by Katy Yocom
Lakshmi watched Sarah with her jaw cocked. “So you just”—she flicked her wrists as if shaking water off her fingers—“moved on.”
Sarah nodded.
“Here in Sawai, it would be impossible. Everybody knows everybody in this rotten little town.”
It was the tone of Lakshmi’s comment that made Sarah say, “Would you like to live somewhere else?” She hoped she hadn’t just blown it. She half-expected Lakshmi to tell her to fuck off.
Lakshmi laughed and looked up at the sky through the bars of the window. “Every single day.”
Sarah leaned forward. “What would it take to get you the life you want?”
Lakshmi looked at her for a moment and laughed in disbelief. “Are you seriously asking me that?”
“You hold the key to my happiness. Maybe there’s something I can do for you.”
“You’re proposing a trade.”
“We could call it that. Why not.” Sarah lifted her tea glass and looked Lakshmi in the eye. Almost, but not quite, a toast. Lakshmi noticed the gesture and the corner of her mouth lifted. Almost, but not quite, a smile.
.
Two days later, Lakshmi’s number appeared on Sarah’s phone. She sat on the low sofa and answered.
“The women’s collective you’ve started in the village,” Lakshmi said. “You’re selling their goods in the States, aren’t you?”
“That’s right.”
“I want three things,” she said. “I want to move to Mumbai, where I can start over as an unmarried woman. I want an arrangement that makes me the India-operations manager of your U.S.-based business. And I want to be financially independent enough that I’m out from under my brother’s control.”
“Wow. That’s complicated.” Sarah thought for a second. “There are people who’d have to sign on to those ideas. Especially the one about the business.”
“Of course. You’ll talk to them. We’re not in a hurry, are we? And we have to arrange this without my family knowing. I won’t tell them until everything’s one hundred percent in place. It must be done in strict secrecy.”
Sarah hesitated. “Before we get started on this, you need to know that I’m pregnant.”
Sarah heard Lakshmi breathe in sharply, followed by a long silence.
“Are you still there?” Sarah asked.
“How far along are you?”
“About seven weeks.”
“I see.” She cleared her throat. “I lost my three at the end of the first trimester.”
“I’m sorry,” Sarah said softly. “I’m not telling you this to hurt you. You need to know in case it changes anything for you with our arrangement.”
On the street outside, a truck rumbled by, the growl of the engine peaking, then diminishing till it faded to nothing. Sarah realized she was holding her breath.
“It doesn’t,” Lakshmi said.
“Please keep this news between us. We haven’t figured out yet what we’re going to do.”
“Well, you can’t possibly stay in Sawai,” Lakshmi said. “I hope you know that.”
“We know,” Sarah said.
Quinn
A bright, cold Saturday morning, the kids both out on playdates, the house to herself. After Sarah’s phone call the night before, she couldn’t sleep. Now she sat on the sofa, trying to meditate, but she kept losing track of her breath. Pete had gone to the gym for a game of pick-up basketball; he’d be home any minute.
She rose and fixed a cup of coffee. Drummed her fingers on the countertop. Watched the driveway till his car pulled up.
He entered the house in a waft of cold air and woodsmoke. When he registered her state, he stopped halfway out of his jacket. “What is it? Are the kids okay?”
“They’re fine. I have to tell you something. Come sit down.”
He gave her a worried look and hung his jacket on the hook by the door. She led him to the couch, and he sat forward, elbows on his knees.
“It’s Sarah,” she said. “She’s—she’s okay, but she needs me.”
“What do you mean? You’re already helping her. You were just over there.”
She looked him in the eye. “She’s pregnant.”
“Pregnant!” He sat stunned. “How far along?”
“Not very.”
“What does she need you for?”
She told him what Sarah had proposed, watched him flinch when she said the amount out loud.
“Okay, stop,” he said. “I can see where you’re going with this, but come on. That’s a ton of money.”
“It’s not a ton. It’s, like, a midsized car.”
“Which is a ton of money! We don’t have that kind of cash lying around. Not even in the credit line. Is that your big plan? The credit line?”
“I’m taking it out of my retirement fund, and I’m loaning it to her.”
He stood as if propelled. “Are you crazy? There are penalties for that.”
She didn’t like the way he loomed. She stood and faced him. “There are penalties for letting your sister’s life come apart when you could have helped her keep it together.”
“So it’s your moral duty to help Sarah and her illicit lover run off into the sunset and live happily ever after? Come on, Quinn, you know your sister. She doesn’t settle down. And anyway, she’s an adult. She got herself into this; she’ll get herself out.”
“It’s not just her now.”
“Yeah, it’s her married lover who knocked her up. Who is this guy, anyway? What kind of man lets a woman pay for his divorce?”
“Would it be more palatable to you if the gender roles were reversed?” She crossed the room and turned to face him. “Anyway. It’s a loan.”
“I don’t care,” he said. “I’m not going along with this. That’s our money. You and me and the kids.”
“Actually, it’s for you and me and not the kids, thirty years from now. And this is a crisis happening right now in my sister’s life. I can’t stand back and watch everything go to hell. And”— she inhaled shakily—“it’s my money.”
