11
Mayudi, I want to tell you a story,” she says.
It is my mother’s last night in Seattle. I knocked on her door after Zoe’s two a.m. feeding without even the pretense of an excuse. I know that when she leaves, I will miss my mother profoundly. She shushes my apologies, tells me she doesn’t mind the late hour, and scoots over on the bed.
“Once, there was a woman in a river—”
“Wait, is this some sort of Indian myth?”
“Hmm. Myth is not quite the right word. Your agi told me this story soon after your brother was born. Once, she told me, there was a woman in a river—”
“Is the river the Ganges? Is the woman a goddess, like Lakshmi?”
“I don’t remember. You ask so many questions! Do you want me to continue?”
“Yes! I won’t interrupt.”
“Okay.” She clears her throat to ready the tale. “Once, there was a woman in a river. She held a child in her arms—her son. She needed to cross the river. It was much deeper than she expected. As the water reached her chest, she panicked.
“She saw that she had a choice. She could save herself or she could save her child. They would not both make it. What does she do?”
I feel restless, unsure why my mom is telling me the story. “Mom, obviously, she sacrifices herself. That’s how all these stories go.” Someone gave me a book of Indian illustrated classics when I was young, Hindu myths in comic book form. It was filled with legends of female suffering: Sita swallowed up by the earth; Shakuntala carried up into the heavens. I inhaled those stories, intoxicated by all that feminine virtue.
I can picture the woman in the river: her resigned expression, her last breath before going under, her sari unfurling in a colourful shroud. Logically, the story makes no sense (why would sacrificing herself guarantee her child’s safety?), but then, these stories never make sense. The woman’s martyrdom is the point. She is beyond logic and beyond reproof. I wonder why my mom has chosen the tale and feel a flicker of annoyance.
My mom chuckles. “That is what I said, too. But that is not what happens.”
“She lets her child die?” I say, aghast. “What mom would do that?”
She is silent a long moment before speaking. “What my mother said is that we do not know the outcome. We do not know what the woman will choose. Until we are in the river, up to our shoulders, the current too strong—until we are in that position, we cannot say. We tell ourselves we will sacrifice ourselves for our children, but the will to live is very strong.”
I listen, astonished.
“Your agi was wise,” she continues. “She did not have a lot of education, only through the eighth or ninth grade, but she knew a great deal. We must not judge. This is the lesson of the story. We cannot know the weight of other women’s burdens. Whatever a woman decides, it is not easy.”
“Agi sounds like a feminist,” I muse. “She was, in her own way.”
I draw the covers around me. My annoyance with the story has vanished. Something about it comforts me. Maybe it is the surprise of the ending, that the woman choosing herself is even a possibility, or maybe it is the intimacy of my mom talking to me in the middle of the night, just the two of us, the rest of the world asleep. Her whole visit, I wanted her to be helpful. Maybe what I wanted all along was this, the warm focus of her attention. Being cared for, even if that just means being told a story.
I’d expected the woman in the river to sacrifice herself. I realize now the same thing happened with my mom. I’d wanted her to tend to me, and only when she didn’t did I see my own expectations—expectations that now shame me. She had flown across the country for me, and I had behaved like a child. Do the demands of motherhood ever cease?
“Being a mom is hard,” I finally say.
She murmurs her assent.
We drift off. A couple of hours later, I wake to Zoe’s hungry cries. I tiptoe from the room and let my mother sleep.
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