BestsellerBound Short Story Anthology Volume 2

by Darcia Helle

  The sky is a dark and heavy rock about to drop. Her light blue shade bleeds violently with grays and dark blues. I am kneeling before my open window.

  'You are wisdom. You are law. You are our heart, soul, and breath.' Fattened clouds roll eastward, but she is quiet. Fields of rice, reaching across acres, wave in paddies drenched in last night's rain. These fields flow under my own and distant houses standing up on wooden stilts. Crowded trains roll across tracks placed away from the villages and move chchch chchch. I pray long and hard. I pray to Mother Lakshmi. She is a mother to all of India. She will bring prosperity to this family.

  My whisper softens at the sound of rain and thunder in the sky, the sounds of a whip striking an ox's worn back. The giant rain is awakening. Silence fills the air for a minute. The sky is silent again. I know Mother is listening. My tense cheeks and forehead lighten. I almost smile despite the pain. The sky deepens in color. Rain fights its way to the earth. It fights its way through the clouds like water fighting a dam that is just about to break.

  'The love divine that conquers death, Mother Sweet, I bow to you, Mother great and free.' My shirt is a long cotton fabric, colored like the morning sky and decorated with dark blue floral designs. The sleeves are wide, reaching my wrists. The shirt hangs freely over identically patterned pants. The pants dangle just past my ankles. My feet are bare, but usually covered with deeply stained wooden sandals. A thin strap would wrap around my foot and another would wrap itself around my big toe. Snap. My palms grab the bottom of the tiny window frame and I hold myself still against the falling rain and the storm breaking outside. I close my eyes.

  The rain pours heavily onto the fields before me. Mango trees shake outside the window's wooden frame. Branches scratch up and down against the window screen. The wind blows hard and its rain brushes against the screen and my face. Like a tear from my own eye, a raindrop falls from my eyelashes, slides down my cheek, and to an empty space alone on the wood floor inside my room.

  To me the raindrop is a tear from Mother Lakshmi and outside my window is her cry, her pain. I can feel her. She listens to me when I pray and calls to me in the rain. It is cleansing. It is freedom. My mind is clear. Nothing do I see. Nothing do I hear. I can almost feel no pain.

  'Sobha, Sobha.' I open my eyes. It is my husband. When he calls my name, it is always twice. Once slowly like one wooing his lover and then quickly a second time. It is always louder and always angry. It is loud to ensure that I hear him; it is angry to remind me of the anger disobedience brings. I do not mind if I upset him. He upsets at the simplest things. I do not even mind the beatings.

  My body is not me, I tell myself when he raises his hands against me. But I will not upset the gods. I will not give them a reason to be upset with me. Therefore, I obey my husband and always listen when he speaks. The Bhagavad-Gita warns that when family laws are destroyed, men will certainly dwell in evil times.

  Mother Kali reminds us of this warning with punishment. She is violent passion. Her anger beats like my husband's hand, but breaks more than skin and bone. I will not disgrace my family with disobedience, nor give a reason for Mother Kali to raise her hand against me and my family. I know a wife should be devoted to her husband with all her being, finding pleasure in obedience to him even unto death. Pavan sometimes makes this unbearable to do. But I am a good wife and I will raise my daughter right and obey all the laws of my gods.

  I remember when I lived with my Ama and Bapu a year before I was arranged to marry Pavan. I was thirteen. Ama was in the kitchen. She was little, but strong. Bapu was helping her cook. Pavan and his parents were sitting on the couch in the other room. I sat across from them, looking at Pavan. He would stare at me, smile, and look away. I played games with my eyes upon his. A smile spreads across my face and then tears swell my eyes. Ama and Bapu are dead now. The shutters on the window move back and forth, blowing squeak, squeak. I get up to close them.

  'Sobha, Sobha.' Pavan calls me. I walk to the door. 'Sobha.' I open the door to let him in. He enters the room. The sounds of his feet hitting the floor echo thump thump beneath the hollow wood. It echoes like the wood pounding on an old tabla. I tighten the bun wrap in my hair. The color is a dark silky brown and when I put it up, Pavan says it glows like a crown of jewels. His body becomes the black bear as it slowly moves beside me.

