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Authors: Mary Anne Mohanraj

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I ran at school. At home. I'd get up in the early morning, even before Amma rose to iron our uniforms and make our hot, sweet milk. I walked out the door when the sky was cold and dark and dry, the air so clear that even an hour later, it was amazing that you could still breathe. I started running when the tip of my sneaker touched the bottom of the last step—with a push from those toes, going as fast as I could.

I never ran far. Down the street, to the small patch of woods that still existed back then, through the woods between the trees, ignoring scratches on my arms that would later have Amma squawking and casting reproachful looks at Appa over his toast and fish curry. Through the woods to the lake. I'd stop there, sit down on the shore. Sometimes, if it was early enough, if I had time, I'd take off my sneak
ers and socks, slip dirty brown feet into even dirtier water. Watch the sun rise. Wipe off my feet on the grass, put the socks and sneakers back on. Turn around. Start running. There wasn't much time.

Less than two miles to the lake and back. I was always back before any of my five sisters had woken.

At home, I removed my shoes, threw the socks in the laundry basket, washed my body and my hair. I'd cut it short when I started running. It was too much trouble brushing it afterward, and I never had the patience to braid it the way Amma wanted me to. Amma took her hairbrush to me that day and got in a few good smacks before Appa intervened. “Please, Shanthi, please let her be.” And she did.

I ran all through high school. At home. At school. I was the best sprinter on the team, and when I won my first trophy, Amma was there at the ceremony, in her blue and silver sari, with her hair up and her glasses in her purse. She was almost blind without them, but she hated wearing them in public. She wouldn't even wear them to teach; she memorized her math lectures and hardly used the blackboard at all. When I came down after receiving the trophy, she looked right past me.

The summer after my senior year of high school, my breasts suddenly grew two sizes. I couldn't run the way I had, pounding through the woods, hardly noticing the ups and downs. Even with my oldest, tightest bra, they jiggled and distracted. They had gone from barely plums to grapefruit. The family doctor didn't know why, though he seemed to think it was wonderful. Maybe it was all that hot milk.

I took up tennis instead, when I started college at Chicago. Amma had new complaints; my arms were getting unfeminine, too muscular. I ignored her. Tennis was good at first, slamming the ball across the court, the competitive charge. But the audience at games was distracting, and even my opponent was more than I wanted; it wasn't the same as running alone. Tennis didn't give me the same rush of blood through my body, from my toes to the top of my head. Eventually, I stopped bothering to cut my hair; I let it grow long, like my sisters, and braided it.

In the fall of my second year, I dropped tennis. I was too busy studying to practice daily, to make every scheduled meeting, every event at home and away. Amma was happy.

 

I WAS SHAKING. MY EYES WERE PRESSED TIGHTLY CLOSED, MY HEAD
was tucked between my knees, and Sue's head was pressed against mine. Her hands were wrapped around mine, and I could feel her breath on my calves; I was wearing a knee-length skirt, though my father didn't really approve. My mother had convinced him to allow all of us to wear them, since they were still longer than the miniskirts all the white girls were wearing. She said we had to adapt—but not too much. We had to remember where we came from.

It was difficult remembering anything with Sue's breath warm and quick against my shivering skin.

I took deep breaths, trying to slow my thumping heart. Left ventricle, right ventricle, aorta, pulmonary artery…Names, words were calming. That's what I knew, all I knew. I had forgotten the language of my body. All I did those days was read and write and study the words. Right atrium, left atrium, inferior vena cava…The dizziness faded; I lifted my head—and promptly became dizzy again.

Sue's softly rounded face was just an inch or two away from mine, and the words had fled. All I could think about was how warm and solid her lips looked, how the curve of them contrasted so sharply with the empty air behind her, the sharp angles of tilted roof and vertical wall and hard horizontal ground three stories below. I couldn't breathe, and I could feel my eyes widening, my throat swallowing convulsively. She looked frightened, with blue eyes gone dark and stormy—and then she leaned forward and pressed her lips against mine.

 

WHEN WE WERE LITTLE, MY SISTERS AND I RAN FREELY AROUND
campus in the hours after school and before dinner, making friends
with the students and teachers. We watched each other, and everyone kept an eye on us, so my parents didn't worry. They were busy with their teaching schedules. Appa was a mathematician, in Eckhart Hall on the main quadrangle; Amma was a few streets away at the Lab School. We weren't supposed to bother them while they were working.

