Chapter 4
“More cheese, Papa!” Aara poked at his hip. He grabbed her and sat her up on the counter — “Make it yourself, come on.”
“Yaiy woohoo!” She rolled her hands and struck up a pose.
“Clean it yourself, too!” Aditi’s voice came from somewhere.
“Do you have mics in the kitchen or what?” He hollered back.
“No, but I have two loudspeakers in the kitchen,” she walked in, having changed into her home attire of a loose white top and the loosest white pants that flowed around her.
“Mumma, Papa made-ed tacos with no cheese again.”
Aditi smiled, coming around the platform, grabbing their daughter’s head and kissing it. “Papa is dieting.”
“Can I make your tacos?”
“Yes, please,” she kissed her cheek. “Please,” another kiss. “PLEASE.” Another kiss.
“Ahem…” Zubin cleared his throat, leaning slightly to put his cheek in her line of fire.
“Yes?” Aditi pulled back smoothly.
“I thought we were handing out kisses.”
“You are dieting.”
“What’s that got to do with kisses?”
Aditi glared at him over their daughter’s head. He smirked.
“Put cheese in her taco and Mumma will give you a kiss.” His champion handed him the bag of shredded cheese and he instantly got a fistful and stuffed it into her taco. Then held it up and leaned down again — “Now I deserve it.”
Aditi was still glaring, but softened the moment Aara turned to her — “See? I got-ed you extra cheese!”
She chuckled, leaning up to press her mouth to his cheek for a kiss. And something else. He yelped.
Aara’s eyes widened just as Aditi made a smooching sound and pulled back, grinning.
“Why you scream when Mumma kissed you?”
“Oh… umm… I think a mosquito bit me somewhere.” Zubin rubbed at his cheek that was stinging from the sharp edge of his wife’s teeth. Right into his cheekbone. “Come on, finish up the tacos. I am hungry!”
————————————————————
“Going to bed angry again?” Zubin asked, rubbing the towel over his hair as Aditi pushed under the duvet.
“Count your lucky stars that you get to go to the same bed.” She fluffed her pillow, lay down and turned away from him.
“The case starts tomorrow.”
“So?”
He backtracked inside the bathroom, threw the towel inside the laundry basket and came back out. All the lights were off.
Zubin went around the room and walked to her. Her eyes were closed.
“Aditi,” he crouched down in front of her. She did not open her eyes.
“Doshi.”
“Fuck you, what?!” She sat up. He blinked, swallowing, silent.
“What now? Say? What?”
“Umm… I didn’t think it through.”
“You never think anything through! Even last time you didn’t think it through…”
“I didn’t mean this case.”
Her flaring rage silenced. Then turned cold — “Then what?”
“Umm…” he scratched at his chin. “This, waking you up.”
“Oh my god, Zubin, I am tired and frustrated and so out of my mind with you so if you value your life then let me sleep…” she began to turn and go back to sleep when he caught her — “Ok, sorry, sorry, I know what to say now. Please, two minutes.”
“Then say and let me sleep.”
He sighed — “Outside?”
“Why?”
“This seems too… personal a space to say what I want to say.”
Her teeth gnashed together, but she threw the duvet off, jumped down from the bed and stormed out of their room. Zubin followed slowly, buying time and articulating what he would say. Was good night too dangerous now that he had made her walk out?
He padded out of the lobby and found her leaning on the kitchen counter, arms folded across her chest.
“Spit it.”
“Sit down,” he pointed to the dining table. She did not move.
“Please?”
Aditi pulled a chair out and sat down, making it very clear that she was doing it under protest so that she could return to her sleep.
Zubin swallowed yet again. He was dead meat if he did not say something intelligent and useful now.
He was anyway half dead meat, hanging from the knife’s edge, waiting for it to slice him as soon as this divorce case started.
“Zubin. I. Am. Sleepy.”
“Yes,” he pulled a chair hastily and settled there, folding his hands in front of him. He took a deep breath and said — “The taco seasoning has expired.”
“What?”
Zubin blinked. “I mean…” he stuttered. “I mean… not that that is what I have to speak about but it just popped up in my mind and… ok, Aditi, I know you are extremely angry at me for taking this case and I know today’s meeting did not go as planned thanks to Chandni Aunty…”
“I don’t even know what you plan to achieve in court with her demands?” Aditi sighed, not angry at him for a change. “They are so out of any sane league that it’s a nashedi’s nightmare that they were granted in Session’s court.”
