DENIAL

By Ishika Mitra

I had a niggling pain in my abdomen and went to the washroom to check if I had got it down. I craved extra chocolate syrup in my hot chocolate that morning and every little thing irritated me. That whole week, I had spent long hours in the kitchen, Chef D'Costa briefing us every morning, Sai complaining about not having a social life outside the kitchen, and receiving numerous texts from Ram about how long I had been ignoring all aspects of my life apart from that damn kitchen. 'There's a life out here, Heer. In case you've forgotten.', 'It's been two whole weeks since I've seen you. At least take a Sunday off now.', 'Who works on a Sunday anyway?', so on and so forth. I missed Ram and wanted to see him. Sometimes I wondered if overworking was a disease if I needed to get treated. However, the kitchen pulled me like a magnet is drawn towards a refrigerator and I felt there's nothing wrong with being passionate. My brother called to remind me to take a trip to his place the next week, it was Timmy's first birthday and Ram had already asked me four times to go pick out presents with him.

I checked my panty and there was nothing. I was sure I would get it down soon and my stomach hurt. There were huge dark circles all around my eyes and no matter how much I liked food, I felt like I'd throw up every time I ate. I wanted to get over with it as soon as possible, the worst few days of every month, the pain was always excruciating. Ram took at least two days off to stay with me lest I fall in an attempt to go to the bathroom. Somewhere I was traumatized from my cramps, I dreaded them every month and did everything in my power to try and reduce the intensity. Painkillers could only do so much and beyond that, it was just a test of my threshold to pain.

I went back to the kitchen to restart work on the last few orders for lunch and then begin with the preparations for dinner. My head reeled and I felt uneasy. As always, I wanted to push on a little more. I did this every month until I felt really unwell and Ram had to be called in to take me home. "Just get some rest the moment you start feeling sick. Don't let it escalate this way", he'd always say, but old habits die hard. Right from culinary school to this day, taking time off made me way too guilty, at times the guilt outweighed the peace I felt from relaxing at home.

"Maybe you should go home," Sai said, as I started chopping the veggies. I had taken the next weekend off for Timmy's birthday and I did not want to ask Chef D'Costa for another afternoon off. He was strict to the point of being ruthless and I escaped his wrath for overcompensating in the kitchen all the time. Not that it wasn't my fault for wanting to work more, but sometimes it occurred to me that I could do with a break that wouldn't have me be stuck to the bed, moaning in pain all day. I looked over at Chef D'Costa at the other end of the kitchen giving a dose to his sous chef and he looked like he'd rip his head off any minute. No way, I thought, I cannot go ask him for leave this afternoon. He'll rip my head off as well.

An hour later, however, I was in a lot of pain. I took a painkiller that had no effect and I felt too much pain to continue working anymore. Chef D'Costa let me go and Ram picked me up. Back home I tried to sleep as Ram left for his office again. "I'll be back as soon as I finish, honey. Don't worry. Gimme a call if you feel too unwell.", he said while closing the door behind him. Half unconscious, I felt myself bleeding, but something felt amiss. Something was breaking off from me, something that belonged to me and it didn't feel right to bleed that way. I cried as I called Ram again and on our way to the hospital I told him that it felt like a part of me was being taken away forever.

I vaguely remember being put in a stretcher and Ram holding my hand but beyond that, it's all a blur. I woke up late that night with a sinking feeling and a body drained of all strength. My room was dark and I could barely make out if there was anybody else there. I tried to remember the events of the day, bits and parts came back to me vaguely, my pain, the bleeding, the ambulance ride. I reached out for water on my bedside table and the glass fell to the floor and broke into pieces, waking up Ram.

"You stayed back?", I asked.

"Of course, I wouldn't just leave you here."

"No, I mean, they let you?"

"My childhood friend's father works here. I spoke to him and he allowed me to stay."

"Okay… why do you look so grim? Has something serious happened to me? What did the doctor say?"

"How about you get some rest and then we talk in the morning?"

"Please tell me. I know something is wrong."

"I really think you should rest. I'll talk to you tomorrow morning."

"Ram, please!!!", I grabbed his hands.

He looked at me, sat down by my bed and sighed. I held on to the last few strands of hope in my heart and tried to think that nothing grave was the matter, it was perhaps just an intense case of menstrual cramps, that he was hesitating to tell me because I'd make fun of him for freaking out and bringing me to the hospital just for menstrual cramps.

"Sweetheart", he took my hand in his, "you had a miscarriage."

…

It had been a few days since then, I was back in the kitchen motoring away. I didn't feel anything. I powered through each day as it came and life went on. I knew there was something wrong with me but I did not know what. Timmy's birthday was a blast and I was supposed to enjoy the trip back to my brother's house, see my parents and have a nice time. Ram came with me and the whole family was there. My aunts and uncles hovered around me asking me when I'll get married, my cousins wanted to hear all kinds of stories about my life in Goa, and I spent most of my time with my little Timmy.