  'Dinner is supposed to be ready. Where is it?' My face is soft and glows like the morning sun. His eyes are a dark storm that keeps ships away from their harbor. Scars rip deep, deep around his left eye, in his coal colored skin. His thick blue-black hair rests unkempt, like an abandoned bird's nest. His hands are covered in dirt from working outside all day.

  'Why don't you brush this mess?' I lift my hand and comb his hair back. His hair slides between my fingers. He becomes a small bird feeding from the palm of my hand. 'I don't like this mess of you. Why don't you clean yourself up and I'll have dinner ready when you're done?' Pavan turns around, heading to the bathroom. I set the table and prepare dinner. The open window in the kitchen cools the hard wood kitchen floor. My bare feet tingle. I take out the pots, chicken, onion, garlic, coriander, roots, cloves, and curry. I cook for an hour in the kitchen.

  Pavan waits in the bedroom after his shower. The thunder outside cracks cush. I set dinner on the table and have a seat. I call to Pavan and he walks out of the bedroom and sits beside me. But he is not with me. Pavan eats with his head down. He doesn't look at me and doesn't speak. Although Pavan says nothing, I can sense much noise inside him. His chest rises and a wrinkle breaks between his eyes like a river in a valley, twisting up into his forehead. I know he is angry, because he doesn't have a son. I know of his desire for one. He lifts his head.

  'I am NOT a man without a son.' I am almost sympathetic to his disappointments.

  'I know, Pavan. I promise you will have a son.' But too often inside him a frustrated fire for a son and for prosperity becomes my beating and my sympathy becomes despised. I have born him a few children. The first child was a boy who died a few months after birth. The second child we named Rajani. The third child was a boy and was still born. I know each time his sons died he felt the sad rains fall on him too, but now he does not feel anything but anger for me.

  'What am I without a son?' His chest rises. His voice is loud. He raises his arms. 'Who will be there to continue my work, our livelihood? Who will help me bring prosperity to this family?' Every word is like a beating fist, beating and beating my back. Every word he uses to remind me of my failure of not giving him a son.

  Today I am lucky he doesn't raise his hands against me. I know of the value of a woman when she gives her husband no sons. I know what can happen to her then. Uma was my neighbor. We would meet in the market and giggle loudly. Every day after the sun would fall, I knew we should be getting home. It is not proper for a woman to stay out late. Pavan would yell at me for it. I would look out the window across the fields and see Uma's house and smile while he shouted at me. I knew I would be seeing her again tomorrow and knew we would have fun.

  She was a good wife to her husband. Her skin was soft like lamb's wool. Her skin was lighter than mine. She was graceful when she moved, like ships sailing smoothly on the sea. Everyone would tell her husband how beautiful she was. She had a gentle voice and was always obedient to her husband and her gods. She knew that was pleasing. She would rise early, seeking wisdom from her gods. She would always pray to Sita, the beautiful wife of Rama. She was the model wife. People say, 'May your wife be like Sita.' Uma was.

  But her womb did not know children and I remember the day her home shook with the loudest words. Her husband took in another woman. Uma would sit in her room and stare out her window, only rising to serve her husband and her gods. Uma walked like she carried a sack of heavy rocks. The other woman gave her husband three sons. Every son born was like another hit from a hammer slowly hardening Uma's face of softness into hard, chipped clay. The window became her silent world. We did not laugh again in the market.

&nbs
p; The earth cries and goes to sleep. I can't sleep. Moonlight dances behind the drawn curtain and wind wrestles with it. The crème colored curtains blow in the breeze from the open window. A dull light pierces the curtain and falls onto the wood floor. It crawls up the bed slowly, spreading like a blanket over Pavan and I. Under this light, a hollow pain pounds thump thump under my chest. I think of Uma. I think of myself. Pavan lies on his back so still. He rests hard .Ghhh, ahhh. Gghh, ahhh. His sounds of sleep are like the sounds of war. I rise to my knees and press my palms onto the sheets over his body.