I hadn't meant to bother him. I was eight, and I liked to run. That day, I was running from the Reynolds Club fountain to the tennis courts, just running back and forth, seeing how fast I could go. There was a tricky bit, crossing the open archway between Eckhart and Ryerson Halls. Three steps up, four steps across, three steps down. I could skip steps, but I didn't actually go faster then. So I usually hit them all, thump thump thump. My head down, and my arms at my sides, pumping to help me run faster. I must have run it a hundred times that day before I tripped and fell.

I cut my forehead on the stone. It didn't hurt much. But it was bleeding, blood running down my face, onto my favorite blue dress. Appa's office was right there—just inside Eckhart, up two flights of stairs, three doors down. I pressed my hand over the cut, trying to stop the bleeding. I ran inside, up the stairs, down the hall. And when I got to his door, I pushed it open, without knocking.

He was kissing a woman. A blonde woman, with long, straight hair that fell down her back. It looked just like Amma's hair—but the wrong color. And she was much younger than Amma. I turned around and ran away, leaving the door open behind me.

I didn't tell anyone.

 

I COULD HAVE PULLED AWAY AND PULLED MYSELF INTO THE STAIRWELL
and run down the stairs and away. But instead I slid forward, just an inch, but an inch further out onto the roof. I slid forward and pressed my lips back against hers, tentatively opened my mouth and I was breathing her breath, swallowing her air, and I could breathe again. I was still dizzy but her lips were so warm and solid and her
mouth was wet and her hands tightened on mine as if she would pin me to the roof, pin me down so that I couldn't possibly fall off. I was grateful for their pressure, because my body felt light, my bones felt hollow, as if I could fly away on them.

Her hands slid up my arms. They slid up to my shoulders and wrapped around, pressing against my spine, pulling my body against hers. She was crouching now, her knees pressed against the outside of mine, and I could feel the heat of them, the damp sweat cooling in the breeze that blew across the roof. They slid against my own sweaty skin; and I didn't dare to look down. I knew that her skirt must have slid up and up. Sue kept kissing me. That was what we were doing. She was kissing me, and I was kissing her back. I was kissing Sue on the roof of the college library, the college where my father was currently giving an exam; we were kissing on the roof where anyone who looked up could see us.

Her mouth moved hard against mine, her tongue licking out in tiny licks against my tongue, my teeth, the inside of my lips. Then she started sliding her mouth down, down my chin, and I tilted my head back. Sue was licking my neck, sucking on the hollow of my throat, and I was sure there was a name for that part but I couldn't remember what it was. The blood was still thumping through my heart, the aorta filling and pulsing and pumping it along. Her hands were still tight against my spine, grounding me against her solid body, keeping my skin attached though my bones wanted to fly. And my hands were off the ground and on her bare legs. My hands were sliding up and down her damp thighs and she moaned in her throat, and at the sound of it a burn started between my thighs, a quick convulsion shook through me.

Sue pulled away; she started to open her mouth to speak.

 

IN THE FALL OF MY THIRD YEAR, I WOULD SWITCH MAJORS TO
English lit. I would write poetry and win a few awards. I wouldn't tell my parents what I'd done until Christmas, when the grades would
arrive, with my straight As in the wrong field. Amma would say that I had never been a very good science student, and that science had only given her heartache anyway. Appa would not say anything.

I would graduate in June. Three of my sisters would have married, and Harini would be pregnant. I would have already turned down half a dozen arranged proposals; though I was not beautiful, I was not ugly either. Some of the proposals would have been from Ceylon; I would tell my parents I didn't want to marry a boy who just wanted a green card. Some would be from local boys whom I had known my whole life; I would tell my parents that it would have felt like marrying my brother, if I had had a brother. I would hold them off until graduation with such excuses. My mother and I would fight about it, often. Once, she would get so angry that she would throw a pot of boiling crab curry at my head. She would miss, but the splashing liquid would burn us both.

On graduation day, with my degree safe in my hand, I would tell my parents that I had a job as a secretary at the university, and that I was going to move out, to share a house with other girls. I would tell them that I was hoping to be a poet. I would not tell them how many lovers (mostly female, a few male) I had had. I would tell them that I might never marry.

They would say nothing. Amma would turn and walk away. Appa would hesitate and then follow her. I would not talk to them, or they to me, for some years.

I would be maid of honor at Sue's wedding. I would dance for her.

