Arranged Marriage: Stories by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Page B

later.
    As soon as I opened the door I was struck by the smell. It was worse than ten baby-houses put together. I followed my nose to the bathroom. There was pee all over the floor, a big yellow puddle, with blobs of brown floating in it.
    I went into the kitchen, took two aspirin, then another one. I grabbed the mop and bucket and a bottle of Pine Sol and went looking for the boy, rehearsing all the things I wasgoing to tell him. You little savage, didn’t I explain to you how to use the toilet before I left, at least ten times, in clear sign language? That’s what made me late this morning, messed up my presentation. If I don’t get chosen as employee of the month like I was the last three times, it’s going to be all your fault I was going to make him clean up the bathroom as well. But first I was going to shake him until his teeth rattled in his stupid head.
    “You should have turned him over to the super that same morning,” Richard would tell me later. “You should never have brought him into your apartment at all. I can’t figure out why you did it—it isn’t like you at all.”
    Richard was right, of course, on both counts. I’ve never been given to the easy sentimentality of taking in strays—I know my own fastidiousness, the limits to my patience. The first thought I’d had when I saw the boy was that I should call the super. Mr. Leroy, a large, not unkind man with children of his own, would have known what to do with the boy. Better than I did, certainly.
    So why didn’t I make that call? Did my decision have something to do with the boy’s enormous eyes, the way he fixed them on my face? The way his thin shoulders had trembled, there, under the staircase, when I touched them? Did a part of me, that treacherous Indian side that believed in the workings of karma, feel that the universe had brought him to my door for a special reason? I’m not sure. But even now, as I searched the apartment angrily, I knew I couldn’t send him away.
    I finally found him behind the drapes in the bedroom.He shrank against the wall when he saw me. I could hear the hiss of his indrawn breath, see his shoulders stiffen. He made a small moaning sound that seemed to go on and on.
    “Oh shit.” I gave a short laugh as the appropriateness of my expression struck me. “Don’t look so scared, for God’s sake. Just don’t do it again, OK? And now I guess you’d better take a bath.”
    “Sharmila,” I said on the phone, “what’s a good place to buy clothes for kids?”
    “Why d’you want to know? You planning to have one?”
    “Very funny. Actually, my brother’s son is visiting, and …” My voice trailed away guiltily. I’d never lied to Sharmila before. But the boy was my special secret. I wasn’t ready to share him with anyone yet.
    “Your brother! Didn’t you tell me once you were an only child?”
    “Did I? Maybe I’d just had a fight with him or something.”
    “Hmm,” said Sharmila, obviously unconvinced. “Well, how old is the boy? Some stores are better for babies, and others …”
    “He looks like he’s about seven …”
    “Looks like? You don’t know your own nephew’s age?”
    “So I’m not as close to my family as you are, Madam Perfect,” I shouted. “I’m sorry I asked.” I slammed down the phone, then took it off the hook. Sharmila would surely call back to find out why I, who never got upset, not even the timewhen the bank computer suddenly swallowed the information on five hundred and sixty-three accounts, was behaving so strangely. She might even decide to drive over. And I was afraid of what she would say when she found out about the boy.
    I looked over to the kitchen table and met the boy’s worried eyes. “It’s OK,” I said. “I’m not mad at you.” I smiled at him until the frown line between his brows faded. I was pleased to see that he’d eaten most of the large egg sandwich I’d fixed him and that he’d drunk all his milk. He looked a lot better after his