  I hang over him silently. His face is dark in this light. Four day old stubble sits like hard mud. His eyes are closed, but I know their color. Behind those lids fire burns, bitter fire; the kind that doesn't die in minutes, but burns and burns until everything is dead. Behind those eyes, I know my worth. For a moment, I slide my arms around his throat. Maybe I could be strong enough to do it. Maybe no one would know. Maybe no one would care. The light from outside crawls over his face and I see him clearer. I see the strength of the fire behind his eyes, the strength of his arms and I know I cannot do it. I fall back onto my side of the bed.

  The morning sings to the earth like a mother to her baby. I am nestled under the sheets. Pavan is sleeping. I get up and walk to the mirror to comb my hair. It drops below my waist. I put it into a bun, because Pavan says he doesn't like other men looking at me. I pull it back tightly. Two gold earrings and three necklaces sit on a side stool. I adorn my face with this jewelry and mark my forehead with a dot of red paint as a sign of a married woman. I draw the curtain up. Thousands of birds, doves, silver beaks, wild pigeons, and hawks float across the sky.

  'Mother sweet, rich with hurrying streams, bright with orchid gleams. I pray to thee.' My whisper is soft. Long and short bare trees grow between the neighboring wood homes. 'I kiss your feet, Mother. I bow to you. I beg you for a son. I beg you to appease Pavan's anger.' The door squeaks.

  'Ama.'

  'Rajani.' I turn my head and see my daughter stand behind me like a small statue. On my knees, she can almost see over my head. Her frame is rectangular and arms dangle to her side. Her shirt's colors of orange, blue and green bleed together.

  'Will you come help me make breakfast?' Her lips puff up and she squints her eyes. They are big brown eyes when she doesn't squint. She likes to play games behind her eyes. Behind her eyes is laughter, behind her eyes she tells a thousand stories. I giggle with her. 'Awe, come here.' I wrap my arms around her, pulling her to me.

  'You are so precious. You are Ama's jewel.' We walk to the kitchen. Sita and Mother Lakshmi stare at me from off the shelf near the stove. I know they demand my reverence. Dried flower petals rest at the bottom of their stone bodies. I brush the petals into my hands and toss them outside. Fresh flowers grow in a little rectangle beside the house. Their colors blossom beautifully. Their petals are huge. I pluck them and their scent rises into the air.

  I remember my neighbor, Karuna. She squats within the rectangle of soil empty of any plant life. She is tall and lean. Strands of her hair fall over her face from a bun that is too often loosely tied. Light blue sleeves hang over her hands as she digs into the soil, dropping flower seedlings. Although she is much older than I am, we are very close friends. She helped me make a home of my house when Pavan and I were first married.

  'Hand me the seeds.' I stand beside her, handing her the seedlings in my hands. She pours the seedlings over the soil. 'Look at what I do and remember. You will have to do this someday on your own. This how you make them blossom strong, the kind the gods like.' She was always wise and eager to help.

  The sun was warm and the air was cool, brushing against my body. I watched her carefully as she planted. Our friendship grew with the seedlings, likewise growing stronger each year. I smell the flowers in my hands now and smile. The gods will be pleased. I look for a fresh fruit offering, but there is none in the house. I hope that will not upset Mother Lakshmi. I know I need to go to the market to pick up some fruit.

  'Pavan, I'm going to the market.'

  'Ama, can I come too?'

  'We'll see.' I smile at Rajani and walk into the bedroom. 'Pavan, I'm going to the market. I need to pick up some things as well as fresh fruit for this morning's offering.' Rajani stands behind me. Pavan sits on the bed, drinking. A few bottles of liquor lay on the floor next to him.

  'Why don't you have fruit for the gods? You are a stupid woman. Are you trying to make this family fail?'

  'No, Pavan.'

