Chapter 31
Abhinav drove away from the hospital with no destination in mind.
The city passed in fragments. Half-shut shops. Tea stalls stacking cups for the night. Vendors pulling carts across empty roads.
Eight hours.
Eight hours since Meera disappeared.
His grip on the steering wheel tightened. The cuts across his knuckles opened again. The phone beside him remained silent. No calls. No updates. Only the last words from the search teams circling through his head.
Resuming at first light. Regrouping in the morning.
Polite words for surrendering the night.
His jaw clenched.
The passenger seat remained empty in a way that hurt to look at.
It belonged to her now.
To the soft chime of her bangles. To her hands resting in her lap. To his own hand reaching across without thought until his fingers closed around hers.
The ache inside him turned sharp as memories rose.
Meera in the balloon, eyes bright as she whispered yes.
Meera in the hidden courtyard, breath trembling against his mouth.
Meera laughing into his chest as he held her close.
Each memory cut deeper than the last. Proof she had been there. Proof he had touched her only hours ago.
His vision blurred. He blinked, trying to clear it. Moisture slipped down his face. He frowned and brushed his cheek.
Wet.
Another tear fell at his wrist. Then another. No sound came with them. No breakdown. Only exhaustion pushing through a body pushed beyond its limit.
He let them fall.
The road bent ahead. Headlights swept across the turn and caught a figure at the roadside.
His foot hit the brake on instinct. The car slowed.
An elderly woman stood under a streetlight in a deep red saree. The color glowed strangely bright against the darkness around her. She raised one hand. Not waving or pleading. Simply raised.
Abhinav watched through the glass. Every instinct urged him forward. Meera was missing. Every second mattered.
Yet, he stopped the car.
The woman approached. The saree moved softly around her ankles, untouched by the restless wind. She reached the passenger window.
He lowered it halfway.
“Are you lost?” His voice came rough, scraped raw.
“No.” The answer arrived calmly.
His brows drew together. “Then why are you here alone?”
“I need to go home. It is close.”
He almost drove away. He should have. Instead, his hand tightened on the wheel and he unlocked the door. “Get in.”
She settled beside him with ease. The door closed.
“Where?”
“Straight first. Then right.”
He drove.
Silence filled the car.
Her red saree seemed to breathe in the corner of his vision. He fixed his focus on the road.
She, however, was looking at him. “What brings you out at this hour? Most people hurry home before night deepens.”
“I could ask you the same.”
She smiled. “You answer carefully.”
He gave no reply.
His patience had run out hours ago. Fear, exhaustion, helplessness, everything sat too close to the surface. One push and it would tear free. She was an elder. A stranger he had chosen to help. Not someone to bear the weight of what burned inside him.
So he stayed silent.
Besides, people her age often asked questions. Perhaps other people's affairs interested them more. Under any other circumstance, he might even have answered politely.
Tonight, he had nothing left in him that resembled polite conversation.
She spoke again. “A man does not drive like this unless his heart is carrying grief.”
The words settled heavily between them.
“Where exactly am I taking you?”
“Not far. Past the old milk depot. Near the stone arch.”
He followed her directions. Right turn. Straight. Another turn. The city thinned. Fewer lights. Older houses. Neem trees pressing close to narrow lanes.
“You have lost someone.” She probed again.
His fingers tightened on the wheel.
“Left or right?” His voice flattened.
“To the right.”
He took the turn without looking at her. Headlights swept across empty streets. For a while, only the sound of the engine filled the car.
Her voice returned, softer now. “The one you lost matters very much.”
Abhinav shut his eyes for a second.
Enough.
He had no strength left to deflect a conversation that kept circling the same wound. And some part of him understood that older people recognized grief because they had experienced more ups and downs in life.
“My wife disappeared.”
The word slipped out of him. Not fiancée. Not would-be bride. Wife.
Because that truth had already taken root inside him. Fire rituals had not happened, vows had not been spoken, yet none of it changed what she had become to him.
“Eight hours ago.” His jaw locked. “Police are searching. Everyone is searching.”
Speaking it aloud made the nightmare heavier. More real.
His hand moved to the phone beside him. He unlocked it with fingers that no longer felt steady.
Meera’s photograph lit the screen. Morning light across her face. That soft smile she wore when she forgot the world.
“Have you seen her? Anywhere today?”
He held the phone toward her. The woman studied the image. Recognition softened her expression.
