Mili heard Virat enter the room and her eyes flew open. She was bent over Samir, her head resting on his. His face was pressed into her lap. They had fallen asleep like that in the waiting room. She straightened up and found his fingers entwined in hers and tenderness bloomed in her heart. Virat cleared his throat. Despite the shadows under his eyes and the weariness etched into his face he looked amused.
Mili withdrew her fingers from Samir’s and he shifted awake. He sat up, his overgrown hair pushed into disheveled peaks, the embroidery from her
kurti
imprinted into his cheek above the stubble. He gave his brother a look filled with such hope, every remnant of resistance inside Mili crumbled to dust at his feet.
“Rima woke up,” Virat said. “She’s going to be fine. The doctor is with her right now. You want to go see your beautiful niece?”
Samir threw his arms around Mili and was out of the room before she could react.
Virat sat down next to Mili.
“How is she?” Mili asked.
“She’s wonderful.” His voice shook with relief and Mili’s nose started to run. “You can go and see her when the doctor leaves. She asked for you, you know.” Virat plucked a tissue from a box and handed it to her. “Mili, do you mind if I say something?”
Mili blew her nose into the tissue and nodded.
“When I met Rima, when I married her, I didn’t know I was still married to you. If you hadn’t sent that letter, I would never even have known. Baiji had filed a petition with the village council telling them the marriage was illegal the year after it happened. But our grandfather retracted it from the council and never told us about it. He was a real piece of work, our grandfather.”
She remembered how terrified she had been of the man, with his towering height and his perpetual scowl under that huge snow-white mustache.
“Chintu’s really the one who should tell you this but all I’ll say is that the old bastard blamed Chintu for losing his son. And his means of punishment . . . well, let’s just say if Baiji hadn’t taken us away from Balpur my brother might not have survived to put that look on your face.”
A pained sound escaped Mili’s throat. The memory of Samir’s sweating body writhing in the throes of a nightmare seared through her mind. She bit the inside of her lip to keep the sobs from slipping out, but it didn’t work.
Virat plucked another tissue from the box and handed it to her. “My brother would do absolutely anything for me. And I would give my life for him. But the only reason he came looking for you, the only reason I didn’t do it myself, was that my plane crashed. I was in a coma for a week and then flat on my back for months after that.”
At least let me explain what happened, Mili.
Why hadn’t she let Samir explain?
She could no longer keep the sobs inside. Virat let her cry, handing her tissues as she turned them into soggy blobs one after another.
“Poor Rima, how many months along was she when you had your accident?” she asked. No wonder Samir had wanted to do whatever it took to protect Rima.
Virat smiled. His eyes crinkled up exactly like Samir’s did when he smiled. But his smile didn’t have that earth-tilting quality to it. Then he laughed. “The only other person I know who would ask a question like that after what I just told you is Chintu.”
He patted her head and pulled out another tissue. This time he used it to wipe the tears on her cheeks. Then he lifted her chin with his finger and looked her straight in the eye. “I’m sorry I wasn’t the one who found you and set things straight the way I should have. But Mili, please don’t punish my brother for my mistakes.”
30
T
he huge glass window framed Samir’s magnificent body. Sara had sent over fresh clothes with Kim and he was back in one of those T-shirts of his that always looked brand new. Right now, though, a blue hospital apron covered the T-shirt. A blue hospital cap held back his overgrown hair. Mili had helped him push the thick, freshly washed locks into the cap, and their silken imprint still made her fingertips tingle. The look in his eyes as he searched hers for how she felt had made her heart stutter and shoot sparks into her belly.
How did she feel? How could anyone feel with a sight like this to behold? A man this beautiful with a tiny, wailing creature in his arms. His entire body curved around his hold. Every cell spoke of infinite gentleness. Wonder poured from his eyes and the tiniest hint of astonishment kissed his smile as he mumbled words at the baby, who cared only about the sound of her own voice. The doctor had been right. This baby girl had some strong lungs.
He held her up so Mili could get a better look at her and winced when she screamed in his ear. Then he pulled her to his chest and started to sway to calm her down.
“It’s a beautiful sight, isn’t it?” Baiji too had showered and changed and looked renewed. Now that Rima was fine the new day did really feel like a new day.
Mili smiled but she was too shy to go on looking at Samir the way she had been. She hoped Baiji hadn’t noticed the yearning tearing at her heart.
“He looks almost invincible, doesn’t he? So big and indomitable. Not many people can see beyond that,” Baiji said in that beautiful old-world Hindi of hers.
Samir turned around to show them that the baby girl had finally quieted in his arms and Baiji squeezed her knuckles against her temples to ward off the evil eye. “Believe it or not, I actually remember your face from the wedding.”
Mili turned to Baiji and found her smiling—that at once firm and soft, wrap-you-in-her-sari smile that had her boys mesmerized.
“I wish I had been able to stop it. I know it’s the way our people have done things for generations but you were even younger than I was. I was seven when they married me off. And unlucky enough to get my monthlies at ten. So I was packed off to the Rathods at ten. My only skill was to feed the cows and to count my uncle’s money while he stared at my budding breasts. Virat’s father was something I had never heard of. ‘A scholar,’ his family called him.” She smiled a smile heavy with memories and tinged with regret.
