Sunlight glinting off the clear glass jug of lemonade pierces my eyes. My father waves at me, but I’ve already turned back to the shade. For a few seconds, I'm light-blind. I squint and slide my hand across the cool, deep grass. Fingertips touch the hem of Purvi’s skirt; I get up on all fours and shift closer to her. Her school uniform is crumpled and grass-stained – she’s always been such a slob.
I start sticking dry ochre leaves into her baby fine wavy hair. She’s probably an elf with her pointy little ears, skin like cool, damp mud, and delicate birdlike bones. Or simply a bird. When we were younger, I used to tell my mother that Purvi turned into a sparrow and flew away every evening. Look at her now – her high cheekbones glistening with sweat, small thin hands fluttering on the grass, and her growing, ridiculous, adorable belly.
She whispers something I can’t catch. I tilt her chin so that she’s facing me. She screams – long, and shrill. Her parents and mine rush at us from the veranda. Someone topples the jug of lemonade, and for a moment, the wet grass sparkles like broken glass.
***
She’s still screaming as we sit huddled in the back seat. She’s squeezing my hand, and I'm so glad she wants me. A few minutes from the hospital the little bird has exhausted herself. This is how she is, she suddenly builds up to an explosion and falls back, utterly drained.
***
The white hospital corridor turns into a tube of speculation as we wait for the doctor to return. Food poisoning? Amoebiosis? At one point, Purvi’s father asks me if she’d swallowed a G.I. Joe, and I tell him she stopped doing that 9 years ago. Anyway, she would only gobble the heads. I think of how the toy heads are only a little smaller than a sparrow’s eggs.
The doctor returns, his face blank and frozen. We all look at the offering in his outstretched hands. My father faints, and so does Purvi’s mother. I take the ugly, wriggling red monster into my arms. I wonder if girls are called daddy, too.
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