Chapter 15
“Why is it so easy to leave me?” Atharva thundered, jerking to his feet.
“And then come back as if I am the criminal? Mama did it, then made me believe that I never went after her. You did it again and now stand here asking me why I am angry with you? I seriously don’t know why I am still angry, Iram, because I accepted you leaving me behind the moment I knew I had failed to find you in Budgam or Ladakh.
I had made peace with it then, was angry on Yathaarth’s behalf.
But now looking at you I am still angry.
I love you with everything inside me and I am still unable to stop being angry because you thought our babies were gone and still left because you wanted to leave me, you wanted to go away from me knowing I would be left alone there with two corpses and no you Iram you did not wait to think how I would come to that room and find nothing but your ring in a plastic bag and our daughter’s wrapped body in a steel tray… ”
She snapped into him and her arms wrapped around his chest. He stopped, horror filling him at the things he had blurted. His body was heaving, his chest feeling looser than it had a moment ago but his mind bursting with fear.
“Ir…”
“No, keep going,” she croaked, tightening her arms around him. He grabbed her shoulders and tried to push her back but she stuck to him, held on, refusing to go.
“I left you,” she pushed — her head into his chest, her palms into his back.
“You left me,” he accused, letting his arms fall from pushing her, his eyes becoming a blur they hadn’t become since he had found out that she was alive.
“You left me there with the world crumbled around me. I would have borne the pain of our daughter going alone if only you had just told me to. I would have taken everything on me and not let it fall on you. If you’d asked me to bear it for you I would have borne it without flinching.
But you left me. And without you I cannot successfully bear even a prick. ”
Her head burrowed deeper.
“I came back to that room and didn’t even know if you went of your own free will or were dragged out!”
She scrunched the back of his shirt in her fists.
“I didn’t even know if you were dead or alive!”
Her nails clawed into the skin of his back.
“Why was it easy to leave me?”
Her body rattled.
“Why would you not even wait to see me? Why would you go away for things that were not even a part of your real world? How could your unseen family be more than me? How could names in thin air mean more than us? Did you not even think about me once?”
Her hands clasped together behind his back, squeezing him tighter. Atharva felt tears streaming down his face. He let them, his voice turning hoarser, softer, until the next words only came out in croaks.
“Why was it so easy to leave me, Iram?”
“I left myself, Atharva.”
He stopped, teardrops making his vision a haze. He glanced at the back of her head tucked under his chin, on the surface of his chest. Her voice was as thin as his, the words vibrating straight into his heart.
“I left myself, did not have myself with me. Still don’t. But whatever little I could find, I brought it back to you.”
“I don’t understand.”
She pulled back, her hair a mess around her tear-stained face. And even in that state, her thumbs reached up to clean his eyes.
“I told you yesterday…”
“I didn’t understand even then.”
“Will you listen?”
When have I not? He thought. Then looking at her ready to bare herself, decided to do the same.
“When have I not?”
She swallowed.
“I have been feeling lost.”
“Right now?”
“Not right now. Since… a long time. It’s been worse after the delivery.
That morning, I had this episode. It pushed me into labour.
Or I don’t know what did. I need to have that conversation with Dr. Baig and Dr. Nabi.
Ask those hard questions. But…” her teary lashes spiked up as her eyes bore into his.
“Ever since I found out that I am not Abba’s, I have been losing myself little by little.
In those months, when you were in Jammu, sometimes I would wake up at night, go to the bathroom, and not recognise myself in the mirror.
I stopped putting on the light after a while to not get scared and spend the whole night restless. ”
“You did not tell me.”
“I wasn’t able to understand it myself. And we were trying to pause, reconnect. You were worried about me, about the babies. I did not think this would last. So I kept fighting it alone, hoping once the babies came, it would go away.”
“It did not go away.”
“It became worse that morning after you left for Ladakh.”
“Because I threatened house arrest?”
“Don’t say it like that. You were right to be scared for us.”
“I did not say good things to you that day,” he confessed, looking down at his shoes. He had blacked out that night in order to go on. But now, after this, her confession of that morning, he couldn't help but wonder if his words had brought that on.
