There was a close-up photograph of a blossoming pink orchid in the waiting room. It looked identical to the one that was mounted on the wall of the clinic that Shirina had been to in Melbourne five months ago. Surely that was a bizarre coincidence. It wasn’t as if one flower photographer had a monopoly on obstetrician clinics around the world. But it was a comfort to know that Sehaj had taken some care to find a clinic of the standards she was accustomed to—the leather-upholstered couches and the lilac-scented air freshener were also consistent with the atmosphere of the Melbourne practice. Not one of those Third World clinics she had in her imagination, with a dim low-hanging bulb over bare steel tables, where blank-faced women waited for their turn to reverse time.
She wondered how long Sehaj had taken to research options and find this place—maybe his family was connected to the doctor in some way? He had handed her the card so quickly at the airport that there wasn’t time for questions. They had only ever discussed this procedure in abstract terms. Going through with it. Doing what’s necessary. Handling the situation. There was no chance for nuance when every conversation escalated and ended with sharp words, and then a lengthy silence during which all the other sounds of the house became amplified—water slipping down the pipes, windows shuddering against the chill.
The receptionist called her name. The weight pulled at Shirina’s center as she pushed herself to her feet. There was no need to pretend she wasn’t pregnant here, but out of habit, she took casual strides, as if unencumbered by the bump. It was still carefully concealed—thank goodness she was one of those women who could reach the second trimester without it being too obvious.
At the counter, she gave her name and was asked to select a method of payment. “Visa,” she said, handing over the credit card that she and Sehaj shared. The receptionist handed her a clipboard with a stack of forms to fill out. Details of your medical history. She ticked the boxes mechanically. No, no, no to nearly everything. A couple walked into the waiting room and sat down across from her. The woman was much further along, her belly a swollen moon under a long and elegant turquoise kurti. She complained to her husband about her ankles—“Just look at them,” she muttered, pointing out two blocky feet. “It doesn’t go away right away either. Drima told me that her feet went up two sizes and remained that way. That’s why she stopped at one.” The husband said something inaudible and the woman gave him a playful shove on the shoulder.
Shirina handed the clipboard back to the receptionist, who gave it a quick glance and nodded. Out here, they were still doing something proper and completely legal. She was an expectant mother going in for a routine checkup—like the couple in the waiting room, who were too cheerful to be here for any other reason. Behind closed doors, she would wait for the doctor to tell her that there were options. They would have to keep their voices low, and the doctor might even ask her to turn off her phone, to make sure she wasn’t recording the conversation. Shirina had read a CNN exposé where a journalist posing as a pregnant woman visited a clinic like this in an upscale Mumbai suburb. She had placed her iPhone on the table to gain the doctor’s trust but sneaked another one in the seam of her purse.
It was ironic, doing this procedure in India, where sex-selective abortions were illegal. Doctors here weren’t even allowed to notify women of the sex of the baby. But there was nothing that money couldn’t buy, of course, and Shirina wouldn’t be here if she hadn’t delayed it so long, if she had just admitted the truth to Sehaj and Mother when she first found out she was having a girl. She thought about Mum setting the date for the pilgrimage in the summer holidays to make travel more convenient for Rajni. She wouldn’t have known that this trip would also coincide with the cutoff date for Shirina to terminate her pregnancy. Maybe on some level, Shirina kept putting off telling the truth to Sehaj in Melbourne, thinking that the trip would save her. She’d go to India, return to Melbourne and say, “Whoops, too late.” How naive she was, to think that it would be so easy.
The pregnancy test instructions stated a wait time of five minutes for an accurate reading but Shirina was too excited to wait. They had been trying for a few months, but this time felt different: her period was a week late and she felt the strong undertow of fatigue. Only a minute after she peed on the stick and placed it on the edge of the sink, she returned to it. The pink control line appeared and darkened right away. As Shirina impatiently drummed her fingertips and stared at the stick, another line appeared. “Sehaj!” she squealed, rushing out of the bathroom. It was a Sunday morning, and he was lazing in bed. “You’re going to be a father.”
