Papa grunted. ‘I’ll be glad if someone gets me tea,’ he muttered.

Ma ignored him. She looked at me and frowned. ‘Are you wearing perfume?’ she asked, breathing heavily through her mouth.

‘Yes?’

Ma swivelled and went back inside the bathroom, retching, before I could say anything else.

8

Despite my reluctance to accept this humongous change in our lives, I had to face it.

Ma had taken leave from work indefinitely because the doctor had told her she needed rest. Papa was worried all the time and I could sense there was some guilt too. My Dasara vacations were spent taking care of her, and making sure she was resting as much as she could.

She couldn’t cook because the smell of the spices made her nauseous and she wasn’t supposed to be on her feet too long. Since I refused to cook anything, Papa was beginning to get frustrated.

‘No more Swiggy,’ he burst out one day when he saw that I had ordered ghee rice and butter chicken for him. Again.

I glared at him. Poor Ma here wasn’t even able to keep down anything she was eating and he was grumbling about eating restaurant food.

‘V is coming next week,’ Ma said. ‘Can you just hold on till then?’

I looked away, hoping my face wouldn’t reveal anything. Next week? So soon?

‘I’m going to ask her to make that custard flan she does . . . her prawn balchao and . . . and her mutton biryani,’ Papa said dreamily.

‘Why are you having cravings when I’m the one who’s pregnant?’ Ma snapped at him.

He ignored her. ‘Dal gosht,’ he whispered dreamily.

I wanted to hit him over the head with something.

‘Nihari,’ he went on.

I slapped my forehead dramatically. Ma, who was sitting at the dining table, looked at me and whacked his wrist.

‘V is coming here for me. Not as your cook, okay?’ she told him.

Papa looked away sulkily and proceeded to empty the ghee rice from the takeaway container on to his plate and smother it all with the garishly red butter chicken.

Ma was picking at her food, just the rice and a salad I’d made for her with cucumber slices because that seemed to be the only thing she could eat without throwing up.

The night before college reopened, I was walking back to my room after drinking some water when I overheard them talking. Papa was telling her that they should have been more careful. Um. I wanted to get away from there as fast as possible—I didn’t want to accidentally find out about their sex life.

But Ma said something that made me pause.

‘I’ve wanted another baby, Shekhar,’ she said. ‘Ever since we lost that little one all those years ago, I’ve just had it somewhere inside in my head that I wanted another one.’