striking me the way she wanted them to. I may not love her as much as I loved my father but she was my mother. How can a mother turn away from her daughter?
“Radha.” Nanna put his hand on Ma’s shoulder just as her chest heaved. She jerked the pallu of her sari that was falling off of her shoulder and tucked the edge at her waist.
“What, Ashwin, I had such great dreams . . . such hopes, all shattered.” Ma started to weep, the words pouring out of her through hiccups and tears. Nanna put his arms around her and rocked her gently.
“Everything will be okay,” he murmured into her hair, and smiled sadly at me.
The lump in my throat burst and I set the glasses of lassi down on the bedside table. Nanna held out an arm for me and I ran into it. We all held each other through the torment of acceptance.
Ma was the first to push us both away. She wiped her face with her pallu and looked at me with eyes that glistened with the aftermath of tears and rage. “Are you really marrying this American boy?”
I held on to my father as I turned to face her. “Yes.”
Ma nodded. “When?”
“This fall. Maybe October.”
Ma nodded again and walked out of the bedroom.
I leaned into Nanna some more and whispered an apology. I didn’t know what I was sorry about anymore, just that I wanted it to end, I wanted things to go back to normal.
By the time a tired Thatha came home, dinner was ready. We all sat down quietly to eat. Anand and Jayant, who were in a heated discussion about the riots that were raging in Gujarat, also fell silent when they reached the dinner table. There was an ominous flavor to the air around us.
Everyone was waiting for me to reveal my defection yet again and to tell Thatha about my meeting with Adarsh, my improper conversation, and my impending marriage to a man they would all refer to as the firangi .
Sowmya was serving leftovers from lunch but no one, not even Anand who always had a problem with leftover food, complained.
“Lata’s ultrasound and amnio test is tomorrow,” Jayant said, I think to stop everyone from thinking about my American fiancé.
Thatha looked up at Lata and smiled. “It will be a boy,” he said confidently.
Lata, the first to finish dinner, washed her hand in the plate with the remaining water in her glass and rose, plate in hand. “No,” she said looking at me, her eyes triumphant. “There will be no ultrasound and no amnio test.”
Jayant stood up, pushing his chair away sharply, its four legs squeaking against the floor’s polished stone, a look of total panic on his face. “What do you mean you won’t do it? Sixteen weeks, they can tell the sex in sixteen weeks these days.”
Lata moved and the curd rice mixed with water sloshed on her plate. “I don’t want to know the sex of this baby.”
“But you said that if it is a girl you would . . .” Jayant stopped himself from revealing too much but it was already too late, everyone was privy to what they had decided would be the fate of a baby girl.
“I want to have this child and I want it to be a surprise like it was when Shalini and Apoorva were born,” Lata said and left for the back yard to put the plate in the tub for the maid to clean the next day.
While she was gone, Thatha demanded an explanation from Jayant. “What is going on, Jayant? If it is a girl . . . You know we want a boy.”
Jayant threw his hands up in exasperation. “I don’t know what to do. I . . . will try and talk to her.”
“Why?” Sowmya asked and surprised everyone with her voice. “If she doesn’t want to know, we should not force her. We are not that kind of a family.”
Everyone in the room became very still. Ammamma, who had been fanning herself with the day’s Deccan Chronicle with one hand while eating with the other, stopped in midair and looked at her husband, seeking out a reaction.
Sowmya had put it out there, told everyone, especially Thatha , that if he complained or insisted too much about knowing the gender of the baby he would be slotted away with all those other despicable middle-class men who participated in female infanticide. She had managed to corner