“Ah.”
Abhinav stiffened.
“The girl from Anand Mahal.”
His pulse struck once, sharp.
“She is very kind,” the woman murmured, eyes on the photograph. “Always helping the older women during darshan. Always making space for others before herself.” Her mouth curved in a warm smile. “Very gentle hands. She tends to the deity with love.”
His grip tightened around the phone.
The woman looked up. “You called her your wife.”
He locked the screen and set the phone aside.
“She will be.” His voice came out hoarse. “The wedding is in a few days.”
Understanding moved across her face, slow and deep. “So it is you. The Thakur.”
He did not answer. The car moved through sleeping streets. Silence settled between them once more.
After some time, she smiled. “She is fortunate.”
The words pressed against him.
“No.” His eyes remained on the road. “I am.”
The woman watched him for a long moment. There was a strange softness in her face. So strange, it felt… ancient.
“Yes,” she murmured. “You are.”
The road narrowed.
“Take the next left.”
He turned.
Minutes passed. Silence remained until she asked, “You believe in God? As she does?”
“No.” The answer came at once.
“Not even your Kuldevi?”
“Especially not.” His hands tightened on the wheel. “God does nothing.”
Light from passing streetlamps cut across his face.
He exhaled sharply. “Just watches. Waits. Takes prayers. Gives nothing back.”
“Nothing?” she asked quietly.
“My father prayed every day. My mother. My sister. All of them prayed. It changed nothing.”
“Didn’t it?”
“He died.”
The words dropped between them.
“My father died…” A sharp breath left him. “In pain. Slowly. And all those prayers… They changed nothing. He spent his life helping people. Honest. Humble. Generous. And he still died like that.”
She looked ahead for a while before speaking. “It is not always what you think it is.”
A dry breath left him. “Easy to say when it isn’t your family.”
“Yes.” Her voice remained calm. “It always sounds easier from the outside.”
Headlights cut through the dark, catching empty roads in brief flashes.
“But you are looking at one life,” she went on. “One stretch of years you could see. You are trying to measure justice inside that boundary.”
“What else is there to measure?”
“Everything that came before. Everything it touched after.”
He frowned.
“Karma does not begin where your memory begins. It does not end where your understanding stops.”
“That sounds convenient,” Abhinav muttered. “If suffering can always be explained by another life, another past, another unseen reason… then no pain ever has to be answered for.”
She observed him. “You see karma as punishment.”
“What else would it be?”
“Consequence.”
A breath left him. “For what? Existing?”
“For living.” Her eyes returned to the road. “Every action continues forward. Every wound. Every kindness. Every cruelty. Every sacrifice. Nothing disappears once it enters the world. It moves through people. Through families. Through generations.”
His fingers flexed once against the steering wheel. “That still doesn’t make it fair.”
“No,” she admitted softly. “Fairness is not promised. Completion is.”
Dark trees passed outside.
“My father spent his entire life giving.” His voice roughened again. “Where was the return in that?”
“You are sitting in it.”
The words struck deeper than he expected.
She continued, softer now. “A good man leaves more than comfort. He leaves character in his children. Loyalty in those who knew him. Love that stays after him.”
“That does not help a man dying in pain.”
“No. But pain is not always proof of failure.”
His jaw flexed
“You described him as honest. Humble. Generous.” Her voice softened further. “Then that is who he became in this world. That matters more than how he died.”
“It doesn’t erase what happened,” he argued.
“It changes what remains after it.”
Silence returned. The engine hummed through it.
“Death was always going to come,” she continued after a while. “That part was never in question.”
He stared at the empty road.
“What changes is whether a person reaches that moment alone or surrounded by love.”
The words entered him cleanly.
“He did not leave alone. His family stood around him.”
His throat closed.
“A son who stayed,” she went on quietly. “A son who still carries him.”
He swallowed.
“Do you know how rare that is now? Children inherit everything and move forward as if nothing precious turned to ash.”
The headlights swept across another turn.
“You are still grieving him,” she stated softly. “Still angry. That means his life left love behind. That is never meaningless.”
The silence drew closer.
Her eyes moved toward him once more. “You are angry because you could not protect him.”
The truth struck at once. His jaw hardened.
“And now,” she continued gently, “you fear you cannot protect her either.”
His grip on the wheel turned painful. Meera’s face rose clear in his mind.
She motioned toward the left. “Turn here.”
He obeyed.