No matter how much I loved my family and especially Timmy, I felt out of place there. I did not understand myself and I knew no one understood me. No one knew what had happened, what I had lost. In my head, I tried to reason with myself every waking minute about how I wasn't ready for a baby yet, how I wasn't married, how I'd have to let go of it eventually. Nothing stood for long. All reason failed every night when I tried to sleep and that fateful afternoon kept flashing before my eyes. My sleep kept coming in bursts and visions of a woman bleeding woke me up every time. My brain was fogged and my body needed more sleep, yet my mind wouldn't let me.

Back in Goa, after the family weekend, I decided to summon an auto every morning to get to the kitchen. The walk bothered me. Walking to and from the kitchen every day was something I cherished. I had dreamt of being able to walk down to my place of work every day since I was a little kid. I would have my earphones on and listen to soul-warming summer songs on Spotify. Every time I discovered a piece of new music, I would send it to Ram. He thanked me for his ever-growing playlist. Walking on the streets of Goa is refreshing, just like walking down the roads of Manipal. Sai did not understand my fascination with Manipal. "It's such a small town, what do you do there?". I always told her that to understand my love for Manipal, you will have to live there.

Three weeks after my miscarriage, the kitchen started bothering me and so did the songs. I went from feeling nothing to feeling restless all the time. Ram had started picking me up every morning and dropping me back every night after I had collapsed in the kitchen.

"You're not well, are you sure you don't want to go to your parents' house?" Ram asked me one night while driving me back.

"No. I cannot stand the thought of being in Delhi."

"What about visiting your brother?"

"I was there just two weeks ago."

"Okay… How about we plan a holiday? Andaman and Nicobar? You always wanted to go there."

"No," I said.

"Well, what do you want to do?"

"I don't know."

"C'mon Heer!"

"Just drop me home." I did not want to talk to him anymore.

"Heer, darling, you have to tell me what's going on with you. I am worried."

"There's nothing to worry about. We weren't ready to be parents anyway."

"But Heer…"

"I don't feel like talking anymore."

Ram walked me to my floor and made sure I took my medicines before I went to bed. He wanted to move in with me, which we had been thinking about for the last year and had it been some other time, I'd have jumped with glee. But that night I dismissed the idea with a straight face. I did not want to live with him anymore.

"Okay, think about it when you wake up tomorrow."

"No." I said, "I don't want to think."

"Heer…"

"Ram, leave."

"Will you try to get some sleep?"

I did not feel like responding anymore. He left after switching off the lights and I stared out of the window. I hate Goa, I thought to myself as I heard the waves splashing against the shore in the silence of the night, breaking the stillness periodically and rhythmically. Sai called and I switched off my phone. The phone was a nuisance in my life and I threw it on the floor, with a certain rage that was new to me.

Like every other day, I watched the night break into dawn and I got up to get dressed. My wardrobe irritated me and all the yellow clothes that I had felt like torture to my eyes. Suddenly my entire wardrobe felt like a burden I wanted to get rid of. I called Sai and asked her to get me some clothes.

"What have you done to all your clothes?" she asked as she handed me some of her clothes and I walked into the washroom to change.

"They're there. I don't wanna wear them anymore." I said.

"What? Why?"

"I don't know. Maybe I don't like them now."

"So you're gonna buy new clothes now?"

"No."

"Then?"

"I'll wear some of yours and some of Ram's."

Sai sighed and looked at me as I came out of the washroom in her summer dress.

"What?" I asked.

"Heer, you need to take some time off from work."

"Nonsense! I'm going to take on an additional shift. I'll talk to Chef D'Costa today."

"You haven't been sleeping properly at all and now you want to take on an extra shift? You're clearly not well and we're all very worried."

"Let's go. I don't want to be late to that stupid kitchen." I said walking towards the door.

"Stupid kitchen?"

"I don't like that kitchen anymore."

"And yet you want to take an extra shift? Why?"

"I don't know."

"Heer…"

"I don't want to talk anymore. Just start your scooty."

The kitchen suffocated me more and more each day. My performance deteriorated and Chef D'Costa made sure I knew that I wasn't performing well. He hurled rough words at me and the whole team stood there expecting me to cry and break and be a whole bundle of mess. Anton even asked me to leave this place and look for another job that would save me from having to endure Chef D'Costa every single day. He had denied giving me an extra shift and took my weekend shifts from me as well. My once fiery ambition and passion for making my mark in the culinary industry was slowly getting outweighed by the heaviness of my mind.

