My mother once told me that a daughter is the greatest blessing. She would stroke my face, fingers lingering tenderly, and tell me that daughters are little goddesses who light up homes with their footsteps and laughter.
I was a pretty child growing up. Pretty in the way that a child usually is with soft, round cheeks and inquisitive eyes. My mother would draw a perfectly round black dot behind my ear to shield me from people’s watchful gazes because she was worried about evil eye. I would spin and teeter on unsteady feet, my girlish giggles echoing through the house. My mother would look up from the fragrant curry she was stirring, my father would glance away from his baseball game for a moment, and they would smile indulgently. I would leap from the sofa like a lemur or make grandiose statements about becoming a firefighter, an astronaut, or the Prime Minister. Something was endearing about my antics. Maybe it was the fact that they didn’t see my joy and desire as rebellion yet.
***
When I was eight, my mother told me not to run alongside the boys in the long, winding streets of our block. Our house was nestled between two others on a cul-de-sac, a tall maple at the center of our yard, groomed to perfection by my father as a show of patriotism. I usually played in our yard, but the boys took charge of the entire block; they were little kings conquering unknown territories. My neighbourhood, filled with many faces and names similar to mine— people who had settled up north for their American Dream, was both a haven and a living hell. She told me the neighbours clucked their tongues in disapproval when my dress floated behind me, caught in the wind like a parachute. When I asked why, she just smiled and told me to play with the other girls my age. I liked playing with the other girls; skipping rope and choreographing dance numbers was fun, especially when we ended up as an exhausted, giggling heap on the ground. But nothing compared to the exhilaration I felt when I ran. I remember the way the adrenaline thrummed through my body. I was only satisfied when I was breathless. When I asked my mother again, she silenced me with a sharp glare, and my plea to run with the boys withered on my tongue, never to bloom again.
***
When I was twelve, I bled for the first time. The pain came first: a quick throbbing that came and went for three days before the blood appeared. I thought I was dying when I saw the rusty stain on my underwear and the blood that dripped out of my body like blotches of watercolour paint into the toilet. They had taught us about bodily changes at school, but it was quick and haphazard. My mother laughed when I ran to her in tears, pleading with her to take me to the hospital.
“Silly girl,” she said, “you’ve become a woman.”
My body was just beginning to develop; there were no curves or mounds—the things that supposedly made me womanly were barely there. How could I become a woman overnight? How could blood and pain make me a woman? I didn’t understand then, and I still don’t.
I shook my head frantically, throwing myself at my mother. She smelled of the rosewater she dabbed on her skin every morning and the cumin she cooked with. “It’s too soon,” I sobbed. “I’m scared.”
She patted my back until my sobs subsided into sniffs and pulled me away from her. She cupped my face, still soft and round; my baby fat would not melt away completely until I was almost nineteen. When my mother looked at me, there was something strange in her eyes, almost as if she was looking through me rather than at me.
“You need to be careful now,” she said.
I didn’t understand.
“Stay away from boys, Naina.” Gone was the faraway look. Her face and tone were stern, which meant there was no room for disobedience.
I wrinkled my face in disgust when she mentioned boys. “I don’t like boys, Mama. They’re so gross.” I thought about how sweaty they were after playing outside during recess or how they chased some of the girls around with bugs they found in the dirt and grass.
Her face softened, and tears rimmed her eyes. “Oh, my sweet girl.” She pressed a kiss to my temple and stroked my cheek tenderly. “Please, Naina, please don’t do anything stupid. That’s all I’m asking of you.”
***
When I was seventeen, I let a boy I knew slip his hand under my shirt. His name was Adi. It didn’t start that way. We went to the same high school. Our parents were friends, running in the same circles and attending the same events—birthday parties, religious ceremonies, and cricket matches— so we saw each other on occasion. We talked, first because we had to, then because we wanted to. He stole furtive glances at me in math class while the teacher wrote algebraic expressions on the board. He left little heart-shaped chocolates in my locker, the shiny, red foil like a beacon against the dark interior, and we brushed hands when we passed each other in the hallways. We brazenly, shamelessly stole kisses in secluded corners at parties. They were clumsy and eager. His hand would brush my earrings that jingled with the slightest touch, sending us into fits of laughter that we smothered with more kisses. Everything about us had been impish and youthful.