“The villagers called him cursed by the devil. His brain saw the world in particles and numbers and strings of energy. It was all he was interested in. So I adjusted my particles to match his. And I let him teach me to read. I became an obsession. He burned with the fire to educate me. I hated it. I did it the way other women learn to cook, desperate to find a way into his heart. Other girls burned their fingers, I dulled my vision reading and memorizing. My glasses made the man as deliriously happy as a new sari on his wife would have made another man. Those glasses gave us Virat.”
Baiji adjusted the glasses on her nose and her smile turned shy—the kind of smile Mili would never have imagined on her. “But who can fight fate? His hunger was greater than a doctorate. Greater than changing one girl’s life. Going to America, seeing the universities, the libraries there, it exploded his mind. It was America who took my husband from me. At first I cursed fate, fought with my gods for their injustice, but for him to have died without seeing what he saw, becoming what he became, that would’ve been the gravest injustice of all. And if none of that had happened, I wouldn’t have Samir.”
She placed a finger on the glass window, as if to touch her son and her granddaughter, and Mili found her own palm pressed against her heart. “When Sara first brought Samir to Balpur, he used to follow Virat and me everywhere. I was feeding Virat one day and he was watching us from behind the kitchen door, so I called him over and I fed a handful into his mouth too and he crawled into my lap and let me feed him. I used to sing a lullaby to Virat before bed, and I found Samir standing by the door, listening, so I laid him down next to Virat and sang to him too. One day he fell off the courtyard verandah and split his knee. I bandaged it and held him when he cried. That’s all it took. Three acts of kindness.”
She held up three fingers. “Three acts of kindness and he was mine forever. He never left my side after that. He helped me with all my chores. The devotion in those big brown eyes has never dulled for a moment over the past two dozen years. He recognizes love and lunges for it. And once he holds on to you, he will never let you go. His love is fierce and utter. But it’s not for everyone. Some people might find it overwhelming and turn it away.”
Mili knew exactly how fierce Samir’s love was, how utter. Four weeks with him, one night, and she knew she could never belong to anyone else. She placed her own fingers on the glass. This time she didn’t try to conceal the rampant hunger with which her heart craved him. For Samir to not exist. For what he and Baiji had to not exist—Baiji was right, Mili could think of no graver tragedy.
“That,” Baiji said, giving her a pointed look. “Whatever that thought was that just popped into your head. That’s your answer. That’s divine intervention,
beta.
The rest is all courage and choice.”
“Did you really put her to sleep by yourself?” Rima gave Samir an impressed look from her hospital bed, her non-ICU hospital bed, he reminded himself, thanking all the gods in the universe. It had been horrible to see her in the ICU. Here, she looked so much more like his
bhabhi,
relaxed and in control.
“Yup, the nurse told me I’m the only one who can quiet her when she starts bawling. I think you might be looking at the world’s best
chacha.
”
Virat looked up from rubbing Rima’s feet. “Oh, a nurse told you that, did she? Was that before or after you turned on the Sam-charm?”
“He’s a
married
man now, Virat. Don’t say things like that. Where’s your
wife,
Samir?” Rima said with such teasing deliberation Samir turned to Virat, who was grinning like an idiot without a care in the world.
“You told her!” Relief flooded through Samir. Walking on eggshells around Rima had felt just wrong.
“Everything,” Virat said. “Should have done it a lot sooner.”
Rima gave Virat one of her caressing smiles and Virat slid up the bed and kissed her. With too much tongue for a hospital room, if you asked him.
An overwhelming urge to see Mili surged through Samir.
“And you’re okay, Rima?” he asked. As okay as she could be with Virat cutting off her air supply.
She looked up with fuzzy eyes. “Of course I’m okay. They were kids and it’s not like Virat knew when he met me.”
“I worship you. You’re a goddess. Did I tell you that?” Virat said, reaching for her again. “I told you, Chintu, luckiest bastard on earth.”
“Undoubtedly,” Samir said, pushing him away and giving Rima a hug.
“Go find your own woman, Chintu,” Virat said, smiling, “this one’s mine.”
“Try and stop me.” And with that Samir ran down the hall all the way to the Baby ICU.
He had switched baby-duty with Mili before going to see Rima. Now Mili was switching with Baiji. Baiji patted Samir’s cheek and gave Mili a knowing look before she went to her granddaughter.
Mili blushed. Furiously.
“What was that about?” Samir asked, watching the color suffuse her cheeks and dying to trace it with his fingers, with his lips.
Mili narrowed her eyes at him. “You’ve been bribing your family, haven’t you?” Her lips quirked and her tone flashed with her usual spark. And no, Bhai wasn’t the luckiest bastard in the world. He was.
“I would if it put that smile on your face.”
She looked away, still blushing, and watched Baiji pick up his niece, who usually was impossible to look away from. But with Mili in her bright white
kurti
over jeans, with her hair springing out of that stupid braid and framing her face, he was having a hard time looking at anything else. She waved at Baiji and Samir wondered what had happened between them.
