A House for Happy Mothers: A Novel (28 page)

Doctor Swati didn’t say anything, digesting the information.

“That’s a very high IQ,” Doctor Swati said. “I didn’t realize that he was such a smart boy. You must be very proud.”

“Pratap and I are so happy,” Asha said. “I can hardly believe it all myself.”

“So the school thing is settled?”

“Almost, but . . . it’s a boarding school. The school is in Hyderabad. And that will be very hard for us, but it’s for Manoj’s own good,” Asha said.

“Well, I’m happy for you. Carrying their baby has really worked out for you, in more ways than one. I just hope the other mothers don’t think things like this will magically happen for them,” Doctor Swati said with a tight smile.

Keertana didn’t like Priya one bit. She was one of those do-gooders, Keertana told Asha, and she didn’t trust her. The other women in the surrogate house agreed that Priya was going above and beyond to help Manoj, and they couldn’t help but be a little envious of Asha’s good fortune. Even Kaveri chimed in on one of her visits.

“I’m so jealous,” she said honestly to Priya. “First the gods smile at you and give you Manoj, and then they give you Priya.”

“In a way, it’s become harder because she is so nice,” Asha told her. “Before it was easier to hate her.”

Asha had told no one that she sometimes fantasized that the baby was hers. She would stroke her belly and think about putting the baby to her breast when she was born, feeling that ache in her breasts when the milk burst out of them. She would soothe this child—and would take her home to Manoj, Mohini, and Pratap.

Asha didn’t have to voice it; Kaveri knew. Kaveri had felt the same way.

“Next time when I do it, I’m telling Doctor Swati that I don’t want contact with the parents,” Kaveri said.

“So you are doing it again?”

Kaveri nodded. “We have to. Raman wants to start his own business. By then you will be back and you can take care of my boys.”

“Have you talked to Doctor Swati?”

“Yes,” Kaveri said. “And she said something should happen soon.”

“Kaveri, if you don’t want to do this, don’t,” Asha said. “If you feel so bad about it, if it weighs so heavily on you—”

“I don’t have a choice, Asha,” Kaveri said. “We need the money. If Raman has a business and regular income, then the boys can have an income, too, when they grow up. It’s the right thing to do.”

“Are you sure?”

“After the baby was born, I promised myself never again, but then time passes, you forget what it was like, and you think it’s OK, it’ll be OK,” Kaveri said.

“I don’t know what it will be like for me,” Asha confessed. “But I will have to be OK. I’ll have to go home and be Asha again.”

“Just because you’re carrying this baby, you didn’t stop being Asha,” Kaveri said.

“Yes, I did,” Asha said. “I became someone I don’t like. I have bitterness inside me. I feel there’s a rot inside me, spreading. I argue with Pratap, which I never did before. I think mean thoughts about the mother . . . about Priya. And she’s turned out to be so nice. You wouldn’t believe the thoughts I’ve had about her taking my baby.”

“Not
your
baby,
her
baby,” Kaveri said. “You know that, don’t you?”

Asha nodded. “I know.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Priya went to the airport alone. She didn’t want to share Madhu with anyone. They had never been away from each other for such a long time, nearly seven weeks.

The sight of Madhu with his backpack slung on his shoulder and a suitcase rolling next to him made Priya promise to herself that she’d never stay away this long ever again.

He dropped his bag, let go of his suitcase, and hugged her.

“God, I missed you,” he said into her hair. “This was way, way too much.”

Priya’s heart stumbled. She had him, she thought. Why had she ever clamored so for a baby? He was enough.

On the drive back, Priya filled Madhu in on all the latest with Manoj’s schooling.

“The boy is a miracle. Both Mayuri and I are in love with him.”

His first day with them, Manoj had confessed to them that he had a girlfriend.

“Her name is Shilpa,” he said. “And she’s very nice.”

“Is she now?” Mayuri said.

“She likes it when I kiss her feet,” Manoj said somberly. “And I told her that I don’t mind kissing her feet, but I wasn’t going to marry her.”

