What a Happy Family

by Saumya Dave

  They’re interrupted by the low creak of the door opening. The first thing she sees is the black outline of Dr. Wilson’s glasses. His wide eyes and slack jaw give away that he just heard everything or, at least, enough. But then he moves and she sees at least five other attendings standing behind him, all of whom are also shifting with discomfort.

  “Hi!” Suhani plans to sound cool and professional, but the word comes out way too loudly, which makes her look even more suspicious.

  Dr. Wilson clears his throat. “Hello.”

  “I should get going,” she says.

  Dr. Wilson nods. “We’re late for our meeting.”

  “Right. You said you had a meeting.”

  “Yes.” Dr. Wilson’s eyes shift as if he’s unsure whether to continue. “The meeting to discuss the candidates for chief.”

  Fuck.

  Suhani lingers, unsure of whether to give a charming smile or make small talk. None of that feels right, so she just stands there. The silence fills the room with a thick, dreadful tension.

  “I see,” she says. “Well, uh, hope you have a great one. Take care!”

  Again with the overly enthusiastic response. Get it together, Suhani.

  The other attendings file in after Dr. Wilson. Suhani’s only option is to get the hell out of there.

  * * *

  • • •

  A few hours later, Suhani’s perched on a barstool next to Zack. He’s already ordered two cucumber-mint gimlets and is in a deep conversation with the hipster bartender.

  If it were any other evening, Little Spirit would be able to remove her from the stress of the hospital. The dark wood panels on the ceiling, Prince soundtrack, and paintings of different musical icons on the walls transport her to a more relaxed headspace.

  But now she feels a stab of dejection as she takes in her husband’s head thrown back in a big laugh, the glint of light on his glasses. She has to tell him about Roshan and she has no idea where to start or how Zack will react.

  “Cheers,” Zack says.

  “Cheers.” Suhani takes a sip of her gimlet. The coupe cocktail glass makes her feel like she’s in a movie from the twenties. If only she had a jeweled headband and beaded dress.

  “I’m really glad we’re doing this.” Zack’s knees graze her thighs. Suhani shifts her legs so that their ankles are crossed. It’s her favorite way to sit with him when they’re next to each other.

  “Me, too,” Suhani says, relishing the ease and familiarity of being in her husband’s presence. In her daily autopilot mode, she often forgets to appreciate things like this. They need these moments that remind them of who they are at their core. Just hours ago, she was worried about the lack of quality time they’ve had lately, and now she’s filled with faith that they will be okay. Like hearts, marriages can shift their shapes, contract, and relax.

  “So, tell me everything. Were you able to tell Dr. Wilson about your plan for the women’s mental health clinic? What did he think? How did you feel?” Zack taps his palms against the bar in the rhythm of a drum roll.

  Suhani gives Zack a rundown of her meeting. They order another round of cocktails from the large chalkboard menu above the bar while Zack goes through a recap of his day. He explains some of the intricacies of advertising campaigns and funding rounds, stuff that’s like a foreign language to Suhani. Zack doesn’t ever say it, but one trip to his office told Suhani that his company is doing well, well enough to have a fancy coffee machine; fridge stocked with sparkling water, beer, and wine; catered lunch every Wednesday; and regular features on Business Insider’s site.

  After the bartender brings them a bowl of chips, Zack turns to her and says, “So, I’ve been thinking about everything that’s been going on between us.”

  Suhani nods. “I have, too.”

  He sighs. “I’m worried you’re not happy, that I’m not making you happy.”

  “That’s not true at all. Of course you make me happy.” Suhani squeezes Zack’s hands, his perfect, smooth hands, one of the first things she noticed about him when they met. His platinum wedding band is cool against her palm. “I’m so sorry I’ve been tired and stressed and just overwhelmed.”

  “I have, too,” Zack says. “Both of our jobs are crazy. But you just seem, I don’t know, somewhere else these days. Natasha said you were like this sometimes when y’all were growing up.”

  “You talked to Natasha about it?” Suhani asks.

  Zack nods. “She understands. I mean, she knows you better than anyone. And she sees it, too, being at our place.”

  Suhani drifts to the past months. Despite her professional accomplishments, in many ways, residency has made her someone she isn’t proud of. Someone rushed and frantic, someone who misses holidays and weddings and her husband’s work events.

  “Hey,” Zack says, reading her face. “I really think it’ll be better this year, with your schedule giving you some more space to just relax.”

  “Me, too. I’ve been waiting for that,” Suhani says, telling herself that it is just a matter of time, that what she went through with Roshan doesn’t have to have any impact on her and Zack.

  “I know you have.” Zack smiles. “Isn’t it funny how the things we thought would be so hard for us weren’t, but then other things were more challenging?”

  “I was expecting so much drama for our wedding,” Suhani says as she thinks back to how seamlessly the details fell into place. Zack and his friends were excited to wear kurtas, both their families were happy with a fusion Jewish-Hindu ceremony, and the guests got along. To her surprise, wedding planning showed her the benefit of being with someone from another cultural background. It forced them to proactively discuss their differences and preferences, which also gave them the freedom to build a relationship on their own terms and not take anything for granted.

