A House for Happy Mothers: A Novel (21 page)

Jordan brought tumblers of cognac for everyone except Priya, who was driving, and flopped on the couch next to his wife.

They looked like a happy couple, the extramarital affair a distant, almost dreamed-up memory, Priya thought as she watched them hold hands.

“It was good,” Nina said.

“It was great,” Jordan said. “Nina throws the best parties; don’t you think?”

“Absolutely,” Krysta said, and Priya and Madhu joined in with their consent.

“As long as we cater,” Jordan added. “It’s easier on everyone’s stomach lining if she doesn’t attempt to cook.”

“Jordan,” Nina said playfully, and threw a pillow at him.

He laughed and put his arm around her and gave her a loud kiss on the mouth.

They were both a bit tipsy.

“Well, it’s getting late,” Krysta interjected. “Priya, do you think you could give me a ride home? I’ll leave my car here, Nina. I’ll pick it up tomorrow. I can stop by on my run in the morning.”

“Maybe I’ll join you for a run,” Priya said. “What time do you leave?”

“Around seven,” Krysta said.

Nina sighed. “I envy you girls. You have so much time to do what you want. You can go to the gym, run, take cooking classes . . . and here I am stuck at home all the time with the kids.”

“You’re not stuck,” Jordan said. “You enjoy it.”

“I don’t enjoy it all the time, Jordan,” Nina said. “Once in a while I’d like the freedom to have a life, too—like all of you do. I feel trapped.”

“You have freedom. The kids go to school and preschool. How busy can you be during the day? We have a cleaning lady who does the cleaning and the laundry. You hardly ever cook. We get our groceries delivered or I go to Whole Foods. What is it you do all day that takes your freedom away?” Jordan demanded, pulling away from Nina.

Not looking so good anymore,
Priya thought, looking at Madhu pointedly. It was time to leave.

“You don’t go to Whole Foods; I do. Between Rebecca’s lactose intolerance and Sasha’s allergies, I’m there picking up this and that every fucking day,” Nina said. “You’re too busy having a career. I’m at home.”

“That’s your choice,” Jordan said. “You want a career, go get it.”

“It’s not so easy. I’ve been out of the job market for eight years now, and there’s a recession out there if you haven’t noticed,” Nina said, her voice rising.

“These were your choices. No one put a goddamn gun to your head,” Jordan said, and stood up.

Madhu, Priya, and Krysta stood up at the same time as well.

“Well, we should get going,” Madhu said.

Jordan and Nina seemed to take deep breaths and looked at their guests.

“Thank you so much for coming,” Nina said.

“It was a great party,” Priya said. She gave Nina a hug, and then Jordan.

“Christ, that was a fucking disaster,” Madhu said when they got home.

“I’m not staying at home,” Priya said, and started to take off her jewelry, putting her earrings and only pearl necklace neatly in the silk-lined suede boxes Madhu’s mother had given her.

“You can do whatever you want,” Madhu said, and kissed her cheek.

Priya slipped out of her black dress and put it back on its hanger, which was lying on their bed. She hung the dress back in the closet.

“Madhu,” she said as she watched him undress.

“What?” he asked, sitting down to remove his socks.

“I want to go to India,” she said.

Madhu looked at her and sighed.

“No, hear me out. I want to go. I want to see Asha and the baby. I
need
to go,” Priya said. “I’ll talk to you every day. We’ll Skype.”

“My parents will drive you up the wall,” Madhu said.

“I won’t let them,” Priya said.

Madhu shook his head and threw his socks in the clothes hamper. He pulled on a pair of gray flannel shorts and a white undershirt.

“Priya, we’ll be without each other. Without support,” he said. “I don’t think I could handle it alone, talking to Asha and hearing her angry or off or whatever. I need you here.”

“But that’s the point. If I’m there, I’ll know exactly what her mood is and why it’s like that. I can tell you and you’ll have peace of mind,” Priya said. “We’ll still be there for each other, just via Skype.”

“For two months?”

“Well, just a month and a half; you’ll be there the last two weeks,” Priya said.

