Chapter 7
aavi sat at a table with panoramic views of Sandton. The hotel’s coffee shop on the top floor was quieter than she’d expected, but then she remembered it was the middle of a Tuesday afternoon.
She’d told Neel she needed to get out of the house. He wanted to go with her, but she said she needed to speak to Sen alone. She lied. She just needed space. But she got him to drop her off at the hotel where Sen and Shona were staying, which she knew had a great coffee shop.
She ordered an iced hazelnut latte and gave in to the craving for a slice of chocolate cake.
She hid her turmoil behind her appearance.
She wore well-fitted jeans and a white blouse that accentuated her new curves.
Her hair cascaded down her back, and her makeup was expertly done.
She even wore high-heeled strappy sandals.
She sipped her latte and closed her eyes briefly.
She should have been feeling anxious, but since revealing to Neel what had happened to her, she felt a sense of calm.
He always made her feel safe. Her therapist said she didn’t have panic attacks when they were together because he grounded her.
Also that the scars of the past couldn’t be erased but that they could heal.
It was a miracle to her that none of the attacks in prison had left any prominent physical scars.
She might not have been able to enter the modelling world if they had.
Ten years later, the scar on her thigh was minute.
She often asked herself how a father could put his child through what she endured.
Her grandfather said it was pure evil. Her therapist said her father was a psychopath.
How could her mother ever have fallen in love with him?
Their lives could have been so different.
Her father inherited his family’s fortune when her grandfather died a couple of months before she was born.
He didn’t need to work as a cop. But the badge gave him power over others.
She had long accepted that her father didn’t love her. It was just one of those things.
From the 30th floor where she sat, the area looked pristine, yet a closer look would reveal crime, grime and other horrors – just like her family. Picture perfect until you looked deeper.
‘Kaavi.’
She turned her head. She hadn’t even heard her mother approach. Her mother didn’t ask if she could join her. She simply pulled out the chair opposite her and sat.
‘Sen still has that tracker app linked to your phone. He helped me find you when Neel said you were in the hotel. You’re lucky to have Sen, you know. He’s always looking out for you.’
Kaavi nodded.
She took in her mother’s features. She could easily pass as Kaavi’s older sister. She was strikingly beautiful, with dark eyes, high cheekbones and thick hair, which she kept shorter than Kaavi’s.
‘I told Neel everything.’
‘You should have told him when you got married. But who am I to talk? I’m no expert on marriage,’ her mother said wryly.
The waitress approached and her mother ordered a pot of tea and a scone.
‘Are you missing him?’ Kaavi heard herself ask.
‘I don’t know. He was part of my life for more than half of it.
Kaavi, he wasn’t always like that. When I met him that weekend in Rally, he was charming, handsome and, dare I say, kind.
Or maybe I was blinded by my attraction to him.
I had just graduated from college, still unsure what I really wanted to do, and I wanted to get out of Rally as quickly as I could. ’
Her mother shook her head and sighed.
‘You’re probably asking yourself why a young woman with a good family and all the money in the world would want to escape.
I was Rally’s sweetheart; no one took me seriously.
I couldn’t be smart because smart and beautiful didn’t go together.
In their eyes I had the beauty but not the brains.
My parents and brother were the only people who took me seriously.
Even my friends used me for my family’s status. ’
Her mother stopped to allow the waitress to deliver her order. She poured her tea and reached for the sugar.
‘Why did you go back after we escaped when I was 11?’
Her mother stirred her tea thoughtfully.
‘By then I knew the type of power he wielded and what he was capable of. He threatened to take you away from me. He knew that you were my whole world and that he could use my love for you against me. He said he would get the judge to give him sole custody. I knew he could.’
She sipped her tea.
‘We could have stood up to him together as I got older. But you just obeyed. You didn’t fight for me!’ Kaavi challenged.
Her mother’s eyes filled with tears.
‘Kaavi, do you think we would have won? Even the courts were on his side. You saw what his power could do. Do you know I was locked up in that room for five days after your arrest before my brother found out and broke down that door and took me to the hotel.
‘He threatened to have my brother arrested if I didn’t come back home. I knew he could. After all, my child … my child was behind bars because of him.’