  “Our wedding, the holidays . . .” Zack says, referring to how they were both worried about celebrating Hindu and Jewish holidays but even that went more harmoniously than expected. Last year, when they were engaged, they went to Mom’s prayers at the Hindu temple for Navratri, then met Barbara for Rosh Hashanah. Mom and Barbara even created joint rituals.

  “Well, props to us for mastering those big relationship milestones, right?”

  “Totally.” Zack smiles and then says, “So, speaking of relationship milestones, something else happened at work today. We had a visit from this new male fertility start-up a couple of weeks ago. They have these take-home kits for guys to give sperm samples so they don’t have to do it in those awkward rooms at doctors’ offices, with the porn and little paper cups.”

  “Interesting.” Suhani nibbles on the cucumber slice that came with her drink. “Are you guys partnering with them?”

  Zack shrugs. “We haven’t decided yet. But I did one of the kits.”

  “Excuse me, what? Why do you want your sperm tested?” Suhani tries to block out the visual of Zack in their bathroom, holding a cup in front of his penis.

  Zack darts his gaze around them to make sure nobody heard her. Luckily for him, the only other people at the bar are a group of fifty-year-old blond women whose toned bodies and pastel shift dresses would make Mom peg them as being from Buckhead or East Cobb. They’re toasting with glasses of Prosecco.

  He looks embarrassed as he says, “You know, just out of curiosity. And it turns out that there’s something—my motility or count or something—that might make it harder to have kids if we wait.”

  “If we wait?” Suhani asks. “I thought we decided that’s not in our plans right now.”

  “We did. But then when I found out it might be harder for me to have them, I guess it made me wonder if we should revisit the idea sooner.”

  Suhani faces Zack as an avalanche of fear tumbles over her. “So you’re saying that you want to try for kids now?”

  “I think we should.” Zack’s full li
ps curl into a smile. “And I know you were worried about trying sooner rather than later because of work, but I promise you, I will do everything to make sure this doesn’t affect your job.”

  “You can’t really control that, honey,” Suhani says. “That’s something that can only change with better parental leave policies and less bias toward new mothers and—”

  “I know the world is really behind when it comes to supporting mothers,” Zack says. “But don’t you think the idea of us having a family, our own little family, sounds so wonderful?”

  People started dropping hints about her and Zack having kids weeks before their wedding. The aunties without tact warned Suhani that she was “only getting older,” while the subtler ones lamented that they missed being around babies. (One even said, “Your wedding gave us joy, so next year, you’ll give us a boy!”) Barbara straight up asks when she can expect to play with an infant, even though all three of Zack’s older sisters have kids.

  Suhani finds all of it intrusive and disrespectful. It’s nobody else’s business and she resents that the world assumes all women in their thirties must be family planning.

  “I’m sorry. I hear what you’re saying,” Suhani says. “But kids are a lot of work. And I love our life the way it is. Why would I want it to change right now?”

  “They are a lot of work, sure, but don’t you think they can also add a lot of fulfillment? And I love our life, too, but what if it just became greater? I mean, a baby would be the product of us. How could that not be amazing?”

  The strong cocktails and their conversation are starting to make Suhani nauseated. She reaches for the first thing that comes to mind. “We haven’t even discussed our thoughts on raising a child that’s Hindu and Jewish.”

  Before Zack can say anything, she continues to rattle off one reason after another. The impact on their careers. Energy. Pressure to have a second child. Their sex life would plummet. They’d have to move out of their apartment. Time.

  Zack has an answer for every single one. He’s clearly thought all this through.

  Suhani ignores the tightening in her throat. This isn’t the way the conversation was supposed to go tonight.

  The bartender gives them the check. She’s grateful for the interruption. Before she can change the subject, Zack scribbles down a twenty-five percent tip, turns to her, and says, “Also, I promise I’d make it to all your prenatal appointments.”

  Hearing a word as clinical as “prenatal” from Zack is oddly endearing. He straightens in his chair and smiles. His face is confident, as though he’s sure he’s won his case.

  Suhani admires her husband’s strong jaw and the prominent dimple in his chin. Maybe she should change the subject and order another round of cocktails. Or maybe they can talk about this, move on, and have sex at home. Have a night that wouldn’t be possible with a baby.

  But the words she hasn’t said build pressure on her tongue. She’s not sure if it’s her buzz or exhaustion. All she knows is that she can’t keep this from Zack anymore, not for another second. The syllables spill out of her before she has a chance to filter them.

  “I’ve been pregnant before.”

  Zack frowns. At first she thinks he didn’t hear her properly, but then she sees the jerky movements of his hands, the line emerging between his eyebrows. Someone else, someone who doesn’t know him, wouldn’t even notice that he’s different. But Suhani’s stomach twists into a knot. She almost wants to say Just kidding! to break the moment.

  “You have been pregnant before?” Zack asks. “What do you . . . What are you talking about?”

  There’s no going back now. Some fights in a marriage come out of nowhere, but others you can see coming. But she never worried, really worried, during any of theirs because, even when things were bad, they were still overall good. It was a concept she didn’t know existed before meeting Zack, the idea that a relationship could have an impermeable layer of security that no disagreement could ever penetrate.

