Simply put, Maya only wanted a grandchild. Seven years of marriage between Ardi and Kirana still hadn't given Maya one. Every time Maya met up with her friends, the conversation inevitably turned to grandchildren.
“My grandchild is already crawling.”
“My grandchild is hitting her milestones beautifully, too. Actually, she’s ahead of schedule. Can you believe she could let go and stand on her own at only eight months? She’s so determined to start walking by herself.”
While her friends compared notes, Maya kept her fingers busy stirring the coffee in her glass. She couldn’t join in the conversation. What was she supposed to talk about? She didn’t have any grandchildren, and her daughter-in-law, Kirana, was too busy taking care of Rose, her cat.
“Kirana, get rid of that cat! That’s why you can’t have children!”
“Cats don’t make you infertile, Mom.” Whenever Maya brought it up, her daughter-in-law always gave the same answer.
“Toxoplasmosis, Kirana.”
“Cats have a way of getting rid of toxoplasmosis through their feces. Besides, Mas Ardi is the one who cleans up after her.”
“Her feces could stick to her fur, couldn’t it? Rose has long fur, so there’s a chance it could get stuck in it.”
“Rose likes to clean herself.” At the end of their arguments, Kirana would usually head upstairs, ignoring Maya, who had only just come to visit.
Kirana was stubborn. She couldn’t take advice. And Maya’s advice was well-intentioned. It was because of her stubborn daughter-in-law that Maya still didn’t have a grandchild.
Jayanti was wrong to think that Maya had never done the same thing to Kia. Maya had also given Kirana all kinds of fertility drinks. Did she drink them? No! Once, Maya even saw one of those drinks in the trash with its seal still intact.
Kia was different. She was obedient. Kia rarely argued with her mother-in-law. Well, except when it came to advice about scheduling sex. Maya wasn’t crazy enough to install CCTV cameras just to make sure Kia followed the schedule she had given her. Still, at least Kia was willing to drink the herbal tonic Maya made. Kia was also willing to make regular appointments with an obstetrician-gynecologist to have her fertility checked. Look at the result—Kia was pregnant. Maya had been overjoyed when she heard the news.
So what was wrong with Maya calling Kirana infertile? The woman still hadn’t gotten pregnant to this day, unlike Kia, whose fertility had already been proven.
Ardi still defended Kirana, insisting that Maya’s first daughter-in-law wasn’t infertile. Jayanti flew into a rage and slapped Ardi in front of his mother. Maya could only draw a deep breath; there wasn’t much she could do. The truth was, Ardi was in the wrong.
Ardi gave Maya the silent treatment all the way home. He drove like a maniac, making Maya take deep breaths over and over again.
“What’s wrong with you? Is it because I said Kirana was infertile?”
“Kirana isn’t infertile, Mom!”
“She doesn’t have any children. What else would you call it?”
“KIRANA ISN’T INFERTILE, MOM!” Ardi jerked the car to the side of the road. The screech of tires was followed by blaring horns from the vehicles behind them.
The driver behind them got out of his vehicle. Ardi knew the situation was about to get even more complicated. So he got out and approached the driver while Maya could only watch through the car window. She had no idea what the two men were saying. All she saw was a calm exchange: Ardi bowing apologetically, the driver getting back into his car, and then Ardi not immediately returning to theirs. Maya watched him pull out his phone and call someone.
As soon as Ardi got back into the car, Maya asked,
“Who did you call?”
“A coworker,” Ardi answered curtly.