Olivia stood quietly, lips pressed together, as Mrs. Gupta spoke with her. Apparently, some of the parents of the children she was trying to help had called the school with complaints. They didn’t like their daughters coming home excited about having been taught to play cricket or with books where girls went to school and learned to do magic and broke the rules. And even Dev’s parents were inexplicably up in arms over the new pair of pants she’d gifted him with.
“This is India,” Mrs. Gupta told her, “not America. We know in America people have many things. But not here. Please adhere to our ways. Do not try to make the children into little Americans. When you leave, they must be content to continue in our ways. I know you mean no harm, but I must ask you not to give the children so many things.”
Little Americans? Was she trying to Americanize the children? That wasn’t her intent. They were here to help the children, to give them a chance to break the cycle of poverty. Teaching them English and giving them an edge in the job market was her job, not her idea. She frowned slightly.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Gupta. I know I’ve only been here a little while, but I love these children. It tears me up when they stop coming to class. The money for Dev’s new pants wasn’t a huge expense for me, and I wanted him to be able to come to school. No one knows I did that. His parents can pretend they bought them. And yes, I bought the kids in my classes some supplies and some playground equipment. Can you consider that my donation to the school?”
“I must ask that you make no more large purchases.”
How could she explain it wasn’t large to her? That she was happy to do it. Could she stop? “I’m sorry, Mrs. Gupta. I’ll try to do better, but I can’t promise that. I want to help them.”
Mrs. Gupta took a deep breath and seemed unsure how to proceed with this response. Olivia still couldn’t believe anyone would chastise her for better equipping the children. She thought she’d been doing a good thing. She’d felt happier than she had in a long time, and now to be criticized for her behavior left her feeling foolish.
“If this is a problem,” she said, “if you need me to leave . . .”
Mrs. Gupta’s hard expression softened. “No, of course not. Nothing so radical. We are grateful you came to teach on such short notice. But perhaps you did not have enough time to prepare and understand how we do things here. India likes to take care of India.”
Ah. They didn’t want her charity. She didn’t see it that way, but she supposed she could understand. No, actually, she couldn’t. She couldn’t believe she was being reprimanded for trying to help children stay in school. As always, no good deed went unpunished. She’d told herself to stay out of it, to keep her distance. This is what she got for not listening to herself.
“I will try to do better,” she said. The words scratched the inside of her mouth like sawdust, dry and rough.
“I will tell the parents I spoke with you.” Mrs. Gupta smiled reassuringly.
Olivia felt anything but reassured. Dismissed, she trudged across the courtyard and to her room. She clicked the door closed, lit a stick of incense, and sat at the tiny desk. She needed to check in with her tutoring students. She had a couple of papers to proof that she knew of, plus whatever had hit her inbox during the day while she taught. Her fingers clicked across the keys as she entered her information into the dial-up modem.
While she waited for the connection to establish, she breathed deeply and looked around the room. This was how she wanted her room when she went back home. In fact, she would pack everything up and take it with her. She could ship it or get another suitcase and check it when she flew home. But she wanted these things surrounding her back home too—the tapestries, the bed cover, the sweet little lamp with the peacocks on it, the elephants that Chris had given her. These wouldn’t simply be souvenirs to keep the memories alive—these had become part of her.
She’d known already that she loved animals, but Scott had always disparaged her for it, telling her zoos were for kids and implying she was childish and immature for enjoying them so much. But the elephants and camels and peacocks surrounding her soothed her soul and delighted her, helping her to relax after a long day. The soft glow cast by the wooden lamp enveloped the room in a warm ambience, easing her mind and encouraging calm. The tension in her muscles eased.
The wisp of smoke from the stick of incense curled upward and suffused the room with the grounding scent of patchouli. She breathed deeply, luxuriating in the heady fragrance. She’d never used scents in the house she’d shared with Scott. He didn’t like fragrance of any sort. He used unscented soap, insisted on unscented laundry detergent and dryer sheets, unscented deodorant. He hadn’t liked her to wear perfume, so she didn’t. But now she could do as she pleased, and she realized she loved incense. Patchouli, cedarwood, sandalwood—she loved the earthiness of them. They stirred her soul.
Staring around the room, she realized the house she’d shared with Scott never felt like home, never felt like hers. She’d lived in the place for ten years and not once did she feel as at home and surrounded by things that delighted her as she did in this tiny, simple room in rural India. Scott always wanted final say on anything they bought together. Furniture, decorations, wall art—he would ask her what she liked but never act on her response, pretending to mull it over before picking his favorite anyway. Always. Come to think of it, the same applied to deciding what they would watch on television. Eventually she’d given up even offering an opinion when he bothered to ask. Knowing her input would be dismissed, she eventually told him to make decisions. He would anyway. Consequently, nothing ever reflected her, her style, her personality, her likes. No wonder she hadn’t cried when they sold the house—it never felt like hers anyway.
