shundori komola naache (the beautiful orange dances) — Samia Mimo
What does it mean to be a man’s bitch?
It means to change out of shorts and into pants when Uncle Kamal comes over. It means moving forward when the neighborhood men gaze at you with a cigarette and sin in their mouths. It means head up, eyes down: (confident enough to not seem scared, docile enough to not threaten them.) It means a girl, a boy, a drink or three. One heartbeat, two. Two pink lines and tears. It means craving mercy.
Asmaa slumps on the sofa as she burns holes into the tissue hiding the pregnancy test on the table. She hates the little plastic thing, the sight of her mistakes and wondering where her life began controlling her rather than the other way around. The TV hums in the background as she clicks on the first news channel that shows up on the YouTube homepage.
“One in three women now live in states where abortion is not accessible,” the news anchor’s voice drones on—completely deattached, cold, as if this was an issue far from her. “Out of just over a million abortions provided in clinics, hospitals, and doctors’ offices, more than 161,000— or 16% —were for people who crossed state lines to get them.”
Something scarier than guilt and larger than fear sits in her throat as her eyes follow the images of Planned Parenthood's closing down. Her fingers tremble and she clicks the red power button just before her mother comes back from the backyard. Her mother’s eyes have something heavy in them, acceptance maybe, as she asks. “What is it?”
For a moment, Asmaa wonders if this has already happened. It had. Two decades ago in a kitchen in the Bangladeshi villages. But there had been no tests then, only an inflated belly and a new mouth to feed. It had been her, the thing that ruined her mother’s life in a way that Asmaa will never be able to repay. Her arrival forced her father to get another job, filled him with rage until he only saw his wife as a way to take it out on. It was only for her sake that her mother stayed, that her mother didn’t kill herself by slipping off wet mud into the lake. “আমি তোমার জন্য মরতে পারিনি। আমি সবকিছু ছেড়ে যেতে চেয়েছিলাম.” I couldn’t die because of you. But I wanted to leave.
“I don’t want it,” she says, in lieu of actually responding. “Please, Ammu, I can’t do this.”
Ammu’s dupatta seems to swallow her as she stares into Asmaa’s belly. A flicker of disgust passes before she blinks it away. “‘I can’t do this.’ Chhi! Not want what? Sanjiv is a good boy. It is a good thing.”
“Ma.” Emotions burn in her heart, the same that have collected there since eleven. “Sanjiv is never home. He leaves for work before I wake up and comes back whenever he wants. সে good dad হবে না.” He won’t be a good dad. Ammu goes to the kitchen and reaches for the loose tea and the pot. This is how her Ammu had been—mean and always running from something. “Your dad hit me, you know.”
Asmaa looks into the kitchen at the steam billowing. Of course he had. Asmaa was no stranger to abuse either. “আপনি কি মনে করেন Sanjiv not at home থাকাটা একটা bad thing? Allah knows, I wanted ওরকমই একজন স্বামী.” You think it’s a bad thing that Sanjiv is not home? Allah knows I wanted a husband like that.
Asmaa’s eyes sting. “But Ammu, আমি তোমার মতো নই.” But Mom, I’m not like you. One cup of doodh cha gets set down in front of her. “No, you are not. আরও ভালো.” Even better.
Asmaa has nothing more to say. What can she say to this woman who let herself be broken for her children?
So when her mother fusses over her thinning hair and spreads Amla oil into it, Asmaa lets her.
“You need a boy,” Ammu mutters while braiding. “Boys are good.”
“Ma—”
“I wanted a girl. Always. Your dad পুরোনো ধ্যানধারণার মানুষ ছিলেন. আর সবার মতোই তিনিও প্রথমে wanted a son.” Asmaa knows. She grew up watching Aarav receive a love that never came to her. “But Ammu, I won’t have this baby. It’ll kill me. Sanjiv বা I কেউই বাচ্চার জন্য ready নই.”