Her mother took another sip of her tea.
‘On that morning …’ her mother blinked away tears.
‘Sen arrived at the house. He said you’d been stabbed. He said it was time to go to the newspapers. We could fight this using the press. I told him to first give me time to try something and asked him to drop me off at the police station.
‘Your father wasn’t there when we arrived.
He was home looking for me. I asked Sen to take me home but not accompany me inside.
Sen was reluctant, but I begged him not to come in with me.
When I entered the house, your father was frantic.
The CCTV showed that I’d left with Sen. He thought I had left him. It set my plan in motion.’
Her mother held Kaavi’s gaze for a moment before continuing: ‘I told him that he’d already taken you away so I didn’t have to stay with him and I was leaving.
He thought I was calling his bluff. He laughed at me.
He actually laughed at me. He grabbed my arm to drag me to the bedroom so he could lock me in there, but Sen barged in.
He hadn’t left as I’d asked him to. Sen pulled out his cellphone and started recording.
Your father immediately dropped my arm. I left with Sen.
‘I stayed at the hotel for two days. I was sure my plan had failed until he showed up there. He said he would drop the charges if I went back home. I agreed without hesitation. After your release, Sen tried to convince me to leave. We could use the cellphone recording as blackmail to get him to let me leave. But I knew him, Kaavi. He wouldn’t just accept it.
He would need to get back at me and the only way he could do so was by harming you. And he would find a way.’
‘So you traded your freedom for mine?’ Kaavi asked, astonished.
‘Don’t make it sound heroic. You wouldn’t have been in that situation if I had been stronger … I could have tried to save us when you were younger …’
Kaavi was battling to digest any of what she’d just heard. Her mother did love her.
‘After you left, things changed. He didn’t punish me. He still kept tabs on my every move, but the punishment stopped. I don’t know why. About six months ago, the doctors said his heart was in bad condition. I didn’t bother finding out more about it.’
She paused, looked down at her hands, and then back at Kaavi.
‘At Sen’s wedding, after I saw how happy you were, how protected you were, that you had my family and new friends, I decided it was time to leave him.
I got back from the wedding and started to plan.
On Saturday, I packed my bags and told him I was leaving.
We argued. He wasn’t going to back down.
He said he would never let me go. He clutched his chest … ’
‘Mom …’ Kaavi stood and rushed around the table. She crouched and hugged her mother.
‘Oh, Mom. I’m sorry I treated you so badly. I’m sorry,’ she sobbed.
Her mother kissed the top of her head and then leaned back to look at Kaavi’s face.
‘I didn’t know he was trying to find you. I swear I didn’t know,’ she said.
‘I know.’
Returning to her seat, Kaavi said, ‘Turns out I was pretty easy to find and keep tabs on. Imagine – I thought no one knew I was married, but even Granddad and Sen knew about it.’
Her mother didn’t say anything. She looked out the floor-to-ceiling window. They sat in silence for a few minutes. The coffee machine came to life at the counter.
‘When your grandfather talks about forgiveness, he doesn’t mean you should forgive your father for what he did.
He doesn’t mean you should shrug it off as something that just happened.
What happened to you was cruel. It was brutal.
You can’t forget that. But you’ve spent the last ten years trying to win this invisible war against your father.
I know it’s because you couldn’t fight him back then …
but Kaavi, you’ve already won. Don’t you see that?
You went on to do amazing things. A supermodel!
Kaavi, a real-life supermodel. You married a man who truly loves you.
Yes, I know that it’s complicated now, but you found love.
You found peace and acceptance in Rally.
You have friends, people you can laugh with …
people who care about you. Kaavi, you won. ’
Neel entered his parents’ house and walked straight to the living room where he knew they would be sitting and talking.
His hair was a mess from him frantically and repeatedly running his hand through it. His eyes were wide and filled with unshed tears. He looked like hell.
‘Neel, what’s wrong?’ His mother was on her feet, almost running to him.
‘What he did to her … she told me …’
His mother flung her arms around him and hugged him for dear life.
‘We know,’ she said. Neel stepped back out of her embrace.
‘You know?’