Walking back to the car after exchanging information with Mukesh, Olivia walked on air, lost in thought, already imagining the women and girls of the village happily going about their much-improved lives. So what if the machine cost several thousand dollars? Where else in the world could an investment like that do so much good? The money from her house with Scott sat in the bank doing no good for anyone. Now she realized why she’d left it sitting there for six months, loathe to acknowledge, much less use, it. It was tainted money, blood money, money associated with Scott and her lost baby girl. She could never use that money to buy a house—a house that could never feel like a home. Not with the empty, echoing rooms reminding her every moment of every day that her new life had been built on the ashes and ruins of a previous disaster, on her failures. No, she couldn’t do it. Ever. But now she had the opportunity to do something good with the money. Something incredibly good.
The other teachers remained quiet. No one said a word. They didn’t need to. She could tell they all silently judged her and didn’t approve. Once again, Olivia found herself facing well-intentioned skepticism from everyone around her. So be it. She’d been right before, and she knew to the deepest depths of herself that she was right this time too. They didn’t understand. No one understood.
They reached the car and squeezed in amid much grumbling from the back seat. The women teased good-naturedly, but Olivia only half listened, biting her thumbnail and staring out the window at the sari-clad women walking toward the market, the loose fabric from their clothing fluttering in the wind, trailing behind them like whispered secrets. What did they deal with at home on a daily basis? Did any of them finish school? Had they as young girls dreamed of going to college, of traveling, of holding jobs?
She suspected Aditi’s mother regularly dealt with abuse. Did Aditi? Was her father like Olivia’s? Or, like Scott, did he simply bluster and demand his way, but never actually strike them? Each one of these women carried secrets, she realized, possibly harboring torments and deep pain. Had they been forced to abort children as Meena had?
Tisha struggled to close the door without smashing her hip. “Can someone please explain to me why Olivia’s skinny butt is sitting up front in that lone seat when some of us smashed in the back could actually use the extra room?”
“I’ll switch! I don’t mind at all!” Olivia said, grabbing the door handle and preparing to hop out.
“Not now!” Delilah said. “We’re in. The door is closed. Let’s go, Chris.”
Chris obliged and maneuvered into traffic, where the silence continued until Aubra broke it.
“Are we going to discuss the elephant in the room? Or in the car, as it were?”
Tisha clicked her tongue. “Okay, now. I am not as big as an elephant.”
“I’m talking about Olivia. What in the world were you thinking?”
Olivia threw a glance over her shoulder and discovered four pairs of eyes staring back at her, all clearly wondering the same thing.
Chris tapped his thumb against the steering wheel. “I have to say, for someone who has seemed as concerned about money as you, it did seem like a rather rash decision.”
Smart people don’t make rash decisions. She’d thought Chris at least would understand. His concern, though mild, echoed Scott’s constant criticism. She squirmed.
“It’s thousands and thousands of dollars just for the machine,” Tisha said. Her tone reminded Olivia of a parent trying to talk a toddler down from a tantrum. “Maybe you want to think this through. We don’t know anything about this man at all.”
“And I hate to be the one to say it,” Aubra said, “but scamming foreigners is common practice here. My dad reminds me every time I hear from him.”
The others murmured in agreement.
Chris glanced sideways at her. “I have to agree with them. He seemed nice enough, but what do we really know about him? You need to consider your safety.”
“And not be gullible to scams,” Aubra reiterated.
Got it, she thought, but bit the words back. “I know we just met him, but I did see something about pad machines online the other day.”
“And it specifically mentioned him?” Aubra pressed.
“Well . . .”
“Where do you intend to install the machine once it arrives?”
“Well . . .”
“I mean, you’ll surely need a pretty large space for manufacturing goods. How big is the machine? How much space does it require?”
“We didn’t really discuss that . . .”
“And who’s going to operate it?” Melanie asked. “We can’t. We already teach.”
“No, he said local women,” Olivia reminded them. Hadn’t they been listening? “Local women who need jobs and their own income.” At least she knew the answer to one of the questions they peppered her with.
“Who?” Aubra pressed. “Which women? How will you recruit them?”
“I’m sure plenty of women will want the work.” But in fact, the point was valid. How would she get word out? Okay, so maybe she didn’t have all the answers. Yet. She could figure this out.
