Chapter 1 #2
By seven-thirty, breakfast was laid out in the formal dining room.
The long mahogany table could seat twenty, but only five places were set this morning.
Vikram Singhania sat at the head, reading his newspaper, his reading glasses perched on his nose.
He was a formidable man even in his sixties—silver-haired, straight-backed, with the same sharp features his son had inherited.
He looked up as Akriti poured his chai. "Good morning."
"Good morning, Papa Ji," she replied, grateful for even that small acknowledgement.
He wasn't cruel like Priya, or dismissive like some of the others. He simply... didn't think about her much. She was part of the household, like the furniture or the paintings. Present but not particularly notable.
Savitri entered next, taking her place beside her husband. Then came Priya and her mother, Meera—Vikram's younger sister, who wore her jewelry like armor and her disdain like perfume.
"Is this upma?" Meera asked, poking at the dish with her spoon. "It's quite... simple."
"It's South Indian style," Akriti explained quietly. "I thought to try something different—"
"We're North Indian, dear," Meera interrupted with a thin smile. "Perhaps stick to what you know?"
Akriti's cheeks burned, but she nodded. "Of course. I'll remember that."
"The chai is good though," Vikram said without looking up from his newspaper.
It was a small kindness, but Akriti held onto it.
She served everyone their portions, refilled cups, brought fresh napkins when needed. She moved around the table like a shadow—present but easy to overlook.
"Aren't you eating?" Savitri asked.
"I'll eat after," Akriti replied. It was always after. After everyone else had been served. After the dishes were cleared. After she could escape to the solitude of her room.
"Sit," Savitri insisted. "Eat with us."
"Oh, let her do as she likes," Meera said airily. "Some people prefer to eat alone, isn't that right, Akriti? So used to it by now."
The barb hit its mark, but Akriti simply smiled. "I'm not very hungry. Please, enjoy."
She retreated to the kitchen, her appetite completely gone.
*
The afternoon brought its own routines. Akriti spent two hours in the mansion's library—a vast room filled with books that no one but her seemed to read.
She'd worked her way through the classics, the poetry, the philosophy texts.
Today she pulled down a volume of Mirza Ghalib's verses, losing herself in the Urdu couplets about love and longing.
How fitting.
At three o'clock, her driver—old Mohan, who'd been with her family before the marriage—arrived to take her into the city.
"Same place, beti?" he asked kindly.
"Yes, Uncle. Thank you."
The shelter home was in a less affluent part of Mumbai, where the buildings crowded together and the streets hummed with constant motion. "Asha Bhavan"—House of Hope. It was aptly named.
Akriti had started coming here six months after her wedding, desperate for something to fill the aching void of her days. She'd offered to teach the women—survivors of domestic violence, abandonment, trafficking—basic skills to help them rebuild their lives.
It had started small. Computer classes. English lessons. Tailoring workshops.
But it had grown. With careful investments from her inheritance—money her grandmother had left her, money that was hers alone—she'd expanded the programs. Now they offered job placement assistance, legal aid consultations, even a small daycare for the children.
"Akriti Didi!" A young woman named Reshma hurried toward her as she entered, her face bright with excitement. "You have to see—Maya finished her certification! She's officially a beautician now!"
Pride swelled in Akriti's chest. Maya had come to the shelter eight months ago, broken and afraid, her face still bearing the fading bruises from her husband's fists. Now she stood in the training room, certificate in hand, surrounded by cheering women.
"Congratulations," Akriti said warmly, embracing her. "I'm so proud of you."
"I couldn't have done it without you, Didi," Maya replied, tears streaming down her face. "You gave me hope. You gave me a future."
This. This was what filled the emptiness. Not prayers or patience or pretending everything was fine. But this—seeing women rise from ashes, reclaim their lives, become whole again.
If only she could reclaim her own.
She spent the next three hours teaching a computer class, helping two women fill out job applications, and mediating a dispute between residents about bathroom schedules. It was mundane and beautiful and achingly real.
By the time she returned to the mansion, the sun was setting, painting the sky in shades of orange and gold.
*
Dinner was worse than breakfast. The entire extended family gathered on Friday evenings—aunts, uncles, cousins, their spouses. Twenty people around that massive table, all of them somehow related to Raghav, all of them aware that she was the wife he'd abandoned.
Akriti served the appetizers, refilled water glasses, smiled when appropriate, and spoke only when directly addressed.