“Stop.”
He glanced up at her.
“Don’t go into guilt. I live there, and it is not a good place.”
“Tell me. Honestly. Was it because I told you that we are abandoning the search for your family?”
She blinked slowly, silent, lengthening his agony.
“I don’t know if there was a reason,” she admitted finally. “But you said something that day.”
“I said a lot of things that day.”
Her teary, tensed face broke into a chuckle.
He felt his lips curl against every desperate emotion raging inside him.
That they could make each other laugh even through this torturous hell was a win.
Atharva breathed his first free breath in nine months.
As Iram chuckled through her tears in front of him, with a whole ocean of grief still between them to cross, he knew that they would be ok.
This watery chuckle was the prelude. They would be ok.
“You called the children yours.”
His smile died.
“You had called your election victory ours, long before we were even married. You called the children yours. And I knew they were words said in anger…”
“They were!”
“I know. A part of me knew. But I told you last night, it’s like two parts of me operate — the logical thinking part and the emotional, fragile part,” she huffed, her chest going up in a long breath.
“Iram.”
“Hmm?”
“These children are ours. Yours and mine. More yours than mine because you carried them, nurtured them for nine months, in that state.”
“You took care of Arth for four months singlehandedly.”
“Still can’t compare.”
She looked at him like that then. Like she used to look at him before all this started. Like he was invincible. Like he would be here, and everything would be ok for her. He wanted that. He wanted to be that again.
“I did not leave you, Atharva.”
He sighed.
“You will not believe me, maybe a part of you will never believe me. And I don’t blame you. You have scars as deep as mine. Maybe different, but they are the same. And I went and trampled over them unknowingly…”
“I’m sorry…”
“No. Say it. Spew it out. Whatever it is. You do not have to hold back just because you think I need to deal with life here. Atharva, this is me dealing with life here. You want honesty? This morning while feeding Yathaarth, I disconnected. It was perfect, he latched nicely, he was even gurgling and enjoying it. Begumjaan and Ada were with me. One of your old songs was playing in the background. The sun was bright. It should have been perfect. And yet I switched off. I did everything, even talked to them like a normal person, but I was away.”
“Is it painful?” He asked, trying to understand her. “The space you go into?”
“It’s… confusing. And scary.”
“What happens?”
“I feel bad, and scared, and the thoughts are… god! The thoughts are so bad. Irrational, but I cannot shake them off.”
“What thoughts?”
“Like…” she stalled.
“Tell me. You can tell me, can’t you?” His voice softened, honing in on her eyes. She lowered her lids and he let her.
“Like nothing will be ok anymore,” her small voice finally sounded.
“It will only become worse. Something bad will happen again. We were so happy… everything was so good and look what happened. Again and again it kept happening.” She shook her head.
“I became so used to the happy,” her lids rose and brown, vulnerable eyes met his.
“I know life is not all smooth sailing but it was unjust. And it keeps happening. Always it keeps happening. I am scared this is not real too. If it is, then it will go away, that Arth will never bond with me like he would have if I had been here, I am scared you won’t be with me and more bad will happen.
” She gasped, taking the breath that she had stalled to speak those words.
“Will my saying something help?”
She did not respond. He took his hand to her cheek. Cupped it. It was thinner than before, squishing so easily under his thumb. He caressed it. And felt her skin erupt in goosebumps. “Nothing bad will happen. I am here. I will not let it.”
Her eyelashes fell, then rose again, her brows drawn together. Atharva cupped her other cheek and ran his thumb over the frown. It instantly melted.
“Everything will fall into place.”
She nodded. They both knew he did not have the power to make everything ok or prevent the next bad thing from happening. But they both knew that his saying that to her was half the battle won for her.
“Is it happening to you right now?”
She shook her head. “It happened this morning and then I was able to bring myself out of it.”
“What brings you out?”
“I don’t know… doing something? Channeling my mind into something. I started folding his clothes and arranging them colour-wise and it’s been good ever since.”
“Do you want to talk to somebody about this? A therapist?”
“Actually, I did talk to Dr. Baig when we were doing the examinations.”
“What did she say?”