Part 8 (1/2)

*I'm exhausted and I don't think this is going to work. We've been cheated,' she said, walking towards a chair.

*Don't sit down!' Bhanu said.

Genevive opened her mouth to say something and suddenly keeled over, clenching her stomach. *I'm getting really bad cramps.'

Bhanu held Genevive's hand.

The bleeding started after the second hour, and Bhanu took her to the bathroom. Then she ran frantically around the house, finding old cotton sheets, newspapers, kitchen cloths and sanitary pads to give to Genevive, praying that no one from her family would ask what the girls were doing.

After another hour, Genevive leaned over the edge of the toilet seat and said, *I can't take this any more.'

She was turning white.

*Genevive!' Bhanu said. *What's happening?'

*My entire stomach is falling out,' Genevive whimpered, her face flushed and sweating.

It was the baby.

Genevive puts her hand on Bhanu's.

*You haven't forgiven me,' she says, as if a balloon has been deflated.

*For what?'

*For everything I've put you through. Kamathipura, my drinking, my mother and then my husband.'

*There's nothing to forgive.'

*And your abortion? Do you still blame me for that?' Genevive asks softly.

Had Bhanu done the right thing by taking someone like Genevive into confidence with regard to the life of a child? She didn't know then, and she doesn't know now.

But in the patients' room, surrounded by a doctor and sterilized equipment, it was Genevive who had held Bhanu's hand as her uterus was emptied. Bhanu was convinced that the positive CVS test had left her with no choice. So she lied to everyone, including Mohan, saying that the test had led to the miscarriage of her unborn son. As Mohan went about bringing her khichdi and holding her hurt body through the night, she couldn't look him in the eye, wondering if he would've approved of her decision. Would anyone have?

At that time, Bhanu had little strength to dwell on these thoughts. She was so consumed by the pain, starting with the pins and needles in her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Her body didn't understand that its milk wasn't needed as it spilled down her stomach and legs, through her clothes. My b.r.e.a.s.t.s are crying, she thought. They're suffering for my sins. She began wearing a T-s.h.i.+rt and cardigan over her salwar-kameez, even to bed, hoping the milk wouldn't soak through for anyone to notice. Then she ate, and how she ate, feeding the emptiness left by the son she could've had, the son in whose memory she still ate for two.

Bhanu couldn't sleep in Mohan's bed after that. She moved back to her parents' home, saying she needed her mother, that it was temporary. Her family grew worried-even her cousins, who hadn't spoken to her since their house was split into half, came to visit her. She saw them all, but when Genevive came to visit, Bhanu couldn't bear to look at her. The mere sight of her face reminded Bhanu of the terrible mistake she had made. She told her family to send her away.

In less than eleven months, at a time when Bhanu could have been playing with her son, but instead was still hurting, still in mourning, still spending most of her time in her parents' house, Genevive came to her room: *Shardabai said you were sleeping but I had to see you. I have something important to tell you. I am pregnant; four months pregnant.'

From deep in Genevive's chest comes a growling sound.

She pulls out a handkerchief that Carla had crocheted for her, a token of her mother that she says she'll keep till her dying breath. *Bhanu, you know that I take equal responsibility for letting you go through with the abortion. I wouldn't have let you if I'd known any better. You know that, right?'

Bhanu throws aside her blanket that suddenly feels unbearably hot.

*You should have stopped me,' she whispers fiercely. *I couldn't think straight at that time, but you should have thought for the both of us. Like I always do for you.'

*I know,' Genevive says, tears rising in her eyes. *I should have and I am sorry that I didn't. I tried to explain so many times afterwards, to apologize, but you wouldn't let me near you. You don't know how deeply sorry I am.'

*Why didn't you stop me?'

*Oh, Bhanu. I didn't know, how could I know then that you wouldn't be able to conceive again?' Genevive cries. *And I had no idea that CVS is a diagnostic test; it isn't always completely accurate. That it could have been a false positive. That you could have taken the risk and had a healthy baby.'

*And what if it wasn't a false positive, Genevive? What if my son was born with Down's Syndrome or something else?' Bhanu says, her voice startlingly loud. *Would you be sitting here apologizing to me about that as well?'

Her life cannot slip from perfection to imperfection based on this one single decision.

*If your son were here, even with special needs, we would have arranged to look after him, joined a support group, or even started one. We had a choice.'

*Choice? The way you had a choice when you killed your unborn child.'

*Bhanu! It isn't the same thing. I was a kid.'

*You had a choice, and you chose the coward's way,' Bhanu says, her face hot and wet with emotion.

Genevive sees this and says softly, *You are comparing things that can't be compared, Bhanu. I understand your anger, believe me I do. There are so many things that I still have to explain to you. The last few months, they've been tough on me.'

*Tough on you?' Bhanu can't help but snort.

Genevive says nothing. For the first time in a long time Bhanu studies her friend, noting that Genevive has acquired the thin, intense look of the unlucky. Her arms are mottled with the round bruises of injection needles. Her body bears the gaunt look of being subjected to pills and transducers. It must not be an easy pregnancy.

They finally look similar, her once beautiful friend and her.

*Perhaps you are not ready to hear my side of the story yet,' Genevive says. *But I can't leave without asking: Will you be able to raise my baby?'

Her tear-rimmed eyes are swimming with hope.

Bhanu answers slowly, *No, Genevive. I will not. I am sorry.'

It feels as though she is finally shutting the door to an ill-willed storm.

Before either of them can say another word, there is a knock on the door, and Dr Hussain, Bhanu's gynaecologist, enters the room. He is a little man with a generous beard, a craggy jaw, and hair that grows all the way up to his neck.

*Hi Bhanu,' he says cheerfully. *It's good to see that you're up today.'

He then sees Genevive and the blood drains from his face.

*Genevive?' he says. *What are you doing here? You're supposed to be on bed rest.'

*Dr Hussain!' Genevive says, standing up. *I was just ...'

The doctor walks up to Genevive and places a hand on her shoulder. *No excuses, my dear. Go home and lie down. Promise? I will come by your house after this visit.'