“This is how you pay me?” Ammu tugs her hair. “আমি সবার কাছে তোমার পক্ষ নিয়েছিলাম. যখন সবাই তোমার সম্পর্কে খারাপ কথা বলছিল, তখন আমি আল্লাহর কাছে প্রার্থনা করেছিলাম যেন তিনি তোমাকে ভালোবাসেন.” I defended you to everyone. When they spoke ill of you, I prayed to Allah that he would love you.
“I’m sorry I disappointed you, Ma. I’m sorry I can’t do anything right. হয়তো এটা একটা ভুল ছিল.” Maybe it was a mistake. Ammu nods. “হয়তো তাই ছিল.” Maybe it was.
“What is it, Asmaa, you know I’m tired.” Sanjiv groans while smelling unfamiliar.
“I’m pregnant.”
Sanjiv looks at her belly then her face. “I can’t have this baby. We didn’t plan this and you know how important my work is—”
“I know because it’s all you ever do!”
They used to know each other. Now they can only understand each other over alcohol.
“What do you want me to do?” Sanjiv asks her.
“I don’t know. Ammu wants me to keep it. Your Maa would too.”
“I’ll talk with your Ma. Then I’ll pay for whatever.”
They don’t say the word— abortion —but it hangs in the air.
Sanjiv turns away, dropping into his side of the bed. Their apartment is too quiet for a married couple: they just coexist politely.
‘Fuck my life.’ Asmaa never wanted to be married, but her mother had started buying gold wedding jewelry when she was fifteen. She turns to look at Sanjiv’s sleeping face. She figured out his secret: the way his smile dropped when relatives asked about children, rose for certain men, and how intimacy was a task for him. They’re alike, two people pretending enough that it feels real.
Asmaa learned early perfection was survival. In her father’s house, one good day meant one bad day and then silence. She took the small violences so Ammu wouldn’t.
Abbu never hit hard enough to leave marks. His anger lived in his eyes, in his voice, in his fists. She learned to pick up on her parents’ emotions as soon as she learned to hold a spoon.
Ammu endured it all with a silence that terrified Asmaa more than the shouting ever did.
“If you want a divorce, sign.” Abbu threw a pen and paper in front of her still Ammu. There was a frightening calm in his voice, something so unlike his bout of yelling prior. Ammu hadn’t moved, which infuriated him even more. “SIGN!” He bellowed, tearing apart the boxes that kept the official documents. He tore her Ammu’s bachelors degrees and some of her other documents. Asmaa watched as her mother’s youthful face tore down the middle. It wasn’t enough. It was never enough. He shoved the hari patil of rice into the sink and burned the shreds of her documents. “NO!” She cried. But her tears never worked. Then the night passed in a blur of silence until Asmaa woke up next morning to her mother cleaning the spilled rice. Ammu would never look at her, too ashamed and too familiar with this exact sequence of events. She’d tie Asmaa’s hair and pretend like yesterday night never happened.
Once, Asmaa tried to intervene. She was eleven years old, taller and braver—or maybe just tired. Abbu’s eyes burned holes into her and still she stood solid. She pretended she was strong because if she hadn’t, she would have let him know just how terrified she was and that wouldn’t do. “সরুন!” Move! It didn’t taste like bravery or victory at all, but Abbu hit them less when he found out she wouldn’t just accept the violence.
Ammu still wouldn’t budge from her silence. “এটাকে চলে যেতে দিন.” Just let it pass.
Would that become her and Sanjiv? Would he become so exhausted that he too would become violent like Abbu? Would she become a shell of who she was, her smile a mark of her youth, just like Ammu? Would this unknown and unwanted thing in her womb have to understand young that love was something to be rationed carefully, a lesson that she and Sanjiv learned differently?
Next morning, Sanjiv is gone but Asmaa finds a pot of still warm doodh cha on the stove. It doesn’t mean anything; she doesn’t deserve him and he will never want her. But she sips the cha as she scrolls on her phone: clinics closing, laws tightening, women crossing state lines. Roe v. Wade spoke of in the past tense, as if the livelihoods of half a nation could be struck down with a 5-4 decision.
She thinks of her mother, younger than she is now and pregnant, standing in a kitchen half a world away with no test and no choice. Could Roe have saved Ammu? What if Ammu never vouched for her and let her be killed as a newborn? Aarav would’ve been Ammu’s firstborn and maybe nothing would have gone wrong for her mother.