His mother caught us by chance while trying to find the bathroom at one of the parties we were attending. She found us with wild hair, flushed skin, and swollen lips. My bra was unclasped, and his belt was undone. In our eagerness, we’d forgotten to lock the door. She stood frozen for a moment, taking in the disgraceful tableau before her, and then she stepped inside, closed the door quietly, and locked it. Neither of us expected her to close the distance between us in a few quick strides and slap her son. She berated him with sharp, quiet words about his foolishness—that he was practically a child, and she wouldn’t condone this vulgarity. I touched Adi’s arm, out of shock or reflex, wanting to comfort him.
This was my mistake. She rounded on me. Her eyes were two dark slits. “You—” her voice trembled with barely contained anger. “You will stay away from my son. I won’t let a girl like you ruin him.”
In a fleeting moment, she condemned me without bothering to know or understand anything. She barked at Adi to put his clothes back on and then shoved him out the door, where a small crowd of girls our age were huddled, waiting and whispering. He turned back to catch my gaze before he disappeared from view, his eyes soft and full of guilt.
Adi’s mother told my mother, who told my father.
“How could you be so careless!” My mother’s carefully painted face was a mask of rage. She was still wearing her clothes from the party, her hands crumpled her pink cashmere shawl.
My whole body was aflame. I couldn’t look at either of them. I barely remembered leaving the party. My mind was hazy, like when you’re underwater and everything falls away, slow and disorienting. All I could think was that we should have remembered to lock the door.
“Naina! Your mother is asking you a question. Answer her!”
She repeated her question. Hadn’t I thought about them for a single moment when I was doing what I was doing? I had. They’d haunted my mind every time we were in public together, terrified that someone would see us and tell them. But I couldn’t say that Adi had banished their spectral faces when he kissed me, when he slipped his fingers in mine, when he touched my body. He banished them when he consumed me.
Instead, I said in a small voice, “I’m sorry, Mama. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
“I warned you! I told you to stay away from boys, and you ignored me.”
“It’s not what you think, though. Adi’s different. It’s love.”
My mother let out a bark of laughter: “Did you hear her? Love, she says! Like spreading your legs for a boy is love!” I had never heard my mother speak so crudely. I thought she was mocking me; maybe she was. Yet, when that memory crossed my mind, I recognized the spiteful jealousy she’d held for my young love, for my ability to choose.
“We didn’t do anything wrong!”
My earrings jingled from the impact of my father’s hand on my cheek. “I didn’t come to this country to raise a whore!” he spat. I felt tears spring to my eyes involuntarily, but they were tears of pain and anger. “I did not spend years, Naina, working my fingers to the bone in a factory so you could shame us like this.”
They banished me to my room after that. As I crept defeatedly up the stairs, I heard my father say, “She’s like this because you spoiled her, Asha!”
My mother’s name means hope. I wonder if her parents, too, had big dreams for their daughter.
***
Curled in bed in self-imposed darkness, my face still stinging from my father’s painful reprimand, I cried. Deep, wracking sobs convulsed my body like I was possessed by something evil. When I closed my eyes, Adi’s face flashed in my mind. Eyes that crinkled in the corners when he smiled, his grin lopsided.
Had they given me everything? I’d been drawn to Adi because I was curious. I wanted to know what it was like to give yourself to someone who wasn’t bound to you by obligation but by choice. I wanted to know if love was truly unconditional. Was I supposed to pay back someone’s love with pieces of myself, or was that just something my parents demanded of me?
People called me loose, shameless—a slut. They said I seduced him as wicked girls with dreams and opinions tend to do. Adi did his best to shield me from everyone’s rage, but what could he do when women are made to be desecrated instead of consecrated?
I tried very hard to win my mother’s forgiveness. My father’s words reverberated in my mind. I made cups of tea that went cold where I left them. I dressed early on Sundays to accompany her to the temple, but she only breezed past me like I wasn’t there. At home, she only spoke to me when necessary. When we were out in public, it was understood that we would play the loving mother-daughter duo. Eventually, I accepted this as our new way of being.