“And you’re sure about this?”

Priya shook her head. “No. But I think I should do it.”

“I don’t like it . . . but OK,” Madhu said as he lay on the bed, his arms stacked behind his head.

“Just don’t have an affair with some Chanel-clad woman while I’m gone,” Priya said with a smile and lay down beside him in her underwear.

“I’ll miss you,” Madhu said. “Just the thought of you gone makes me miss you.”

“You travel so much. You won’t even notice,” Priya said. “It’ll be the same. You’ll just talk to me in India on the phone from Dallas or Phoenix or wherever you are instead of here.”

“I do have a lot of travel lined up,” Madhu said. “And we do have great phone sex.”

“See?” Priya said. “It’s going to be just fine. Trust me.”

Transcript from message board www.surrogacyforyou.org

UnoBaby: I’m struggling here. Work has become insane. My company laid off so many people that the workload is just too much. I don’t know if I can work like this after the baby. These ten-hour days are fine if it’s just DH and me, but once the baby is here I don’t know if I’ll want to do it. I want to be home, be with my baby. It’s been such an uphill battle having this baby—I feel like I’ll cheat myself if I work.

Trying1Time: At least you have a job. I got laid off. And I’m honestly scared that I’ll never ever work again. I’m not sure I’m the stay-at-home kind, but God knows what I’ll become once the baby is here.

Newbie1209: I think you should take a few months off and then make a decision. You’ll never know now how it’s going to feel to have your baby home.

YummyMummy2008: I don’t mean to judge anyone. Everyone makes her choice here. But my advice is to work. If you like your work and it keeps you stimulated, please do work. I am a better mother working than I was not working. But I’m sure it’s different for everyone.

Mommy8774: I love being a stay-at-home mom. It’s what I always wanted and now I have it. It’s perfect. I would not ever work and steal from my time as a mother.

CantConceive1970: FWIW, I never worked. I finished university and got married. I wish I had worked, but now it’s too late and in any case I’m so busy schlepping the kids around here and there and taking care of the house, I don’t have the time to work. Hats off to the women who do both.

NearlyMother: OMG! Working has kept me sane. After we lost the baby, I was going out of my mind and it was great to go to the office every day and just get my head screwed on right.

LastHope77: I can’t quit even though I want to. My husband got laid off and our baby is due in December . . . so I have to work and if my DH doesn’t get a job then he will stay home with the baby and I’ll continue to work. I wish I could stay home and enjoy my baby. But with this recession, I don’t know if I’m going to have that option.

PART IV:

THIRD TRIMESTER

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Asha wanted to cry as soon as she hung up. She set the mobile phone on the floor beside her bed and buried her face in her hands.

The mother was coming to India. For nearly two months. She was going to visit Happy Mothers and hover around her.

Now Asha wished her parents were like Keertana’s parents, who didn’t want anything to do with her. It would be better for everyone if she had never met the mother or father.

It had been a difficult few days. Just the day before, Manoj had a big bruise on his elbow.

“How did you get that?” Asha asked.

Manoj shrugged but didn’t say anything.

Pratap sighed. “He got into a fight with an older boy.”

“The other boy was being stupid,” Manoj said. “He said that we have a leap year every four years so
he grows older slower than all of us. He’s born on the twenty-eighth of February.”

“And you got into a fight because of this?” Asha asked.

“It’s not true. We need leap years to keep our calendar in alignment with the earth’s revolutions around the sun,” Manoj said. “Everyone knows this.”

Later, when Manoj was playing with Mohini and out of earshot, Pratap told Asha that this was not the first time Manoj had gotten into a fight at school.

“He’s bored, his teachers are saying,” Pratap said. “He’s picking fights, and they’re calling him names because they think he shows off his smartness. I was worried, but you know, Asha, all boys go through things like this. I think it’ll be fine.”

“No, not if we don’t do anything. We have to find him a better school with children like him,” Asha said.

For days, her mind had been wholly occupied with Manoj’s problems, and now the mother wanted to come and bother her. Asha wiped her tears.
If she wants to come, let her come. What’s it to me?
Asha told herself.
She can sit here and watch television with us all day if she likes.

