Chapter 13 How the hell did she let my wife go?! #2
He strode up the corridor, running the last few steps and climbing the stairs two at a time, not caring if it made noise and woke up the entire household. Atharva depressed the handle and threw the door open.
She was passed out cold.
On her old bed. On top of the duvet. Sideways. As if she had lain down like that and fallen asleep.
He glanced at the time. Last night she hadn’t slept until after dawn.
Worried, he walked over to her and carefully laid the back of his hand over her forehead.
It wasn’t warm. He set two fingers on the pulse under her jaw.
He had seen anxiety, recognised it. He had to address it with her but the first initial steps were so difficult to take — how would he reach these evolved ones?
Her skin was cold under his touch but her pulse wasn’t jumping. 80, not unheard of.
He turned the two fingers and caressed the lock of hair stuck to her throat.
His heart came to his mouth at the sight of her.
So hollow. She had lost weight. There were circles under her eyes.
She looked like Iram and had voice like Iram’s and even talked like Iram most of the time but there were moments when he saw she was disappearing.
He did not know what to do then because he was angry.
So angry. Nothing registered beyond anger when she was in front of him.
He couldn't be there for her and himself all at once while giving himself to their son and their state.
He wanted to curl himself over her and protect her from whatever was hounding her.
But every time she looked at him with hope, started to take a step, his tightly locked rage would spark.
As if in the knowledge that she was back and here to stay, he could let go and cry in her abandonment of him.
Fight back. Cut her as badly as she had cut him.
Atharva knew this was poison and there was no distilling it but only spitting it. Or swallowing — whichever happened first. He had been unable to spit it yet. She was too fragile. She wouldn’t be able to take the bullets that his thoughts had become.
For tonight, it was enough that she had been able to feed Yathaarth, hold him, bond with him.
He replayed that moment when their son had latched on and even in pain, her eyes had widened.
Atharva pushed the lock of hair off her neck and resisted the urge to bury his nose there — for one solace-giving whiff.
She smelled different now. His, but also Arth’s. Vanilla and milk. Theirs.
Let this be ok, he prayed under his breath. Let me find my way back to her.
With deep reluctance, he let go of her skin and trudged to the cupboard. He found a thick blanket and draped it over her. She was asleep and didn’t feel it yet, but she always woke up cold. The season wasn’t so chilly as to light a fire, so he just turned the heater to auto and left the attic.
“She is in the attic,” he informed Begumjaan as he passed her room.
“Where are you going?”
“Downstairs. Should I take him?”
“No.”
Atharva pursed his lips. In the mess of his life, he was working up Begumjaan at this age. The guilt was piling up but he couldn't get himself to say anything. So he just nodded and walked down the corridor.
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Atharva held his breath and set the card trans-sectionally, creating the perfect roof. He sat back slowly to check the house. Three floors, starting with cones of four at the base, progressing to three, and now he finished the third floor with two.
A fine current of wind blew from behind him and he pushed his chair back, shutting the window the final notch.
The lock clicked and his office was plunged into vacuum.
Cool but not windy. The night outside was still not setting.
He checked the time. It was 5.31. Still a way to go for sunrise, and 7 am.
There was no point in going to sleep now.
He reached for the final two cards to create the last floor and regretted not having built a wider house. A seven-cone base would have been better.
He leaned forward, about to set the final two cards on the final floor when the door to his office was pushed open. Atharva thought the house would fall over with the wind that blew in but it held steady. He scowled at the figure but schooled his face when he saw who it was.
“What are you doing here?” Iram asked, frantic out of sleep.
“What happened?”
She stilled. Then ran her palms up and down her face — “I fell asleep.”
“It was night.”
“Yes, no… I mean… it has been a while since I fell asleep so quickly at night.”
“Was it a good sleep?”
Her hands slipped down her face and those lost brown eyes stared at him. “I don’t remember.”
“You don’t remember?”
“I mean… no dreams. None that I can remember.”
“Go back to sleep,” he glanced behind his shoulder. “It’s still night.”
“What are you doing here? Where did you go off to last night?”
He bit off his instinctive answer — At least I came back.
“I…” he huffed, unable to lie to her. His lies and secrets had started this entire mess. “Saba. You say she saw you.”
“Yes.”
“She never raised an alarm with us. I came back and interrogated each and every person who had come into your contact that day. She did not mention what you just said.”
“So you went to her to corroborate my story?!” Her eyes widened. He frowned.
“You don’t trust me, I get it. But I wouldn’t lie to you about something like this, especially about somebody whose life can be at stake! I am not lying. She was there, she was coming into the hospital, she was…”
“It is not you I don’t trust.”
She stopped short.
“There is nothing you say to me that I won’t trust.”
Her mouth opened.
“I went to Amaal, to inform her and get Saba interrogated first thing tomorrow. Also, to cancel all her access passes to the house and our private spaces.”
“Oh.”
He sat back — silent, still. She stood there — silent, still.
“Why are you not sleeping?” She finally broke the vacuum.
“I have to leave by 7.”
“There is still an hour and a half to go.”
He remained quiet.
“Because you don’t have somebody to wake you up,” she answered her own unasked question.
He had alarms but he had given up using them during her pregnancy.
She had woken up with starts with him and that had been bad for her heartbeat as well as the babies’.
She used to wake him up instead because her night clock was anyway messed up.
“I will wake you up. Go and sleep,” Iram called him back from that time.
It was a tough, trying time of their lives but she had been with him, their kids safe inside her.
What he wouldn’t give to go back to that time and absorb some more of it.
To wake up beside her, to touch her tummy, play with the kids, nudge where they kicked and run his fingers away to another side and nudge there.
If he had known one of those kicks would be silenced forever, he would have played some more before getting up for his day.
Atharva hardened the armour around his weakest part that had begun to melt.
He turned his eyes away from her and eyed the card in his hand.
An Ace of Spades. Death. He smirked. Death of his daughter.
Death of his faith in his wife. Death of the future he had envisioned.
Death of the progress he had plotted for his state.
It was all going to slow down. He could see it, feel it.
As difficult as it would be to rebuild his marriage, holding Kashmir safe through this storm would be a feat in itself, forget building on the foundation of his two good years.
“Atharva.”
“Yes?” He did not look up this time, holding his breath and laying the final cards on top of the house.
“What are you doing?”
“Building a house of cards.”
A pause.
“You had promised to build a treehouse.”
A bitter chuckle escaped his lips. So she was in the mood to cut him and get cut in return?
“This one falls and reminds me that everything eventually falls. More realistic.”