Mayuri and Priya had burst out laughing. “This kid has already figured out the whole male-female relationship,” Mayuri said.

Priya had given Madhu detailed reports about all the work they were doing for Manoj, and he had worried that Asha might misunderstand and think they were taking Manoj away from her.

“You think so?” Priya had asked; the thought hadn’t even crossed her mind.

“She
might
feel that way,” Madhu said. “After all, you’re helping him go to a boarding school. Would you be able to send your child away like that?”

“No, but then we have the means to be with our child in such a situation,” Priya said. “They don’t.”

“It doesn’t seem fair,” Madhu said.

Before Sush left for home, Priya had had the same conversation with her mother, who agreed it wasn’t fair, but this was India—an unfair and difficult place for the millions who were poor.

Priya had confessed to her that after being here in person, she could see how her mother could see surrogacy as an exploitation of sorts. But she also admitted that, even knowing all she did, she would still do it again. “Plus,” she added, “I’m helping Manoj; we got him a scholarship and admission to a great school. He would never have had a chance if he didn’t meet us.”

Sush had looked at her pointedly. “You have a good heart, Priya. I have never doubted it. But you’re helping the boy to assuage your guilt as well. It isn’t exactly a selfless act.”

“Come on, Mummy, I’m doing all I can,” Priya had said.

“But maybe you feel bad about using a surrogate, and seeing her, you worry about her feelings now,” Sush said. She wasn’t accusing; she was being supportive and understanding. She understood how Priya felt—a mixture of guilt and responsibility and striving to show that she was a good person. She was a good human being. Yes, she was using Asha, but she was also giving back. Were the scales even now?

“She walked into this with her eyes open,” Priya had said.

“But did
you
?” Sush had asked, and Priya didn’t have an answer.

She had to let go of Madhu when they got to his parents’ house. Prasanna hugged him and made him sit down in front of her as she always did when she saw him.

“It’s too long since we saw you,” she said with tears in her eyes, holding both her son’s hands in her own. “And you look tired.”

“Amma, I have been on a plane for twenty hours. I
am
tired,” Madhu said kindly. “But one of your good meals and I’m going to be good as new.”

“You know I didn’t get this treatment when I came back,” Mayuri said then. “I got grilled. ‘Did you lose your job? Do you have a boyfriend? Is he white? We’re going to arrange your marriage this time. No discussion.’ She didn’t hold my hands and say I look tired. And I was knackered.”

“Oh shush,” Prasanna said. “You did lose your job. You have no prospects right now. It’s the best time to get married.”

“I don’t want to get married,” Mayuri said.

“You’re nearly thirty years old; if you were going to fall in love, you’d have fallen in love by now,” Prasanna said. “We’ll find you a nice Brahmin boy. A doctor, living in London. Will that work?”

“I can find a nice doctor in London if I want,” Mayuri said, and looked at her brother. “Help me out here.”

“I know some single Indian doctors in California,” Madhu said, grinning. “Nice boys. Little
pappu
types with coconut oil in their hair, but excellent doctors, making tons of money.”

“So, I should just sell my soul?”

“Nothing wrong with that,” Prasanna said. “And you wouldn’t be selling your soul, just marrying someone with a future. Which you don’t have. Your fashion this and fashion that didn’t work out.”

“I was a designer for a major global retailer,” Mayuri said, horrified.

“And now you’re jobless,” Prasanna said.

Priya looked on at the family and couldn’t wait to have her own family with her child. Would they banter like this? How would their daughter be as a grown-up? Would she be a designer? A doctor? This was everything she had always wanted. Everything.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

We’ll go to the village,
Asha thought.
That’s what we’ll do. We’ll take the baby, Mohini, and Manoj and go to the village. No one will be able to find us there. And then the baby will really be mine.

As the days got closer to her due date, Asha woke every morning to the same thought. She wasn’t as irritable as she’d been, but still her sadness was growing inside her, as big as the baby, as palpable. And then there was the guilt, just as big. This was Priya’s baby. The good Priya who was helping her family, and she was thinking of stealing her baby, her happiness, and her future from her.