As Asha walked into the TV room and saw all the women with their pregnant bellies sitting and chatting, watching television, she felt claustrophobic. She needed to get away, just for a while. The rules were, they couldn’t go out alone. They could go in groups, out to a movie or something like that
once in a while
—but Nursamma had to organize it. Asha would have to talk to someone about it.

Since Asha had come to Happy Mothers, they had gone out as a group only once, to the park in the center of the city. They had packed food and water with them for a picnic. But it was early on, and Asha had spent the entire time missing her children, whom she had come to the park with several times in the past.

Would this time ever evoke one happy memory? she wondered. Or would she forever look back at it as a black mark in her life?

The baby kicked suddenly, and she regretted her thoughts immediately. A baby would come out of this dark time, and if a baby came out of it, how could the time be dark?

“Keertana,” Asha said, sitting down next to her on one of the coconut charpoys where the women sat to watch television. “Could you convince Nursamma that we should go for a movie?”

Asha didn’t want to ask because the last time at the park had been at her insistence, too.

“That’s a good idea. I want to see
Raju Maharaja
,” Keertana said. “The songs they showed on
Chitralahari
on TV are so
mast
, fun.”

“And Mohan Babu and Ramya Krishnan are in the movie,” Gangamma said. “She’s still so pretty, even though she’s now doing mother roles.”

“Mohan Babu, Shmohan Babu. He’s an old man,” Chitra said. “Let’s see
Evaraina Epudaina
. It’s with Varun Sandesh.”

Keertana shrugged. “I really don’t care what we see as long as we get out of here. I’ll talk to Nursamma.”

“Wonder how it’ll look with all of us pregnant, fifteen pregnant women, all sitting in the same row.” Ragini laughed. “I hope I can see the movie before anything happens.”

Ragini was due in two weeks, and since this was the third time she was doing this, it could happen at any time. The more babies a woman had, the sooner the babies came. Doctor Swati had given her strict orders to rest and relax.

Asha liked Ragini. She was a strong woman who, like Keertana, didn’t think of surrogacy as an emotional experience at all. She just wanted to get enough money to marry off her daughters and be done with it. Her husband was not much use. He spent all the money he made as a construction worker on toddy. In the early years of their marriage, Ragini told Asha, she had tried to change him, but now she didn’t even try.

“He can go to hell, that son of a whore,” she would say. “Once my daughters are married off, I’ll go stay with them. Two months here, three months there—that’s going to be my life. I’ll play with my grandchildren, stay with my daughters, and let that waste of humanity I married rot alone.”

“When you give the baby away, don’t you feel something?” Asha once asked her.

Ragini laughed. “Sure I feel something. I feel rich.”

They took auto rickshaws to the theater. Five autos for fifteen people—thirteen pregnant women, Revati, and Nursamma. Two of the women had declined to come to the movies because they weren’t feeling up to it.

“This was a great idea,” Revati said. She was in the same auto as Keertana and Asha. “I’ve wanted to go see a movie for a long time now, but these days with the TV showing everything, it seems like a waste of money. But a cinema is a cinema.”

Revati’s life revolved around the Happy Mothers House. She didn’t seem to have any family, any life, outside of her responsibilities at the clinic, not like Doctor Swati, who had her own home and family.

“A good, wholesome movie is exactly what I need to cheer me up,” Revati said.

Chitra had not won the vote, and they were going to see
Raju Maharaja
, a nice family drama with some well-known but older actors. Young romance was not on anyone’s wish list, except maybe Chitra’s. In any case, romance movies were for college boys and girls. They were grown, pregnant women; they needed a family setting.

“My husband and I used to see a movie every month,” Keertana said. “But now . . .” She put her hand on her belly for a moment and laughed. “But after this baby, we can go right back to it. Don’t even have to worry about taking a baby along and having it cry all through the movie.”

Revati smiled. “You’re all doing such a pious task. You’re giving so many people a miracle. I see a lot of parents and surrogate mothers come and go, and I’m always touched by the gift you give and the joy they feel.”