  “I was pregnant in med school. And then I made sure I wasn’t.” There. She said it. And just in case it wasn’t clear: “I had an abortion.”

  “So . . . Roshan, then?” Zack stares at her, his expression a mixture of confusion and shock. “But we’ve talked about this so many times and you never said anything.”

  He says this as though that line of reasoning can make her words untrue, as though she just got some facts wrong.

  “It hasn’t come up because I made sure it didn’t.”

  “But I remember”—Zack’s face shifts as he scans his mind—“us even discussing the idea of you being pregnant and you said you couldn’t imagine what that would be like.”

  “I know.” Suhani gulps. “I lied.”

  She says the words again in her mind. I lied. I lied. I lied.

  “Wow . . .” Zack shifts in his chair. The defeated look on his face makes Suhani hate herself.

  “Please tell me what you’re thinking,” Suhani says.

  “I don’t even know what I’m thinking.” Zack shakes his head as though he just woke up from a bad dream. “I get why you wouldn’t tell me about an abortion. That’s your business. Of course I wish you felt like it was something you could tell me if it hurt you so much, but I get it.”

  Suhani bites her bottom lip. “I wanted to tell you, so many times. But there’s a lot that went on in that relationship that I haven’t been able to ever talk about, with anyone.”

  As much as she’d like to believe that she kept it a secret so she could move forward, a part of her knows that it was less about her resilience and more about wanting to believe she was a good girl. She never really let herself embrace her darkest parts, so how could she trust the man she loves to do so?

  “But you didn’t even think to mention how important your relationship with your ex was?” Zack says. “You made it seem like it wasn’t even that serious. Why would you do that?”

  “I don’t know.” Suhani’s hands are shaking. “It was the hardest time in my life. I almost dropped out of med school. And I’ve spent years trying to put everything with Roshan behind me. And then when things got serious between you and me, I never figured out the right way to tell you. I guess I could always see my life with or without kids, but after I got pregnant, I didn’t know if I ever wanted to be again.”

  “So you thought it was better to just not mention any of that? Even after we got married? I used to ask you, again and again, why talking about kids was so difficult for you. And it has to do with Roshan, of all people? The guy has an office just one floor below yours now!” Zack shakes his head as a look of recognition appears on his face.

  “I know.” Suhani stares into her glass, the mint-green cocktail now unappealing. “He never knew. He still doesn’t. When I saw him today, I al—”

  “Wait, what? You saw him?”

  “After my meeting.” Suhani’s voice shakes. “I went to his office. He’s one of the faculty members who has a vote in who becomes a chief.”

  “Funny you didn’t mention that when I asked about your day,” Zack says.

  “I was going to. I promise. I’ve been wanting to since we first saw him,” Suhani says. “I guess him coming back just brought up a lot of things I thought I had processed.”

  “Well, for the record, the guy sounds like a total jerk.” Zack’s voice softens as he looks at the ceiling, then back at Suhani. “In a weird way, I’m not even surprised you didn’t tell me how serious you guys were. I’ve always felt like you keep this barrier that I can’t cross. And, yeah, I get that when we first started dating, we had to make a lot of adjustments with us being from different cultures and all. But you’ve never really let me in.”

  “Of course I’ve let you in,” Suhani says. “You’re my husband.”

  Zack shakes his head. “Sure, I’m your husband, but you didn’t tell me anything about the hardest part of your life.
I can’t believe you went through something so difficult, something that’s still affecting you, and I haven’t been able to be there for you.”

  Suhani hears Natasha’s words from a few weeks ago: You should be honest with Zack about everything. She used to tell Natasha that she was sometimes too open. But now she wonders if her sister had a point.

  “You are there for me.” A tear slides down Suhani’s cheek. “You have no idea how much being with you has helped me move on from that time in my life.”

  “You said there’s a lot that went on with him that you haven’t been able to talk about?” Zack asks. “What did you mean by that?”

  Suhani grips the edge of the bar. Another tear dribbles to her chin.

  “You know,” Zack says. “You always say there’s all this stuff I don’t get about you, whether it’s being a woman of color or things with your parents, but sometimes I almost wonder if you want to have some distance from me.”

  “Of course I don’t want distance from you!” Suhani says. “It’s just not that simple.”

  “Well, that’s just great, Suhani.” Zack shakes his head with disbelief. “You know what? Maybe I’m the one who needs distance right now.” The legs of his chair make a scraping sound as he pushes away from the bar.

  “Zack, don’t do that.”

  Zack’s never the one to react in the heat of emotion. She tries to put her hand over his, but Zack shoves his wallet into his back pocket, grabs his blazer, and leaves.

  Fifteen

  Bina

  You were right about Rajat Bhai’s toupee!” Mira raises a triumphant fist into the air. “It almost fell off at the temple yesterday. I saw him catch it before it plopped into the moong dal.”

  “Ha! I told you!” Kavita says.

  “I know someone else who has one,” Mona chimes in. “You’ll never gu—”

  “HELLO!” Bina interrupts. “I think it’s important for us to focus on why we’re here today.”