 

I REACHED OUT AND PULLED SUE TO ME AGAIN. I CUPPED MY HANDS
around her thighs and pulled her legs against mine, between mine. I arched up and placed my mouth on hers and kissed her hard. Her tongue slipped into my mouth, her teeth bit my bottom lip, and sound climbed up from my spine to my throat to my tongue to hers.

Sue captured my moan with her lips and tongue hard against my
throat, and then she was pushing me back, tilting me back against the tiles, laying my body down and kneeling above me. Her hands were on my arms now, still holding me, still grounding me, and then her teeth were on my shirt, pulling buttons open with such skill that I knew she had done this before, many times, and then my shirt was open, my bra pulled down and my left breast was in her mouth, my heart was under her lips and tongue and my skin was naked to the air and I was lost and found and nothing would ever be the same again.

The shudders shook through me, as her lips tightened on my breast and her fingers dug into my arms; my thighs clenched and my heart opened.

I was not running. I was not falling.

Was this the adventure I'd been searching for?

I was holding very still, and flying.

JULY
2, 1969—
MY WEDDING DAY.

Today I'm getting married. Raksha is a handsome man—smooth skin, nice cheekbones. He's cheerful, generous, and owns his own business, a sari shop. Easwari Aunty has done well by me, though I thought she was going to have a heart attack when I wrote to her and asked her to find me a husband. She protested—of course my parents, both teachers, would object to my getting married instead of going to college, but I can be just as stubborn as any of my five sisters when I need to be. And she knew it. Aunty also knew there wasn't much else for me. The dark horse of the family, the one who didn't get into U of C, or Northwestern, or even UIC—who didn't get into college at all. Dark-skinned too, which made Aunty's job harder. But she agreed that I had better get married.

I'm going to have babies. That's one thing my sisters have done little of. Only three of them married so far, and only two babies in the lot. I will have hundreds of babies.

Maybe not hundreds. But seven or eight or nine or more—my grandmother had thirteen living children, and that was in Ceylon,
without the benefit of modern medicine! I will have many children, and a beautiful home, and I will cook perfect meals for my Raksha—at least I can cook. I will sing Tamil songs to him when he comes home tired from work; that's something Leilani can't do. She croaks like a frog. And none of them can dance. I will take good care of my husband, and I will be happy.

LATER—ALMOST MIDNIGHT.

Easwari Aunty said it would hurt a little, but then it would get better.

Raksha was different tonight. Maybe it was all the wine and champagne at the wedding. The men were drinking hard liquor too. He wasn't himself. He didn't give me time to think. Maybe there's something wrong with me. If this is what it takes to make many children—maybe I'll wait a while.

It must get better.

He sleeps like a log, snoring loudly, sprawling over the hotel bed. I want my own bed, with its crazy quilt in scraps of silk and sari fabric, cornflower blue, lavender, and rose. Silver threads through it, and an occasional hint of gold. I want it to be that winter again, and me sixteen, sitting in front of the fireplace and leaning against Appa's knee, sewing together the pieces of my quilt.

AUGUST
10, 1969—
PREGNANT.

It didn't happen the way I'd planned. The morning after the wedding, Raksha did it again in the morning. It hurt more. He tried to touch me again that night, but I wouldn't let him. I told him I'd scream if he touched me, and since we were back in my old room, in my old bed, with my parents and sisters just down the hall, someone would come. They'd all come running. He left me alone for a while and said he was sorry he'd hurt me. I believed him; I just needed a little time.

But now I'm going to have a baby. Already.

He can't touch me now—it might hurt the baby.

I'm going to learn how to knit. I've already crocheted a blanket
for her, white and soft and warm. I'll make her socks and sweaters and pink hats. I'll start making her clothes too—I have the patterns picked out, the fabrics neatly folded in my drawer, in sunny yellow and grass-green.

I'm going to be a perfect mother. They'll see.

DECEMBER
25, 1969—
CHRISTMAS.

I'm a married woman now, and pregnant—they should treat me with more respect. They won't even let me have a glass of wine at Christmas dinner. Kili, who thinks she's such a big doctor now, says it might hurt the baby. I've never heard of any such thing, but when I poured myself a glass, she just reached out and took it out of my hand, while everyone laughed.

Raksha gets to drink whatever he wants—and he's not drinking wine. All the men drink whiskey or vodka, and Appa tells stories of when he was a boy in Ceylon, sneaking sips of arrack. Raksha hangs on my father's every word, laughs when he does, and when Kili took my glass, he just laughed with the rest of my family, my father, my sisters. He wouldn't let me have a sip of his whiskey either. Sometimes I hate them all.

