40. IT FINALLY MAKES SENSE
VEERAJ
The silver photo frame sits beside the brass inkwell on my desk. It looks oddly out of place among the stacks of audit reports and files spread across the mahogany surface.
It's the photo I took on Aadhya's birthday.
Diya doesn't know I printed it.
She's standing beneath the garden lights, watching Devraj bhai sa and Meher bhabhi sa together, smiling without realizing anyone is looking at her.
Every time my eyes drift toward that frame, I lose my concentration. The reports blur. The numbers stop making sense.
Instead, I find myself looking at her. The royal blue saree. Her loose curls. The soft smile that only appears when she forgets to guard herself. The pale patches of vitiligo on her neck catching the warm light. She's beautiful.
Not because she's trying to be. Simply because she's being herself.
"Well, well . . . " Vihaan strolls inside like he owns the place, one hand tucked into his pocket. His gaze follows mine and lands immediately on the photograph. A slow grin spreads across his face. "I never thought I'd see the day."
I don't bother looking up from the file in front of me. "What day?"
He walks closer and points toward the frame. "The day Veeraj Singh Shekhawat keeps a framed photograph of his wife on his office desk."
"It's a family photograph."
"Oh, of course."
He nods dramatically. "And I'm sure that's why it's the only picture on the entire desk."
I continue reading the same paragraph for the third time. "I fail to see your point."
"My point," he says, leaning against the desk, "is that if someone had told me three months ago that my elder brother would spend office hours staring at candid pictures of his wife, I'd have laughed in their face."
"I wasn't staring."
"You absolutely were."
"I was thinking."
"About her."
I don't answer.
Vihaan's grin only grows. "You know," he says, his teasing softening into something more genuine, "I honestly didn't think this was possible."
That finally makes me look up. "What wasn't?"
He folds his arms. "This." He gestures between me and the photograph. "I didn't think anyone could get past those walls you spent years building." He smiles. "I think I should personally thank Diya someday."
I raise an eyebrow. "For what?"
"For proving my big brother actually has a heart and can love someone." I pick up my pen and point it toward the door.
"Get out."
He laughs loudly. "I'll take that as confirmation."
Then he walks toward the exit. Just before leaving, he glances back with another knowing smile. "Don't keep her waiting too long today."
The door closes behind him.
Silence returns.
I look back at the photograph. My fingers rest against the edge of the frame. His words stay with me.
A heart.
Love.
For most of my life, emotions have been something to control. Duty comes first. The family comes first. Work comes first.
Feelings only get in the way. That's what I've always believed.
But then . . . Diya.
I think about the night she woke up crying from a nightmare and asked me to hold her.
About the anger that rises every time I remember what her father or those children and caregivers at the orphanage put her through.
About how my day somehow feels incomplete if I don't see her.
About the way I finish meetings faster than I used to because all I want is to go home.
About how easily she smiles around children.
About how proud I feel every time I watch her stand up for someone else.
About the ridiculous satisfaction I get from making her blush.
About how naturally my life has started revolving around hers.
Somewhere along the way . . . Without even realizing it . . . She stops feeling like someone I married.
She starts feeling like home.
I lean back in my chair and look at her smiling face in the photograph again. A slow smile appears before I can stop it. Maybe Vihaan is right. Maybe there isn't another word for this anymore.
This isn't responsibility. It isn't a duty. It isn't a habit.
It's love.
I don't remember exactly when I fall in love with my wife.
I only know that one day I look at her . . . And I can't imagine a life where she isn't in it.