Once she’d stumbled across the pitch-black courtyard and fumbled her way into her room by the flame of a lighter, she banged her shin against the dresser and then her desk. Her hands shook as she lit candles. So much for girls’ night. She needed to be alone.
She slumped onto her bed and breathed deeply in the pale, flickering light, drawing her arms about her. Discussing the loss of her baby had opened the wound, fresh and raw, painful once again. Why couldn’t it scab over, heal, and go away for good? Weary of hurting, exhausted from the constant ache it left on her soul, she longed for relief. Another wave of tears trickled down her cheeks.
She knew the teachers meant well by suggesting she celebrate the little one’s birthday. That was the problem—everyone always meant well. How could she be angry at people who reached out to her in compassion and sympathy? She couldn’t. But the teachers simply couldn’t understand. How could she ever, ever think back on that terrible day, remember her lifeless, gray baby swaddled in a receiving blanket, and feel anything but devastation?
And now she couldn’t stop thinking about Chris’s reaction to her description of Scott’s behavior. All this time, withdrawn and closed in on herself, unwilling to discuss what had happened, replaying the days following the delivery and death over and over. She had wept as the nurse wheeled her to the waiting car idling in front of the hospital, Scott stone-faced behind the wheel. He hadn’t even gotten out of the car, just sat there as the nurse hovered, watching her climb in on her own then handing her the overnight bag she had so carefully packed several weeks before. The unused “coming home” dress remained untouched inside. The car seat she had so painstakingly researched and selected for its highest safety rating remained buckled in the backseat, the beige fabric and cheerful animal print waiting to nestle a baby who would never come.
The dynamic between her and Scott had shifted, and in the days, then weeks, then months that followed, she came to realize it would never shift back. Nothing would ever go back to the way it was. When he packed up and moved out, he had said little, and she’d merely nodded. Why would he stay? She didn’t want to stay. Her life had become a blur and she a sleepwalker in a nightmarish world she didn’t recognize, a reality that couldn’t possibly be her own. She couldn’t even say she’d been spinning her wheels because that implied an intent to gain some traction, a desire to move forward. She felt neither in the aftermath. She had simply stopped, incredulous that the world kept turning after her baby died. How could the sun continue to rise and set as if nothing had happened? Returning to their house with empty arms, standing in the doorway of the nursery she’d carefully prepared, racked with guilt, she’d struggled to remain standing long enough to collapse into bed. And all this time she’d believed Scott’s attitude and behavior justified.
What an asshole.
Was Chris right? Had Scott been out of line? Not one of the other teachers looked horrified with what she’d shared. Not one had suggested she’d made the wrong decision. They all expressed sympathy and praised her for trying. Melanie went so far as to say she’d feel at least as bad if not worse if she’d gone the other way and opted to seek an abortion.
She shuddered as she thought of Meena forced to abort her baby. Meena had not faced a choice at all. The unfairness of it crushed against her chest, squeezing until she could scarcely breathe. Women forced to get abortions. Girls forced to stay home when they started their period. Babies born with heart defects for no reason whatsoever, who didn’t get a chance at life.
She longed to call her mom. Mom had always been supportive and strong, even when Olivia’s life fell apart. Mom tried to help her work through the ordeal, urging counseling. “Get help from a professional, sweetie,” Mom had said. First marriage counseling to try to preserve that relationship, then grief counseling when she couldn’t move past the loss of both baby and husband. She didn’t see the point. What could anyone say that could make her feel better? In a span of six months her life had completely upended, washed away like a sandcastle in a wave. Her future disintegrated, leaving her to navigate a world she no longer recognized without a map or a compass—or even a ship. She’d fallen overboard into an ocean while a storm raged about her. Though her mom believed a counselor capable of throwing a lifeline, she didn’t believe it. She already knew these were horrible experiences for anyone. She didn’t need someone else to tell her that. But knowing something to be true in your mind did nothing to resuscitate a drowned heart.
She didn’t need to talk about her grief. She didn’t want to think about it. She’d come to India to put distance between her and the broken shards of her shattered life. That was the best way for her to “get over it” and move on. Whether anyone else understood that or not, that was what she needed.
Olivia listened as her students read stories they’d written. The power had not returned until early this morning. She’d slept so fitfully that when her little lamp flickered on in the early morning hours, she’d roused herself and worked frantically to catch up on the tutoring she’d been unable to do the night before.