When we graduated, Adi moved away for university and didn’t return any of my calls. I wanted to study creative writing; my parents wanted a lawyer. So I took out loans, tutored kids, and made people lattes and cappuccinos.
I still lived at home. They didn’t make me pay rent, but I paid in other ways. I endured my father’s backhanded comments about my terrible life choices. I gritted my teeth when my mother told relatives I was lazy, disrespectful, and brazen. Still, I chose to live my life. I wore tops that bared my collarbones and midriff, skirts and shorts that barely brushed the tops of my thighs, sultry eye makeup, and glossy lips. I kissed boys and girls and let them slide their hands along the curves and planes of my body until I gave into oblivion. Nothing ever lasted more than a couple of months, and I never reignited an old fling after it was over.
When I came home, they never asked me where I’d been. Once, in the early hours of the morning, as I was walking up the driveway with my heels in hand, I thought I saw my mother’s shadow in the upstairs window.
When I was twenty-one, I made my mother one last cup of tea and left. No one stopped me.
When I was twenty-two, someone told me my mother said that she had no children.
***
When I was twenty-five, I met someone. His name was Adi, but he was different from the boy who had slipped his hand under my shirt at seventeen. I passed him in the street on my way home from getting coffee. I recognized him instantly. He was both the same and different. His hair still held the same soft waves that made him look as if he had just come out of the shower. He had grown a beard, and dark stubble covered his jaw evenly. I paused. I considered all the years between us. We were strangers. We were two people separated by choices, connected by that singular moment where our lives intersected by chance. I kept walking, but he called my name. It was soft, hesitant, as if he wasn’t sure that it was me or if he wasn’t sure if I would turn around, if I would go back. I turned.
“Hi, Adi,” I paused. “It’s been a while.”
We ducked into the coffee shop I’d just come from. It was small and bright, with a checkered floor and potted plants in any spot conceivable for a potted plant to be. The barista was a high school student with red cat-eye glasses and a septum ring. Adi ordered a green tea. We sat down but didn’t speak. I wrapped my hands around the black coffee I ordered, welcoming the warmth. Adi peered into his green tea as if looking for something to say. He looked up, and something clicked in his gaze.
“You cut your hair,” he said, and then the words tumbled and tripped out of his mouth. I mean, it’s been eight years. You obviously would have gotten a haircut at some point—it looks nice. Your hair.”
Something wonderful happened then: he blushed. An embarrassing pink that suffused his face; the type of blush that radiates from beneath your skin, that you can feel but can’t stop. He looked away, his hand coming up to rub the back of his head.
I giggled. Little bubbly giggles gave rise to a loud, cackling laugh that had me clutching my stomach to stave off the ache that built from laughing too hard. The young barista shot us a dirty look from their post at the cash where they were ringing someone up. When I managed to quiet down, I found Adi staring at me, his gaze warm.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“I know.”
The moment had passed, we were back to where we started. Sober and unsure. I knew there were things that we both wanted to say; we just weren’t sure how to say them.
“You never answered any of my calls. I called you so many times.”
He peered back into his tea, this time because he was ashamed. “I’m sorry. My parents changed my number when I went off to Waterloo.”
He still could have called; we both knew this. He used to repeat my phone number forward and backward to impress me when we lay beside each other on the school soccer field. He was supposed to be at soccer practice, I was supposed to be at debate team. Although our school never had a debate team.
As if sensing my unspoken thoughts, he continued, “After everything that happened, I didn’t want to make it more difficult for either of us.”
“You don’t need to explain yourself to me, Adi. I get it. We were just kids, it didn’t mean anything…”
He looked at me sharply, and I saw an ember of anger that could have turned into a smoldering rage if he let it—if he was anything like our parents–but he released a breath, and with it went the ember. “That’s not true, and you know it. Yeah, we were kids, but we deserved better. You deserved better. It wasn’t murder; we were in love.”
