"Oh, darlin', don't you ever grow up
Don't you ever grow up
Just stay this little
Oh, darlin', don't you ever grow up
Don't you ever grow up
It could stay this simple
I won't let nobody hurt you
Won't let no one break your heart
And no one will desert you"
~Never Grow Up - Taylor Swift

They arrived in two waves over three days.

Maa and Baba first. Then Ivaan, Rishvik, and Ziva. Then Dadu and Dadi. Then Chachu and  Chachi, who arrived on the third day with an entire suitcase of things Dadi had sent because she did not trust the courier.

The penthouse, which had been designed for three, became something considerably more.

I stood in the middle of the living room on the first evening of full occupancy and looked at all of them and thought:

This is mine. These people are mine. I arrived with nothing and now I cannot move without being loved from seven directions simultaneously.

Maa came through the door first.

She looked at me—at the full curve of my stomach, undeniable now, visible—and her face did the thing it always did: immediately, completely warm.

She crossed the room and put her hands on either side of my face.

"Beta," she said. Everything she'd been holding across the months of video calls and phone updates finding somewhere to land.

I leaned in.

She held me.

Baba stood at the door with the bags.

Thirty seconds.

"Should I put these down," he said, "or continue standing here indefinitely."

"Put them down, Baba," I said, from inside Maa's arms.

He set the bags down. Then he crossed the room and put his hand on my shoulder.

Brief. Steady.

"Good," he said. One word. His whole speech.

~

Baba started going on morning walks with me.

We walked the California morning streets, the two of us. He didn't fill silence unnecessarily. That was one of his qualities I had always valued and now valued even more.

On the third walk, he handed me a piece of paper.

Folded. His handwriting.

"I've been thinking," he said. "About what you'll need to know. I made a list."

I unfolded it.

Seventeen items, precise and thorough.

Number three:

"Tell her she is doing well. Often. Even when she already knows it. Especially then."

Number nine:

"When she is tired, don't ask what you can do. Just do the nearest thing that needs doing."

Number fourteen:

"She will carry more than her share without saying so. Your job is to notice before she has to ask."

I looked at my father.

"You researched," I said.

"I had time," he said simply. "I wanted to be useful."

I folded the list carefully.

"Baba—"

"Don't," he said. Not unkindly. The way he said things when he meant:

it doesn't need to be a moment. It just needs to be done.

We walked.

The list went in my notebook that evening.

~

Baba's care was different from Maa's, but it was there in everything.

He moved things off shelves before I could reach them. He walked on the outside of the pavement when we went out. He never commented on these things; he simply did them, as if adjusting the world around me was the most natural activity he had.

One afternoon I found him in the kitchen.

Not cooking—just standing there, looking at the layout. Then, methodically, rearranging the things I used most to the lower shelves where I wouldn't have to stretch.

He didn't know I was watching.

I stood in the doorway and watched Aadhir Rathore quietly reorganize a kitchen so his pregnant daughter-in-law would have an easier day.

I had to go back to the bedroom so he wouldn't see me cry.

Later I told Aadyant.

He was quiet for a moment.

"He doesn't do things loudly," he said. "He just does them."

"I know," I said. "That's the most Rathore thing anyone has ever said."

He smiled. "I'll take that."

~

Maa took over the kitchen within forty-eight hours.

This was not a hostile action. It was inevitable, the way weather was inevitable.

She had arrived with ingredients. Actual ingredients, packed in containers in her suitcase, labelled in Dadi's handwriting.

"Maa, this is luggage, not a grocery delivery—"

"Your wife needs proper food. That bread she's been eating—"

"The bread is from a very good bakery—"

"I'm making khichdi, sabzi, and the sweet potato thing your Dadi said she's been wanting. Move."

I moved.

Kashvi appeared in the kitchen doorway. She smelled the cooking and her face did the thing it did when something was exactly right.

"Maa," she said, and sat at the island without being asked.

And that was it.

Two of them in the kitchen every morning. Maa cooking, Kashvi keeping her company with warm lemon water because we had learned that warm lemon water worked better than anything for the mornings. Not talking about anything important. Just existing together.

I would come in for coffee and find them mid-conversation about something small—a recipe, a memory, something Maa had noticed from the window—and feel, every single time, the warm certainty of things having turned out right.

