Page 61 of Someone to Love

‘I am okay,’ he said testily, ‘if Koyal doesn’t mind.’

‘Oh, no, not at all,’ Koyal said hurriedly, feeling very awkward now, lying on Atharv’s bed, in his bedroom with the main lights off.

Maybe he could just read Mansha one story and be gone quickly, she thought to herself.

‘The Russian stories?’ Atharv asked.

Just one story, Koyal prayed fiercely, a quick one. Be done and be gone before my heart restarts its funny dance, Atharv, be done and be gone.

‘No, Daddy,’ said Mansha, pointing to the book on the side table, ‘that one.’

Atharv paused, then shook his head and headed for the book.

‘Kuku and the crow!’ squealed Mansha.

Kuku and the crow?

Surely she had misheard, thought Koyal, shaking her head.

‘Kuku and the crow,’ Mansha squealed again.

Memories from their school years came rushing back to Koyal in a fresh gush of nostalgia.

‘How … how do you know about it?’ Koyal asked, turning around sharply to face Mansha, her heart racing.

Had Atharv mentioned her to Mansha? Had he spared an odd, occasional thought for his oldest friend? Koyal’s heart clung to this new hope.

‘Know what?’ Mansha looked quizzically at Koyal.

‘Kuku and the crow?’

‘It’s a book.’

‘A book?’

‘Yes, this one.’ She pointed at the book in Atharv’s hand.

Koyal turned around to look at Atharv who was looking a bit shifty. She held out her hand and Atharv handed the book to her without a word.

Her eyes large with wonder and her heart galloping, Koyal turned over the handmade book. ‘The adventures of Kuku and the crow, written and illustrated by Daddy’ said the cover of the well-thumbed book under the drawing of a schoolgirl sitting under a huge imli tree. The girl had a heart-shaped face and a mole on her lip. A black crow hovered around her.

‘The adventures of Kuku and the crow,’ she whispered in awe. She looked up at Atharv, her heart melting and her eyes questioning.

‘It was the only thing that would make her stop crying when she was little,’ he mumbled by way of explanation, shrugging his shoulders and digging his hands in his pockets, looking the most uncomfortable she’d ever seen him look.

‘We used to read it every day,’ chipped in Mansha.

Every day.

The emptiness in Koyal’s heart distorted and contorted and changed shape. Every day Koyal had spent hating Atharv, he had probably sat on this very bed and read stories about her to his motherless child.

‘Koyal Aunty, are you okay?’ Mansha asked, looking at her friend’s expression.

‘I am okay,’ Koyal said, slowly turning the pages of the book.

I am more than okay.

‘So, let me tell you a bit about Kuku,’ said Mansha chattily. ‘Kuku is fourteen, goes to school, is really cool, always listens to her father, loves maths, can do multiplications too.’