Chapter Text
Uma Mohan and Joey Perez ended up at the sperm bank on a Saturday morning, hands at their sides, bags clutched tightly, trying their best not to act like two teenaged girls who were planning to commit a federal crime.
Joey’s older sister Ashley met them at the back door entrance. Her arms were crossed at her chest as she leaned on the doorway. She was slightly shorter than her younger sister was, a little duskier, with shorter hair. She wore a pair of eyeglasses Uma had sworn she hadn’t changed in over a decade, and she had the same no-nonsense energy Joey had when it really mattered, which made it quite obvious she was very much an introverted person. Working in records was really the perfect job for her.
“Is this whole thing even legal?” Uma whispered to Joey, face blanching in nervousness. She had prayed and begged the universe for this opportunity, but the look in her eyes wasn’t hiding the fact that was starting to become quite concerned about some of the more ethico-moral considerations of this whole shindig right now.
Joey squinted disbelievingly at her friend walking beside her, mouth very slightly opening in disbelief but she’d caught herself before her older sister could psycho-analyze anything, as she usually did. “Isn’t this what you wanted, Uma Mohan?” the other girl gritted out in Uma's ear, pinching Uma’s side. That made the other girl let out a pathetic little yelp. “Who the fuck cares about the legal considerations now?”
“Yeah.” answered Uma, wincing as she rubbed at her recently pinched side. “I wanted this.”
Joey patted her on the back, “Then own the fuck up to it.” she insisted, a tight smile on her smile. “We are doing this today. We’re finding out the identity of your sperm donor. Whether you like it or not. I’m already very invested in this whole thing. If we’re not finding your father for you, then we’re finding him for me.”
That left Uma completely flabbergasted. She probably would’ve slapped anybody else who would’ve talked to her in that kind of manner. But Joana Perez was special—probably one of the only people who’d be able to pull shit like that off without getting an ass-whooping from Uma. It came with over a decade of friendship and seeing each other at their worst. All she could do was continue walking towards the doorstep as if she didn’t feel like she was going to throw up all over her shoes.
Uma Mohan has never ever been this nervous in her life–sans the time she slipped at the pool and cracked her head open when she was like seven. A head injury was in the cards then, and her usually unflappable ER doctor mother’s composure was cracking meaning that Uma also started to get anxious. And there was of course the time she fainted after realizing she’d bled through her tights and leotard when she got her first period in the middle of ballet class three years ago.
She usually dived into the daily trials and tribulations of life itself like a bull to a matador: charging at it head first.
She was stubborn as hell. Absolutely too smart for own good—even if at times she landed herself in some very inconvenient situations at times. But then again, she was very smart and usually found ways to get herself out of the sticky situations she ended up putting herself in.
Sadly, her mind was currently at an all time zero for escape plans. The only available option currently running through her mind was to run—hard and fast and never looking back—but the rational part of her brain stopped herself.
She had WANTED this opportunity, had begged Joey to make this happen, committed to doing the job, and was going to get a bit of cash out of it too. So she weighed in her options and of course—being the intelligent, rational 15 year old girl she was—decided to stay.
Today was the day they were going to find who Donor #1229 was.
“Hey, girlfriend!” Ashley called out to Uma once they got closer. She had a big smile on her face, genuinely happy to have her here today. Uma softly smiled back at her.
She’d always liked the Perez family. Samira and Jenny (Ashley and Joey’s mom) had bonded over being single parents—though Samira was a single mother by choice and Jenny was not (Uma has met Joey’s deadbeat father exactly five times in their eleven years of friendship. She has wanted to throttle him since their first meeting.). Single motherhood was hard without a community, and thankfully their moms got along great. When neither Samira nor Victoria could take Uma when she was too young to be left home alone, then she’d stay over at Joey’s place to wait her mom’s shifts out till Samira could pick her up.
“I’m so happy you’re here to help. I don’t think I could bear being here for hours with that other one over there.” Ashley then turned her gaze to her actual sister, giving her the side-eye, looking her head to toe.
Joey harumphed, rolling her own eyes. “You’re lucky we agreed to help you, asshole.”
“You’re lucky I’m paying you to be here, you little brat.” Ashley spat out back, glaring at her younger sister. Uma stifled a laugh. After the many years they’d known each other, the Perez sisters were comfortable enough to bicker around Uma without concerning her with the… interesting language they often used whilst arguing with one another.
