu heard Rajamani ask in a somber tone.
“In a moment,” Eli replied. He had already spied Chellamuthu approaching.
“Where’s Anu?” Chellamuthu asked impatiently, before the man had a chance to speak.
“Please, come with me,” Eli answered. Every inch of the man looked fatigued. His eyes were blood-red, as if he’d been out all night drinking. After they arrived in his office and sat, Eli edged close. “Chellamuthu, I have something very important to tell you, and I need you to listen to my words carefully. Can you do that?”
The boy dropped his chin to agree.
“I’m sorry, but Anu . . . left last night.”
“Left? To where?”
Eli inhaled so deeply that Chellamuthu wondered if the man’s chest might burst. Then, like a used balloon, it deflated until there was barely anything left. “Chellamuthu,” he said, pausing again as if every word deserved individual attention, “Anu . . . went to America last night.”
Like blows coming from his father, the words stung even before making contact.
“To America?” Chellamuthu asked.
“It was unexpected,” Eli added. “We didn’t realize the family would be taking her so quickly.”
Chellamuthu shuddered. It was not what Eli had said but the way he’d said it, as if he’d rolled a piece of bitter melon in sugar and was now passing it off as candy.
“While we will miss her, it was also a blessing. She was unwell and in pain. Now she doesn’t have to worry. She is with a family who loves her. She can run and play and laugh, just like the rest of the children. Yes, Chellamuthu, Anu is very happy in America.”
And then he leaned so close Chellamuthu could sniff his breath. It smelled sad. “Do you see what I’m telling you?” Eli asked, waiting to be certain. “Do you understand?”
Chellamuthu tensed. He hated it when adults asked him that question. He sat motionless—without so much as a nod—holding the answer between his lips until his head could reason with his heart. Chellamuthu detested E
li for lying to him, for telling him that Anu had gone to America when Eli knew—when they both knew—that Anu had died in the night.
And yet, wasn’t that Eli’s point? He had told the truth without ever uttering the words aloud. He was letting Chellamuthu choose the level of heartache he could bear. He was coloring misery with hope. His cruel lie was compassionate.
“What time did she leave?” Chellamuthu asked.
Eli’s eyes tightened. “It was shortly after the children went to bed,” he said.
“Did it take long for her to get to America?” Chellamuthu asked.
“No, Chellamuthu. The journey was very quick.”
“Was she happy?”
“She was very happy—and peaceful.”
Chellamuthu reached inside to pull out another question, but he found the bucket empty.
Without saying another word, without crying, he climbed down the stairs and returned to the mat where he retrieved the picture he’d drawn of his family. He took a pencil from the box Rajamani kept on the desk and, in a space between his brother Selvaraj and his sister Manju, Chellamuthu drew the face of Anu.
Then, as carefully as he’d retrieved it, he placed the picture back between the two blank sheets of protective paper and hid the treasure again beneath his mat.
Anu was finally happy in America.
Eli pulled the old typewriter close, the trusted servant that had written so many letters to help the children in the orphanage find a home.
This letter would be no different.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Rowland,
I am writing about the girl you were to bring into your loving family. I am sorry to tell you that she did not get better. Even with our constant medical attention, she has passed away.
While this news brings sadness to us all, God is not without purpose or a plan. Another child at Lincoln Home for Homeless Children desires to be part of your loving family. Chellamuthu was abandoned as an orphan and has no family. While he is a male child, he is very young.
The Orphan Keeper Page 12