  'Now, the gods will be angry at me, because my wife doesn't know how to be respectful. They'll curse me!' Pavan rises like a bear from the bed and hovers over me. He snaps my arm, pulling me to him. He slaps me across the face.

  'Ama.' Rajani runs over to me like a mighty soldier at war, trying to pull me from him. 'Leave Ama alone.' He pushes me back, knocking me over Rajani and we fall to the floor. She is like a tiny bead on a necklace about to rip apart.

  'You don't teach Rajani respect for her Bapu either.' Pavan's face grows angry like the darkness Kali brings to the skies. Rajani's big brown eyes hide under her hands. Pavan swings his arms around. Rajani crawls back. He is like a strong wind. His hands knock me like a hard bat against my body. 'Get out of my sight.' He pulls me toward the bedroom door. My knees scrap against the wood floor. Rajani's cheeks burn red. Tears soak her skin and drop from her eyes, down her cheeks and onto the floor. 'And get Rajani out of my sight.' He looks at her. 'You are a disrespectful little girl.' I stand up and pull Rajani up into my arms.

  'Don't talk about Rajani like she is no good. You are the one who is no good.' I walk us to the door. 'You are a no good husband.' Pavan's face becomes beet red and he lifts his hands to strike me. He moves forward, but falls backward onto the bed and passes out from last night's drinks. I quickly carry Rajani out of the room and kiss her on her cheek. It is puffy and soft. The sun rises behind Rajani's eyes and a big smile squeezes her cheeks up into her eyelids. She is sometimes the only strength I have left. She is the gift I do not deserve. I know that if she would ever die, there would remain no life in me. I walk out of the house with Rajani in my arms.

  'Let's go to the market.' I carry Rajani under the sky. The walk is long, but I can breathe outside. Rice paddies spread across acres and acres of land. Shades of light gray and dark blue soak like water color in the sky. Clouds rest low on the bank. I walk across the fields and water squishes under my feet. I put Rajani down and she walks beside me. I walk squish squish. My feet sink into the mud. Long gray and green grasses surround the paddies. A breeze blows through them. Karuna pulls rice up from the fields. She has been born into years of this life. Day after day, her life has been dedicated to it. A life that I also know, the only life either of us knows.

  It is a life ingrained in us for so long that we almost see no other way of living. Karuna lives next to Krutika in my village. Karuna has a big family, two boys and two girls. She gets a lot of respect. Women listen to her when she talks. She is a good wife. She rises early and prays long to her gods. She bends over, kneeling. The water almost touches her face. Her body sways side to side. She hums la la la la la la la while she works. Her shirt is long and blue sleeves hang over her hands like they did when she taught me about planting flowers.

  'Sobha.' I hear my name, it is Krutika. 'Sobha.' I turn around and see her small figure running toward me. She is thin like a child. Her hair is cut short to her shoulders. Her arms flap up and down. Her legs carry her quickly to me. She pants huh, huh. Behind her eyes is much fear.

  'What is it?' She pants again.

  'Karuna.' Her eyes sadden. 'Dharker died last night. This morning he will be cremated with Karuna.' I look over at Karuna working in the fields. Her body is bending over, her back is towards me.

  'Dharker died last night?' I almost couldn't believe it. He was not that old.

  'Karuna will be taken this morning.' Her face holds the pain of those words. My eyes swell with tears and I look up to the sky. I look for answers
there, but I only see gray and dark blue. 'Karuna was a good wife, a good friend.'

  I speak hard. I speak as if she were already dead. I knew that a woman dies with her husband. I've seen it many times growing up, but I've never had a friend that had to leave me because of it. I knew how Karuna would die. I knew I couldn't take her away from it. Krutika's words reminded me of that. A woman is of no value without her husband. All a woman is is in him and a woman should serve and be obedient to her husband even unto death. She should show her devotion to him through her death with him. But I needed to know why I should not be angry. I needed to know why Mother Lakshmi would take her away from me at a time when I need her here so much. I run to Karuna. Memories of her flood my mind. She is still bent over, pulling plants out of the wet fields.

