A Breath of Fresh Air by Amulya Malladi

Amar. There would be no fighting, no yelling, and no screaming in front of our son. He would see the world around him as a happy place, not a devastating one.
    Amar patted my hand to comfort me and I choked on tears. This was not living—this was the purest kind of hell. My sick baby had to comfort me.
    Amar’s doctor repeated what Amar had said earlier. Amar was getting weaker and his lungs were not getting any better.
    “The inflammation is not going down and the scar tissue is spreading in his lungs,” Doctor Anand Raman said. “I wish I could say something else. But considering how things were, Amar is very lucky.”
    Lucky?
    “You are lucky to be alive, Anjali,” he said, when he saw the anger in my eyes.
    We’d had this discussion several times. I would always vent that no one had bothered to tell me that the Bhopal gas tragedy had left its mark on my womb. I wish someone had told me that having a child would be dangerous to the child, that any child I had would be affected by that fateful night in Bhopal when so many lost their lives and so many were left wounded forever.
    Amar got his shots and I shelled out over six hundred rupees for his medication for the week and the doctor’s visit. All his pills went into a red wooden box that sat on his bedside table. On the box, Amar had himself painted the words Amar’s Medicine . He had painted the box five years ago, when he was seven, right after his heart surgery, which we had hoped would cure him. He had told me, “When I stop using the box, I will still keep it.” Then, he had had hope that someday the box would be empty and he would be a normal child. Now, five years later as his condition deteriorated, he seemed to be changing his mind about life and death.
    Komal was sitting in front of the television when Amar and I got home. She looked up at us but didn’t say anything, and I wondered once again why she hated me so much. Our relationship from the beginning had been tenuous, now it was worse. Familiarity was breeding contempt, just as the old cliché promised.
    Amar sat down on the sofa next to Komal, tired after being out and tired from the shots that kept him breathing.
    “We are having Gopi and Sarita for dinner,” I told Komal. She nodded without looking at me.
    Gopi and Sarita were coming with their two children, Ajay and Shalini. Two healthy, adorable children. They were our closest friends, had been with us through the worst and the best of times, yet I was envious of their children. They went to school and didn’t get tired after walking for five minutes.
    As I headed for the kitchen, Komal made a sound, something in between a curse and a prayer.
    I sighed. “Can you come into the kitchen with me, Komal?”
    Once in the kitchen, I decided to stop beating around the bush. “What have I done now?” I asked flatly.
    Komal looked away, not saying anything.
    “Oh come on, if you don’t tell me, how am I supposed to know?” I insisted.
    She sniffled and I thought it was a mistake to have asked her at all. The woman was being melodramatic, while I had to cook for guests.
    “Today is his . . . death anniversary,” she said, and sniffled some more. “No one has done anything. I wanted to go to the temple, but Sandeep is not here to take me and I can’t walk to the temple, my knee is bothering me again.”
    “Why didn’t you tell us?” I asked. It was an important day for her. I had other problems to deal with and couldn’t keep track of the days someone died on.
    “You should know. My own brother doesn’t remember. I have no family.” She started sobbing.
    I patted her shoulder awkwardly, unsure of how to comfort her. I couldn’t imagine life without Sandeep—and suddenly I felt a pang of guilt for treating Komal the way I did. She was a widow, a pariah in society. She was going to live like this for the rest of her life. Nothing was going to change. She was forever going to be a burden to someone.
    In some ways she was in the same