Exhausted, out of sorts, and underprepared for class, she opted to let the children spend their class times today writing their own stories about anything they wanted to write about. Her youngest classes she’d given construction paper as well, folding the paper into rudimentary covers and stapling it all together. She congratulated each smiling pupil for writing their very first book. A glimmer of the happiness she’d felt in her first weeks—getting to know the children, watching them light up as they learned—shimmered in her dark mood.
For the older classes she put less emphasis on illustrations and simply let them write. The absence of Surithra from the same class as Aditi stole away the brief spark that lit her day earlier. Distracted and shaken, she only half listened as her students read their creations, concerned the girl was the latest victim of menstruation.
Surithra’s empty desk reminded her entirely too much of an empty crib.
A boom resounding so heavily through the building that the windows rattled, shaking her out of her thoughts and back into the classroom.
Shadow blotted out the sun, covering the schoolhouse in an eerie pall, a reddish hue that cast a surreal atmosphere, as though she’d dozed off and now sleepwalked through a nightmarish landscape.
Giggling, the children wiggled from their seats and scurried to the windows, clinging to the sills as they peeked through the glass panes into the looming red glow.
Slow, intermittent drops thudded the parched, packed earth outside before the onslaught opened full force, driving wind swirling from nowhere pummeling the building while angry droplets sluiced against the windows.
Red splotches threw themselves against the glass in a kamikaze effort to gain entry before sliding downward, crimson trails forming in the wake.
Splattered by backsplash from the sills, the children squealed in delight.
“Auntie, it is raining red!”
No. Not again.
Before she knew what was happening, her class morphed into a pack of squirming, leaderless puppies and oozed amoeba-like out the door.
“No!” she called. “Come back!”
Damn! Why hadn’t she bought an umbrella? Probably because without referring back to the newspapers for confirmation of her sanity, she could easily convince herself she’d imagined the previous occurrence. The sky rained down blood on them, for Pete’s sake. This could not be real. And yet, another glance out the windows assured her it was.
She took a deep breath and launched herself into the hallway, only to negotiate a churning sea of bodies undulating toward the door that led into the courtyard. Unable to stop the flow, the current carried her along until she found herself thrust into the torrential downpour.
The children raced about, darting like minnows, suddenly shifting direction with no clear stimulus interrupting the trajectory, turning to charge pell-mell in another direction.
What in the world—or perhaps out of this world—fell on them? What toxic chemicals seeped through their pores?
Priyanka, Aishwarya, Tala, and other girls not in her classes, stood in place, mouths open, tongues lapping at the red droplets while crimson rivulets soaked their white tops, forming two-dimensional stalactites which cut triangles down their torsos.
Blood. All she saw was blood. Blood-soaked earth. Blood forming in pools. Bloody children.
Blood staining her hands.
She brushed strands of drenched, stringy hair off her forehead and willed her feet to move from where she stood planted, rooted to the spot.
Racing around the courtyard, she shooed the smiling, delighted children, attempting to drive them toward the door and inside to safety. God knew what the open-mouthed children were swallowing, but it couldn’t be good.
“Inside!” she called to one after another. “Get inside.”
The other teachers joined in the ludicrous chase, a cross between herding cats and a game of keep away. But it was too much to overcome.
This had to be an omen. The sky had inexplicably opened up twice now and stained this town and their children, marking them for life, indelibly branding them as lower, less than, fated for a life of servitude and poverty.
She had thought—no, wholeheartedly believed—that her presence could influence this culture, older than she could fathom and set in its ways, immovable as granite, and give these children a fighting chance.
Mud sucked at her sandals, red droplets slapped her face, and she realized what a fool’s errand she’d set herself upon. Who was she to help anyone? She couldn’t save her baby. She couldn’t save her marriage. She couldn’t save herself.
She’d run halfway around the globe seeking to leave her problems—herself—behind. But here she stood, exactly the same, a childless, divorced failure.
Accepting defeat, she stopped running. Mud oozed into her sandals, the squishy muck working its way between her toes as she sunk, stuck. The almost brown color the bizarre rain rendered her previously beautiful emerald shalwar kameez reminded her of bloody childbirth. Drenched and miserable, she gave up.
The other teachers managed to wrangle the children inside, but still she stood, glad the red rain hid her tears.
With the last child successfully steered back inside the building, the other teachers noticed her and called out for her to come inside out of the rain. What was the point? What was the point of anything? She could buy a whole new outfit, but the children couldn’t buy new uniforms. And the stain would never wash out.