Charts
and optimal dates and preferential temperatures. One line or two. As
if she could summon whatever it is that makes up the human soul as
easily as she could a cab on a busy New York avenue.
Anger
pulsed through every fiber of her being. Three times her seed been
thwarted from blossoming; the flower nipped in bud.
Ludhiana.
Amritsar. New York. Nothing had changed.
It
was a girl
the words left his lips, and stayed with her, forever ringing.
Next time maybe
came the consolation, and his X chromosomes consummated with hers
again. The routine never wavered. Neither in pattern nor in words.
Three
months was all she would get. And then, one word of doctor would
bring her world crashing down.
Only
not
this time,
she vowed. And a mother was born in that instant.
*
* *
Hot
lamp, flexi-neck bent in sorrow. Overhead lights blindly served
witness.
Metal
tray of instruments. Feet arranged in stirrups. Needle plugged into
her wrist.
She
wept yet another life they had started and cherished. She wept
possibilities.
As
the drugs worked their magic, he kissed her forehead. A
mother who has lost is still a mother.
They
would try again, of course.
Because
hope never dies.
And
I like to think, four years hence, of a little girl in pigtails,
hopscotching along the sidewalk. Or perhaps a boy in denim.
Parents
die, and children too.
But
hope? It lives forever.
Labels: fiction Trifecta Writing Challenge