“ব্যথা আমাদের নারীদের আরও শক্তিশালী তোলে.” Pain makes us women strong.
“No, Ma, pain makes us tired.”
“Same thing, no?”
***
Sanjiv rings the doorbell of his in-law’s house as he shifts the box of mishti doi in his hands. He doesn’t know what pressured him to come here, and has no right to after disrupting both his and Asmaa’s life. But he told Asmaa he’d talk to her mother and now he stands on the porch stupidly.
His mother-in-law opens the door and smiles brightly when she sees him. “Assalamu alaikum, Sanjiv. What is that? আপনি কেন এসেছিলেন?” Why did you come?
He smiles back at her and raises the box higher. “Wa Alaikum Salam, Maa. This is mishti doi. আসমা সম্পর্কে তোমার সাথে আমার কথা বলতে হবে.” I have to talk to you about Asmaa.
Her mouth twitches as she hears her daughter’s name but she moves to open the door wider. She’s already back in the kitchen by the time Sanjiv takes off his shoes and sits on the sofa. He opens the box of yogurt at the same time his mother-in-law brings over two cups of rong cha and two bowls, even though they both take only one spoonful of yogurt.
“আসমা সম্পর্কে বিষয়টি কী?” What is it about Asmaa? Sanjiv can’t tell if it comes from a place of judgement, disgust, or genuine care. “আসমা আল্লাহ তোমাদের দুজনকে যে সুন্দর নেয়ামত দিয়েছেন, তা দেখতে পায় না. A child is good.” Asmaa doesn’t see the beautiful blessing Allah gave you two.
Sanjiv puts down his cup of half-empty tea before he decides to make the rashest decision of his life. But lying is what he’s best at. “Maa, আসমা গতকাল রাতে তার সন্তানকে হারিয়েছে.” Asmaa lost the baby last night.
His mother-in-law drops her spoon and it clatters loudly on the floor. They have the same frown, but her frown is devastation while his is guilt. “I’m sorry.”
Of all emotions his mother-in-law could be experiencing—grief, shock, anger—she chooses acceptance. “Ok. Treat her good.” Her eyes are dead set, but there’s a desperation in her voice. “আসমা হওয়ার আগে আমি একটি সন্তান হারিয়েছিলাম. তখন সময়টা অন্যরকম ছিল. আমার সাথে ভালো ব্যবহার করা হয়নি. You must be nice.” I lost a baby before I had Asmaa. It was a different time then. I wasn’t treated kindly.
“I’m sorry—”
“Promise me this, Sanjiv.”
He looks into her face, wrinkled and old, though all the same features Asmaa has. “I promise.”
His mother-in-law’s face calms for a moment before turning pale as they hear footsteps upstairs. “Go,” she shoos him out the door. “Remember what I said.”
***
The wedding ring on her finger suddenly feels too heavy as the cursor on her laptop blinks. Asmaa types abortion clinics near me and deletes it. Types it again. Abortion feels too much like taboo and a conclusion. Her pulse rings in her ears so loud she looks up to make sure nobody’s around to listen. The search takes a minute to load and it makes her knee shake all the more.
Closed down. Not offering abortion services. Needs judicial bypass. Temporarily closed. Every yellow warning feels like a crime she didn’t commit. She scrolls until she finds the official Planned Parenthood abortion access page. Her fingers are clumsy and the sweat on her palms only makes it worse. She thinks of borders, women driving through the night, the statistics read by unaffected news anchors, the unnamed girls who died when an abortion could’ve saved them. She thinks about her mother in a village kitchen with no frantic search bars, no easy way out.
The website recommends her a clinic ten miles and a forty-minute drive away. Bold letters at the top warn her about state laws, changing regulations, and eligibility requirements. Her fingers hover over the touchpad. What if this moment is traced? IP addresses and searches, all proof with no cover-ups. The fear nearly makes her click out of the tab.