Sehaj’s expression. Shirina wished she’d had a camera. His eyes lit up and a grin spread across his face. Shirina crawled back into bed and gave him a kiss. She knew she had carried her sadness around each time another test came up negative. Still recovering from Mum’s death and the ugliness of her sisters’ fighting, becoming pregnant was an attempt to replace her loss with some hope. Now she and Sehaj were going to start their own perfect family.
“If we’re having a boy, we’ll name it after your father, and if we’re having a girl, we can name it after my mum,” Shirina said. The hormones made her feel sentimental. She had fantasies of Sehaj being the kind of doting father who fought back tears when his child went off to school. As a child, Shirina sometimes daydreamed that her own dad was still alive, and he made up for all of Mum’s shortcomings. He was protective and attentive. He didn’t let her feel forgotten.
Sehaj’s reply surprised her. “The first one has to be a boy.” Shirina had smiled at his definiteness but she was also unnerved. Has to be? It was one of his mother’s views, of course. Since joining the family, she had heard Mother use the same tone when explaining the way she liked the house to be run. Dinner had to be ready by seven, it didn’t matter if Shirina’s boss kept her back late or the tram was delayed. Shirina had to take time off work to look after Mother during her recovery from hip surgery, and then she had to take more time, until it made more sense to quit. Shirina had avoided thinking of these obligations as anything but duties, the sorts of things daughters did for mothers, and wives did for husbands—but the sex of the baby was a different thing altogether. “What do you mean, it has to be a boy?” she had asked, laughing. “I can’t control these things.”
After a beat, Sehaj laughed as well. He told her he was kidding, doing a bad impression of a more conservative man. “We’ll see anyway,” he said. It wasn’t exactly what Shirina expected to hear from him but she pushed her fears out of her mind. Surely nowadays nobody insisted that a woman was responsible for determining the sex of her baby, or that a girl baby should be terminated. Maybe in villages, but not in Melbourne or London. Out of curiosity, Shirina searched for the topic on her bridal forum. The number of posts that came up stunned her. “In-laws prefer a girl!” “Am pregnant with first and it’s a girl, anyone been through this?”
Shirina thought it was ridiculous, but she also found herself hoping she could avoid the conflict altogether. Please be a boy, please be a boy, she found herself thinking as she lay down on the table for the sonogram three months later. She was so distracted by her wishing that when the ultrasound technician asked where her husband was, she simply said, “No.” The technician smiled and repeated the question. “Oh, sorry. He’s got an important work meeting, so I’m here on my own,” Shirina said.
“Baby brain,” the technician said knowingly. “I had it with all three of my kids. I put the laundry in the fridge instead of the cupboard one day!”
She nodded along impatiently as the technician chattered away and began running the probe along her belly. “You might be one of the lucky ones, like my best friend,” she continued, nodding at Shirina’s flat belly. “She only started showing after six months—before that, nobody would believe she was pregnant.” Shirina kept her eyes trained on the black screen. There was a flicker of movement, and the underwater sounds of an echoing heartbeat. Shirina bit her lip to hold back tears. The technician continued to guide the probe along her belly, and pointed out the wobbly vision of the baby’s arms and legs, the scanner showing a tiny reptilian spine, the nose and chin briefly visible in profile as the baby turned. The technician paused for the big announcement. “Would you like to know what you’re having?” she asked with a smile. Shirina began to cry as soon as she found out she was having a daughter. The technician thought they were tears of happiness, and gave her an extra tissue to wipe her eyes.
Driving home from the hospital, Shirina wished that the scan had been inconclusive. The technician had warned her before the scan that this could happen sometimes, if the baby’s legs were crossed. It would be out of Shirina’s hands, then, for the time being. When she walked in the door and saw Mother’s expectant face, Shirina felt a fierce sense of protection over the baby. “They couldn’t tell,” she said. She wasn’t usually a very convincing liar, but she found herself re-creating the scene for Mother—the screen showing the spine, the nose, the chin, but those legs firmly crossed, revealing nothing.