  'Karuna?'

  'Sobha?' She smiles at me. My face is sad.

  'You will be taken today?' I say it as if it would not be true unless she said it was so. She looks down at the plants underneath her. My arms want to pull her away from the water, shake her and have her tell me that it is not true.'

  'Yes.' She says simply. She says quickly. 'I will be taken this morning. They will come by and take me to Dharker's body.' I want to pull her away from her pain, from her life. But my arms are not stronger than the devotion she has for her husband and her gods. If she were given the choice, she would choose to die with her husband. I cannot pull her away from her soul, a soul shaped by many years. This is the only life she knows, the only life I know. If I pulled her from it, my soul would burn at the thought of it. This life is bonded to us like a mother is bonded to her child. I know I should not pull her from it. I say nothing. She looks at me with a contented smile and sees the sadness on my face.

  'I have lived my life. I follow our ways and now my life, our way, has brought me here to this moment. I must submit to what this moment brings me.' She smiles. 'I am content.' Wood is piled in a rectangle. Each log is thick and cracks with burnt age. Dharker's body is wrapped in white cloth and lies on top of the piled wood. His head is turned toward the sky. I can only see his black-blue hair hanging around his head. Rajani stands by me.

  His Bapu, Ama, brother and sisters surround the body. Karuna stands over the body, held up by family. She is drugged to help relieve the pain and cannot stand on her own. She stands in their arms like she has no will. Her eyes sometimes fall shut. The elders pull her to the wood and lay her next to her husband. A thin mist straggles below our feet, across the dirt and rises over the wood like a ghost. The morning is quiet.

  Men begin a fire on the wood and a drone instrument sounds eee-ng, eee-ng. A beggar and a young boy fade out all other sounds. They sing a story of heroism. It is for the wife's devotion. But the music cries and cries. The fire crackles kksh kksh. She moans at the fire against her body, but the sound is muffled by the song. A hollow pain pounds under my chest as I stare at the smoke rising above the wood and hanging like a cloud over us. Eee-ng, eee-ng. The fire grows quiet....eee-ng. . . .And slowly dies. I grab Rajani's hand and turn to walk to the market. The earth is heavy. The air is heavy. The walk to the market is heavy. I fall to my knees and cry.

  'Ama, Ama.' I squeeze Rajani's hand and stand up.

  We walk into the market. Children laugh ha ha behind a banana cart. Lychee, mango, jack fruit, and oranges are arranged in cane baskets. Baskets follow baskets. I smell them as I pass by. Light hangs over the land. The sun beats the ground hard. The sun beats upon my back hard. People run up and down the market place. Some walk slowly and some fast. I can see many wearing rainbows of colors. Buffaloes and cows push through the crowds.

  'Get out of my way.' A man sits in his bullock cart and whips them. The cart shacks ccrick ccrick ccrick back and forth as it moves. I pull Rajani out of the way. Men talk in a corner. Each smokes his own pipe.

  'No, no. See it is this way that a man finds Nirvana.' Another man laughs.

  'No, you are mistaken. It is only when he desires nothing. He must neither delight in it nor loathe it, and then a man finds true Nirvana.' I walk around the corner. Bread is piled on carts next to cane baskets. The fresh fruit smells sweet. I remember Sita and Mother Lakshmi and buy two mangos to place at their stone feet. I fill my basket half way, leaving room for breads and spices. My eyes follow a small child running across a dirt road and behind a temple. Granite is carved into columns and many arches. Sculptures of men and women intertwined decorate the temple walls. A Guru sits on the front steps, whistling wu we wa wa wu, we wa wa wu. Many large beads on a necklace wrap around his neck. Saffron cloth wraps his body. Torn sandals sit beside his bare feet.

  'Stay here, Rajani. I'm going to walk over to the temple.' The Guru looks up and smiles at me still whistling, we wa wa wu, we wa wa wu. His skin is like light speckled sand and his forehead is marked with two red dots and two white lines. Years of dark hair tangle behind his ears and drop below his shoulders. A beard hides most of his missing teeth.

