Blood Relation
Short Story: ‘I looked at the hospital’s main gate; how many people were here for the same thing? I looked at Megha. She was staring at the sky as she softly whispered, “It might rain.”’
I wished that the cell phone in my hand was a telephone, preferably one with those dials that I have to turn all the way round to dial a number, so that I could see myself twisting the cord around my index finger. Maybe the cutting-off of blood circulation would have jogged me back into reality.
“Are you sure?” I asked Megha.
“I am sure. I took the test twice.”
It was 11 in the morning, which means that she would have had to take the test in her office. I wondered how my sister got the courage to sneak it in under her lecherous boss’ nose. She could hardly even dare sneak a snack to eat at her desk.
“How do you feel?”
“How would I feel?” she hissed. “There are two pink lines, Tara. Two. Pink. Lines.”
“Does he know?”
“No. And I don’t want to tell him. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what—”
She inhaled sharply, as if her breath was caught on a barbed wire. I was only a little older than Megha, but I knew that I was supposed to be taking more initiative—initiative for… I don’t know. Megha was not like me, she was—she’d been—much more present. I don’t know how else to put it. I remember when we were kids; she used to go up to the host of the birthday party and ask them—plead them—to let her help. Then, she’d go inside the kitchen, rip open the plastic packets that had the small, round paper plates, and lined them on the table. I would be dragged from a corner I was minding my own business in and asked to cut the cake into equal pieces. How many children are there? Remember: one piece each. I hated to help. But she’d coax and cajole me and bribe me with an extra piece of cake and I had to plaster a smile on my face and serve the rasna. At home, my mother would hear all about it. And then, I’d hear a regurgitated could-have-done version of it from her, which Megha would be a smug witness to. I wish I could pull one of those right now.
“Tara. What should I do?”
An abortion in Baroda would be risky. The doctors sprouted from familial connections, every gully had someone on guard to rinse it clean of immoral activity, and she’d have to hide the pain. That was the toughest part. Megha would bleed like a motherfucker, for god knows how many days. She fucked her boyfriend in hotel rooms, but she booked the room for a day, not for 3-4 business days. Funny… Business and bleeding—
I had bled out for fifteen days, but after the first four, the bleeding was just like a normal period.
“Fuck, Tara! Would you stop fucking daydreaming?”
“Right. Sorry. Well, I’d advise you to not do this.”
“Not do this? I have no option but to do this. I can’t tell Parth. He’ll freak out and propose that we get married, I can’t tell my parents obviously, and my friends, well, I don’t think I can…I don’t…”
I felt her heave and sink into her office chair. Then I heard soft whimpers. Fuck. Was she crying? In her office? Megha can’t handle pressure for shit.
It was the same three years ago. It's the same now.
“Megha. Megha, listen to me. Stop crying first. You don’t want your boss to see you that way. Drink some water. Take some nice, calming breaths. Okay? I am here, just drink some water first.”
She spoke with a purpose and ate with a resolve: short, panicked, gulping down morsels like her life depended on it. She lived on the terms of the stimulus around her. Nothing was her choice; not even the parasite now in her stomach.
I listened as her ragged breathing tried to regulate itself as her voice went far away and then came back again. Everything about Megha was panic-stricken, including the way she drank water. And no, this was not just because she was pregnant. This was all the time. She always walked as if she was running away from a dog, she talked as if she was in a hurry to get somewhere. She spoke with a purpose and ate with a resolve: short, panicked, gulping down morsels like her life depended on it. She lived on the terms of the stimulus around her. Nothing was her choice; not even the parasite now in her stomach.
“By not do this, I meant not do this there. Why don’t you come to Pune?” I said softly, listening to her hiccup spurts of water, probably onto her ironed kurta.
“What?”
“Come to Pune for a week. Tell maushi that you want to hang out with me for a while; you need a break. We’ll get it done here. You’ll be fine in a week and then you can go back.”