“How’s Rima?” she asked, and then raised a brow at him when he smiled in response. “Can we go see her? She wanted a baby report.”
“She’s a little busy right now. But I’m starving. You want to run down to the cafeteria? Javed said they have the best samosas.”
Her eyes actually sparkled and anticipation reared up inside him like a fire-breathing dragon who’d slept too long. He took her hand and walked to the elevator. She didn’t pull away and the dragon let loose another huge flaming breath.
She watched the elevator doors and rubbed her eyes. His heart squeezed. She hadn’t left the hospital in two days. Hadn’t left him. “I’m so sorry you had to go through this. You look exhausted.”
She gave him a sideways glance. “You don’t look so great yourself.”
“Thanks a lot.” The elevator opened and they entered. It was empty. He found himself praying for a power outage.
She smiled. “I don’t mean that literally. Although, what’s with the beard?” She threw a pointed look at his jaw and her eyes hitched on his lips.
Every cell in his body leapt toward her. He used all his strength to hold it back. “I don’t know. I haven’t felt like myself lately. No point looking like myself then, I guess.”
She swallowed but she didn’t look away.
“Mili, what you did for me, for my family—I don’t know how I would have got through this without you. I don’t know how I could ever thank you.”
Her eyes flashed fierce one moment, soft the next. “Actually, I know exactly how you could thank me.”
“No.”
She blinked up at him and he almost smiled. “But you don’t even know what I was going to ask for.”
“I’m not taking the
haveli
back, Mili.”
“You can’t just give me something so big, Samir.”
The elevator stopped and they stepped out. By some miracle the corridor was isolated. This was definitely his day. “Mili.” He opened his mouth then closed it again, suddenly nervous. “What I did, I could never tell you how sorry I am. I understand that you can’t forgive me. I can’t forgive myself. But let me make it right. Please.”
Mili waited for him to say more. She prayed. She held her breath.
He didn’t.
Had she really thought she couldn’t forgive him? Had she really thought she could live without him? “Is that what you want, Samir? My forgiveness? I don’t need the
haveli
for that. I know now that you didn’t mean for it to turn out the way it did.” How had she ever thought he would knowingly hurt her? “Of course I forgive you. You’re free.” She stepped away from him and then instantly regretted it.
He stepped closer. “Mili—”
Three nurses came chattering down the corridor. They slowed down when they passed Samir and started giggling like schoolgirls. He didn’t seem to notice. His gaze never left Mili.
Enough was enough. She reached out and slammed her palm into the elevator button.
The elevator doors slid open and she grabbed his arm and dragged him back into the metal cage. His only reaction was the slightest raise of an eyebrow. She took a step closer to him and looked him straight in the eye. “Samir, isn’t there any other way you can think of to make this right?”
His eyes widened. She loved surprising him, loved the way he looked at her when she threw caution to the wind and did exactly as she pleased. She bit her lip and smiled up at him, feeling every bit of the power she had over him. She had no idea why he had given her that power but she loved it. It made her feel as tall as him, taller even. It made the fire burning in her heart flare and lick at every inch of her.
He reached behind her and pushed a button on the panel and the elevator bounced to a halt. “You got any ideas?” The heat was back in his eyes and it wasn’t nearly as restrained as his voice. He was doing it again. He was laying himself bare in front of her. And for some reason she knew he always would.
She reached up and touched his face, his overgrown stubble as thick and silken as his hair. “Don’t ever thank me for caring for your family. They . . . they don’t feel like just your family.”
“They don’t?”
She shook her head. “And you don’t feel like my brother-in-law.”
He grinned, some of that wonderful arrogance returning to his face. He plucked her hand from his face and pulled it to his heart. It thudded beneath her fingers. “I’m not.”
She closed her eyes. Suddenly too shy to say more.
“Mili, if there is something you’re trying to say, say it. Please.” The desperation in his voice was pure pain. And beautiful.
“I can’t.” Warmth rose in her cheeks.
“Okay. If I don’t feel like a brother-in-law, what is it I do feel like?” A smile seeped into his voice.
“I don’t know.” She wanted to hide her face in his chest.
Samir lifted her chin with his finger. No way was she going all bashful on him now. “Let me give you a few choices.”
She smiled. Eyes closed. Cheeks blazing.
“The best friend you ever had? Someone whose family would kill him if he ever let you go? Someone who loves you so much he doesn’t know what to do with it? The answer to all your prayers? The person you’ve waited for all your—”
She opened her eyes and placed one finger on his lips. It was the lightest touch but his heart thumped like elephants parading across his chest.
“Do I have to pick only one?” she said.
Laughter trembled in his belly. He leaned over and dropped kisses on her eyelids, on her wet cheeks. Her skin was the softest velvet and he had craved it for so long. She pressed into his kisses, her smile widening with each touch of his lips. His fingers, mad with hunger, undid the twisting strands of the fat braid hanging down to her waist and soaked up the silk that tangled around them.