  'I know why you have come to me.' His voice is low and scratchy like sand paper. He looks down and whistles again. I walk closer and sit down next to him. 'You're searching. That is what brings you here. You are searching for answers to your pain.' I cover my face and tears swell my eyes. Tears fall forth like a heavy rainfall. I toss my head up to the sky.

  'I want to please the gods. I want to obey my husband like the Bhagavad-Gita warns us to do. But my husband is a monster. He is a hungry monster devouring everything in his way.'

  'You don't tell kharma what you get. You must live with what it brings you.' He turns his head to the market and waves his wrinkled finger at it and at all the people there. 'See, it is like this. A man sees this and that and he desires it. So, the man follows this desire. All his life, he follows this desire and that desire and never has rest.' He breathes heavily, staring into me. 'One day he realizes that the only good desire he has is the desire in the soul.' He pounds his chest twice. 'The soul is what is eternal and it is this eternal that is Brahman, and it is this Brahman that is rest.'

  He breathes heavily again. 'A good soul desires for nothing more than what it has.' He speaks angrily. 'Even if the husband has no good virtues, it is the wife's duty to always be obedient to him.' He says this sternly. 'This is what a good wife makes. This is what Brahman wants. This will take your kharma to a better next life.' He stands up, walking forward using a walking stick. 'Know this and then the day will not rest upon your face as a painful burden.' His face is a canvas of caves that dig deep, deep into his skin. His eyes weigh heavily. 'For you realize that this is kharma, and you must let kharma be kharma. Slowly this and that do not matter. Your heart will desire for nothing more than what your kharma brings you. Then you attain liberation, you no longer suffer pain.'

  'For from joy all the beings come, by joy they all live, and by joy they will all return.'

  I dry my eyes and throw a few coins into his begging bowl and walk out of the temple. I grab Rajani's hand and walk home. I think of the Guru's words and how simple he made things seem. My teaching is that of which the guru spoke, and although I knew I was building my kharma for my next life, I longed to taste the joy now. I lift my basket up over my head and a mango falls out, rolling onto the dirt. I lift it into my hands. I think of my gods, I think of Pavan. My fingernails press into its skin, my hands squeeze and press and squeeze and press. Juice squirts up. I drop it to the ground. The light from the sky is slowly covered with gray clouds. The blue sky bleeds violently with grays, blacks and dark blues. Fattened clouds roll eastward. I walk fast.

  As I approach my village, I see my home. I see Pavan standing at the front door with a woman in a long red sari in his arms. She tosses her head up, laughing. Pavan smiles. I haven't seen him smile in sometime. He presses her hand against his as he walks her inside and closes the door behind him. At the sound of a whip striking an ox's worn back, the sky cracks snap. The sky color deepens quickly and rain pours to the earth like water rushing through a broken dam. The rain falls hard to the ground. I throw the basket do
wn. I grab Rajani's hand and run. My feet hit splash splash in the fresh water. Mud spills onto my clothing. My left sandal flies off my foot and my hair bun unravels as I run through the wet land. Snap. The thunder cracks. Rajani and I run up to the house door. I open the door and see Pavan and the strange woman inside.

  'No, no.' I run up to the front steps and open the door. 'No.' I cry.

  'Pavan, What have you done?' The woman stands beside him, smiling. Her hair is long and dark and fluffy like clouds. She smells like flowers. Smoke rises from a cigarette in her left hand. Mud stains my clothes and the fabric clings to my chest. Beads of water drop one by one, forming a small puddle below me. I breathe heavily and hard. The sky cracks ccush. A fire burns inside me that has never burned so angry before. The sky sounds snap and my body trembles. Rajani pulls my dress. She doesn't want me to yell. She wants to protect me from Pavan, from myself.

  'I am waiting no longer for a son. She can give what you cannot.'

  'What about Rajani and me? What about us?' I should not speak back, but a fire burns inside that I cannot control. My eyes swell red and my chest rises.