She didn’t want to think these thoughts. She was a good woman. She wasn’t a mean person. But her mind had a mind of its own, and Asha realized that she couldn’t control her feelings. First, it had just been random thoughts—
What if the baby could be mine?
thoughts . . . by accident, that is, just by a miracle. Now she wished she could do something to make that miracle happen.

It made her irritable. This push and pull inside her. This large unhappiness. This melancholy she couldn’t shake. It was almost time. She should be celebrating. Now she could go home and be with
her
family, finish this duty. She should be like Keertana, waiting to get that baby out and be on her way back to her life. Instead she was moping. She was making herself sick of herself.

“I can’t wait for this baby to be out,” Keertana said as she watched Asha pace the TV room.

“Neither can I,” Asha lied. As long as the baby was inside her, she was hers.

“Are the parents visiting again today?”

“No, not for a few days. The father is here, and they had some things to do, they said, legal things to take the baby with them to America,” Asha said.

“Are you going to get medication during labor?” Keertana asked.

“I don’t know,” Asha said.

“Get it,” Keertana recommended. “It takes all the pain away. It’s wonderful. Just the thought of the pain and I’m ready to wet myself. But last time I had the drugs and it was good.”

“But isn’t it bad for the baby?”

“It’s not my baby,” Keertana said. “Anyway, if it wasn’t safe, Doctor Swati wouldn’t give it to us.”

“I wonder when it will happen,” Asha said. “It’s such an odd thing, isn’t it? They can put someone else’s baby in my belly, but they can’t predict the date that I’ll have it.”

PART V:

LABOR AND DELIVERY

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Asha went into labor at one in the morning. The pain started in her back, slow, ringing around her stomach. She knew what it was as soon as it began.

From her previous two births, Asha knew that the best thing for her in the beginning was to walk. So she got up, tentative because she knew that her water might break at any time. She left Gangamma sleeping in the room and went to find Revati. As usual, she was in the TV room, snoozing on the charpoy while the television was set at a low volume.

“Revati,” Asha called out, standing next to her lightly snoring body.

She came awake almost immediately. Revati, everyone knew, was a light sleeper, used to being woken up at all hours.

“It’s your time,” she said as she sat up, and Asha nodded.

Asha groaned softly as a band of pain went from up her thighs to her tight stomach.

“OK,” Revati said, and got up. “I will call Doctor Swati. What do you need?”

“I’m fine. I just need to keep walking,” Asha said. She was tired, she realized, so very tired, and almost fell asleep standing up between contractions.

Revati called Doctor Swati at her house and was asked to take Asha to the clinic immediately. She put an arm around Asha and they walked next door.

“Almost there,” Revati said.

“How far apart are they?” Asha asked, because she knew Revati was keeping time.

“About ten minutes,” Revati said. “So you still have time, maybe a few hours.”

A big groan burst out from Asha then, and she almost doubled over in pain. Her water broke right before they entered the clinic, wetting her feet and her
chappals
. Revati held her up and got them to the clinic.

Nursamma was waiting for them, and she asked Asha to sit in the wheelchair. “No,” Asha protested. “It’s better if I walk. If I sit down, the pain is unbearable. And I’m completely wet. My water broke.”

Nursamma listened to her and then called out for the
dai
, the midwife. The clinic had five midwives, and there was always one with Doctor Swati in the birthing room. They wore white saris like Nursamma but not a white cap. Pratibha, one of the
dais
, rushed to Asha’s side and walked her to the birthing room.

Revati didn’t come with them, and Asha wished she had. She felt alone. The previous two times she had given birth, she had done it at home with Kaveri and a midwife. They didn’t have money to go to a hospital or get a doctor. The village had a
dai
who had so much experience that everyone trusted her more than they would a doctor anyway.

In any case, the government hospital near the village was an hour’s bus ride away, and it wasn’t like the doctor always came to the hospital when you needed him. Asha had gone there a few times when Manoj was sick and had found out quickly that it was better to go to the village healing woman.