She never could have brought any of this into the house she’d shared with him—his house. He wouldn’t have approved. Would she have picked any of this while married to him? What would she have picked? She realized she didn’t know who she was anymore. All those years of marriage, of giving in to someone else’s wants, of not making any decisions of her own, had left her unsure of who she was and what she liked. She’d lost sight of herself, given up, forgotten who she’d been before. But now she wasn’t sure if she was remembering or something else.
Like Chris, she’d needed distance and a clean break from everything that held her back. Had she on some unconscious level known she needed to get away and find herself? Was she finding herself? Or was she moving on, transforming into a new person?
When she went home, she would get her own place, something her very own, and she would decorate it however she pleased. She’d fill it with eucalyptus and burn incense if she wanted to, when she wanted to. Never again would someone ask her if she really needed something or wrinkle his nose at her choices or tell her smart people didn’t do the things she did.
Constantly implying she was dumb, making decisions for her and insisting it was for her own good, rolling his eyes and apologizing for her in front of others, Scott had rendered her a self-doubting, indecisive mess. How could he have thought so little of her? Why did he look annoyed when something delighted her? Why did he even want to marry her in the first place?
Internet connection established, she navigated to her email and discovered a reply from her mom. Though still not pleased with her decision to race off to India, Mom was glad to hear she was enjoying her time. She hit reply and shared a few recent developments, how the children’s English was improving and how she taught the girls to play a simplified version of cricket. That brought back unsettling thoughts of being rebuked. She debated for a moment before typing a brief version of Aditi leaving school and why. And she mentioned Chris, but only briefly and didn’t even stipulate he was a guy for fear Mom would get the wrong idea. Then again, maybe she should let her think that. Some day she might want to pursue a relationship again—this time with someone who liked her the way she was, who didn’t always demand his own way, perhaps someone who actually enjoyed seeing her happy.
How would Mom handle that? For that matter how would Mom handle her moving back out? She recognized how easily they’d fallen into an easy rapport living together as they had when she was growing up. But she needed her own place again eventually. She couldn’t live with Mom forever.
She moved on to tutoring, but her mind drifted again to Aditi. The pads she’d bought at the market were every bit as terrible as the other teachers had warned her. They hadn’t exaggerated one bit. Plus, considering she’d paid roughly the same amount for a small package of ten pads as she’d paid for Dev’s uniform pants, the cost would inhibit local families from purchasing them, even if the quality was better. If they couldn’t afford clothes, no one would shell out that kind of money for feminine hygiene products. What did women do around here? Were ripped rags the only option? Surely there had to be an effective but affordable alternative to allow the girls to stay in school.
Knowing she ought to focus on proofing papers for her tutoring students, and still stinging from Mrs. Gupta’s rebuke to stay out of India’s business, she opened a new tab and typed in a search. The few results the search returned shocked her. Ripped up old clothing and rags were a luxury option compared to animal dung and dirt, which apparently some of the poorest women in the world resorted to using. She discovered that only around twenty percent of women in India had access to and could afford to purchase pads. Horrific statistics of women contracting infections as a result of non-hygienic materials shocked her. Many of the women who contracted infections suffered permanent damage to their reproductive systems.
She shuddered, thinking of Aditi and the other girls in her classes facing this sobering future. Handing out pads wouldn’t work. If giving a male student a pair of pants got her in trouble, how would parents respond to her distributing pads to their daughters? Nothing good would come of that. The other teachers didn’t seem to have a problem with the way things happened here. And she’d just been told, basically, to butt out and leave it alone.
So why couldn’t she stop looking for options? Everyone was right—when she went home, India would continue on as it had done for thousands of years. Who was she to think she could change things? And why did she even think she should? If everyone else was happy, why was she fixating on this?
Smart people know when to quit. Funny how Scott’s encouragement to quit and to give up only ever applied to her. Time after time when she’d been turned down for a full-time position at his university or any community college in their town, he’d shaken his head. Why don’t you stop applying? It’s just too upsetting to you when you don’t get the job. Maybe it’s time to look for a different job. It was like he didn’t want her to succeed.
The last thing she needed to do was take up another hopeless cause. Anytime she tried to do anything, she failed. Scott made sure she understood her limits and kept her from getting hurt.
She shook her head and closed the tab. She needed to send back papers to her tutoring students before dinner time. It wasn’t her business. She needed to stay out of it.