I put the phone on speaker and went to make myself a cup of coffee. The sun dripped into the kitchen, making the tap teardrops glint. I put my palms on the cool granite of the counter and felt some honey stick to one. Megha would blabber to herself for five minutes and then talk to me, as if I didn’t listen to all the blabber anyway. Well, why listen to something twice? I’ll just take in the edited phrases and run with it.
I would have to postpone my date by a week, get the plants when she’s sleeping, and work from home for the time she’s here. My plants have died. All died. Parth had tried to revive my jasmine in the windowsill, but the dry flower refused to come back to life.
Maybe I could take her somewhere to get her mind off it. Maybe Goa? No. Too alcoholic for a loss.
“...So, fine… I’ll come the day after,” she said. “I’ll take a bus, because trains are full. How many days would it take for this to be done with?”
“A week, at best.”
“Fine. I’ll let the fucker know.”
“Parth?”
“No. My boss. Pretty sure he saw me sniffling.”
I scalded my tongue with the coffee. Ah well, nothing beats the pain of an abortion, I chuckle weakly to myself. Oh god, Tara. You really need to keep this to yourself.
I remembered I had told a date to put on a condom and he said that ‘it hurt’. Bullshit.
Then, I told him the story. He withdrew and said he’d book a cab. He couldn’t sleep in another bed.
*
“I am pregnant,” I had mumbled to Parth.
“She can’t know, Tara,” he barely let out the words. He put his hand on my palm, which was starting to perspire a little, but that only made it easy for me to slip it out of his hand.
“She won’t know,” I said. Assurance coated my words with a foul taste; I realized my mouth had been slightly open, tongue lolling out as I’d waited for him to answer.
He’d paid for all the costs and come to Pune on the pretext of meeting his friend. The nurses at the hospital we went to, didn’t even offer me a chair as I waited for the doctor. I was determined not to cover my face with a mask or a dupatta. I am doing the right thing. I had insisted to myself. At the medicine counter, I’d put on my mask. The counter lady’s hands had reeked of sanitizer.
He had been with me during that time, but I’d told him to sit downstairs. The doctor, however, wasn’t happy to see me alone.
“You’ll need to be with someone,” the doctor had said. “I can’t give you the pill otherwise.”
So, I’d reluctantly told him to come upstairs. “Don’t hold my hand,” I’d hissed as the doctor told me to swallow the pill with disinfected water.
He had looked at me intently, as I gulped the pill. I winced.
The doctor had looked at his furrowed brow and said, It’s alright. Your girlfriend will be okay in a couple days. It’s good you came with her.
The doctor must have made him feel dependable. I saw his chest puff up, as he hastily took the bottle from me and wiped a water drop stuck on my lower lip.
On our way home, he’d again taken my hand into his and held it like that all throughout the rickshaw ride.
Megha and Parth had been dating for six months then, but we had been sleeping together for half of those. I was still bleeding, as I watched him shut the elevator shaft, and looked down at his phone, and then, go out of sight.
When I closed the door, I walked back inside and slept for two days.
*
Without looking at me, the nurse mumbled, “Go to the basement and get the MTP kit. Then, take the receipt, come up here and I’ll give you the pill.”
“It’s for her,” I said, pointing at Megha, “Not me. But yeah, I’ll be back.”
I turned back to Megha, who was gently being let down on a resin-cushioned chair, and asked, “You sure you’ll be okay?”
“Yeah, I just feel a little dizzy,” Megha said. “I’ll sit down. You’ll be back soon?”
“Before you know it.” I offered a weak smile and rushed out the glass doors.
At the counter, I tapped my foot impatiently as the nurse read the receipt. Now, where else would I be getting it from for her to pore over every word? Another nurse wheeled in a woman who was cradling a baby—a wrinkly, red-faced squawking infant—and I looked at Megha. She was composed, not a trace of emotion on her face. What, did she not get teary? Was she thinking of how this would add to another thing to discuss with her therapist? As the glass door swung somewhat violently, it fanned antiseptic onto my face. Was the hospital punishing me for getting Megha here? I watched as the doctor took out the pill and gave it to her, the instructions fading into a buzz. I felt pins and needles in my head as I leaned against the counter.