Zubin snorted. “I thought the same thin…” he stopped short. Her eyebrows had shot up. “I mean… they have merit. Fuck, Doshi, don’t talk about the case at home.”
“You had to think about that before accepting it.”
“Yes but now let’s make some rules. Ground rules.” The tube light lit to life. He was so proud of himself. “Ground rules.”
“Just let me sleep…” she began to stand up but he held her wrist. “Aditi, please.”
She stared at him.
“I don’t like you upset with me so let’s make peace at home. Keep the fighting for court.”
“I am angry at you.”
“That, I love,” he smiled. “But right now you are upset.”
She looked away.
“Why, Doshi?” He lowered his voice, softened.
“Because after all these years I don’t know how to do it!”
“Do what?”
“Fight you.”
Neither did he. And that is why he couldn’t stop pushing this.
“Ok,” he pulled her back down on her seat and got up himself.
He grabbed the Dalal Chambers legal pad that his wife had stolen from her firm and the two pens on their console kept for the express purpose of keeping a tab of daily ironing clothes.
He sifted through pages of all the months gone by, reached May, and stopped short.
“Why do we have thirty-thirty clothes going for ironing every day this month?”
“Aara changes thrice a day at Mummy’s house.”
“What? Why?”
“School, classes, and summer.”
“Her clothes are so tiny, five of them should count as one.” He came back to the table and settled down in front of her, turning the page to a blank one.
“Now,” he clicked the pen and wrote on the top of the page:
GROUND RULES AGREEMENT
“Are you serious right now?”
“Very.” He kept writing.
A binding contract between Adv. Zubin Daruwala, hereinafter referred to as “Daru,” and Adv. Aditi Daruwala, hereinafter referred to as “Doshi.”
“You are certifiable!”
“Absolutely.”
She snatched his pen.
“Hey!”
A binding contract between Adv. Zubin Daruwala, hereinafter referred to as “Daru,” ^ Deceptive Flufball and Adv. Aditi Daruwala ^ Doshi, hereinafter referred to as “Doshi.”
Zubin bit back his smile, holding his game face when she glanced up. “Ok, Daru,” he grinned, plucking the pen back from her. He began to cancel her “Doshi” to change to Daru for the thrills.
“You have two more minutes and then I am going to sleep.”
Immediately he switched to pointers, all contract language forgotten.
- Court is court. Home is home. Do not mix jurisdictions.
- No continuing arguments after we step out of court. Not in the car. Not at dinner. Not after dinner or during BED time.
“Why is that bed in full caps?”
He gave her a look — “That bed time.”
“That shall stay in abeyance till the proceedings end, and possibly even after that.”
“Will the opposing counsel be able to resist?”
She rolled her eyes. “No using information from our marriage in court. Write.”
“I can guarantee it from my side but… will you be able to hold yourself back?”
“I can defeat you without counting your misdemeanours from home, Daru.” Her face pushed closer.
“You could not last time, but,” he shrugged. “Let’s go.”
- No using information from our marriage in court. This includes habits, history and anything said after 10 pm.
“Before 10 pm is fair game?”
“What do we say before 10 pm?”
She chuckled. “Aara this and Aara that.”
“Exactly.”
- No personal attacks disguised as legal arguments.
“Ha, I would like to see you try, Daru.” Aditi pointed a finger at his face.
“That big mouth cannot keep the satire inside this shrunken head. Actually, if either one of us breaks even one of these rules, then he becomes a slave to the other and listens to everything she says for the rest of his life.”
“Why do I hear ‘he slave, she queen?’”
“Shrunken head, broken ears.”
“Side effects of marriage,” he muttered.
“Excuse me?”
“Next… and, you have already personally attacked me twice in the last two minutes, Doshi.”
“We are not in court, Daru.”
“Practise well, or — you slave, me king.”
“Queen.”
“Queen Daru. I like it.” He put pen to paper again. “What’s next?”
“Umm… Aara doesn’t hear us argue.”
“Yes, non-negotiable. As always.”
- Aara does not see/ hear us argue. If she walks in, argument ends immediately.
- No winning at home because you lost in court. No losing at home because you won in court.
“You are the cheater, this rule’s for you,” Aditi tapped her pointer finger over his handwriting.