  'Ama. Ama.' Rajani wraps her arms around my waist. 'Ama.' Pavan pulls Rajani from me. She holds on tight, but his arms are stronger than hers.

  'Ama.' Pavan pulls Rajani to him. She pulls back and falls to the floor. I push him back and he grabs my wrists. His grip is tighter than it has ever been before. I swing my other arm up and grab for his snake arms. I push him back again. He pushes me forward. My feet scrap against the hard wood and then I fall back onto the wet dirt.

  'Don't do this,' I beg. I look at him with eyes that plead like the prey to her predator.

  'Stay outside until you stop acting like a wild animal.' He slams the door shut. The rain falls hard. Tears soak my cheeks pink and slide down my skin with the rain. I hear Rajani cry inside and can hear him pull her to her room. My body lays soaked on the dirt ground. My hand squeezes the dirt in my palms. The sky sounds snap and my body shakes as I crawl. I crawl into a corner between the steps and the house and out of the storm. I curl up like a baby's fist to die. My head rests between my knees and I sway back and forth, back and forth and can only hum wu we wa wu wu, wu we wa wu wu. The sky is a dark blanket and the rain drops like rocks.

  After the rain has quieted its anger and sadness, I knock on the door. I speak through the door gently, softly like a baby.

  'Please, let me come inside. Let me see my Rajani.' I hear Pavan's feet pace near the door. 'Let me make you dinner like you like it. You must be hungry.' I hear him grumble on the other side and he slowly opens the door.

  'Get inside. Clean yourself up.' I walk to Rajani's room. She lies on her bed with her face in her pillows. Tears soak her face there. The strange woman is in my room, adorning herself with my jewelry. She looks at herself in the mirror. I walk to the kitchen and prepare dinner just the way Pavan likes it. I mix many spices with a chicken in a boiling pot. I walk to the garden for fresh flowers to place on the table. The flowers outside are shriveled and dead. I look through my cabinet above the stove for Pavan's favorite spice, curry. There is none in the cabinet.

  I bend below to the cabinet under the sink and look for some frantically. I knock over jars of plums and peaches and hit over a box of something. I pick it up and read the label, rat poison. Moments become hours in my mind. I see Rajani's eyes inside my mind that tell a thousand stories and I want her to have all those stories. I silently stare at the box.

  'Sobha! Sobha.' He calls me from the bedroom. I drop the box to the floor and stand up straight.

  'Yes, Pavan?'

  'Where is dinner?' The strange woman tickles Pavan and they laugh on the bed.

  'Just about ready.'

  I pull the box up off the floor and lay it on the countertop. My mind becomes numb; my body moves in motion, but I feel as if I am not moving at all. I move over the stove like a sea about to swallow her ships. I pour the poison into the pot and it dissolves quickly into the heated water. The boiling water breaks the little pellets up and melts them well into the chicken. I pour more spices into the pot and mix the stew. I put the rat poison back under the kitchen sink. I place dinner onto a nice white dish on the table and call for Pavan to come.

  I stare out the window of the kitchen and see the long and short trees and fields of rice that reach for miles. I can see myself walking out there, away from here. Pavan takes his big plate into the bedroom and shuts the door. I walk to Rajani's room and pull her out of bed. I do not want to be here in the morning. I carry Rajani on my shoulders. She falls asleep quickly again in my arms. I walk away like a storm that has resided and become still. Inside me, my own anger and sadness is quieting like the rain outside.

  The rain is quiet. The night is quiet. The sky is clear. I walk into the distance, knowing Pavan will be dead by morning and that the strange woman will be the only one there to blame. I walk away from the house and from years of pain: for a morning that does not belong to Pavan, for a morning that does not belong to kharma, but for a morning that I can give to my Rajani and is my own.

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  About The Author:

  Ami Blackwelder graduated UCF and lived in Asia for eight years. She now writes paranormal romances. https://www.amiblackwelder.blogspot.com

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