Mimosa with Samosa, Neena (Part 2)

“Did you fight with daddy?”
“No Krishna”
“Why are guys behaving like that? It’s not cool for parents!”
“Sometimes grownups have problems, and till they find solutions, they act uncool, which is ok”
“I don’t want my parents to fight, ever”
“Your parents are not special”
“But you guys never fight”
“That changed”
“I know you guys won’t separate or divorce!”
“Why would you say that?”
“Because I know you love each other”
“What if we don’t, anymore?”
“You said that there is no such thing as unloving”
“True, but there is no such thing as loving unconditionally”
“I don’t know about all that- I just want you guys together, always”
“We will talk about that later. Let’s go now”
“Where to? Manisha aunty’s house?”
“I suppose. Let me call her, and tell her that we are on our way”
“What about daddy? Where did he go?”
“He has to go help a friend”
“Who is it?”
“I didn’t ask her name, but she is having a baby”
“Oh, how wonderful! Daddy is helping her family?”
“No, daddy is the only person with her now”
“Is she an orphan? Did her husband leave her?”
“She is not married”
“Oh my God! Teenage pregnancy?!”
“No, she is having a baby with your dad”
“You are kidding!”
“No, it’s true, and daddy will move in with them very soon”
“What about us?”
“What about us? We will live together, happy. We have a house, you have school, friends, and I will find another job”
“You will marry someone else?”
“No, I won’t.”
“You still love daddy”
“I will, always”
“Then ask him to come back, and leave them”
“Will you love him the same and respect him the same if he came back?”
“No”
“Neither will I”

I move slowly around the room, with bandages still on my legs and arms. It hurts. Hurts a lot actually. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t want to get up from the bed at all. But the physiotherapist has strictly advised exercise if I want to be on my own two legs some day. Being me, I wouldn’t want to be a vegetable with a heart. And, I still have so much to do. I haven’t even started. The house is history now. Today Manisha will take me around the house, or what remained of my house, and see if we can get something out of the rubbles and ash. I don’t want to go. Everything that is gone is gone. I want to rebuild life, without a single memory of the past. But I still have to go.

“Mom, did it hurt a lot?”
“Yes, it still does”
“Your face looks horrible”
“Thanks for telling me”
“I mean it. You look like an alien”
“Hmm”
“Will you get surgery done to look pretty?”
“Yes, I will have to, if I don’t want to scare people”
“When?”
“In a few days, when I get well”
“How do they do it?”
“Ask the doctor. I never got it done before, so I don’t know”
“Will they make you look like anyone you want to?”
“I guess o. If you pay a lot of money”
“Will you look like Aishwarya Rai?”
“Why not Julia Roberts?”
“Because you have blue eyes, and they won’t change your eyes?”
“Hmm. You are smart. Let’s go and get whatever we can”
“I don’t want to”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to see Daddy ever again”
“It doesn’t matter. He will still be your dad. You have to have a relation with him Krish”
“No, he hurt you. He hurt us”
“We will talk about it later”
“I don’t want to go”
“Then call Manisha aunty and ask her to take a few pictures of the house for us. We won’t go”

I breathe a sigh that my own child understood my hurt, and logged on to the computer. Shri never asked me how much we saved, or where did we invest it. I transfer all our funds from joint account to my offshore account. I remove all the rainy day funds and transfer them into 529s, which I max out for two states. The next task would be destroying Shri. I make a myspace page for Shri. With his pictures. I connect with his friends. I post a very public apology to Neena. From Shri. On his Myspace page, for cheating her. I repeat with Facebook. Twitter. Blogpage. Vani thinks she is a writer. She should see my writing now. I am amazed at my abilities. I log in into Shri’s personal email account, that he had shared with me, and send a letter to Human Resources that I made a mistake. I deviated from corporate policy, and that I quit my job. That was a long day, but I was still not done. I had to ask Manisha to get me my small safe so that I can safely get rid of Shri’s identity. A wait of another hour for Manisha seems like a lifetime.

“Neena”
“Yes Shri”
“I just wanted to tell you that I love you”
“Thank you”
“I didn’t know you loved me too”
“Hmm?”
“Why didn’t you tell me that you wanted me back?”
“Sorry?”
“Why did you try to kill yourself?”
“That was a weak moment”
“No, that was because you couldn’t imagine life without me”
“That was when I felt hurt”
“I want to be back”
“Where?”
“With you, and kids”
“It’s not a bar, it our life. You can’t walk in and out as you please”
“I only strayed once”
“I only loved once”
“I love you, even now”
“What about your fuck buddy?”
“That was a mistake”
“Did you tell her that?”
“No”
“You spineless retard”
“Neena”
“If you think you will walk in here with a bunch of red flowers and a gift for me, and ask me to forget everything that happened before, it won’t happen Shri”
“Tell me what you want me to do to prove that you can trust me again”
“I don’t want to trust you again”
“Please Neena”
“Shri, I am already in pain. I want to sleep”

I pretend to sleep, while I think of other ways to hurt Shri. But deep in my heart, I feel bad for everything I am doing. He has realized his mistake. Should I still be talking of revenge?

“Shri, what happened with the girl friend?”
“Who?”
“Your fuck buddy. Did she have her baby?”
“Yes. She is putting the baby for adoption. She was fired from the company”
“Oh.. why?”
“She has no money. And with the reasons that they gave her, she will not find another job easily”
“What did she do?”
“Neena.. “
“The baby?”
“What about it?”
“Aren’t you going to help out?”
“No”
“Why so?”
“She didn’t ask me before having the baby. It was her sole decision”
“Did you see the baby?”
“Yes”
“Held the baby?”
“No”
“I didn’t feel like. I didn’t feel that the baby was mine like Krish and Nisha were”
“Because you are not sure who else she might have slept with and given them the same Mormon story?”
“Yes”
“And you told me that this girl made you feel like a hero”
“Hmm”
“I pity you Shri”
“Neena, don’t divorce me”
“No, I won’t”
“Let me live with you, and the kids”
“I will”
“Thanks Neena. You don’t know, but you have been so kind to me, you are like a God today”

I smile, and this time, I am really sleepy. I wish for a good sleep. I am done destroying Shri. To the core. He doesn’t have a job. He doesn’t have a single penny. He won’t go to the court to get it out of me. I will let him live with us. I will let him suffer from our indifference this time. That’s the biggest punishment I can give him. Because if I divorce, he will move on, while I will mop on. Unloving him every moment from now will be the kindest cruelty he has ever seen.

Nisha and Krishna will live in Manisha’s house for a while, till I recover from my surgeries and we will buy a new house, to start life anew, where I won’t play mommy to anyone. Not even my own kids. Manisha, I heard is busy with her Horton Short sales, and Vani is busy attending author meets with a new author she has befriended. For a while I will be lonely, but I find a new friend in Krish these days. I will recover, and rise like a phoenix from the ashes.