to answer. Yet it felt different telling Jake. She sensed he disapproved of her parents. Why? All her life she’d been told how lucky she was, how incredibly grateful she should be. No one had ever reacted like Jake. What was he trying to get at? And why did it bother her so much?
More than twenty years later, she still remembered the day at the orphanage that had changed her life.
It started out like any other day when visitors were expected.
Matron rang the bell while it was still dark out. That’s how Meera knew it was visitors’ day. She woke up in a twelve-by-twelve-foot room with cots lined wall-to-wall. At least twenty children slept in the room with her. She was always careful sitting up and stretching so she didn’t hit the girl next to her.
Matron assigned chores to each girl, and they got to work cleaning floors, washing clothes and dishes, changing the bedsheets. By the time the sun came up, many of the children whined and complained. The ones who had been there awhile, like Meera, didn’t mind because they knew what waited at the end of the grueling morning.
After hours of work, they were lined up in the back maidan, where the surly matron handed out soap, then hosed them down with cold water. The smaller children yelped and tried to run away. Meera stood still. The cold water would last only a few minutes, but the feeling of not having dirt and grime all over her skin would last the whole day.
They were given clean clothes to wear. She put hers on quickly and ran to the dining room. She eyed the plates and took the seat nearest to the biggest bowl of food. The bowl would be passed to each child, but the first person always got the largest scoop. It might be the only time all month she’d get a belly full of food.
The rest of the children filed in and took their seats. The visitors were shown in, and the matron went about serving the children. It was the only time she did that; on a normal day, the children were left to scratch their way to the last morsels of food.
The visitors watched and asked questions. They stopped to talk to the children about what it was like in the orphanage. They all knew their lines; they had been made to recite them over and over until they knew them by heart.
“The matron takes such good care of us.”
“We eat like this every day.”
“We’re so lucky to have this place.”
Meera knew her lines better than anybody else. She gave the tour of the sparkling orphanage and talked about the janitorial staff that cleaned the place every day. She happily showed them the toys that had been brought out that morning. She spied the stethoscope and used it to pretend she was a doctor. Once, she had hidden it under her bed after the visitors left, but the matron found it and gave her a beating. She proudly showed it to the visitors as her favorite toy, one that she played with all the time.
She hadn’t noticed her father in the group of ten or so prospective parents that were there that day, but she had slyly admired the lady with the beautiful hair, dark red lips and pretty blue sari. She gaped at the diamond earrings glittering in her ears, wondering whether she would ever get to wear something so beautiful.
On the day visitors came, the children were allowed into the TV room. The matron often put on an English movie to show the visitors that her girls knew English. Most of the kids didn’t understand the language, but they enjoyed the treat. Meera loved movies, even the ones she’d watched a dozen times.
Matron was clear on what life held for her charges. Meera could stay at the orphanage “for free” for another year, but then she had to get a job and pay rent. Meera’s job prospects in a small town outside of Kolkata were nonexistent. She would have to go to the big city and become a beggar...or worse. If she were lucky, an old man in town might marry her. Meera spent every day trying to find a way out of her situation. The movies were her escape. They let her believe, for a short amount of time, that her life could be different.
She had been through enough visitors’ days to know that the girls who were called to the matron’s office during the movie were the ones the visitors had selected. The chosen ones. It was always the younger girls, the ones who were still in nappies. The ones who could barely say a word but cooed and giggled. If any of the older children were selected, it was the pretty girls, the fair-skinned ones. Meera knew she would never be her. She was too old, her skin was too dark and she definitely wasn’t pretty enough. What she hoped for were the few rupees visitors sometimes gave the older children out of pity. On lucky days, she could hide the money before Matron confiscated it.
On this day, the matron twisted her finger and motioned for Meera to come to the office. Meera’s heart raced. They must want more tea; why else would they call her? In the office, the lady with the blue sari sat with her back straight. There was a man with her, and he called out to Meera. She walked over to him, afraid she had done something wrong. What could they want from her? He got down on his knees so he was at eye level with her and asked if she would come live with them and be his daughter.
The man spoke English, a language she had taught herself but still didn’t know fluently. Had she misunderstood?
He must have seen the disbelief on her face because he asked her again in Hindi. She couldn’t believe her ears and stood there stunned until she heard Matron’s harsh voice telling her to answer. She nodded excitedly. From there, things went quickly. She saw her new father hand Matron fat wads of cash.
Meera’s life had never been the same since. Her mother had taught her how to dress and do her makeup so she always looked glamorous. Her father gave her everything she needed. No one would ever guess Meera had been a poor orphan girl. They had given her a fairy-tale life, but not once had she forgotten that orphanage or what her life could have been.
But was that because her parents never let her? She shook her head. She was letting Jake’s reaction cloud her thinking. What was that thing she’d felt when they were sitting so close together in the forklift? And why had she let him hold her hand? More important, why did she feel so connected to him? She laughed at herself. I have a silly schoolgirl crush on an American cowboy. I’ll get over it. The rest was her imagination running wild. She had watched three Western movies on the flight from London.
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