Chapter 47
Chapter Forty-Seven
DHRITHI
Dhrithi walked through the rooms bustling with activity. All around her, workmen packed, wrapped and crated furniture. Pretty soon this house would be just an empty shell. An empty shell that was being offered to her as a bribe to keep her mouth shut.
Varun’s father had reached out to her the previous day. When Dhrithi had offered her support to the police in full view of the press recording the search, Varun’s father had lost his always slippery grip on his temper. He’d lashed out at her, his foul language causing more than one shocked gasp and muttered outrage to find space in the high society crowd that had gathered to watch the drama. He’d stopped himself from raising a hand to her, but the damage was done.
All the news channels led with the clip, painting her out to be a helpless widow at the mercy of rich and powerful in laws who were looking to throw her out on the streets. Hence, the house.
She looked around at the rooms she was emptying out. Everything in the house was being sold, donated, or sent to the Gokhale Residence. Was she going to take it? The house? The scene of her many miseries. Her every instinct screamed no. And yet…
There was so much she could do with it, with this house. Sell it and use the money for a suitable charity, or to start one of her own. An idea took root in her mind, not yet fully formed, more of an instinct but one that resonated through her soul. Maybe she could work with women who were victims of domestic violence, help them when no one else would.
“Madam.” The packer hovered by the open doorway. “Woh bada wala tv ka crating ho gaya. Ek baar check kar lijiye.”
She got up and followed him into the den in the basement. Varun’s little man cave from which he’d essentially barred her. It was the first place she’d taken the cops to that day. Sadly, they’d found nothing there beyond some pornography. Varun had quite the collection, magazines, pen drives, and strangely enough, even CD’s. She hadn’t known anyone still used CD’s anymore. The whole disgusting mess had filled six, large carton boxes.
She looked around once more and noted the crating of the television and the home theatre system. She was just making a note of it in her phone, adding it to the ‘sell’ column when she heard a loud, shattering noise from the upper floor.
The packer swore and ran up the stairs leaving her to follow more slowly. Every inch of this house made her bones ache, as if the pain from her life here had seeped so deep into her consciousness that it was a permanent stain on her soul. Maybe the best thing to do would be to sell it, after all.
She reached the third floor and followed the commotion into the master bedroom. Her bedroom, she thought dispassionately, even though she’d been sleeping in the guest bedroom on the ground floor after she’d come back.
The packers had broken the designer photo frame that held their enlarged wedding picture. She stepped closer, her shoes crunching down on the shattered glass, as she stared down at the picture. Her Sabyasachi lehenga draped perfectly over her frame, her heavy gold jewelry the perfect cover for it. The only thing missing was her smile.
When had she lost it and how had she not noticed? Even in those early days, she didn’t smile, not in a single picture or video. In contrast, Varun’s smile practically split his face, growing wider with each captured moment. Or with each snorted or injected fix of the drug of his choice, she thought.
“Sorry Madam.” The man in charge was practically in tears as he watched her watch the broken image of her so-called marriage.
“It’s okay,” she replied, taking a deliberate step forward and letting her heel grind into Varun’s smile. “Get it cleaned up and throw it in the trash.”
The man hurried to get it done as Dhrithi took in the rest of the bedroom. Most of it was packed and gone, including the large four poster bed that had dominated the room. She waited for the fear to come, to swamp her like it always did when she was in this space. But it didn’t come. There was pain, there was grief, there was regret and there was anger but the fear…the fear was gone.
“Leave for the day,” she told the supervisor who’d come back to hover by her side. “Your men can come back tomorrow and continue.”
“Madam, we’re very sorry,” he began again.
“It’s fine. I told you.” She smiled quickly to reassure him. “It’s fine. Please leave for today. I’d like to rest now.”
They filed out after cleaning every last shard of glass, leaving the floor sparkling like it never had before. She picked up the wedding picture and stuffed it in the trash can herself. Silence fell around the cavernous mansion as the help ushered the packers out of the house and retired to their own quarters for the night.
She’d fired half the people who worked here, starting with the security team. She couldn’t stand the sight of the men who’d watched Varun brutalise her, day in and day out, and then covered for him. She’d kept the people who’d run and hid. After all, hadn’t she done the same? They were survivors, them and her. But the accomplices, the men who helped him cover it all up, those she’d gotten rid off before the day had even begun.
She missed Amay, so bloody much. It hadn’t been long since he’d come back into her life, but her feelings for him had lived within her for much longer than that. He’d been the hope she’d clung to in her darkest days. His was the smile that had lit up her world when it had felt like there was nothing left to smile about. And his was the memory she’d held close, the memory that there was good somewhere out in the world, even if it wasn’t in her world.
If she had to live without him again, so be it. She would always have her memories, from school and from the last few weeks. A life with him in it had anyway been an impossible dream. One she’d had the audacity to dream, nevertheless.
She stepped through the bathroom door and into the walk-in closet that still housed her clothes, thousands of them, some with the tags still on. The packers had started to pack here, disrupting the meticulous order that her staff normally maintained. Some clothes were placed in a carton, some on the floor and several more hanging from the lines of hangers.
She dropped to her knees and crawled to the back, to the dark nook that had sheltered her on so many nights. Except for the last when he’d found her. In the end, he’d always found her.
She settled her back against the wall, shut her eyes, and waited for it, the fear that had been her living companion all her adult life. She waited for hours in the dark, her heart thudding its steady, reassuring beat. The fear never came.
Eventually, she opened her eyes and smiled, her plans for her future crystal clear in her mind for the first time ever. She went to push herself off the floor, moving to her hands and knees to crawl out of the space when her hand slipped on some paper. She hissed in pain as her elbow caught the wooden panel on her right. The packers must have left some of their packing material on the ground. She swiped it up and crawled out of the dark and into the light, blinking slightly as the dim lighting of the dressing area hurt her eyes.
She got to her feet and went over to the half-packed carton, intending to drop the paper in when something caught her eye. She glanced down at what she held. It wasn’t packing material. It was a photo.
She brought it closer, holding it up to the light, her blood chilling at what she saw. And in that moment, she knew what she held. She held a snippet of Varun’s truth, one he hadn’t allowed even her to see.