FEBRUARY
18, 1970—H
E HIT ME.

I married a drunk. Leilani was right. I'm an idiot.

He had a bad day at the store. I don't know what happened, and it doesn't matter. He went drinking with his friends afterward; he does that every night. He came home, and I could smell the whiskey on him. I'm sure Amma and Appa could smell it too. I'm the embarrassment of my family—the stupid girl who didn't go to college, got married too young, got pregnant, and, finally, picked a drunk to spend her life with.

Raksha wants to move out of my parents' house. I want that too, but not now. Not yet. If we stay here, Amma will be close, in case anything goes wrong with the baby. And I'll need help afterward. We've
been arguing for weeks, but tonight he got angry. I got angry too and threw a cushion at him. He grabbed it in the air, twisted it in his hand, tore the fabric. He knew I made that cushion. He knew I'd sewn it to match the quilt, with a little more silver, shining. I came at him, screaming, my hands raised, and maybe I would have scratched him, clawed his face—I wanted to. But he grabbed my hands in one of his, and then slapped my face, hard, with his other hand. Shouting nonsense I couldn't understand. I just stood there, my hands still caught in his. It didn't hurt. And then the anger melted from his face, and he started crying. He let go of my hands.

I turned and left then—went into the bathroom and locked the door. He stopped crying after a while, and then I heard the front door slam. He'd gone out to drink more. That was fine; he could sleep on a park bench, or in the driveway. I didn't care. I went to the front door and bolted it shut.

It didn't hurt. Not when he hit me, though it aches now. That was the strangest part.

FEBRUARY
19, 1970—
CONTRACTIONS.

He came back. He broke the lock on the kitchen door and came in and woke me up and shook me, shouting. He hit me again, and this time he knocked me down. Amma and Appa came and Appa threw him out—I didn't know Appa was strong enough. But now I'm having contractions, and it's so early. We're going to the hospital in a few minutes. Amma is packing a bag for me, and Leilani is coming to drive us. There is a huge black bruise on my cheek—everyone will know.

Please, let the baby be all right.

Let me do something right.

FEBRUARY
21, 1970—
CHAYA.

They argued with me. Everyone said, “What a bad-luck name! You can't name her that!” But she is small and dark and born under her mother's shadow of misery and pain, and so I'm going to name her
Chaya, which means shadow, and they can't stop me. Raksha isn't here, and the nurse is listening to me.

One small shadow to follow me. Thirty-seven hours of labor. I won't have another child. It would kill me. And I won't let him touch me again.

MARCH
1, 1970—
RAKSHA MOVED OUT.

Everything of his is gone. He tried to argue. He was waiting for us, sitting on the steps outside the kitchen door. His face crumpled when he saw Chaya's tiny hands and feet. He has fallen in love with his little daughter, says he wants to be with her, wants to take care of her.

He can take care of her by sending money. I'll take care of Chaya.

JUNE
6, 1970—
MY BIRTHDAY. HE SENDS ROSES.

Does he think I'm stupid?

Amma loves them; Appa never brings her flowers. She insisted on displaying them in the hall, three dozen, long-stemmed, deepest red. Will rose scent hide the whiskey reek?

Appa says Raksha has joined some group for alcoholics, that he attends weekly meetings. So what? Let him keep sending money, for now, and when Chaya's a little older, I'll go back to school. I'll graduate, and get a good job—we'll move out, and I'll take care of my daughter by myself.

NOVEMBER
11, 1970—
CHAYA
'
S FIRST WORD.

I haven't recorded every first—not the first time she really looked at me, or the first time she smiled, or the first time she got sick, when I thought my heart would pound its way out of my chest.

My little shadow is with me always, carried in a small shoulder sling I made myself, soft well-washed cottons in red and amber and gold. I started helping Amma in the garden this summer, learning the weeds and the flowers. Chaya rode with me, and I told her the names—the late autumn roses, the chrysanthemums, the crimson
snapdragons. I thought maybe she would say a flower name for her first word; we spent so much time in the garden together.

She said
Appa.
I'm sure she's heard me call my father that a thousand times.

But still. I'm sorry Raksha didn't hear it.

FEBRUARY
21, 1971—
CHAYA
'
S FIRST BIRTHDAY.