The madness of a commercial kitchen seemed to pass by me and soon I let go of the lunch shift. I only worked the dinner shifts and newer and talented chefs filled in the gap that I had left. I could not work more than one shift without getting thoroughly exhausted. Ram supported my decision of working less but he insisted I work the lunch shift and let go of dinner. However, the sunlight had started making me feel a certain heaviness that made me dizzy. I kept the blinds drawn from border to border all morning and no matter how much Ram insisted that I let a bit of sunlight in, I couldn't.

One Saturday afternoon, I was lying in bed thinking about my initial days as a professional chef and moving to Goa to be with Ram after two whole years of long-distance. My parents had wanted me to get married soon as they were getting old, but I needed time to do well in my career, run my kitchen, and Ram and I needed to work a few things out between ourselves.

"I dream of having our own house and two little kids. And I'll cook and feed y'all so much; all of you will be so chubby." I giggled sitting on Ram's lap on the beach.

"Umm… Heer?"

"Yes?"

"If I don't want kids, will it be a deal-breaker for you?"

"What??" I was surprised, "you don't want kids?"

"I am not sure but maybe I won't."

"Oh… okay."

"Is that a deal-breaker for you? I know how much you love children and you've always wanted to be a mother but… I don't feel sure about myself."

"Yeah, I can understand but… well, we have time, we'll figure out what we want when the time comes, right?"

"Of course! We will reevaluate our choices then and we'll compromise."

"Yeah!" I smiled at him as he held me in his arms, "we'll be fine."

That was the first and the last time we had spoken about children. It had not affected me or our relationship. We had been confident about everything about us from the start, from belonging to different communities and different places, having different cultures and different careers, we had seen through it all with a lot of maturity. Being happy with each other came naturally as the sun rises each morning. Through all the highs and lows in the last five years, he'd been my constant support.

I called Ram and asked him to come. I had a feeling like I was sinking deep into my bed, it would engulf me like a black hole and I'd never be found again; the sheets and the duvet seemed to be moving by themselves and wrapping me in a tight inescapable grasp; there was a hole opening in the bed and I was being sucked right into it. I could almost see Death as a figure, an ugly monster staring down at me and mocking my fear; faces of my family and friends flashed before me and I wanted to cry out and call for someone to pull me out of that gutter that kept sucking me in.

I could feel my body shake like being struck by an electric current and I wanted to run away. The whole apartment, the place, the sound of traffic, everything bothered me; everything seemed threatening. As Ram entered, I screamed and howled asking him to free me from all the demonic bedding that was strangling me.

"I am dying Ram, save me, save me please!!" I shouted.

"Honey, what's wrong? Nothing has happened. Nobody is doing anything to you. You're safe."

"No no, I'm not, these bed sheets are strangling me."

"Shhh honey, calm down. You're imagining things."

"I'm not Ram, believe me. The bed was closing in on me. Believe me please!!" I pleaded with him.

Now that he was here, my bed was quiet and I felt safe. But I could not forget the feeling of being engulfed by a demonic bed. I kept getting into a faint daze and each time I woke up with a jerk, sweating and shivering. Ram gave me a sleeping pill and stayed the night but the next morning I woke up to the whole room closing in on me and engulfing me into a void. My helpless screams woke Ram and he held me tight and close to his chest as he tried to calm me down.

When I finally felt better, he put me down again and sat by me, holding my hand. I felt exhausted yet too scared to sleep. He looked terrified and worried sick. He suggested I go to my parents or at least inform them about what was happening, I slowly got out of the bed to go to the bathroom and collapsed on the floor, All of a sudden my legs felt extremely weak and I couldn't get up. Ram helped me up and took me in his arms again.

"What is happening to you, love?" he said, his voice breaking. He held me to his chest and I heard him cry. His heart beat against my ear rhythmically and I felt like it was my dead child's heart beating in his chest. My dead child. My dead child. The words rang in my head and my brain felt foggy. As he loosened his grasp around me and put me down on the bed, I asked him to hold me closer to him, tighter than before; I wanted to hear his heart again, this time, louder. Was my child really dead?

I suffered another week of similar episodes of being sucked into my bed and various other pieces of furniture and my mobility had become very limited. Ram wheeled me around and most of my time I lay on the couch or my bed, in a trance, thinking of the same three words 'my dead child'. Ram had informed my parents and my brother and they had all been here, cramped in my two-bedroom apartment. My brother left a couple of days ago while my parents insisted on staying.

"She needs a psychologist," Dad told Ram.

"She's in denial. She refuses to go to anyone or anywhere; doctor, friends or, even out of the apartment," said Ram.

The next morning, Ram played my favourite Goan folk songs and my head started spinning at its first note. I felt like my chest was swelling up, my brain was squeezing and I was losing control all over my body. It was a feeling I couldn't explain or comprehend. I just needed the music to stop.

"Stop that song, "I told him.

"Okay, do you want to listen to some other songs? Retro?"

"No. No songs."

"Instrumentals then?"

"No. Nothing. No music." I said coldly.