Mother accepted the answer. “You can find out at the next test, then,” she said. “But you can’t wait too long, hanh? When is the next one?”
“In a few weeks,” Shirina said. Thankfully, Mother was unaware that there were blood tests that could determine the sex of the baby too, or she would have sent her right back to the hospital to do that.
That evening, Shirina looked through her wedding album. It had become a habit since Mum died because the best photographs of her were there—her face glowed with happiness and health. Sehaj walked in the door at 7 P.M., and came upstairs to freshen up before dinner. He was greeted with the sight of Shirina poring over the pictures. “Remember this?” she asked, pointing to a surreptitious look between them that the photographer had managed to capture. Their smiles were mirror images of each other. As Sehaj crouched on the floor next to the bed and kissed Shirina in that tender spot behind her ear, she wished she didn’t have to lie to him.
“So how was it? All the fingers and toes present and correct? And does my boy take after his father?” He puffed out his chest.
“It was great,” she said, wincing inside. “But the gender bit was inconclusive.” She closed the wedding album. “But it doesn’t really matter, right? Whether it’s a girl or a boy? Why do we even need to know?”
Sehaj’s body tensed beside her.
“Aren’t you just happy that we’re going to have a baby?” Shirina pressed.
Sehaj sighed and kissed her forehead, and said, “It’s not necessarily about what I want. It’s what my mother—”
“But she’d adjust, wouldn’t she? You’ve said that about her before, that there are some things she just has to get used to.” Like marrying me, Shirina thought. Mother didn’t think much of the girl from a working-class family in England, but Sehaj had put his foot down. He could do it again. Mother didn’t need to have her own way in everything.
“Think about how much happier we’d be if you just listened to her once in a while,” Sehaj said.
“I do listen,” Shirina said, feeling a lump rising in her throat. Mum had told her to listen to her in-laws, to do as they pleased, and she had tried so hard to obey. How much harder did she need to try to appease them? When was it going to be enough?
The moment Sehaj noticed Shirina’s voice wobbling, he reached out and clasped her hand. She thought he’d say something to comfort her. Instead he said: “I’ve got a lot of stress at work these days, Shirina. You have no idea what it’s like.”
“No, of course I don’t. I left my job, didn’t I?” Shirina snapped. She pulled her hand away like he had scalded her.
Sehaj stood and walked out of the room. Shirina stayed in the room that night and skipped dinner. The nausea that was supposed to abate by the end of the first trimester was still persisting, and she didn’t feel like facing Sehaj and Mother anyway. She was angry with herself, although it wasn’t clear why. In the pit of her stomach, perhaps bred into her for years, was the secret shame of having done something wrong.
The silence that followed that evening was the worst Shirina had experienced since marrying Sehaj. Every creak in the floorboards and hiss from the vents became trumpet-loud in the absence of conversation. It followed her everywhere—breakfast, the car ride, the waiting room—and even when Sehaj did begin speaking to Shirina again the next morning, his words were measured and terse. Every sentence contained the same obvious message: If you’re going to question things around here, you’re alone. It recalled the clawing anxiety of those days after Mother found her on the doorstep leaning against the taxi driver’s shoulder—but this time Mother didn’t just willfully ignore her; she behaved as if Shirina had never existed in the first place. It was chilling, feeling like a ghost, and it was disturbingly resonant of Shirina’s own childhood. She couldn’t live like that again.
Things eventually thawed with Sehaj, and Shirina worked hard to maintain the peace. Although she still had questions about what she was expected to do if they found out the baby was a girl, she buried them. They wouldn’t order her to terminate the pregnancy . . . would they? Sometimes Shirina found herself looking at Sehaj across the table and wondering if he would come right out and say it. This was also something she didn’t want to think about, so she decided to just wait. It wasn’t a problem yet because as far as everybody knew, she could be having a boy. The ultrasound technician had given her an estimated due date, and from a quick calculation, Shirina realized that her trip to India with her sisters would end at the twenty-four-week mark, when it would be too late to have an abortion.