Asha had learned to give her children turmeric with milk when they had a cold instead of the pills that the doctors gave, and when they had a fever, she would keep it down with a decoction of ginger and raisins, as the village healing woman had instructed her.

Giving birth had never really scared Asha. Kaveri had had both her boys before Asha had ever gotten pregnant, so she’d had someone to advise her.

Puttamma, her mother-in-law, had always been on hand as well, which had been a comfort, because she was always so calm about childbirth. But this time there was no one. No family, no relatives, no one she knew. She was alone in this white sterile room with Pratibha and Nursamma.

“If you want to walk, just walk,” Nursamma said, indicating the area around the bed. “If you want to lie down, you should do that. If you want help with the pain, you should let us know.”

Asha nodded.

“For now, we would like you to take your clothes off and put this gown on, and then I want you to lie down for a short while so I can check you,” Nursamma said. “Doctor Swati will be here soon.”

Asha half listened, half waited for the pain to come back. Pratibha had to help her get out of her sari, which she was thankful to discard, as it was wet with birthing water, and into the pale-blue gown that had ties on the back. They didn’t tie properly, and she felt embarrassed that her behind was bare. The embarrassment was short-lived; the contractions were starting to come faster and faster.

The baby would be here soon. Priya’s baby.

“Has anyone called Priya?” she asked between contractions, her face relaxed as a wave of pain passed out of her.

“We have,” Nursamma said. “You shouldn’t worry about that. Just relax and breathe.”

When Asha couldn’t stand it anymore, she half sat and half lay down on the bed. Nursamma checked her often, saying that she was quite close now.

They asked her again if she wanted medicine, but Asha refused. Pain was part of the process. She couldn’t cheat Mother Nature of this right.

Doctor Swati arrived an hour after Asha got to the clinic. She looked at the notes Nursamma had made on a pad that hung on Asha’s bed, and she smiled. “Looks like you’re going to have a baby soon. You’re nearly ready.”

Pratibha wiped Asha’s brow and told her to breathe, keeping her calm through her contractions. Asha missed her village
dai
, the woman who had delivered Manoj and Mohini in their hut. Maybe that hadn’t been as clean as this, and maybe she didn’t have wires on her body measuring the baby’s heartbeat, but it had felt much safer. Funny how here with all the solutions for problems that might arise at the ready, all Asha could think of were the problems.

What if something went wrong? It was a standard fear every woman had while giving birth. She screamed loudly as the contractions seemed to become harder, stronger, coming quicker.

Madhu’s mobile phone rang at two in the morning. Asha had gone into labor.

They had been waiting for this call.

They were prepared.

They had the baby’s bag packed. Small clothes, a blanket, diapers, wipes, a woolen cap. The bag was next to a car seat. Madhu had bought it in the States so it met US specifications. In California they wouldn’t let you take your baby home if you didn’t have a car seat for the baby.

Madhu woke his parents to tell them they were going to bring their daughter home. Prasanna promised to immediately set the house right. She was going to make sure the bassinet was ready with fresh sheets, convert Madhu’s old study table into a changing table laid out with everything the baby would need—diapers, alcohol swabs, baby soap, and moisturizer. And yes, they would have a big meal with lots of sweets. A celebration.

Madhu drove like a maniac, and Priya took turns laughing and crying.

“Finally, Madhu, finally,” Priya said.

The lights at Happy Mothers were on when they got there. Priya had run from the car, Madhu not far behind her. He caught up with her at the entrance and pulled her to him.

“Priya,” he said. “You know I love you.”

“Yes,” Priya said, wanting to rush inside, but there was something about how he looked at her, so intently, that she stilled and said, “I love you. Very much. Baby or no baby, Madhu, I love you.”

“Remember how you said that you were worried I’d leave if something happened to the baby?” Madhu asked, and when Priya nodded, he looked pointedly at her. “I won’t. I never will. But . . . if something happened . . . you . . .”