Silence once again descended over the group, tacit disapproval hanging over them all like wisps of stale cigarette smoke. The stink of it seeped into Olivia’s buoyant mood. When Chris parked, she gladly hopped from the vehicle, eager for fresh air and distance.
Clutching her strings of lights, she scurried across the courtyard to her room before anyone could dump more dire warnings on her. Thankfully, the electricity was on. She flipped the switch on her window unit and turned the dial to high before turning on her laptop and dialing into the internet. While the laptop buzzed and beeped, she stood directly in front of the air vents, trying to cool off in the sweltering heat. Her room turned into an oven when she was away. Though she slowly adapted to much warmer temperatures than she was accustomed to, sometimes she thought she might wilt. The constant heat wore on her, sapping energy and leaving her drained.
Once connected to the internet, she brought up her email and discovered her mother had responded to her previous message. Distracted with thoughts of her real purpose—how to get money from her bank back home to someplace she could access it here—she skimmed her mother’s email. Was work still going okay? She missed Olivia so much and hated not being able to talk with her regularly. Did she still enjoy teaching the children? Had she noticed the full-time English professor position hadn’t ever filled at the community college?
Her stomach sank. She hadn’t noticed that. Of course she hadn’t, because she wasn’t watching for jobs back home. But she should be. She would eventually need a stable job. She couldn’t keep hiding in India forever. And she couldn’t keep living with her mother forever. That wasn’t fair to her mom.
Thinking about home and trying to carve out a new life there upset her stomach. Tendrils of depression wound their way around her, dragging her down to a place she didn’t want to be, didn’t want to return to.
She shook her head, pushing those thoughts aside. Right now, she would focus only on the children in her classes, Mukesh’s pad machine, and how to make that happen. The rest of it she could deal with later. Or continue ignoring. She liked that idea. Refocusing on her mother’s email, the last bit grabbed her attention and jolted her with a shock.
Olivia, I struggled with this, I really did. I still don’t know if it’s better to keep this from you or let you know. But I decided the truth will reach you eventually. I saw Scott last week, with another woman. He had his arm around her, and they were giggling and cuddling, so I don’t think this could be a platonic friend . . .
Her eyes glazed over. She couldn’t read any more. Her ex-husband was already involved with another woman. In retrospect, she probably should have expected as much. Then again, she still found it hard to believe. How could he? Shattered and an emotional wreck, the idea of allowing a man close to her, ever again, turned her stomach. And yet, while she struggled to put one foot in front of the other, spent months barely able to get out of bed to eat, grappling with the hole in her heart their baby girl had left there, he had already moved on with his life. Already had another woman in his arms.
Morbid curiosity got the better of her. His graduate student? She wished her mother had described the young woman a bit.
What had she ever seen in him? Seriously. Her thoughts weren’t clouded or inflamed by jealousy or fury. She truly struggled to remember what had drawn her to him in the beginning. And likewise, what had attracted him to her? If he’d ever said, ever reminded her why he liked her and had at one point decided he fervently and passionately wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, she’d forgotten. The memories had grown foggy after ten years of marriage, at least half of them pretty lackluster, as the two of them navigated life together, side by side, yet never quite on the same page. At least that’s how she saw it now, with the benefit of hindsight. And of course, the final tragedy had completely derailed everything. Why didn’t she care? She waited for some spark of something—anger, fury, jealousy, rage, something. Anything. A shred of disappointment even would assure her she was okay, normal.
She didn’t know how long she sat there in a stupor before a quiet knock brought her back from her thoughts to the real world. She blinked a few times before full awareness resumed. Oh, right. India. She was in India. She moved to open the door and discovered Tisha standing there, her face arranged into a soft and gentle expression. And the woman greeted her with a soft and gentle tone.
“Hey. I thought maybe we could talk. Would that be okay?”
She nodded numbly and allowed her fellow teacher into her room.
“How are you feeling?” Tisha asked.
She rubbed her head. “I’ve had some news from my mother that didn’t sit well, I guess. But I’m okay. It wasn’t anything serious really.” Or at least, if it was serious, it didn’t seem to be slamming her in the gut like she thought it ought to.
“I just came to check in on you. I thought maybe you’d like to talk.”
Talk? No, she needed to get back to work, figure out how to get her money to Mukesh, where to install the machine, start rounding up women to work it. “About what?”
“Anything you’d like to talk about.”
