The Lowland
women she noticed on the campus, like a woman Udayan had never seen.
April came, students welcoming the sunshine, gathering on the quadrangle and along the ledge of the student union, white blossoms filling the trees. On Friday afternoons she saw undergraduates lined up outside the union, with small suitcases or backpacks, sacks of dirty laundry. They boarded enormous silver busses that took them away for the weekend. They went to Boston, or Hartford, or New York City. She gathered that they went home to see their parents, or to visit their boyfriends and girlfriends, staying away until Sunday night.
Though she had no one to see off, she liked to observe this ritual egress, watching the driver place the passengersâ luggage into the belly of the bus, watching the students settle into their seats. She wondered what the places they were going to were like.
You getting on? one of them asked her once, offering to help her.
She shook her head, stepping away from the crowd.
The health service at the university referred her to an obstetrician in the town. Subhash drove her there, sitting in the waiting room while a silver-haired man named Dr. Flynn examined her. His complexion was pink, looking tender despite his years. As a nurse stood in the corner of the room he explored tactfully inside her.
How are you feeling?
Fine.
Sleeping at night?
Yes.
Eating for two? Feeling kicks throughout the day?
She nodded.
Thatâs only the start of the trouble theyâll give, he said, smiling, telling her to come back a month later.
What did he say? Subhash asked, when the appointment was over, and they were in the car again.
She conveyed what Dr. Flynn had said, that the baby was now about a foot long, that it weighed around two pounds. Its hands were active, its eyes sensitive to light. The organs would continue to develop: the brain and the heart, the lungs, preparing for life outside of her.
Subhash drove to the supermarket, telling her they needed a few things. He asked her to join him, but she told him sheâd wait in the car. He left the key in the ignition, so that she could listen to the radio. She opened up the glove compartment, wondering what was kept inside.
She found a map of New England, a flashlight, an ice scraper, an instruction manual to the car. Then something else caught her eye. It was a womanâs hair elastic, a malleable red ring flecked with gold. One that she did not recognize as her own.
She understood that there had been someone before her, an American. A woman whoâd once occupied the seat she was in now.
Perhaps it had not worked out for whatever reason. Or perhaps Subhash continued to see her, to get from her what Gauri did not give.
She left the elastic where she found it. She felt no impulse to ask him about it.
She was relieved that she was not the only woman in his life. That she, too, was a replacement. Though she was curious, she felt no jealousy. Instead she was thankful that he was capable of hiding something.
It validated the step sheâd taken, in marrying him. It was like a high mark after a difficult exam. It justified the distance she continued to maintain from her new husband. It suggested that maybe she didnât have to love him, after all.
One weekend he took her to the ocean, to show her what had given his life here its focus. Gray sand, finer than sugar. When she bent over to touch it, it spilled instantly from her fingers. It was like water, roughly rinsing her skin. Grass grew sparsely on the dunes. Gray-and-white birds paced stiffly, like old men, along the shore, or bobbed in the sea.
The waves were low, the water reddish where they broke. She removed her shoes, as Subhash did, stepping over hard stones, over seaweed. He told her the tide was coming in. He indicated the rocks, jutting out, that would be submerged in another hourâs time.
Letâs walk a bit, he suggested.
But the wind picked up and opposed them, and she stopped after a few paces, feeling too cumbersome to go on, too chilled.
Children were scattered here and there on the beach, bundled in jackets, climbing the rocks, running on the sand. It was still too cold to swim, but they dug trenches and craters, lying flat, legs spread. They decorated piles of mud with stones. Watching them, she wondered if her child would play this way, do such things.
Have you thought of a name? he asked. It was as if heâd read her mind.
She shook her head.
Do you like Bela?
She
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