Why did she call Lauren, then? Shirina wasn’t in any trouble. Was she just hoping that somebody would sympathize with her? Or was Lauren her only friend? Maybe it was because she was afraid of the thoughts that ran through her mind late at night while Sehaj snored lightly next to her. Thoughts about just telling Sehaj and Mother the truth, and doing what she had to do to restore peace. You’re young. You can try again. People make sacrifices for their families all the time. At one point, she considered calling Rajni or Jezmeen, but the embarrassment stopped her. After fleeing her family in London for greener pastures with Sehaj, she couldn’t face her sisters knowing that things weren’t ideal. She could barely admit it to herself.
The first thing Shirina blurted out when Lauren answered the phone was, “I miss work.” Not even “Hello,” or “Help,” but Lauren heard what she was saying right away.
“What’s wrong, darl?” she asked. “Where are you? Stay where you are, I’ll come and get you.”
Shirina knew she should hang up, but she clutched the phone to her ears, unable to speak or move.
“Are you still there?” Lauren asked.
“Yes,” Shirina managed, and then she gave Lauren a meeting place. She usually had a free hour after dropping Mother off at St. Vincent’s for her weekly physiotherapy session. The Kitchen Hand café on Gertrude Street wasn’t very busy, and it wasn’t a likely hangout for any of Sehaj’s family members, but Shirina still looked over her shoulder whenever she mentioned Sehaj’s name to Lauren.
“This is abuse,” she said plainly. “If you’re keeping the sex of the baby from them because you’re afraid they’ll force you to have an abortion, it’s abuse.”
Shirina suppressed a familiar impulse to defend her husband and mother-in-law. It was a cultural thing, it was just a preference, hadn’t she heard Western women say they wanted a boy too? These excuses flooded like a rush of adrenaline in her veins—defensive, indignant, you just don’t understand—and for the first time, she let them go.
“You need to get out of there,” Lauren said.
Her determination made Shirina nervous. “I don’t think leaving Sehaj is the right step to take,” she said carefully. “I just need someone to talk to. My thoughts rattle around, keeping me up at night. Sometimes I think it would be easier if . . .” She couldn’t complete the sentence, but Lauren knew what she was saying.
They talked until Shirina had to be back at the hospital, and agreed to meet the following Wednesday in the same café. “I’m so glad you called,” Lauren said, giving Shirina a tight hug before they parted ways. “Stay strong, all right? Remember, you have a choice.”
Over the next few days, Shirina received messages from Lauren:
“Just checking in. How are you feeling today? Remember, they can’t make you do anything against your will!”
Shirina replied, “Okay” and then deleted each message. She deleted Lauren’s name from her contacts as well, committing to memory the first four digits of her phone number. It was better not to have Lauren’s name popping up all the time—if Mother looked at her phone, she would get suspicious. Lauren was the bad influence, after all, the one who led Shirina astray by enticing her to drinks after work. As the messages continued, they began to bother Shirina. “It would be okay if you want to be away from Sehaj for a while. There are resources to support women in your situation.” While Shirina appreciated Lauren’s concern, she felt she was blowing things a bit out of proportion. There was no need to suggest that Shirina leave her family.
“This isn’t his fault,” Shirina texted back. “He’s under pressure too.”
“That’s called brainwashing,” Lauren replied. Moments later, another message came through: “Sorry, insensitive thing to say. But I think he’s controlling you more than you realize.”