Ah. This was counselor Tisha, worried about her and here to intervene. “I’m okay, I promise. I don’t need to talk about anything.”
“Can we talk about your plan? The pad machine you’re planning to buy?”
She gestured to her laptop. “That’s why I found the email from my mom. I got online to look the guy up. I’ll do my research.”
“I only want to ensure you’re not acting out of misplaced guilt. Or doing something you might someday regret. Believe me, I understand. I’ve been there. I once gave a man I was dating ten thousand dollars to pay off his loans. He was in trouble, and I decided to help. Except the man showed up at my house and threatened me with a knife, drunk, demanding more money. Smart women can do dumb things when we’re under the influence of love. It took me, someone who works with victims of domestic abuse, a lot of time, distance, and counseling to realize I was a victim myself. Love, real love, isn’t abusive.”
Smart women can do dumb things. Interesting take.
“But I’m not doing this for a guy. It’s not the same at all.”
“I’m just saying, I’ve been there too. It’s not you. Whatever you’re feeling guilty about, you didn’t cause it. You have nothing to atone for.”
What was Tisha getting at? “I’m not trying to atone for anything. Really. I know it must seem impetuous, but I want to do this. And no, I’m not wealthy. But I have a little bit of money from my divorce, and this is what I want to do with it.”
“You deserve to be happy. No matter what your husband said to you or how he hurt you, you deserve to be happy.” Tisha’s intense gaze made her squirm.
Who could be happy after the year she’d experienced? But that wasn’t Scott’s fault. Was it? She’d made the decision to fight for her baby’s life. She set the events in motion. Scott had made that clear. “If you had listened to me, this wouldn’t have happened. You made that poor baby suffer for nothing.”
What an asshole. Chris’s words interrupted her memories of Scott blaming her for their baby girl’s death, for the terrible pain she’d put them all through. Scott had been right though. Hadn’t he?
She sat beside Tisha on the bed. “Scott wasn’t like that. He wasn’t abusive.”
Tisha cocked her head to the side. “Are you sure? Abuse comes in different forms. He didn’t have to beat you black and blue to be abusive. I have observed some tendencies that caused me concern. Most recently this morning with the yelling man. You appeared to be exhibiting signs of a panic attack.”
“I don’t know anyone who likes yelling,” she said.
“Fair enough. But not everyone has trouble breathing or looks like they’re about to run away when someone nearby them yells. That can be an indication someone has suffered abuse in their past.”
She stared at her hands. This wasn’t something she liked talking about with anyone. “My dad. He abused my mom. Not me as much. Usually he just yelled at me to draw her into a fight. Or locked me in a closet. Or put me up on a shelf. I am a little afraid of the dark. And heights for that matter.” She laughed it off to show Tisha it was no big deal and she’d gotten over it long ago. “Mom got rid of him though. Years ago, when I was little.”
“But somewhere inside you, that little girl still huddles in the dark closet, scared and confused. That wasn’t your fault. Imagine how you would react if your ex-husband had locked your daughter in a closet.”
She whipped her head around to face Tisha. “No one would touch my daughter. I would kill him before I’d—” She sucked in a breath.
“Exactly. We minimize and make excuses and tolerate things ourselves that we would never allow to happen to people we love. Especially when someone has told us we don’t deserve better. Something to think about.”
“No one ever told me that, though.”
“Your dad did. He showed you, the way he treated you. And as a child, you had no defense against that treatment. You internalized the message, recording it in your psyche. That’s what happens to children who are victims of abuse. Then that recording flips on throughout our lives, replaying over and over, telling us we’re not good enough, that we don’t deserve better in life. Are you sure your ex-husband never triggered that recording? He wasn’t abusive at all? He was a loving, nurturing man who made you feel like the sun that lit his life every day?”
She snorted a laugh, despite the feelings Tisha’s words dredged up. Scott treat her like the sun and the moon? That was a joke. She couldn’t stand chick-flicks or romances of any kind. Watching guys bring women flowers and bend over backwards to win their affection made her want to puke. Guys needed to feel important, superior, and in control. Praising their significant other only made them feel inferior. It didn’t happen in the real world. “No, of course not. What guy ever treats a woman that way? That’s just something invented to appeal to women and sell books and movies.”
“A strong, confident man with a healthy sense of self, who truly cares about his significant other, that’s who. Okay, so movies dramatize a bit, but it’s not completely invented.” Tisha gave her a moment. “You sure that ex of yours wasn’t abusive?”