~

Dadu arrived on the second day and walked into the penthouse with the quiet authority of a man who had been to many rooms and had decided the measure of each one.

He looked around.

Then he looked at me.

"You look well," he said.

"I feel well," I said. "Thank you for coming."

"Where else would I be," he said, which was the most warmth I had heard from him outside of Jodhpur, and which settled something in me.

Dadi came in behind him and immediately opened her arms.

I walked into the hug.

"I have so many things to tell you," she said. "About the third trimester. About what to eat. About what your grandmother told my mother. About—"

"After tea," Dadu said.

"After lemon water," I corrected. "We're doing lemon water now."

Dadu raised an eyebrow.

"The doctor recommended it," I said. "For the mornings."

He considered this. Then nodded with the expression of someone accepting new information and filing it appropriately.

"Lemon water then," he said. "And then your grandmother will tell you everything your great-great-grandmother said about childbirth."

Dadi, already in the kitchen: "It is VERY useful information, Vikram—"

"Nobody said it wasn't."

"You made that face—"

"I don't have a face—"

I looked at Aadyant.

He looked at me.

His expression said:

this is where I get it from.

~

Mihir Chachu and Mahika Chachi arrived on the third day with a suitcase full of things Dadi had sent and the warm, uncomplicated energy of people who were simply very happy to be there.

Mahika Chachi hugged me the way she hugged everyone: completely, without measuring.

"You look beautiful," she said. "The glow is real. I told Mihir, I said the glow is absolutely real—"

"The glow is sweat," I said. "The AC in the bedroom isn't strong enough."

She laughed.

"Let me fix that," she said, and produced from her bag a small portable fan that she pressed into my hands. "I thought you might need one. I brought two."

Mihir Chachu came in behind her and shook Aadyant's hand, then turned to me with the specific warm formality that was his way.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

"Good days and difficult days," I said honestly.

"That's the correct answer," he said. "Anyone who says only good days is lying."

He sat down at the table and over the course of the next hour managed to make me laugh three times without appearing to try, which I suspected was a skill he had cultivated over many years and many family gatherings.

That evening, Mahika Chachi sat beside me on the couch and took my hand.

"I didn't say this to Aadyant," she said quietly, "because he doesn't need to hear it. But I want to say it to you." She squeezed my hand. "You are exactly what this family needed. Not the baby—although the baby is wonderful. You. Kashvi. The way you move through this family." She paused. "We were a little—complete before. But you made us better. I wanted you to know."

I looked at her.

"Thank you," I said.

She patted my hand and picked up her book.

That was all.

That was everything.

~

Ivaan walked through the door, looked at Kashvi's stomach, and said "WHOA" at a volume that was not appropriate for any hour of the day.

Then he immediately looked horrified.

"That came out wrong—I meant—you look incredible, I just—it's bigger than the screen—"

"There's a whole baby in there," Kashvi said helpfully. "He takes up space."

"He?" Ivaan said.

"We think so," Kashvi said.

Ivaan processed this.

"A nephew," he said, slowly. Then louder: "I'M GETTING A NEPHEW—"

"IVAAN—" I started.

"RISHVIK I'M GETTING A NEPHEW—"

Rishvik, from behind him: "I heard. Inside voice."

"THERE ARE NO INSIDE VOICES FOR THIS KIND OF NEWS—"

"There absolutely are—"

"CAN I FEEL—" He was already moving toward Kashvi, hands out.

"Wash your hands first," Kashvi said, without missing a beat.

He washed his hands with such focused seriousness that Rishvik and I both had to look away.

He placed both hands on Kashvi's stomach with the reverence of someone holding something priceless.

A kick.

Right on cue.

Ivaan's face went through something enormous and wordless.

He sat down on the floor.

Just, sat down.

"I need a minute," he said, from the floor.

"Take it," Kashvi said.

~

Ziva arrived with Rishvik and came in with the energy of someone who had been thinking about this visit for two months.

She hugged me, then stepped back and looked at me properly.

"How are you actually?" she said. Not performing the question. Actually asking it.

"Some days are hard," I said. "Some days are fine. Some days are wonderful."

"That's honest," she said approvingly. "What do you need right now? Not in general. Right now."