"Heer…"

"My child is not dead Ram. How can he be dead?"

"I'm sorry, sweetheart but that is the reality. We can't change it, can we?"

"I don't know. I don't understand anything anymore."

"Please, I beg you, please tell me what I can do to make you feel better."

"My child is not dead," I repeated.

My parents fought about whether or not to admit me to a mental institution. From being in denial about my dead fetus which I referred to as my child, I had started playing with an imaginary child. I could hear it call me, laugh and giggle. I could hear its goos and gaas and I could see it in my lap, playing with my finger, I could feel its tiny fingers wrapped around my thumb, I could smell its babyish scent. My child's presence brought a change in me, I regained some of my strength. Even though I still had to be wheeled around, I could sit up for longer.

My father decided to wait for a while longer before admitting me to a mental institution. Ram and my mother cried now and then whenever I played with my child. My episodes hadn't stopped though, and I would often feel like the room was engulfing me, sucking me into a void, strangling me by the neck, stopping the airflow; I would die any minute, and what followed was an intense hysterical few moments of anxiety which would eventually lead me to pass out. I was still averse to daylight and music, flowers and my old clothes and everything that was a part of my life prior to the devastating loss.

"Remember this?" mom asked me, handing me a tiny sweater.

Back in my college days, I had asked my mom to teach me to knit so that I could make little sweaters for my children in the future. I would often tell mom how special my children would be, how deeply loved and cared for they'd be, that nobody would be able to touch them as long as I was there. I had very strong maternal instincts very early on in life; and it broke my parents' heart to see me lose a child and try everything in my power to not mourn the loss, to tell myself that there was no loss and that I had a child, my dear child, for whom I had knitted sweaters long ago. That was the first sweater I had made with mom's help and I always took it with me everywhere I went.

I took the sweater from her and stared at it, my hands trembling. As I looked up, I could see my child moving further and further away from me. Soon it vanished and I frantically looked around my room in search of its innocent little face, clutching the sweater tightly to my chest. I screamed and banged on my bed asking my mother to leave that instant. I wanted nothing to do with her. She had her children and I didn't. After two months, it finally dawned on me that I had lost my baby, the baby for whom I had waited all my life, for whom I had picked out names, for whom I had made sweaters, whom I had dreamt of every time I saw a little kid. I had lost my baby before I'd even known that I had him.

I asked for Ram and broke down inconsolably when he held me to him, I heard his heartbeat again and my head felt under tremendous pressure. I remember waking up in the hospital with Ram sitting by my bed. I cried and cried and cried continuously, without a pause, a break, without effort. I could not stop crying. Tears flowed down my eyes even though I could no longer keep my eyes open, there were huge bags under my eyes for crying so much, but I could not stop my tears. It felt pointless to go on living after losing my 'child'. To not have known and experienced the joy of having a life in me and be told that I had lost it felt unjust. Of all the people in the world, God had chosen me for this ruthless punishment, the woman who had always wanted to have a child, the woman who went as far as to learn knitting only to make sweaters for her children. Being alive was a burden.

I agreed to see a psychologist. Ram wheeled me into his office on a Monday morning and I wanted to run away the moment my doctor asked me the first question.

"What challenges are you facing?"

What challenges was I facing? It was the death of a foetus that somehow registered as the death of my child to me; I was dealing with the loss of something that I didn't know I had; I was mourning an event for which I wasn't ready... what were the challenges? What do I say? My bed, the furnitures, my room engulfed me? I couldn't stop crying? I couldn't walk? Which challenges do I talk about?

I took almost a half hour in his chamber to articulate my feelings in my head and make sense of em, but eventually nothing made sense. I proceeded to tell him many times and stopped midway because I didn't want to live through the agonizing moments again; because I didn't know what to say or how to go on; because my thoughts were not coherent to me.

"I help you make sense of your feelings and emotions when you cannot do it yourself, that's why I'm here. Don't worry, just say what comes to your mind, as it comes. I'll take care of the rest.", he said.

His treatment helped me recover faster than we'd expected and before long, from being disinterested in life, I was looking forward to seeing him and listening to him.

"Battling mental illness is a slow process", he said, "oftentimes you'll hit rock bottom. But the key is to embrace your fall and work on it. The more you deny, the more denial will haunt you."

One month into my therapy, I regained my strength little by little to walk again and do simple everyday tasks like combing my hair and taking a bath. I no longer had daily episodes of drowning in the waves of my demonic bedding, I could look at my old wardrobe again and I cried less. I still felt a part of me was missing and there was a void in my heart, but I embraced my heartbreak.

It was a Sunday morning, a few more days later, when I woke up and Ram brought me breakfast in bed, he kissed me gently on my forehead and gave me a quick hug.

"Ram?" I called him softly as he set the tray beside me.

"Yes?"

I smiled at him.

By Ishika Mitra