Keertana snorted but didn’t say anything.

“My baby’s mother is coming here,” Asha said. “She won’t stay here, but she will come and visit every day or something.”

Revati didn’t exactly make a face, but her discontent was obvious when she spoke. “I don’t like those parents who come and try to become friends with the surrogate. It doesn’t work. But they don’t understand that. I told Doctor Swati to make this a clinic where parents don’t talk to the surrogate.”

“There are clinics like that?” Asha asked.

“Of course,” Revati said, and screeched a little when the auto bumped hard. “Hey, drive carefully, man, I have pregnant women here.”

“I’m careful, Amma, but what do you want me to do about holes in the road?” the auto driver said cheerfully. “I have driven lots of pregnant women in this auto, never had any problem.”

“Pay attention, for God’s sake,” Revati screamed as the auto missed a bicycle by a hair.

“You let me drive, Amma,” the driver said. “You just relax. So, what movie are you going to see?”

“
Raju Maharaja
,” Keertana told him.

“
Mast
movie, Amma,” the driver said. “Top movie. Mohan Babu, Ramya Krishnan . . . what a movie.”

“Well, if you say it’s good, it must be good,” Keertana said sarcastically, holding on to the side bar of the auto for dear life as it found another hole in the road.

They stopped outside the theater and Revati paid the auto. Doctor Swati was paying for the autos, but the women had to pay for their own movie tickets.

Rangamma, the maid’s son, had gone to the theater in the morning and bought tickets so that the women could skip the long lines at the ticket counter and go straight inside the air-conditioned halls. Even though the women were buying their own tickets, they had splurged and bought balcony seats. The view was much better, and the seats were more comfortable.

Asha always liked the smell of a movie theater. This one, Devaky Cinemas, was a big one. She remembered when Kaveri and Raman first moved to Srirampuram, they had talked excitedly about it, how modern it was and how it could seat fifteen hundred people. Sure enough, today’s show was packed.

The balcony seats were lush, comfortable, still velvety to the touch—after all, the theater was just two years old. It even had that unmistakable smell of expensive air-conditioning and fresh samosas.

They had the first row; this meant that they didn’t have to move once they sat down, and they had good leg space as well. Asha settled into her seat. When she was young, her favorite thing to see was when the curtains on the screen parted and the movie began. The opening of the curtain was like opening a treasure and seeing what surprise lay within. She sighed contentedly.

Doctor Swati had agreed that even though they couldn’t eat anything at the theater because the fried samosas could make them sick, they could have a cold drink each, her treat. As soon as they found their seats, Chitra called out to the cold-drink boy who was walking around the theater with a case of drinks strapped to him.

The women all cried out for what they wanted: Thums Up, Fanta, Limca . . . 

“Ah,” Chitra said, sighing at the taste of lemony Limca as it coated her throat. “This is so good.”

“We should have cold drinks in the house, Revati,” Gita said, enjoying her Thums Up.

“These drinks are not good for the babies. Too much sugar,” Nursamma said before Revati could respond. “It’s OK to drink one here and there, but not every day.”

“It’s not my baby, so why do I care,” Keertana said in a low voice so only Asha could hear.

“Keertana, you’re so bad,” Asha said, and slowly drank her Fanta, not wanting the bottle to empty too soon.

The women came back from the movie in high spirits. Such high spirits that Ragini went into labor an hour after they returned. Her parents were in the United States and had been informed. They had tickets to come to India in a week, so they would get the baby then. During that time, the baby would remain at the Happy Mothers clinic and be taken care of by the baby doctor and nurses there.

Ragini’s labor was short. Just two hours. She came back the next day, not looking like a woman who had just given birth, but a carefree woman without a worry in the world.

“How did it go?” someone asked.

“How are you feeling?” someone else piped in.

Ragini told them that it went fine. There was hardly any pain, and Doctor Swati had been very good with her.

“Did you see the baby?” Asha asked as she helped Ragini pack her things. Ragini was going home the following day; she couldn’t wait to see her daughters again.