Secret Daughter

Kavita obliges, walking faster. A few hours from now, she knows, after Jasu has finished his evening meal and sat around the fire drinking and smoking beedis with the other men, he will come looking for her. She will tell him only that he need not worry about the baby, it has been taken care of. He may be angry, perhaps he will even beat her, but what punishment is that compared to what she will already have suffered? For nearly two hours, Kavita and Rupa walk without speaking. Finally they come to the two-story building with peeling blue paint.

With each passing year and every negative pregnancy test, that void in their lives has grown until it has become an unwelcome member of their family, wedging itself between her and Krishnan.

Somer felt she had given so much to their family already. But her mother always said the key to a successful marriage was for each spouse to give as much as they thought they possibly could. And then, to give a little more. Somewhere in that extra giving, in the space created by generosity without score keeping, was the difference between marriages that thrived and those that didn’t.