He shook his head incredulously. “You always fall for this. Your mom shakes you down, now your sister’s shaking you down—”
“Pete, listen. I’m not asking your permission. But I am telling you about it, before I do it, like you asked me to.” Her voice grew firmer. “You can hate me if you want to. You can tell me you’re leaving me. But at least give me credit for not hiding this from you.”
He looked away. “What the hell, Quinn. I never said anything about leaving you. And I don’t hate you. God.”
“You treat me with contempt. It’s the same thing.”
“I treat you that way because I get sick of watching you let people walk all over you.”
“Nobody’s walking all over me. Sarah asked me a favor, and I decided to come through for her. And I’m telling you about it before I do it. There is nothing here for you to pass judgment on.”
“What about the other part of it, your friend Jane? Am I understanding right that this woman is demanding a stake in Jane’s company?”
“She wants to open up a branch in Mumbai. Jane’s open to having a discussion about it. She said there could be benefits to it. Obviously Jane won’t do it if it doesn’t make sense for the business.”
“What about what makes sense for our family? This is a huge financial decision. You should have consulted me.”
“She’s my sister. I’m the one who had to make the call.”
His expression hardened. “You’ve got an answer for everything, don’t you? Look at us. Once again you’re being perfectly reasonable, and I’m the jerk here.” He strode into the kitchen, yanked his jacket from the hook, and pulled it on. “I’m honored you so graciously decided to share your news with me.” A corner of his collar was turned under. He tugged it free. “I’m going for
a drive.”
He pulled the door open, letting in a wedge of chill air that raised goose bumps on Quinn’s arms, and then he was gone.
Sarah
Sanjay had resisted the idea at first. It wasn’t right, it wasn’t honorable.
“It’s not charity,” Sarah had argued. “It’s a loan for the cost of beginning our lives together.” They fought about it until she said, in a fit of exasperation, “What the hell, you’d take it if it were my dowry, wouldn’t you?” and they both laughed.
For about eighteen hours, he couldn’t look Sarah in the eye. Then the idea of freedom began to take hold. She saw it straighten his spine, expand his chest. “It suits you,” Sarah told him. “Dare I say you’re glowing.”
Without revealing any other details, he mentioned to Geeta that Lakshmi was interested in getting in on the women’s collective, selling their work in Mumbai. He’d half-expected a grilling about it, but Geeta hadn’t asked a single question. In fact, she had thought it was excellent news. The more outlets they had, the more rural women they could bring into the business. They could expand beyond Vinyal, even.
But after a day or two, his restlessness transmitted itself to Sarah. “You’re going to resent me,” she told him. “You’re going to find yourself in some strange city, in some strange apartment with me and a squalling baby, and you’re going to think about Ranthambore, and you’re going to hate me for making you leave.”
He looked up from his notebook and set down his pen. “Actually, what would you think about going to Kanha? It’s a huge park. Different from Ranthambore, but still beautiful. Tigers, all the same animals, plus barasingha. I could get a job there. So could you.”
“How would that be any different from Sawai?”
“The conservation community there is different from here. More international. I think we could be accepted there.”
“Almost like being expats,” she said. There was hope in his face. She sat down with him. “Tell me about Kanha.”
.
She was beginning to feel pregnant, her abdomen heavy. She had somehow sidestepped morning sickness, but now she had to pee every hour.
Monday morning, they picked up Nuri and went to Vinyal to coordinate the next shipment. On her first drives with them, Nuri had kept silent, but now she made occasional comments, remarking on a temple they drove past or the brick kilns in a field. In the village, they met with the women in Anju’s courtyard around a blanket piled with fifty or sixty freshly sewn bags. It was wonderful, really: Rohini radiating assurance as she updated the inventory list in her composition notebook, Padma and Nuri and the others wrapping their creations with care in crinkling sheets of ivory newsprint. Padma’s bruises had faded, and her mood seemed surprisingly good. “I don’t know if the government is ever going to pay what they owe me,” she said to the group when they’d finished their packaging. “But when we get our next payment for this work, Nuri and I will put our money together. I can pay the bank enough to get my house back, and Nuri will come live with us.”
The other women looked at them in surprise. Anju said, “Well, now! That is wonderful,” and the rest of the conversation revolved around the news. Sanjay didn’t translate the entire discussion, but Sarah thought she got the general shape of it: happiness, inflected with wonder that such a decision was possible.
When they finished, Sanjay loaded the bags into the Sumo. Padma stepped away from the other women and gave Sarah a meaningful look. “You have a secret,” she said, grinning widely.
Sarah looked at Sanjay, who translated in a careful monotone.
“No,” Sarah said brightly. “No secret. I’m so happy you’re getting your house back, Padma-ji.”
“I can’t wait,” Padma said. “But you’re trying to change the subject. You’ve definitely got a secret. For now. In a few weeks, everyone will see it.”
“Chalo, Sarah,” Sanjay said. “Let’s go. We’re late.”
He didn’t translate Padma’s last words till they climbed into the vehicle. Sarah blanched. “How does she know? Do I look different to you?”
“To me, yes. But maybe that’s because I know.”