Ashley then clapped her hands, making both girls turn their heads, getting things back on track. “Anyways, you both are here to help me do an overhaul of all the physical records because my god have we gotten so disorganized.” She announced. “Oh, also you absolutely cannot tell anybody—I mean, anybody—you’re doing this. Understood?”
The two teenaged girls nodded repeatedly in agreement and understanding.
Of course they weren’t going to tell anybody what they were going to do today. They planned on committing a criminal offense (a.k.a opening Uma’s sperm donor’s file. But that was pretty much it.) So yeah, they were going to keep their mouths shut.
The files would get organized, the girls would get paid, and Uma would finally get to know who Donor #1229 truly is.
Everybody wins.
-
A few hours later, the two girls found themselves elbow deep in the archives of records at the Baltimore Sperm Bank hours later.
They’d gone through more than half the room at this point—it was a whole cycle, taking down boxes, going through boxes, organizing files, putting the organized files back into the box, then putting the boxes back on the shelves, and then doing it all over again—and they still weren’t finished. Uma had gone through god-knows how many Donor IDs at this point (which she did not open, because a.) she had morals, and b.) they were not Donor #1229) and still had not found the one she was looking for.
“Where the hell is he?” Uma muttered under her breath, frustrated. She skimmed through another box of records, taking them out, looking at the IDs one-by-one, before realizing the specific record she was looking for was not there. She’d then get frustrated, putting the now organized files back into the box and then putting them back on the shelves. “We’ve been here for hours and we still haven’t found him!”
“That’s because there are thousands of files here, Uma Mohan.” Joey pointed out, not even looking up at her friend. She skimmed her nimble fingers through the current batch of files she was organizing, taking a look at all the numbers. No #1229, sadly. “We have all day to do this, Uma. We’re getting paid by the hour to organize all this shit. Let’s make the most out of it.”
Uma could only roll her eyes before moving on to organize the next set of files. A very old Olivia Rodrigo song, deja vu, was playing from Uma’s cellphone in the background. The girls appreciated the classics, and they collectively agreed that the whole of Olivia’s debut album, Sour, was an absolute masterpiece.
Silence—sans the sound of the air conditioning and ventilation and the sound of boxes of files being moved and organized—filled the room full of files. The girls minded their own bussiness, not speaking to each other. They’d used up all of their usual conversation topics by hour three.
They’d already talked about all the latest gossip at school—Lauren Lane was allegedly pregnant, Jaden Dunne was attempting (and failing miserably) at usurping Uma’s throne as top ranked Junior, the occasional talk about astrophysics, their realities and realizations about their current life, and about how Kaye Baez had absolutely no right to be a bitch with leotards and legwarmers as fugly as hers—the usual topic rotation for the two teenaged girls.
Uma and Joey had come to a point in their long-standing friendship (practically a sisterhood at this point) where sitting in silence didn’t mean there was anything wrong between the two of them. God, no. It just meant they’d already talked about everything under the sun and were tired of speaking to each other and needed to charge up before going for another hours-long round of conversation.
“Why don’t you tell me more about Dr. Mohan’s ex-boyfriend?” Joey asked, looking up at Uma, an almost coy little smile plastered on her face. She was failing at hiding that she really wanted her best friend to talk about it again. The chismosa in her had activated the moment Uma had brought the idea of the man up last week at their sleepover and she wouldn’t stop until got to the bottom of all the chismis.
Uma paused from what she was doing, brows furrowing together as she looked at her best friend with an expression of confusion. “Why do you want to talk about my mom’s ex-boyfriend, Joana?” she questioned back, slightly uncomfortable.
Joey shrugged, face absolutely not hiding she was very interested in hearing more about Dr. Mohan’s alleged ex-boyfriend. “I mean you mentioned reading about him in her diary at our sleepover last week. And you said he was from Maryland too, right?” She went on as she took a few files she’d sprawled out on the table and ordered them according to the numbers on their Donor IDs. “At the rate we’re going we’ll probably be able to locate your mom’s ex-boyfriend before we ever find out who donor #1229 is!”
That statement was just so hilarious that Uma just couldn’t help but let out a snort. She buried her face into her hands before bursting out into a fit of laughter, leaning over the table.
“Jesus Christ, Joana Lina Perez.” she wheezed out, clutching the table’s edge as she let out another snort. Uma’s laughter had always been very contagious, and Joey had already caught the bug. Arguments usually ended in laughter between the two of them these days, this was the prime example. “If you wanted to gossip about my mom then you could’ve told me to my face. I was probably going to end up telling you all of this eventually anyways.”
Joana Perez looked like she was the cat that got the goddamn canary.
