Chapter Seven- Surprises Pondered

I suppose the issue was not so much the fact that there was a pregnancy test in the bathroom, but that the test in question was showing two distinct pink lines on it. I was no gynecologist, but I was fairly sure that meant pregnant.

Wow. Wow, wow, wow. My mother was having another child. It seemed almost impossible to believe. In fact, I wouldn't even be sitting here seriously considering the possibility if I had not seen the proof with my own eyes. I was not one to dwell on things, but I just could not stop thinking about this. As I slowly ate and showered and got myself ready for school, I was unconsciously pondering the events which may have led to this situation. An accident? A lack of protection? Possibly...although I was fairly sure that my parents' sexual relationship had ended with my conception. But what if...what if they had purposefully, knowingly, intentionally set about to create another child? Had our mother, even as she knitted socks for Aunt Anita's baby, hoped to knit another pair for a child of her own? Had she, as she spent hours by her sister's side, perhaps hoped that sometime soon, a similar bump would adorn her belly? Had she, as she placed her fingers to feel the gentle kicks of life, hoped that a different set of feet might nudge her own stomach? I did not know the answers to these questions, but I hoped I would find out soon. I had no idea how I felt about this all, but I hoped I would find that out soon, too.
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Hours later, it was dinner once again.
I had begun to regard my mother with a strange, new light. I kept watching, waiting...it was as if I expected her to throw up any minute. I wonder if the others knew anything about all this. I had disposed of the incriminating test as soon as I had recovered from my paralyzing shock, but it was still possible that someone else had seen it before then. I remembered Pavni, and how she had spent half the evening in the bathroom the night before. And, even then, Pavni might already have heard it firsthand. On the rare occasions that my mother deigned to speak about issues like these, it was often to my older sister. After all, I was the baby. I was Little Laila. I hadn't even started my period yet! I thought again of my mother, and how she wouldn't be getting hers for a while now. Perhaps that would improve her mood. Then I remembered that pregnancy was a similar happening to the menstrual cycle in that it caused imbalanced hormone levels. Ah well, what was my mother without her all too frequent mood swings?
After dinner, I was about to go up to my room when I was hastily stopped by Saawan. "What?" I asked wearily. After the day's discoveries, I was just about ready to go to bed.
"Nothing. Uhhhmmmm... what's Pavni up to these days?"
"Meaning?"
"Meaning... what's wrong with her?"
"Nothing's wrong with her." I suppressed a laugh as a frustrated expression replaced the worry on his face and I remember that I had asked him what was basically the same question a few days previously.
"My mates say she hangs around that...that boy...all the time."
"Which one?" I am genuinely interested now, for this is news to me.
His brow furrowed as he fought to remember. "Javed? Yes, I think that's it. Javed."
Javed! I do know him! Everyone knows him. He has a horrible record for chatting up girls, making them fall for him, and then dumping them for the next one. But Pavni, possessed by him? I didn't think so.
I told a bewildered Saawan so, and then went up to bed. I had had a bucketful of information today, and I was quite sure I didn't want any more.