Asmaa continues clicking through the questions. What kind of service? Date of birth? Last menstrual period? Preference over abortion procedure? Would you like a telehealth visit? Is it okay to refer to ourselves as Planned Parenthood if we call? Is an interpreter needed? What date and time for the appointment? Is this information correct? What’s the most important thing that needs to be addressed during your appointment?
She keeps answering questions even though her mind screams don’t write this down, don’t make it real! Once it exists on the internet, it can’t be erased from the internet. It took five minutes for this simple search to become evidence.
Appointments are limited due to increasing demand. She sighs as her vision becomes blurred. Asmaa’s only one of many in this terrifying situation. How many other women will she never know but are going through this same pain she is? Will they just become part of another statistic?
She clicks September 02, 2022 at 2:40 PM.
The screen pauses before it loads and pauses again. ‘If it doesn’t load, it has to be a sign,’ she thinks. She won’t have to decide this right now, by herself on a lonely Tuesday morning.
It loads. A large green checkmark fills the confirmation page.
Her chest heaves but she’s done it. Asmaa shoves her fingers into her hair as she waits for regret to sink in. It doesn’t. What comes is terror and relief. She breathes and it feels haunting, but she continues pushing air in and out of her lungs as the laptop screen dims out. She positively jumps as her phone lights up with a call. Sanjiv?
“Hello?” She asks tentatively, as if Sanjiv knows what she just did.
“I talked with your Amma. Don’t worry about it.”
“Okay.” Asmaa says. She doesn’t ask what he said, what Ammu might’ve said.
The sounds of the road continue for longer as none of them hang up the call. It feels oddly nice, like when her mother would remain on Messenger calls to her sisters for hours while cooking.
“Would you be free on September 2 at around 1:30 to—I don’t know—5:30?”
“Not particularly,” Sanjiv’s voice replies professionally. “Why?”
“Because I scheduled the abortion at 2:40 on September 2nd.”
The silence on the other end of the call would be slightly funny if Asmaa didn’t feel like throwing up.
“I…guess I’ll have to find time.”
“Yes,” Asmaa breathes. “I guess you will.”
September 02 is strangely calm. Sanjiv goes to work early in the morning as always but he tucks her in, steeps the tea before he goes, and is back by one. Asmaa dresses silently, something casual and comfortable. She looks at herself in the mirror, looking so incredibly dull and tired, but not at all doubtful of what she’s about to do soon.
Sanjiv drives her through Chesapeake. The car ride is silent, but not tense. They’d been less tense these past few days, not yet accustomed to their life but tolerant of it. He parks in the parking lot and gives her his card. It’s the kindest thing he knows how to do.
“I have my own money,” she says, looking at his card. “You don’t even know how much it is.”
“It’s $600.” He counters. “You have Maa listed as an authorized user and it’ll show up on your account. Use mine.”
She sighs and puts his card into her wallet as she opens the car door. “I never told your mother that I was pregnant, by the way.”
Sanjiv is quiet as they walk to the doors of the health center. As he opens the door for her, he says “I don’t deserve you.”
“You do,” Asmaa murmurs politely. “But you just don’t want me.”
She turns around, waits for him to walk up next to her. He looks at her and she looks at him. Asmaa hated his face on their wedding day. Maybe growing is the kindest thing she knows how to do. “We only married because of family.” She says. “But I hope the person you love knows how lucky he is.”
She watches his throat bob, his fingers clenching around nothing, but he nods. “Thank you.”
The clinic smells clean and the waiting room has many women with her same dead set eyes. Asmaa thinks of her mother’s words—I couldn’t die because of you. She thinks about how much weight that carried, how unfair it was that a child had to bear it. Asmaa will never pass that weight along.
“Hi,” she speaks to the receptionist. Her choice is finally not performance or perfection. “I have an appointment at 2:40 under the name Asmaa. A-S-M-A-A.”
Samia Mimo has grown up reading, writing, and spending too much time inside her head, despite being based in the vast NYC. She writes across multiple genres—most favorably poetry and fiction—about feminism and other political issues; her personal experiences, including trauma; and retellings of myth. Her work has been recognized by Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, and she has work published or being published in Prism Ink Magazine and Matter.