She wouldn’t usually be open to talking about Dr. Mohan in a manner like this—not that they were talking about her vulgarly or anything worse. God no. They both were raised so much better than that. She respected both her best friend and her best friend’s mother too much to do something like that. But she just needed to know more about Dr. Mohan’s ex-boyfriend.
It just seemed so unimaginable to Joey Perez that some guy (of all people in the world, A MAN) had actually lived out to Samira Mohan’s seemingly unattainable standards.
Her younger self honestly couldn’t believe men weren’t lining up down the block to date Dr. Mohan, who was, of course, objectively so beautiful, but also incredibly full of nuance, and the one of the kindest and most generous people Joey had gotten the pleasure of knowing.
She remembers quite vividly being thirteen and Uma,then twelve, had nonchalantly brought up the fact that her mother had rejected the new Neurosurgery attending at the hospital while having lunch during their last week of eighth grade. Her thirteen year old self didn’t understand why Dr. Mohan would say no to that good of a guy. They seemed like they would’ve been the perfect couple—a neurosurgeon with one of ED attendings. But again, according to Uma, her mom said no to the date. (Uma had omitted the part of the guy asking her mother out right in front of her. In the hospital parking lot. That probably peeved both of them, especially Samira, out.)
A little later into the conversation, Joey learns that Dr. Mohan didn’t really do the whole dating thing. Uma told her she had absolutely no recollection of ever getting to meet anybody even resembling a boyfriend of her mother’s growing up. Samira Mohan’s whole world revolved around the ED and making sure her daughter grew up happy and healthy and better than she ever did. She was content with her life—Joey knew that Dr. Mohan was the last person on earth to ever need a man—but she was just dying to uncover as to why she had never decided to find love again, especially now that Uma was growing up.
“I thought about it, you know.” Uma started, turning her head towards Joey and giving her a nonchalant little tilt. She stopped her sorting of another batch of files for a moment, taking a few seconds to think about what she was going to say to her friend next. “Why Amma never dated while I was growing up.”
Both Joey’s eyebrows raised up in curiosity. She was all ears now.
“I think a big part of it was that Paati, my maternal grandmother, got together with my step-grandfather out of the blue and sold the house Amma grew up in back in New Jersey to go on some cruise." She lamented. She rested her chin onto the palm of her hand, giving her next words some thought. “That was a big shock and a very traumatizing experience for Amma. I don't think their relationship ever fully recovered after that. Honestly, if I was put in her shoes, I, too, would stop talking to my mother. And of course there was Amma not wanting strange men around her growing daughter. I think that pretty much says it all.”
They shared a knowing glance, Uma shrugging her shoulders at her best friend before continuing, “She could date if she wanted to and I honestly wouldn’t be mad. If she wanted that for herself.” Uma then goes back to attempting to organize more, fingers toying with the feel of the manila envelopes, trying to seem nonchalant. “I want Amma to be happy too, you know, because she, out of everyone I know, deserves it. She runs a whole emergency department while also dealing with mine and Tootsie’s shit all the time—if she finds somebody who loves her even half as much as she loves me, then I would willingly stomach having to share her with somebody else.”
Joey’s face softens unconsciously at that. Uma worshiped her mother (even if she found herself mildly annoyed at Samira’s ‘hovering’. Though she did end up listening to most of her mother’s advice half the time), practically kissed the ground the woman walked on, and it showed.
Joey had always been more of the hopeless romantic out of the two of them, even after her father walked out on her. She secretly believed that everybody would find their person one day—even the likes of the workaholic Dr. Mohan and Uma Mohan, her bestest friend who had sworn off love at thirteen years old.
She then nudged Uma, shooting her a little playful look. “But if your mom gets into a serious relationship, that would mean you would share your house with a man.” she joked, half-serious.
Uma shot her back with a disgusted look. The thought of a man in their house was just an implausible one. Hell, the look on Joey’s own face mirrored Uma’s after a little while of actually thinking about it properly—even she couldn’t imagine a man in the Mohan Ladies (including Tootsie)’s clean, chic, and impeccably decorated townhouse. It seemed sacrilegious doing so and it weirded both the girls out just thinking of it.
“Who says Amma exclusively dated men?” Uma shot back, teasingly, jabbing a few fingers at Joey’s side (like the girl had done to her earlier). Joey, also incredibly ticklish, jolted up from where she was sitting beside her friend. Once again back to the unserious, the two burst into laughter, as they usually did. “Honestly, having a step-mother would honestly be so much better than having a step-dad. At least the all-women status of the house would be maintained.”
