“Sorry, Ammi,” I said again.
But my mother-in-law was staring at me with her eyes narrowed. “What is the matter with you? You look unwell.”
“God only knows. I threw up after dinner last night. And this morning I did so again.”
“Are you with child?”
As soon as Ammi said the words, I knew it was so. I remembered now that I had not been visited by my menses the month before.
“It’s not that, Ammi,” I lied. “I think I ate something rotten last night.”
She nodded before telling me the reason she had come. She needed to borrow some sugar and rice to make kheer for her friend, Fouzia. “Take what you wish, Ammi,” I said. “Our house is your house.”
“But of course it is,” she replied. “After all, this is my son’s house, no?”
I had wished that Abdul’s mother would be like a mother to me, that she would grow to love me the way Abdul loved both of us. My own mother had died when I was six, and she left in me a hunger as big as the sky. But as I watched Ammi go through my jars of sugar and rice, without even putting the lids back on properly, I knew that my mother-in-law would never make me her own.
As soon as Ammi left, though, I was filled with a joy more powerful than I had ever known. A baby. Our own baby. I looked around in wonder at our small, humble hut. I stared at my thin, brown body. I thought of Abdul’s hands on my body, his lips on my lips. Out of our love, we had stitched together our baby. It was the oldest story in the world; it was the newest. Every single thing that I had lost in my own life, every motherless moment, I would make up for with my own child. I was laughing-crying at the miracle of this, at this second chance to take this crooked world in my hands and set it correct. “Ae, Bhagwan, Bhagwan, Bhagwan, I thank you for Your gift,” I prayed. And then, feeling guilty, I chanted, “Ya Allah the Beneficent, thank you.”
Another wave of nausea came over me, but I laughed. This was the first sacrifice for my child that I would make, in a long line of sacrifices. What was a little vomiting? What was the pain of childbirth, compared with the miracle of a new life? In the face of God’s will, what was the wrath of my brothers, or the judgment of my former neighbors? Because this was God’s will. If He did not will it so, this would have never happened—and so soon after our wedding. Because God lived in His heavenly castle, and not on Earth, He looked for different ways to speak to us: through our dreams, in the pictures made by clouds, by this announcement of new life. This little one was God’s messenger sent to us, proof that Abdul was right: We were the new India. This little one would thread Abdul and me together forever: Hindu and Muslim, man and woman, husband and wife. Forever.
I stood up; I paced; I sat down. The tiny hovel was choking me, my happiness leaping over its straw walls. My Abdul had built this home for us, and for that reason, I loved it. But today it felt small, too small, to hold all my joy, my hopes, my overflowing love. What should I do? Abdul was the first person I had to tell, which was why I did not confirm Ammi’s suspicion. I wished Radha was here with me. But Radha had disappeared, as if Govind had shoved her into a gunnysack and thrown her into the river. One month after I ran away, he got her married to some old cripple. Abdul heard the news from someone at the factory, but the man did not know the name of her husband or that of the village where Radha now lived. My sister, my first love, had disappeared from my life wholly.
Because I couldn’t think of Radha, I forced myself to think of this new joy. But how to pass the hours until Abdul came home, when each minute was a pinprick, when I was aware of every heartbeat? How it beat, my heart. My heart, and now, my baby’s heart. And that thought calmed me down. I was not wasting my time as I awaited Abdul’s return. Rather, even as I lit the stove to make myself tea, my body was doing its job—feeding my baby, building its bones. Even as I waited, I was not waiting at all. With every passing minute, I was growing my baby. Our baby.
When Abdul came home that evening, I could tell that he was hungry and tired. I looked at his face, so serious and beautiful, and I thought, Please God, let my son look just like his father. In that moment, I was sure I was carrying a boy.
He caught me looking at him and smiled. “You miss me?”
“Me? No, not at all,” I said, smiling back at him.
He grabbed me by my waist. “Then why you’re looking at me as if I’m a box of chocolate?”
I shook myself loose. “Eat your dinner,” I said. “Mr. Chocolate.”