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Emily Taylor
ENGL 250
Dr. Jones
November 30, 2019
The Year After
They rarely spoke of the things they knew since the temporary matter the year before. In
fact, they barely spoke of anything these days. After they wept there in the kitchen together
before Shoba moved out, nothing was the same for a time. She had left Shukumar because she
needed some time to herself, even though she had plenty before the time when the lights went
out. At first, he didn’t understand. He spent days and days wondering what had gone wrong, and
it was often past time for lunch when he could bare to drag himself out of bed, then.
Living on her own gave Shoba a lot of time to think and work. The last year had been a
tough one, going through such a big transition, moving into her one bedroom apartment on
Beacon Hill. She often thought about that night when she told Skukumar that she was going to be
leaving as her lease was close to expiring. She wondered if she should extend her time alone, or
if she should bite the bullet and move back into the three bedroom home they once shared.
They rarely saw one another while they were living separately. When they did, they ate
together and made love, just trying to hold themselves close to each other as they lived alone.
Both of them remained faithful to one another throughout this time, however. The only time
Shukumar cooked these days was when he and Shoba were eating dinner together. Most of the
time, he ordered some kind of take out for himself. He had finally finished graduate school in the
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September before, just as his advisor had told him. She said, “ I knew some time off would give
you the push you needed to finish this year.”
He thought he would never finish considering everything that had happened between him
and Shoba over the last year. She was still working a lot, coming home just to continue working,
analysing more textbooks with her colored pencils. A lot had changed between the two in the
time that they were apart. Oddly enough, it grew them closer and stronger in some way.
When it came time for Shoba to make a decision on whether to move back in or stay on
her own, she called Shukumar. She never did this, and it seemed strange to him.
“I’m coming home,” she said. “If that’s okay with you.”
He smiled like he hadn’t for some time now. “I’ll have dinner ready by eight,” he replied,
and they hung up. Shukumar was happy she had decided to come back to him after spending a
year apart now, but he couldn’t help but wonder how things would be when they were under the
same roof again in their three-bedroom home.
It was six o’clock when she came by with all of her belongings. As his lamb was
cooking, he helped her get her things put away and in their rightful spots. He hadn’t put anything
in them since she left, in hopes that she would need the space back one day. Together again, they
sat and ate. He thought it was only right that they ate by candlelight in the dark, just as they had
exactly a year ago today. It was March nineteenth, and they were finally back together.
Over dinner, they reminisced about this day exactly a year ago when things were so
different. When they were finished, Shukumar stacked her plate on top of his and carried them to
the sink and washed them. She still sat there in the dark, just watching him. When he finished, he
went to sit on the couch where Shoba had moved herself to. “Let’s say something to each other
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in the dark,” she said, “like we did when the lights went out.” He replied with a simple “Okay.”
It took him a minute to think about what he would say to her now.
After a short period of silence between the two, he finally said “When the lights had gone
out a year ago, and we played this same game, it took hours of thinking for me to figure out what
I was going to tell you.” “Why is that?” she replied. Again he thought for a second before saying,
“I didn’t want to make things worse between us.. I wanted us to get through those times better
than when they all began.” She sat there just watching him as he spoke, noticing the way his lips
moved, and the slight glimmer of hope in his eyes.
Neither of them said anything after that. They sat there on the couch together for another
hour or two with the lights off, simply enjoying one another’s presence in that moment. Finally,
Shoba say to him, “I decided to move out for a while, not because of you, but because all I could
see in this house was our baby. I couldn’t bare to live here any longer.” Tears began to well up in
her eyes as she told him this. She hadn’t cried since their last night here together before the
move, and neither had he.
While she was living alone, Shoba had noticed that she was gaining a little weight, and it
puzzled her because she was regularly going to the gym, and never eating more that she normally
did, which was never much. It was until she began getting sick when she woke up that the worry
set in. She also noticed that she had been craving certain foods from her home in India. She went
to the store before she had moved back in with Shukumar and bought a pregnancy test, just to be
safe. She got home that night and locked herself in the bathroom, though no one else was there.
When she saw two pink lines show up after a minute or so, she took another one to be sure. She
thought, “It could just be a false positive.” When the second test showed two pink lines as well,
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the panic set in. She had no idea of what to do, how to tell Shukumar, or of what would happen
to the baby. Soon her worry turned into fear. How could she handle another pregnancy like the
last?
He broke their silence again. “I’m haven’t been as happy as I am with you here now in a
very long time,” he told her. She sat there thinking if she should tell him what the test results said
that night in her apartment.
“There’s something very important we need to talk about,” Shoba said as she cut the
lamp on that was sitting on the table beside them. “I want you to see my face when I tell you
this.” Worry set in in his eyes. His mind was racing about the millions of things she could tell
him in this moment. “I’m pregnant,” she stated very bluntly. Shukuma froze. He hadn’t been
able to plan for this, and he had no idea of what he would say to her right now. He hugged her in
a way they haven’t for a very long time.
After a few moments, for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, Shoba pulled
away and turned to him.
“I love you,” she said. “I love you, too Shoba,” he replied. In such a heartfelt moment,
tears began to stream from their eyes, and they embraced one another once again, just trying to
stay as close as they could. They had no idea of what the next year would hold. Full of
excitement, fear, worry, and heartbroken memories, they clung to each other and the thought of
finally having the small family they had dreamed of.
Shukumar thought of what this pregnancy would result in, but he decided to have hope
that things would turn out for the better. This time, he would love every part of her, and he would
do everything he possibly could to be there on the day their little boy or girl was born. As the
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night went on, they smiled and laughed, and discussed names for their future child. They decided
they wanted to know its gender before the birth this time.
Though they were both scared out of their minds, they decided to remain hopeful because
they knew that this would bring them closer in the end.