“I think I smell different. My sweat. My pee.”
“To me you are more delicious.” He seemed jaunty, a man anticipating his freedom.
He dropped her at her flat. Later that evening, he phoned her. “Guess what I’m holding in my hand.”
“What?”
“I am holding the business card for one V.J. Chowdhury, Esquire. Lakshmi’s lawyer.” She could hear his grin. “She told me to have my lawyer call him and get the paperwork going.”
“Wow,” Sarah said. “She wants out. How long will the divorce take?”
His hesitation came down the line. “Longer than it will take you to grow this baby.” Into her silence, he said, “Don’t be sad. I’ll be there before he even figures out how to roll over.”
But there was something in his voice. “I worry,” he admitted. “Tarun. Lakshmi’s brother. He fancies himself her protector. He’ll be furious at both of us—Lakshmi and me. He’ll try to talk her out of it. Maybe more than talk.”
There was something more he wasn’t saying. She waited.
“And he’ll try to intimidate me,” he said. “If he can find something to hold over me, he will.”
“Then we need to make sure he doesn’t find out I’m pregnant.”
.
The next morning, the two of them filed into Geeta’s office and sat. She looked warily from one to the other. “I don’t like the look of this.”
Sanjay explained. Geeta listened blank-faced. “Don’t suppose the two of you’ve ever heard of condoms.” She leaned forward, forearms on her desk. “You understand you’ve put yourselves in serious danger, the both of you. No one must know, outside this circle, and William, of course. You haven’t seen a doctor here, have you? Don’t. Go to Jaipur.”
She vigorously straightened a stack of papers, banging their edges against her desk. “You’ve really upset the apple cart, you two. Half my staff walking out on me. You,” she said to Sarah, “I can do without, though you’ve done well enough with the collective. But you.” She leaned forward and tapped an index finger at Sanjay. “How do you propose I find a replacement for you? There’s no one in Rajasthan who does everything you do.”
“I’ll be here till the divorce goes through,” he said. “A year, at least. And I’ll help you find someone. I still have friends at the Bombay Natural History Society. There are good naturalists right here in Sawai, and I know plenty at other parks.”
“I need someone who knows this park. And here in Sawai, no one’s half the naturalist you are, much less the hundred other things you do. Are you sure about this decision, Sanjay? Your life is here. The tigers. The park. Your family, forever. You’re a mud hut, you know; you’re made of this place.”
“I know, believe me. But my duty has changed. I’m sorry.”
Geeta regarded him. “I suppose I’m better off, really, if you do go. You’ll be ruined for this work, forever wishing you were off in your love nest with that one.” She shook her head. “You were the best asset we had. And we’re the best hope the tiger has. A critically endangered top predator, the linchpin of entire ecosystems. But I understand, truly I do. This is what happens when people procreate.”
She looked from Sanjay to Sarah and let go an exasperated sigh. “I suppose I should congratulate you. Our Sanjay is very good with children, you know,” she said to Sarah, and her eyes grew unexpectedly bright. “The two of you will raise up a proper little conservationist.”
They thanked her and stood to go. Geeta cleared her throat and said, “One more thing. If the pregnancy doesn’t stick, what then? Do you stay?”
The question was so very Geeta, Sarah couldn’t even take offense. “Yes. We stay.”
“But then you two are back to squa
re one, carrying on an extremely dangerous affair. Better if you end your romance in that case. It’s the only way you can both stay here safely.” She looked from one to the other. “Tell me you understand that.”
Very little work got done that day. Sanjay made calls about water tankers. William arrived to check on the status of dredging equipment for the Vinyal dig-out, but Geeta called him back to her office and shut the door. When he emerged, he avoided all eye contact and went straight to his desk.
Sarah couldn’t stand the tension. After he finished a call, she went to his desk and said, “She told you.”
“Yes.” He wouldn’t quite look at her. He was embarrassed for her, she realized. Embarazada, the Spanish word for pregnant.
“I’ll miss you,” she said.
He shifted some papers and cleared his throat. “Let’s have this conversation another time, shall we?”
That evening, exhausted, they went out to dinner as a group. It was a subdued occasion, everyone staring into their plates. Sarah felt exposed now that Geeta and William knew. Padma had seen she was pregnant just by looking at her. Sarah wasn’t showing, but apparently it showed anyway.
When they finished, she stopped in the bathroom, a separate structure at the far end of a courtyard. She emerged to the sound of voices, Sanjay and someone else, unfamiliar. She stepped into the shadow of a neem tree. William and Geeta waited at a distance, outside the restaurant door. Sanjay and the man stood in a quiet corner of the courtyard, close enough for her to hear their conversation.
She shifted her weight and craned her neck. There they were: Sanjay and, oh God, his brother-in-law, looking immaculate as always with his perfectly groomed hair, his custom-fitted suit. She’d seen him once at his restaurant, but she had forgotten how large and powerful he looked. She could see the barely contained fury in the set of his shoulders. His voice was a low, pressured growl. “Are you trying to ruin her? I will not allow it.”
“This is a business transaction between Lakshmi and me,” Sanjay said. “We have every right as husband and wife. You have no say in this matter.”