Shirina didn’t reply. Wednesday rolled around. After dropping Mother off, Shirina walked in the opposite direction of Gertrude Street, ending up in the gardens behind the Parliament building. Newlyweds loved having their photos taken here, the brides’ white gowns spilling like cream down the steps of the stately building. Shirina watched an East Asian couple posing. The air was chilly and heavy blue clouds hung low in the sky. Although she’d lived in Australia for nearly a year, Shirina was still getting used to the idea of winter in July. The groom held a black umbrella over the bride to protect her elaborate hairdo from a wind that whipped up suddenly, upturning umbrellas and whirling leaves on the footpath. The world felt upside down in a lot of ways now.
There were seven missed calls from Lauren by the time Shirina returned to the hospital to pick up Mother. Shirina figured Lauren would give up eventually, but as she walked back out into the blustery air, her phone continued to buzz in her purse. “Who keeps calling you? Why aren’t you answering?” Mother asked with narrowed eyes as they got into the car. Great, Shirina thought. All she needed now was for Mother to become suspicious about her having a secret. “Just an old work friend,” Shirina said. She wanted to turn the phone off, but that would make Mother even more suspicious, so she blocked Lauren’s number and dropped the phone in the compartment between their seats.
When the phone rang again, Shirina was merging the car onto the freeway. It couldn’t be Lauren, so she didn’t mind Mother picking up. The only calls that came on weekday afternoons were from telemarketers anyway.
“Hello,” Mother said. A pause. “No, Shirina is driving. Do you have a message?”
Shirina heard a bubbly voice chattering on the other end. “Just hang up if it’s one of those survey people,” Shirina said. “They don’t take no for an answer.”
Mother’s face was stony with concentration. “Yes, I will let her know. Good-bye.” She pressed end and put the phone back in the compartment. Rain had begun to dot the windshield and the cars ahead were slowing down. “That was the hospital confirming your next appointment,” Mother said.
“Okay, I’ll call them back when I get home.”
“She referred to your baby as ‘she,’ ” Mother said.
Shirina clutched the steering wheel. She flicked on the windshield wipers and tried to think of a lie but knew the tension showed on her face. “What did she say?” she asked, to buy some time.
“She said, ‘I hope the little girl is doing well, and she’s not giving Mummy too hard a time with morning sickness.’ ” Shirina could feel the heat from Mother’s stare. “Do you have something to tell us, Shirina?”
Shirina’s cheeks burned with shame. For a split second, she considered lying but that would just prolong the inevitable. Mother was watching her like she could read her thoughts.
“Yes,” Shirina whispered. Her instinct was to apologize, but the words didn’t come out. “I should’ve told you,” she said, her voice heavy with regret.
At home that evening, Shirina heard Sehaj and Mother talking in low voices in the kitchen. Sehaj’s voice rose at one point, but it quickly became quiet again. Shirina couldn’t make out what either of them was saying but when he came to bed, he wouldn’t look at her. Every day after that, the quiet was so punishing, and the house was so still, that Shirina thought she could hear her blood coursing in her own chest at one point.
Things only felt normal again when they had that tender moment together at the airport. It’s over now, Shirina remembered thinking as she rested her head against Sehaj’s chest. She wished the memory could end there, but then he had given her a card and an ultimatum, and walked away.
The receptionist called Shirina’s name again and told her to go into room 4C. Shirina knocked on the door before entering. A nurse opened the door and wordlessly gestured for her to take a seat.
“Mrs. Arora,” said Dr. Wadhwa. Behind the frames of his wire-rimmed glasses, his eyes lit with recognition. “You are here from Australia.”
“Yes,” Shirina said.
The doctor ran Shirina through a list of familiar questions. How many weeks had she been pregnant, and how was she feeling? “Fine,” she said, because over this trip, she had got used to pretending that the bouts of queasiness that had followed her into the second trimester were just her body’s response to the soupy heat of India.
“Good,” Dr. Wadhwa said. Then they discussed the procedure. Shirina nodded along numbly as the doctor explained in a low, gentle voice about the sedation, and the discomfort she might feel afterward. “Since we are removing a very”—he cleared his throat—“developed fetus, the recovery time might be longer. Now tell me, do you have any history of blood clots? Cysts?”
“No,” Shirina said.