Raksha came to the party. They didn't warn me. They must have all contrived together—he arrived with Kili and her husband, and the rest of my sisters came sweeping in after. He looked small, and so alone. It reminded me of how alone he really is. No family. His father cut Raksha off, years ago, for no good reason; he was only a teenager at the time. Forbade him to call his mother, his little sisters. All he has is me, and Chaya. And the store, of course—he started that store all by himself, with money borrowed from friends and the bank, and built it into a thriving business. He has a right to be proud of the store. I should have written to his parents when Chaya was born. They should have met their granddaughter.

He hasn't taken a drink in eighteen weeks. He told me that in the kitchen, in the one moment when we were alone. I said
So?
and then I lit the last candle and took Chaya's birthday cake in, singing in perfect key. He followed quietly.

He looks thin. He hasn't been eating right.

Chaya is scared of her father. She started crying when Raksha bent over her to kiss her forehead and wish her happy birthday. He left a few minutes later.

SEPTEMBER
9, 1972—
RAKSHA MOVES BACK IN.

He is sleeping on a cot in the basement, not in our bedroom. But he's been visiting since Chaya's first birthday—just a few times a month. He always called first. Chaya knows who he is now. It's been good, having his help with her.

Appa retired last June, or semiretired. He's a professor emeritus
now, only teaches an occasional class. He wanted to keep teaching full-time, but Amma made him stop. He was getting so tired. They're not young, either of them.

I've taken over about half the garden work, though I plant herbs and vegetables instead of Amma's flowers. I do all the digging and heavy work. They can't really keep up with an energetic toddler, especially not one as strong and fast and willful as Chaya. You'd never guess that she was born early.

Appa says a child needs both her parents.

Raksha hasn't had a drink in almost two years. The store is doing well; he's thinking of opening a second store. I think it'll be good for Chaya to have him here. So far, he's been on his best behavior.

DECEMBER
25, 1972—
CHRISTMAS.

Everyone was here for Christmas. All my sisters and all their husbands (four of them married now, everyone but Leilani). Four small cousins for Chaya to play with. Amma and Appa presiding over it all and Raksha quiet in a corner. He's been so good the last few months. He takes Chaya to work with him sometimes, so I can have a day to myself. He changes diapers in the back of the shop and carries her on his hip while he works. How many husbands would do that? He says it's pure self-interest, that he sells more saris when she's with him, but I can see the tenderness in his hands, in his eyes. He gave up the drinking for her, so he could be with her. That's fine. That's enough for me.

We felt like a family today.

JANUARY
1, 1973—
WE HAD SEX AGAIN.

It wasn't the champagne—it was just time. The family's been working on me. Amma pointed out that Raksha had a cough and said it must be cold down in the basement. Kili managed to get in a few comments about how she took better care of her husband. Hah! That poor man goes around with his ribs sticking out from hunger, that's how good
care she takes of him. Never mind the fine clothes she buys with her doctor money. If he has to eat cold sandwiches for dinner, no wonder he doesn't eat. At least Raksha eats properly. He's tall now, and strong. He's more handsome now than he was when I married him.

It's Leilani's fault, really. She's not married, but she isn't a virgin either—I think Amma knows that, but she won't ever talk about it. Leilani has been telling me about sex; she made it sound good. So when Raksha came to my door last night to say good night before going down to the basement, I took his hand. I pulled him inside and shut the door. I wasn't sure what to do then. He just stood there, looking sad and hopeful at the same time, until I tilted my head up and closed my eyes, like the girls in the movies. I'm pretty enough, even if I'm not as beautiful as my sisters, and my breasts are bigger after having Chaya. He kissed me so carefully, like a butterfly kissing a flower. I kissed back.

Leilani was right. It wasn't bad the first time; he was gentle. Slow. In the morning, it was nice. And the way he looked at me—as if he'd been starving, and I'd laid out a feast.

I'm going to make sure we use something every time; Leilani showed me that too. But from now on, I think I'll let my husband sleep in my bedroom.

Maybe I'll even make him a shirt.

MARCH
5, 1975—
OUR OWN HOUSE!

More than two years since I last wrote here. Raksha still hasn't had a drink, as far as I know. The second store is doing well, and we can afford a house—not a big one, but ours, with enough space in the backyard for a real garden. It's only ten minutes drive away from Amma and Appa. And I've done it up nicely—I just made new drapes for the living room, floor-length, in a pale spring green. Soon the rains will stop, and we'll have real spring here at last. I've made curtains for all the rooms and chosen wallpaper to match. Leilani says I have an eye for beauty. She's a poet, so she should know.

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