Nayana awoke to the still hush of their flat, to the endless chatter of her mind. The voices all reminding her in one way or another that she must admit to Ramesh she was pregnant. She could tell by the light that it was quite late, that she’d slept in again. She threw off the duvet and turned to the outline of Ramesh’s body, still imprinted on the pale sheet beside her. She ran her fingers over his absence, then placed her whole body there. The cotton on his side was cool against her skin. Then she stretched her body long and felt warmth in the spot where a slant of rare late autumn sunlight had reached from across the room to the foot of their mattress. Ramesh would be home late again tonight. The test run for the channel tunnel was now just days away, and he was working more than ever. It felt as though they’d come back together only so she could be left alone with her unruly imagination to torment her, visions of another man’s child exacerbating the general queasiness she felt. With another stretch, she forced herself to sit up and scoot to the edge of the mattress, touching both feet down on the wood flooring. She felt warm in the sunlight and closed her eyes, trying it on as a reason to get out of bed, to prepare for another endless day. Perhaps she would go out, take a walk if the weather didn’t turn. Next to her sister, the thing Nayana missed most in London was the sun. And this reminded her that she had a task today. She would leave the house after all. She had to send Aditi and Birendra their Christmas gifts.
She stood to retrieve her robe where it hung alongside the standing mirror. She caught sight of the swollen skin that she knew indicated greater changes to come. She tried to push aside fears of loss and doubts of paternity to start the day differently. She wrapped herself in the robe and tied it closed, snug at her waist, a kind of safety belt for life. In the kitchen, Ramesh had left a note. He would make up for the endless hours at the office with dinner at her favorite restaurant the following week. They would celebrate properly. The idea of Ramesh having anything to make up was, of course, absurd. Much like the idea that Nayana could ever make up what she’d done to him. But it was also possible that her news would be a start. If she could wait that long, she would tell him over dinner. If not, they’d be celebrating twice over. The thought made her tired. She could easily crawl back into bed and wait for next week to come. But if she didn’t get these gifts off to her sister and nephew, they weren’t going to arrive in time for Christmas. If only she could bring them herself. That way she wouldn’t have to decide whether to mention the pregnancy in her note. She didn’t want to disappoint her sister if anything happened. Telling people she was pregnant felt like making a promise she wasn’t sure she could keep.
And the last time she’d been pregnant and lost it was just before Srikant’s funeral. Nayana couldn’t bear to add to her sister’s grief and so said nothing before she left for India. She had assumed with one look that her sister would know, just as she would surely understand that Nayana hadn’t been able to announce her own loss in the face of Aditi’s, which was undoubtedly greater. Aditi had looked awful, so tired, when Nayana arrived from the airport, already almost a week into her mourning. She looked like a widow and thus no longer like Nayana’s twin. And yet she was still the one to scold Nayana, telling her, “You shouldn’t have come in your condition.” In her voice, Nayana heard none of Aditi’s usual warmth and brightness. It was lacking, for the first time, in their bond. Nayana had never before felt anything but transparent in Aditi’s presence, and this new sensation was terrifying and lonely. Nayana had counted on her sister’s knowing with a mere glance and on being able to grieve both losses together, as they’d done when their parents died, but she kept silent when Aditi said nothing. Nayana had never thought it would be possible to keep something from Aditi until that day, and it would start a terrible trend. She could only hope she would be discovered during her stay. When she wasn’t, she tried to blame grief, but she quietly feared it was something more—perhaps the distance and the years apart had, for Aditi, finally begun to wear away the connection that for Nayana had long since been more tenuous, always dependent on Aditi’s strength of conviction.
She seized the card from the sack of gifts and took it with her to her study, recognizing as she held it again the cowardly act of buying a card so small, one that would allow for only the briefest note. Dearest Aditi, she wrote, standing behind the chair. She wrote as if hurried, as if she didn’t have only that one task to achieve today. Such small gifts for you and Birendra in the face of my immense regret for falling behind in our correspondence. What you must think of me! She could have spent all morning, what was left of it, imagining what Aditi might think of her if she had only been in possession of the facts of Nayana’s life, a life in total disarray. I’ll find a way to visit soon. For what it’s still worth, dear sister, I promise. Please give my love to dear Birendra, and know I love you, as always. —N
She remembered Birendra on the last day of that visit. They’d taken Nayana to the airport and were saying good-bye. He was so small, so young. It broke her heart that he would grow up without a father. She squeezed him until he squirmed, then she took his face in her hands. “You be good, sweet Birendra,” she’d said. “And take care of your mother for me.” She could see elements of her own face in his, and this forced her grief to leap to her throat. Grief at leaving India once again for a life in London that was growing more precarious by the day, grief at leaving behind her sister, widowed and more alone than ever, and grief for her own loss, which Aditi still hadn’t acknowledged and Nayana still hadn’t shared. For this, too, Nayana grieved. She didn’t want to get on the plane. As they embraced, Aditi seemed to know Nayana’s thoughts once again. Aditi, the stronger, calmer presence of the two, even in the anguish of mourning her husband. “Go back to your London. Become a famous scholar and buy us a mansion in Delhi where we can all live together one day.”
Famous scholar. It was true that Nayana had once hoped to be a great voice in the literary arts, one whose opinions were important, revered. But the renown she’d coveted since arriving in London was just a substitute for the love she’d left behind in India. Then she’d met Ramesh, and his adoration was so abundant and so quickly became love; she never had the chance to reject it. And finally she hadn’t wanted to. But she’d returned to London after Srikant’s funeral out of step, losing hope finally that the dissertation would ever become the book she’d hoped for. It was still packed away in a box in the office closet. Gradually Nayana lost the aspiration to be great at all. She couldn’t even use Ramesh as the excuse in her letters home: more often than not, she simply ignored her sister’s praise and queries about Nayana’s progress. The truth was that Ramesh never would have stopped her. But he’d never had to. Nayana had remained great in one regard, that of preventing her own success. By the time she visited her sister and nephew again, she wasn’t even thinking about the book or her former dreams, and she’d all but stopped dreaming of children of her own. Aditi did her the kindness of not bringing up either subject, asking instead about the classes she taught, as though teaching, not writing, had always been Nayana’s dream.
She sealed the card in its envelope and wrapped Birendra’s books and the blouse and earrings she’d chosen for Aditi, hoping, as always, that her sister found occasion to wear them. And, as always, this hope made her feel sad for her sister, which gave Nayana occasion to feel sorry for herself as well. For they were both living away from home, with ghosts, and without each other.