Secret Daughter Read Free

husband. “I won’t let you take her this time. I won’t.” She straightens her back despite the terrible pain. “If you try, if you even try, you will have to kill me first.” She draws her knees up in front of her. From the corner of her eye, she sees the door and envisions the five quick steps it will take to reach it. She wills herself not to move, not to shift her fierce and determined gaze away from Jasu.
    “Kavita, come, you’re not thinking straight. We can’t do this.” He throws his hands in the air. “She will become a burden to us, adrain on our family. Is that what you want?” He stands, towering over her again.
    Her mouth is dry. She stumbles over the words she has not quite allowed to form except in the distant corners of her mind. “Give me one night. Just one night with my child. You can come fetch her tomorrow.”
    Jasu remains silent, looking down at his feet.
    “ Please. ” The hammering sound in her skull grows louder. She wants to scream to be heard over it. “This is our baby. We created her together. I carried her inside me. Let me have one night before you take her.” Suddenly, the baby awakens and cries out. Jasu looks up, startled out of his trance. Kavita puts the infant to her breast, restoring the silence between them.
    “Jasu,” she says, signaling her seriousness by her uncharacteristic use of his first name. “Hear me now. If you do not allow me even this, I swear to you, I will fix it so I can never have another baby. I will destroy my own body so I will never birth another child for you. Never. Do you understand? Then where will you be? Who will marry you now, at your age? Who else will give you your precious son?” She stares at him until he is forced to look away.

4
WITHOUT MUCH EFFORT
    San Francisco, California—1984
S OMER
    “H ELLO , I ’M D R. W HITMAN .” S OMER ENTERS THE SMALL EXAMINATION room to see a woman struggling to control a flailing infant. “What seems to be the problem today?”
    “He’s been like this since yesterday—crying, irritable. I can’t do anything to console him, I think he has a fever.” The woman has her hair in a loose ponytail and wears a stained sweatshirt over jeans.
    “Well, let’s take a look.” Somer glances at the chart. “Michael? Do you want to see my nifty flashlight?” Somer shines the ear probe light on and off until it captures the boy’s interest and he grabs for it. She smiles and opens her mouth wide. When the boy mimics her, she inserts a tongue depressor. “Has he been eating and drinking normally?”
    “Yes. Well, I think so. I’m not quite sure what normal is, since we’ve just had him a few weeks. We adopted him at six months.” The mother’s sudden and proud smile almost camouflages the shadows under her eyes.
    “Mmm hmm. How about this, buddy? Do you want to play withthis cool stick?” Somer hands the tongue depressor to the boy, swiftly picks up the abandoned ear probe, and looks into his ears. “And how’s it going so far?”
    “He bonded quickly, and now he always wants to be carried around. We’re pretty stuck on each other, aren’t we, buddy? Even though you were up three times last night,” the mother says, poking a finger into his pudgy belly. “It’s true what they say.”
    “What’s that?” Somer feels the boy’s lymph glands for swelling.
    “You don’t know until it happens to you. It’s the strongest love you can imagine.”
    Somer feels a familiar pang in her chest. She looks up from the stethoscope on the boy’s back and smiles at his mother. “He’s lucky to have you.” She pulls a prescription pad from her pocket. “Well, he has a pretty bad infection in his right ear, but the other one looks clear right now, and his chest and lungs are fine. These antibiotics should clear it right up, and he should be a lot more comfortable tonight.” She touches the mother’s arm as she hands her the prescription.
    This is why Somer loves her work. She can walk into a