I thought about it.

"Honestly? Someone to sit with me while I talk to the baby. I do it alone and it feels a little strange. Aadyant does it too but he's—he goes on at length."

Ziva blinked.

"You talk to the baby?"

"Every day."

She sat down beside me immediately.

"Okay. How do we—do you just start? Do you need a specific topic?"

"You just start."

She looked at my stomach.

Then, very matter-of-factly: "Hi. I'm Ziva. Your Bua. I'm seventeen and I'm going to teach you everything your parents don't know, which is more than they think." She glanced at me. "Is that okay?"

"Perfect," I said.

She nodded.

"I'm also going to teach you how to fold a fitted sheet," she continued. "Your Ivaan Chachu cannot do it and it drives Dadi crazy. I'll start you early."

I laughed.

The baby kicked.

"He agrees," I said.

Ziva looked delighted.

"He's got good taste already."

~

The penthouse at seven PM with the full Rathore family in it was—

There was no word for it.

Maa in the kitchen. Baba at the reading table. Dadi telling Chachi something about a recipe with great authority. Dadu on the balcony watching the city. Chachu and Aadyant in some kind of business conversation that Aadya was occasionally contributing to from the couch. Ivaan attempting to teach Rishvik a card game that Rishvik kept winning at without meaning to. Ziva beside me on the floor, design file open, but this time not about clothes.

"What are you working on?" I asked her.

"A list," she said. "Of things I want to teach him. Not fashion. Just—things." She showed me her phone. "How to tell when someone is lying. How to apologize properly. How to read a room. How to ask for help without it costing them too much."

I looked at the list.

It was three pages long.

"Ziva," I said.

"He's going to be a Rathore," she said simply. "The world is going to have a lot of expectations. I want him to know the things that aren't in the manual."

I stared at her.

Seventeen years old. Three pages of things she wanted to teach my child about being human.

"You're going to be extraordinary," I said.

She shrugged.

"I know," she said. "I've been working on it."

That evening, when the family had distributed themselves across the penthouse and the noise had settled into the comfortable rhythm of people who loved each other, I put my hand on my stomach.

"Can you hear all of this?" I said quietly. Talking to him the way I did in the evenings now. Softly, so no one else heard, just the two of us.

A kick.

"I know," I said. "It's a lot of people. But every single one of them is here because of you." A pause. "You have no idea what you've done to this family already. You've made everyone softer. Even your Dadu, and that's genuinely remarkable."

Another kick.

I smiled.

"We're going to be okay," I told him. "All of us. Together."

Aadyant appeared beside me, drawn by some instinct he had developed over months.

He put his hand next to mine on my stomach.

Felt the kick.

Looked at me.

"Telling him things?" he said.

"Always," I said.

He pressed a kiss to my temple.

"Good," he said. "Keep going."

~

The best time was late morning, when the penthouse found a brief window of quiet.

Maa would be on a call with Jodhpur. Baba would be reading. Aadya and the cousins out somewhere.

And I would sit in the armchair by the window with the California sun coming in, and talk to him.

"Shona. Everyone is making such a fuss about you already and you haven't even arrived yet. Your Ivaan Chachu has been awake at all hours. Your Dadi called three times today. Three. It's been six hours."

A kick.

"I agree. It's a lot. But it's love, and you're going to learn the difference between those two things very quickly in this family—loud is love. Quiet is also love. Your Dadu barely speaks and he loves you more than I think even he has fully processed yet."

I shifted slightly.

"I have something to tell you. I found out yesterday." I took a breath. "Your Nanu and Nani—my parents—they're trying. They call sometimes. It's not fixed yet, maybe it never will be completely. But they asked about you. My mother asked if I had a name in mind yet." A pause. "I said we were still deciding. But I think I know. I think I've known for a while."

He kicked.

"I'm not ready to say it yet," I said quietly. "Not out loud. Not until I'm completely sure it's right. But I'm close.. I can feel it."

He kicked. Long and deliberate.

"Yeah," I said softly. "You'll be the first to know. I promise."

The sun came through the window.

And somewhere in the building, Ivaan knocked something over.

"SEE," I said to my stomach. "This is what I mean. This is your family. You're going to have your hands very full."

~

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