“He wasn’t. He never hurt me. I mean, he might’ve yelled sometimes when he wanted his way.” Which was all the time, a tiny voice in the back of her mind whispered. “He wasn’t like my dad. Kind of the opposite really. It’s like he had no inner strength and just crumpled in the face of crisis. He couldn’t handle anything.”
“That sounds about right. Someone with ego issues, someone who feels insecure all the time, will look for a relationship they can dominate, to help them compensate for their insecurities. Blustering at you, making you cower and give in, demanding his way, and blaming you for things outside your control—these are all a form of abuse.”
Scott abusive? She’d been so careful not to repeat her mother’s mistakes, been so sure she’d chosen someone exactly the opposite of her father. And her ex-husband had never laid a hand on her. But if she was completely honest with herself, he did often look pleased with himself after arguments when she broke down in tears. Why would anyone be happy that they’d made their wife cry? That was a form of victory for him, wasn’t it? And how many times had her father strutted around the house once her mother collapsed into a heap on the floor, crying her eyes out, having given up and agreed with whatever toxic garbage spewed from her father’s mouth?
Something shifted inside her, a tiny little cataclysm that rocked the foundation on which she’d built all her beliefs. The plate tectonics of her life butted against one another, the rumbling quake threatening to topple everything. The cracks that opened spilled memories of her father’s red face as he raged at her mother, Scott’s perma-scowl that clouded her days, then his dark face brooding as they returned home from the hospital with empty arms, accusation rolling off of him.
All the places she’d stuffed the difficult memories, the things she couldn’t deal with, threatened to burst open. The carefully constructed brick walls and dark, secret closets of her psyche quivered, ready to let loose a barrage of emotional devastation she couldn’t face. She would not melt down again. She would not.
Her heart hammered in her chest as if she were running a marathon, her stomach churned, and she couldn’t breathe.
Tisha rested a hand on her arm. “Breathe with me. Breathe in on a count of three. Hold for three. Exhale for three. You are okay. Nothing can hurt you. Here we go.”
She followed Tisha’s example, breathing evenly in, holding, then releasing the breath for another count of three. Between counting, while she held her breath, Tisha repeated again and again that she was okay and nothing could hurt her. Slowly, her heart resumed a normal pattern, her pulse slowed, and she could breathe normally.
Tisha smiled at her. “There we go. Much better. Yes?”
She nodded but didn’t trust herself to speak.
“Good. Remember that breathing technique. You can do that any time you feel things getting away from you.” Tisha stood. “Pretending everything is okay when it isn’t exacts a huge toll. Holding in all those emotions takes so much energy. But that’s a dam that will break. And when it does, it will all come pouring out. It’s like a festering wound. You have to drain the poison out and deal with the infection so you can heal.”
“I’m fine,” she reassured Tisha, rising to see her out the door.
Tisha nodded again, her face smooth. Olivia appreciated the woman’s ability to maintain such a comforting expression. “I’ll leave you alone. But you know where to find me.”
When the door clicked shut, she took a deep breath and went back to her laptop. That was enough of that. She shoved aside all thoughts of Scott and her father and abuse and everything else that caused her stomach to ache.
She pulled up a browser and searched for Mukesh. A little thrill of excitement pulsed through her when she discovered a story about him in a small Indian newspaper referencing his pad machine. She clicked on it and read about the machine that could make affordable pads beside a photo of Mukesh standing next to a machine installed in another tiny Indian town. The article explained the machine produced pads, intended as an inexpensive option for rural areas where women were embarrassed to buy from male shop owners. The machine could be operated by women, the pads sold by women to women, leaving men out of the process entirely. They were also a tiny fraction of the cost of pads purchased from vendors in markets. This wasn’t meant as competition to the big-name manufacturers. This was an option for women who otherwise would not have access to pads.
The article confirmed everything Mukesh had told them in person. Spurred on by vindication, she emailed her mother, completely ignoring the information about Scott. Who the hell cared what he did? A pang in her heart tried to disagree with that thought, but she squashed it flat.
She searched for a reputable bank in Kochi and asked her mother to please inquire from her bank at home how to transfer funds across the Atlantic. Step one done. She would figure out how to get the money to Mukesh. She didn’t care what anyone else thought or said. She was going to do this.