“Allergies to any medications?”
Shirina shook her head.
He wasn’t making any notes—avoiding a trail of evidence, Shirina supposed. This office was cramped compared to the bright and airy waiting room. A slumping potted plant on the windowsill looked like it had seen better days. The nurse was also apparently an air-conditioning repair person; she tapped at the yellowed unit and declared, “It’s the filter that needs to be replaced” in a tone that suggested she and the doctor had had a lengthy argument about which part of the air conditioner’s anatomy was riddled with disease.
Was the doctor going to ask her why she was getting rid of this baby? Shirina itched for somebody to give her a chance to explain. He was avoiding her gaze now, though, calling for the nurse to take a moment away from office repairs to take Shirina’s blood pressure. A small machine was wheeled to Shirina’s side, a tray pulled out for her to rest her elbow. The nurse wrapped a band around Shirina’s arm.
“I’m not so sure about this,” Shirina blurted out.
The doctor’s expression didn’t change. Shirina thought maybe he didn’t hear her, but the nurse looked up. The band around Shirina’s arm squeezed itself tight, a snug embrace firstly, and then an uncomfortable one. There was a ripping noise from the Velcro as the nurse pulled it off Shirina’s arm.
“I need more information,” Shirina tried again. “What—what will happen exactly?”
“Don’t read up about the procedure,” one website supporting women who wanted abortions warned. “It will make you more anxious. On the other hand, if knowing the details gives you a sense of control, then talk them through with the doctor.” “Do you have a lot of experience in these?” Shirina asked.
Dr. Wadhwa and the nurse exchanged a look. “It’s normal to have cold feet,” the website assured.
The doctor didn’t answer Shirina’s question about his experience. He didn’t look insulted either, just a bit bored. Maybe other women did this, Shirina thought. They made the appointment—or their husband’s families made it for them—they arrived at the clinic, they filled out the forms, and then they started second guessing their decision. “I don’t mean any disrespect,” Shirina said. “It’s just that this is quite risky, isn’t it?”
“No procedure is without risks,” Dr. Wadhwa replied. He looked at the clipboard that the nurse had handed to him when Shirina walked into the room. “We will take good care to make sure that any potential problems are minimized.” He paused and looked up. “Your husband’s family and mine go way back. We’ll take care of you, don’t worry.”
Although Dr. Wadhwa probably meant to reassure her, it also sounded like a warning. He returned to his clipboard before she could read his expression further.
“You’re planning on conceiving again soon?”
Shirina nodded. “What if the next one is a girl?” she asked. “And the one after that?”
Dr. Wadhwa said, “Some women try five or six times before they’re successful with a boy.”
Five or six more pregnancies, five or six more lengthy arguments with her husband and mother-in-law. Or maybe it would get easier, and Shirina wouldn’t be so hesitant the next time around. Or maybe she’d have a boy next, and this first pregnancy would fade into the history of their relationship, a tiny blip on an otherwise ideal marriage.
Shirina didn’t know what would happen if she turned back now. What was a marriage without compromise? Rajni had sent her a few articles about the secrets to a happy and peaceful marriage—“SO TRUE,” she wrote just above the link—and “giving in” featured consistently in all of them.
There were consent forms to be filled in before they could proceed. “Understandably, the forms will officially state that the pregnancy is not being terminated due to gender preference,” the doctor droned. The nurse handed Shirina the clipboard again.
The procedure was due to start. She’d be sedated, and wouldn’t feel a thing, the doctor assured her. Afterward, there would be bleeding, and she was advised to take things slowly for a few days. Sehaj had booked Shirina a five-star suite at the Hilton. She’d be there for three days, recovering with room service, a hot-water bottle, and all the Hindi television dramas she wanted.
Peace. Normality. A return home. You can’t come back unless you do this, Sehaj had said to her in the airport, pressing the card into her hand. I’m sorry, Shirina thought as she signed the consent forms. She didn’t know who she was apologizing to anymore.