“You’re worried if I’ll leave, go back to being baby-obsessed Priya,” Priya said, and put her hands on his cheeks. She pulled him down to kiss him on the mouth. “I learned many things these past months. And one very important thing I learned is that you and I, we’re family. Complete. Our child . . . makes our family bigger, changes the dynamic, but doesn’t change the core of it.”

You couldn’t wash the past away. They couldn’t just wipe away what had been said between them, what had happened, but they could move forward. They had moved forward, without even realizing it. The wounds had healed. Maybe when it had started out, Priya wanted the baby more than Madhu did, but as the child went from being an abstract fetus to becoming a swollen womb, Madhu was just as invested as she was. He loved this child as much as she did.

Madhu kissed her on the nose. “Should we go see if our daughter has arrived?”

As they walked inside the Happy Mothers clinic, Priya’s heart was pounding.

She was scared. What if something went wrong? What if her baby died? What if Asha died? Would it be better if Asha died or the baby died?

Maybe this was why some parents chose not to know the surrogate. Priya was worried not only about the baby but also about Asha. She had gotten to know Asha and her family, had slept in the same bed with Manoj, held his hand and talked about his dreams with him. Asha was now family, and Priya wanted her to be as safe as her own child.

“We’re ready to push,” Doctor Swati said, her hands covered in long gloves, a green hospital gown over her sari.

“Push?” Asha said the word like it was alien to her; she rolled it on her tongue and felt a pinch. It was time to let the baby go. It was time to push it out. She wanted to say she didn’t want to. She wanted to keep the baby inside.

“Come on, Asha. With the next contraction, you must push,” Doctor Swati said.

Pratibha took Asha’s hand. “I will count, and when I say ten, you must push, OK?
Okati
,
rondu
,
mudu
,
nalgu
. . .” She went through the numbers in Telugu. When she said, “
Padhi
,” Asha pushed with all her might. It felt like her insides would tear.

“Come on, once more,” Doctor Swati called out.

It began again, the counting and the pushing. Asha couldn’t stop crying, couldn’t stop wanting to hold this baby inside her, keep it for herself.

But after just four pushes, she felt the baby slide out of her and heard its first cry. It was the last time she felt the baby, the last time she heard it, the last time she was connected to it. Once they cut the umbilical cord, it was like a dam had broken, and Asha started to howl.

“Are you in pain?” Doctor Swati asked.

Asha closed her eyes and shook her head.
God, please don’t make me see the baby,
she thought.
Please, let them take it away, far away from me. I can’t bear this.

Even as her arms ached to hold the tiny life, making her cry in a pain more terrible than the contractions, she didn’t ask to see the baby, couldn’t ask for it. It wasn’t hers. It wasn’t hers.

“Asha, you need to tell me if you’re in pain,” Doctor Swati said.

“Is the baby here?” Asha asked, sobbing.

“No, we had to take her to another room to check her,” Doctor Swati said. “Do you want to see her?”

Asha shook her head. “No.” She tightly shut her eyes, shut out the world around her.

“OK,” Doctor Swati said, and leaned down to hug Asha. “You did good, Asha. You did very good. You’re going to be fine.”

“Oh God,”
Asha said, opening her eyes for the first time since the baby had slid out of her. “Oh God, Doctor Swati.”

“It’s over,” Doctor Swati said. “And the baby is—”

“Don’t tell me,” Asha said. “I don’t want to know.”

“OK,” Doctor Swati said. “Priya and Madhu will be here soon. Do you want to see them?”

Asha wanted to say no, but she felt like she owed them one last meeting and said it would be OK.

It was three in the morning. It had taken just two short hours to give birth, to give the baby up. Two hours. Nine months and two hours.

Asha lay crying softly, unable to stop the tears as Doctor Swati delivered the placenta. Pratibha massaged her belly to remove any excess blood, and Asha didn’t speak, didn’t say anything, just lay there, a weeping doll.

She put her hand on her stomach; it wasn’t flat, but there was no baby inside. It was soft, like wet clay, and saggy. It looked bruised, black, like it had the previous two times she had given birth and held her babies to her bosom.