“Let’s go?” Megha said, groaning as she stood up and interlinked her arm in mine.
She was still the same: wanting to twist the cords of a frayed relationship over and over into repairing it, but the cord broke, and her closed fist didn’t even come to know.
“Yeah. You’ll be able to sit on the scooty?”
“Yeah, yeah. I feel fine. Thanks, doctor,” she smiled. Was there this much of an overwhelming need to be this nice? I shrugged and led her out to the lift. The left side of my body was buzzing with pins and I took my hand and gripped the metal bar in the lift. Megha frowned and hooked her palm inside my elbow.
“Can we sit here for a bit?”
Sure, I thought. It wouldn’t take more than half an hour for Megha and I to reach home. The smell of the raat ki rani demanded a heart-to-heart… or the illusion of one. This hospital was nicer, gentler, I felt. It had a large sitting area outside, which those benches you have in children’s parks, where your lower body curves into the wood. So, we sat down. I looked at the hospital’s main gate; how many people were here for the same thing? I looked at Megha. She was staring at the sky as she softly whispered, “It might rain.”
“No, I don’t think so. It’s just cooler right now. And if it does, we’ll leave the scooty here and take a rickshaw.”
Megha looked at me for a split second and then crossed her legs on the parapet. I knew what was happening. This was a reunion brought together by the world’s most unimaginative circumstances and Megha wanted to milk the most out of it. She was still the same: wanting to twist the cords of a frayed relationship over and over into repairing it, but the cord broke, and her closed fist didn’t even come to know.
A big drop of rain fell into the center of my lap. Then another fell on the parting in my hair. Another on my arm. Another on her reports. We ran to the rickshaw stand, my hand around her waist keeping her thin chappals from slipping in the freshly wet earth. The rickshaw ride home was cloaked with a downpour.
It felt like the city was crying for us.
I looked at Megha as she almost stuck her head out, her face glinting with a smile. Slipping my hand into hers, I looked the other way, tears blurring the expanse of rain.
*
I dabbed at her forehead with a napkin as I got her to sit up against the pillows. The room smelled faintly of vomit and iron. I didn’t tell her I’d retched in the other bathroom. Megha’s face was chalky, her eyes were swollen—allergic reaction to the baby—and I caught a whiff of her armpit reek as I gave her some water. Jesus, was this how I’d looked like? No wonder. No. Wonder.
“Just two more pills and you can go back to sleep,” I said as I threw the empty packet near the bed.
“Tara, I…”
“What? You feel like vomiting?”
“No, I…I told Parth.”
I looked at her as she tilted her head back and swallowed the pills, the water making waves in her throat. As she put the pillow back and lay down, Megha winced. I’d just changed the sheets; maybe, I should have put a spare bed sheet over the fresh ones. I took my laptop and sat down beside her.
“He wanted to come here,” she said, her eyes watering. “But I told him that you were here, and he didn’t need to. He insisted, but I didn’t answer him. If he drops in, w-would you open the door?”
I look at Megha with raised eyebrows, only to find the last sentence had been uttered in a drug-addled, self-indulgent, emotional stupor. She’d been feverishly in love with him and I’d seen it, too. He had talked to me about it all the time. In the hospital. On the rickshaw ride back home.
I looked back at Megha as she drifted off to sleep. It will be done in another two days and then she’ll be gone.
“I’ll open the door,” I said as I stroked her hair.
***
Rhea Gangavkar is a writer & editor based out of Pune. She has finished her post graduation from Fergusson College, Pune with a specialization in postcolonial theory and translation. When she's not writing, she's reading to overcompensate for time and watching films. You can find her here on Instagram: @rhearherhr and Twitter: @kaapitalist.
