Page 23 of No Other Love

‘Good. I used to worry about you, Vik. When you first came home, last year.’

I didn’t want to think back to those first dark days. Days when I walked in a fog and worked to exhaustion. When I actually considered taking up drinking as a formal occupation because ImissedAnika Chakraborty, MD.

When I had been so angry I hadn’t seen the truth dancing right in front of me. What happened between us was both our faults. Pride and prejudice and love and lust colliding in a terrible mix.

‘You don’t have to worry about me. I’m a big boy. I can take care of myself.’

‘No,’ Ramesh disagreed immediately. He squeezed my shoulder. ‘She does that, Viku.Shedoes that for you.’ He glanced back at the living room too and smiled at Anika and his wife squealing at the mobile screen.

‘Don’t forget that.’ My uncle told me simply before going back inside.

***

I felt like shit for the lie I was fostering on my loving, gullible family. It wasn’t fair to them, and they wouldn’treallyhave minded if I’d told them a year ago that Anika wanted out. After all, my parents had withheld their approval of Anika for the entire duration of my marriage, so it wouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.

And it wasn’t fair toher,at all.

But…Iwashappy. After walking in a fog for the better part of a year, I was alive again today. And I was a selfish bastard because I wanted to keep feeling alive, keep her for a few more days.

After all, it harmed no one. And she was having fun too. I knew her too well to know when she was faking it and when she was genuinely enjoying herself. And she was genuinely enjoying herself.

So, what if it was all a lie, right?

Twelve

Anika

I made my way up the stairs to the first-floor bedroom, once I said goodnight to Smita Aunty.

The woman was a riot and so practical and motherly at the same time. She was the only one who’d helped me when I visited Vikrant’s home as a new bride. Explaining the traditions, teaching me the right way to make the fucking tea so it would please Vikrant’s parents.

Apparently,theydidn’t add milk right away to the water and tea leaf powder, preferring to steep the tea in the water so it became thick brown sludge before they lightened it with milk.

To give the devil his due, Vikrant had run interference between his parents and me as much as he could. But even he had to attend phone calls or go to the freaking bathroom and his mother was strict about having her precious son help around the kitchen.

In that he wasn’t allowed inside, at all. It was not a man’s job to be in the kitchen.

Those were the times Vikrant’s mother had twisted in the knife about the many differences between my husband and me.

If you’d been from our community, you’d know how to do this already.

Vikrant should have chosen someone who understood us all better.

My son is a good doctor and a good son. You’re lucky to have him.

And I - insecure and under-confident anyway in family matters, considering the dysfunction between my own parents - had taken the woman’s words to heart. With the perspective of distance and the cloud of insecurity off my head, I could now see those unkind words for what they were.

An attempt to hold onto her son.

It was such an unoriginal story that I would have laughed if I hadn’t already cried so much over this man and this family.

***

Surprisingly, I had actually had fun today once I put Vikrant’s parents in their proper places in my head – which was at a respectful distance from my emotional heart – and focused on the tasks at hand.

I had a good eye for color, and I attended previous Chathurthi celebrations enough to know how the whole thing was conducted.

So, yeah, it was all fun.