It was my turn to look away. I studied a dried coffee stain on the table. “If only they’d realized that.”
After that, the moment to relive the past was gone. We caught up on eight years in an hour. He was studying for his architect registration exam; I was interning at a publishing house. Neither of us lived at home anymore. We were both single. He’d been out of a relationship for two years, and I hadn’t been with anyone for a year. We exchanged numbers, and when he asked me on a date almost a week later, I didn’t hesitate to say yes.
He took me to a well-lit Thai place on Front Street with noodle dishes that were both creamy and fresh and fusion desserts that I refused to share with him. He didn’t seem to mind as I gorged myself on coconut pandan gelato. His laughter rang through the restaurant when I complained of brain freeze from eating too quickly.
The sex was good; he was confident and sure. He undid me like a stubborn knot with deft fingers and patience. He always gave me my pleasure first, then took his. He called my name without anger, without malice. The syllables slipped out reverently. On his tongue, my name was a prayer. I was precious, holy, sacred.
With him, my womanhood comes without a price. I am simply allowed to be.
Adi moved into my one-bedroom shoebox almost a year after our first date.
When I was twenty-seven, my period didn’t come in May. It wasn’t planned. Adi was ecstatic. His eyes twinkled whenever they landed on my stomach, and he gravitated towards the tiny sleepers and booties in the baby section of the mall.
“I hope she looks like you,” he murmured wistfully. I pretended I didn’t hear him, and when his back was turned, I let my eyes drift over the little items.
One day, he found me perched on the edge of our bed, listlessly staring at a peeling patch of paint on the wall, my hand resting on my stomach. I felt the bed dip with his weight, but I didn’t look at him, even when his hand rested gently on my back, and he called my name.
“Sweetheart, look at me.” I refused. The doubt slithered into my belly languidly, like a stream of cool water instead of poison. I clenched my jaw tight and stared harder at the wall. I felt his hand cup my chin, turning my face to meet his gaze, but I wrenched my face away.
“Naina,” he said softly.
“Don’t. Please, Adi. I can’t do this with you right now.” My voice was wispy and fragmented.
“Hey,” I wanted his voice to be angry, but the tenderness I found instead hurt even more. He brushed his thumb along my jaw until it went soft. Until I went soft. When I finally met his eyes, he smiled and the corners of his eyes crinkled. “You can do this. We can do this.”
I didn’t recognize the sound I made next until long after Adi had gathered me in his arms. It was the wretched, pitiful wailing of a woman who could not reckon with being a mother but wanted nothing more than to be one.
***
When my first trimester had just about ended, a strange urge made me pick up the phone and call my mother. I wanted to tell her that I was going to be a mother, too. She answered after the third ring, soft and melodious like when she would sing to me to sleep.
“Hi, Ma, it’s Naina.” I paced from the living room to our tiny kitchen decorated in shades of grey and white with stainless steel appliances to match.
“Your father will be home soon,” she said in greeting. You shouldn’t have called. I heard rhythmic chopping, then the sound of something hitting a hot pan with oil, and then more chopping.
“I need to tell you something. I’m pregnant.”
The chopping stopped. “Is he going to marry you?” I almost rolled my eyes when she said that. No joy, no congratulations, no tears. Not my mother.
“No, Ma. We’re fine as we are.”
“Shameless—is it a boy or a girl?” I told her that it was too early to know. “Ha! If it’s a girl, at least you’ll know—you’ll finally understand what it means to be a mother to a girl like you.” My father’s voice echoed in the background as soon as the last word left her mouth, and she hung up. I didn’t call again.
My mother once told me that a daughter is the greatest blessing. I always thought my mother was wrong. I always thought being a daughter was a woman’s greatest burden. I think that maybe I just wasn’t meant to be a daughter to my mother, and she wasn’t meant to be a mother. I desired to be different despite all my doubts. But sometimes, even when you wish for something with all your strength, the universe laughs in the face of your desire. Perhaps that is why, when I was twenty-seven, my daughter slipped out of my body as blood and tissue six months too early. I cried for her, for all that I could not give her. I didn’t know if my baby was a girl. I had just hoped she was.