Joana snickered, absolutely agreeing with her best friend’s statement “Tootsie would probably try to bite a man if he even attempted to step foot in your house.”
That made Uma cackle, leaning her head back as she did it for dramatic effect. “The little devil absolutely would!” she agreed, clapping her hands, still laughing. “She tried biting Paati’s husband the first time they came to visit after we adopted her. Thankfully Amma swooped her up before she could chomp on the poor old man’s leg.”
The thought of Tootsie Mohan chomping on a prospective boyfriend’s leg made the both of them crack up.
Uma then gets a thoughtful look on her face after that, her gaze fixed onto the different envelopes filled with all the different donors. She wonders what kind of men were in there. She wonders what her own donor was like.
Was he just like her? She knew that physically, she was very much all Samira, but personality wise? Though she and Samira had their similarities—they were usually both the smartest people in the room, just incredibly competent, quite introverted and valued their small circles and their own company, and of course had a journal article and a source for every argument they presented—there were more notable differences between the two Mohan girls. Uma wasn’t as warm as her mother was. Samira Mohan was empathetic, kind, patient, and had a heart of gold—even in the face of the horrors of the emergency department (as her daughter liked to describe it) and Uma’s teenaged melancholy.
Uma Mohan was blunt, sarcastic, had a habit of being a little shit, and honestly had no tolerance for anybody’s stupidity—especially when the solution to somebody’s problems could’ve been just them using their common sense.
To Uma, Samira was a saint, probably the second-coming of the Virgin Mary, and she, Samira’s daughter, considered herself more like Satan’s spawn rather than a Jesus-y type.
(“Kutti, if you call yourself “Satan’s spawn” then you are inadvertently calling me Satan.” Samira pointed out when Uma brought that up out of the blue one night in bed, not even looking up from her journal. That promptly shut her up.)
And of course there was their biggest and most obvious difference—Samira usually thought things through and Uma did not, most of the time.
Well, one could say Uma did think things through, actually, once she started facing the consequences of her actions she did prior to thinking things through. Once Uma wanted to do something, she was going to do it—whether the general public thought it was agreeable or not. She was too headstrong, stubborn to ever admit she was wrong.
Take this. For example, committing a federal crime was something Samira would not generally encourage her daughter to do, but her daughter, Uma, was already elbows deep in multiple donors at the sperm bank (Not literally, of course. Ew, sperm.).
“What’re you thinkin’ about, sister?” Joey asked, nudging her friend with her elbow. She had this uncanny ability to notice whenever Uma was getting too lost in her thoughts. It was something one developed being in close proximity to Uma Mohan for over a decade. “Don’t just keep those thoughts to yourself. I find them very interesting too, you know. Come on, share them with the class, Ums.”
Uma let out a dry chuckle, nudging Joana back. She leaned her head onto her friend’s shoulder, taking another moment just to soak up the calm before she inevitably stirred up the hornets’ nest by what she was going to bring up next.
“I was just thinking about what Tootsie would think about…” she hesitates for a moment, thinking about whether or not she should tell Joey about this. This was something very personal—too personal—but then again, this was Joey. She already knew about the topic of her Amma’s ex-boyfriend to some extent, and who else would Uma tell if not Joey Perez?
“About what?” Joey probed, not even trying to hide the impatience in her town. She turned her head down to the one her best friend was leaning onto her. She just wanted Uma to get on with it before curiosity inevitably killed the cat. She currently wanted to shake Uma into telling her, but the rational part of her brain stopped her, thankfully.
Uma took a long, deep breath before finally continuing.
“About what Tootsie would think about Jack Abbot.” Uma finished, taking her head off Joey’s shoulder.
“Huh?” Joey—of course having absolutely no idea who the man Uma had just brought up was—flashed her a quizzical, almost annoyed look. She needed context, and she needed context NOW. She couldn’t just go mentioning random men without telling her who the hell they were! “Who the hell is Jack Abbot?”
“Joana,” Uma sighed, expression softening to one somebody would equate to a kindergarten teacher talking to a four year old. She was trying her absolute best to be patient. Maybe Joey would finally get it in a moment. The expression on her friend’s face did not improve in the slightest, making Uma roll her eyes—Joana Perez still hadn’t gotten it and of course was very confused. Of course she’d have to explain it now. “Jack Abbot is Amma’s ex-boyfriend.”
Joey’s eyes widened, big as saucers. She squealed in delight. Uma was finally giving her the information she wanted the most.
“Oh my God! Tell me more about him. Now!”