Breaking Water Read Online Free Page A

guided her, at times. It is not easy to touch her. She is fragile. But I understand your fear. We are married so that I may shelter her in this new life; that is all. I want to protect her, from men who would do what you are afraid of, from men who would take her and let her rot in a cell or a grave. I want to protect her from the birds in the sky and the dogs on the street.”
    â€œI’m not afraid of what anyone will do to my daughter. They’ve already done what they will. Taken her. Taken her from me. Why is she like that? The flowers,” the mother said, out of breath.
    â€œIt helps with the smell. In summer, she would be gone by now. But she’s strong. She ate meat from the sacrificed goats, wanted to eat it. She tried to eat me, I think, when she first bit me. But it’s just a habit that she remembers. I saw the meat sit in her stomach and make it big, like a baby in her.”
    Like a baby, I thought, and felt spots appear in my vision. I blinked them back, sweaty, the stench clinging to my throat.
    â€œShe threw up many times, and it was still just meat and maggots. The body will not take food in death. It rots in her. Eating is not good for her, I think. Now I don’t feed her. She is happier. She tells me when I’m asleep.”
    I could see the mother’s hands trembling, grasped tightly together over her stomach, her womb. The mask was soaked through. “I’d thank you, Guru, if that’s what you call yourself,” she whispered.
    â€œI’m sorry, Mother, I can’t hear very well; this fever fills my head. The poison of the bites has its toll, even if it’s a gift.”
    â€œI said, I’d thank you, Guru, if that’s what you call yourself,” she said, voice shaking.
    â€œThat’s what they call me, Mother. Guru Yama. I’d be honoured if you called me son,” he said, bowing his head.
    I glanced at the corpse. I saw its distended eyes move in their sockets, looking at us from under the coils of marigolds. I took shallow breaths.
    â€œI’d thank you, Guru,” the mother said again, not calling him son, “for guarding my daughter from the kind of people who took her away from me. I’d thank you if I knew that you weren’t the one who killed her and threw her naked in the river, as if she were garbage.”
    â€œNo, Mother. No, no, no,” he said. He looked genuinely dismayed by this suggestion, his eyes widening.
    â€œYou found her; how do I know?” she asked, coughing. I flinched as her daughter rustled under the flowers, breaking from whatever mordant meditation she was suspended in.
    I touched the mother’s shoulder. “Ma’am, there were witnesses who saw him finding her; she washed up on the ghat…” I reminded her.
    â€œWhat if that thing isn’t even my daughter?” she said, taking off her glasses.
    â€œIt is,” I whispered. “I looked at the footage, compared the photos. We can ask the police to do a DNA test, but I don’t know if that would work at this stage of decomposition. If you claim her, we can get her to a morgue before she starts falling apart completely.”
    â€œNo. I don’t want that. She’s already gone. That … She doesn’t look like my daughter anymore,” she said, her voice so very small.
    The creature under the flowers crooned as gas escaped her mouth. It sounded eerily like song, and who’s to say it wasn’t? I saw the guru look at her, and I noticed his eyes were wet as well. Was it the accusation? Empathy for her mother?
    The corpse moved its fake-looking hand, the skin stretched like a latex glove half–blown up. And, to my shock, she raised that grotesque hand and wobbled the flower into her thick blue lips, eating it, the petals glowing bright against her black-and-brown teeth. The guru pointed. “Look: like I taught her, Mother. Like I taught her. I taught your daughter not to eat,