“Most of my cheating was in losing to you.” He glanced up from his pointers, and her skin flushed. She paused, eyes darkening. Then she let out a reluctant chuckle — “Next.”
“Oh, yes, I thought about one.” He wrote:
- If one of us crosses a line in court, we drop it there. No post-mortem at home.
“Why did you underline that and why did it feel like a veiled attack at me?”
“Because you do not drop things. You hold grudges for weeks, months. If I do something at court, then you can’t come home and murder me in my sleep.”
“Don’t worry, seeing as you will be sleeping outside that night, you will be safe.”
He huffed, praying his big mouth would take commands from his shrunken brain in time when it came to arguing in court.
- No going easy on each other in court. No holding back.
“When have you seen me hold back with you in a court of law?”
“You weren’t married to me then.”
“What’s that got to do with this?”
“You can’t be glowing and going easy on me after what I do to you post 10 pm.” He smirked.
She picked up the extra pen and hurled it at him. He caught it, laughing — “Thanks, I needed a pen for tomorrow.”
“Give it back.” She held her palm out.
“No.”
“Daru, give it back,” she pounced.
“Ha ha, no.” He jumped to his feet, tore the paper from the legal pad and ran.
“Daru!”
“Come to bed, Doshi, I will show you what I meant!”
————————————————————
That night, Zubin was so stimulated, he thought he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep.
And the next thing he knew, he was jerking awake out of a deep sleep in the middle of the night.
He patted his hand out to fend off Aara’s leg but the space was empty.
He cracked his eyes open, only to find the bed completely empty.
“Aditi?” He croaked, blinking in the dark. The bathroom door was open, no light on. Was Aara sick and she hadn’t woken him up?
Zubin rubbed his eye and rolled out of bed, padding out of their bedroom.
The small dining table lamp light glowed silently in the dark hall, making his suspicions stronger.
Being a parent to a daughter you adored with all your life had not only been cute pink confetti and hiding cabinets full of return gifts.
This life had taught him how to live through long nights of fears, tending to fevers, measuring medicine syrups every hour, taking temperatures, being vomited upon, changing smelly bedsheets, listening to your baby cry all night as she couldn’t explain what was wrong with her, calling up the doctor at every possible ungodly hour, and then, when nothing worked, just being there for each other as parents while navigating the night.
‘Get through till the morning at least.’ And most of the time, as his mother-in-law loved to say, the mornings always made everything ok.
For Zubin, Aditi had made everything ok.
If he had been the rock of their marriage, she had been the rock of their family.
Sometimes, he hadn’t even known Aara was sick through the night because she had woken up and taken care of her before he could even stir awake.
Tonight seemed like one of those nights.
Zubin prepared for a long one, for both of them, especially before a case like this.
He tread out of the lobby and stopped short.
His head fell to the side at the sight in front of him. Aditi, passed out cold, head on her folded arms, laptop screen gone to sleep too, case notes and files open around her.
And suddenly all the roles of these last six years fell away.
His heart fell through a gap and down into the depths of time, in the hands of the girl who was just a classmate.
Ohkay, not just, because she was Aditi Doshi, and could never be just. She was the girl who had danced on table tops and topped her exams, who had been sexy as hell in her diva retorts to him and then gone on to destroy him point by point in moot courts.
The Aditi Doshi who used to wake up and be the first to enter the class and then nap in the library just like this.
Before being his wife, before being the mother of his daughter, she had been Doshi. His Doshi. Intelligent enough to win Student of the Year, dumb enough to not figure out how crazy he was about her.
Zubin felt himself smiling at the reminder, trudging closer to switch off the lamp.
She was going to have one hell of a kink in the neck tomorrow but if he tried to move her, who knew what hell was waiting for him?
She was not very happy when woken from half-sleep.
And he was anyway about to make her very unhappy tomorrow in court. He grinned, clicking the light off.
“Huh!” She startled awake. Then saw him and covered all her case material with both arms, hugging it close.
“Appealing to set aside Family Court’s order, huh?” He mused, pushing his hands inside his tracks pockets and sauntering around the table.
“You thief! You looked at my case notes?!” She was rambling in half-sleep. Zubin laughed quietly. Appealing to set aside the Family Court’s order was what had been filed by her side, and officially intimated to his. It would take her a moment to come out of sleep and remember.
“See you at court, Doshi.”