RED ROSE
YUVAAN
Breakfast is already underway by the time I walk into the dining room with Anamika beside me.
Sunlight pours through the tall windows, spilling across the long dining table, catching on silver cutlery and porcelain cups. The smell of fresh parathas, cardamom chai, and butter fills the room, familiar enough now that it no longer feels like part of the palace—it feels like home.
I pull out the chair beside mine for Anamika without thinking.
She smiles, quiet and almost shy, before sitting down, and I take the seat next to her.
My fingers brush the back of her chair for the briefest moment as I settle in, a small, ordinary touch that somehow still feels extraordinary after everything that happened last night.
Across the table, Sara is unusually quiet. That alone is enough to make me suspicious. Normally she's talking before she's fully awake, narrating everything from the shape of her toast to whatever dream she had the night before. Today she's simply . . . watching.
Her spoon hangs halfway to her mouth while she studies both of us with narrowed eyes, her forehead scrunched in concentration. I recognise that expression. It's the same one she wears whenever she's putting together a puzzle. Or preparing to say something capable of derailing an entire room.
I exchange the briefest glance with Anamika.
She notices it too. Neither of us says a word.
Sara finally nods to herself, apparently satisfied with whatever conclusion she's reached.
"You two look very happy." Her announcement cuts cleanly through the quiet hum of breakfast conversation.
"And Mumma looks like a rose." She tilts her head thoughtfully. "Because she's so red."
Anamika has just taken a sip of water. The timing couldn't have been worse. She immediately coughs, setting the glass down so quickly it nearly tips over, one hand pressed against her chest while the other reaches blindly for her napkin.
I can't help it. A smile escapes before I can hide it. The colour already sitting in her cheeks deepens spectacularly, creeping all the way to the tips of her ears.
Across the table, Maa presses her lips together so tightly they're practically disappearing. She's trying. She really is. Unfortunately, I've known my mother long enough to recognise exactly what that expression means. She's seconds away from laughing.
"I . . . don't know what you're talking about," Anamika manages between coughs, though the sentence loses every ounce of credibility thanks to the fact that she refuses to look at anyone while saying it.
Kairav slowly lowers his spoon onto his plate.
The grin spreading across his face could probably be seen from space.
"Oh, no." He leans back in his chair with obvious delight.
"Something definitely happened." He looks between the two of us dramatically.
"I wasn't sure this morning . . . " He points at Sara.
" . . . but the tiny detective has now confirmed my suspicions. "
"I have eyes," Sara says matter-of-factly before taking another bite of breakfast. The certainty with which she says it sends Amish—who has apparently arrived sometime during all this—into quiet laughter at the end of the table.
"Sara . . . " Anamika's voice comes out somewhere between pleading and horrified. "We're not . . . " She gestures vaguely. " . . . that's not . . . " She gives up halfway through the sentence as if realizing why she is even explaining it to a child. Words have officially abandoned her.
Sara doesn't notice. Or perhaps she notices perfectly well and simply doesn't care.
"You held hands during dinner yesterday.
" She begins counting on her fingers. "Then this morning you smiled at each other before saying good morning.
" Another finger. "And Mister smiled at absolutely nothing while giving me my flower.
" A third finger goes up. "And . . . " She studies me carefully. " . . . he was humming."
"I was not humming." The denial leaves my mouth automatically. Then I stop. Think back.
Walk through the garden. Pick hibiscus. Walk to breakfast . . . I may actually have been humming.
Maa finally loses the battle she'd been fighting since Sara opened her mouth.
A laugh bursts out of her so suddenly she has to set her teacup down before she spills it.
"Oh, you absolutely were," she says between laughs.
"Terribly off-key, might I add." She wipes at the corner of one eye.
"I haven't heard you hum since . . . " She pauses. " . . . I honestly can't remember."
Kairav points triumphantly at me. "See?"
He turns dramatically toward Anamika. "It's official." He winks, "Our emotionally constipated Maharaja has begun humming." He beams, "I'd say that's worthy of a state holiday." Amish snorts into his tea.
"This is a conspiracy." Anamika folds her arms, trying very hard to look offended. Unfortunately, the blush still colouring her face ruins the effect completely. "You've all planned this."
"No," Sara replies with complete seriousness. "We're just observing facts."
The room dissolves into fresh laughter. I glance sideways at Anamika. She's trying so hard not to smile. Her lips twitch despite herself.
God . . . She's beautiful when she's embarrassed.
Especially because she never realises it.
"It's simple, Mumma." Sara shrugs like she's explaining basic arithmetic.
"You look happy." She studies her mother's face another second.
"Properly happy." Then she asks. "Are you finally going to be happy now?
" The question lands so gently that the entire room seems to exhale around it.
She pauses. "I mean . . . " Her little nose wrinkles. " . . . really happy."
"Not the pretend kind." Silence settles over the table.
Even Kairav stops smiling. I feel Anamika go completely still beside me.
I don't look at her immediately. Instead, beneath the table, I reach for her hand.
Our fingers meet almost instinctively. She startles for the briefest second before turning her palm over and threading her fingers through mine.
I squeeze gently. Nothing more. Just enough for her to know she's not answering alone anymore. She looks at me then. Her eyes are still damp from laughing. Still pink around the edges. Something soft passes between us.
No words.
None needed.
When she turns back to Sara, her smile is different somehow. Less careful. Less borrowed. "Yes." The answer is quiet. Certain. "Properly happy."
Sara's entire face lights up. Not with surprise.
With satisfaction. As though this was simply the answer she'd been waiting to hear all along.
"I knew it." She nods once, completely pleased with herself, and immediately returns to eating her breakfast as if she'd just finished ticking the last item off a very important list.
Conversation resumes almost instantly. Kairav, naturally, appoints himself narrator of events. "I'd just like everyone to know," he announces dramatically, "that I predicted this weeks ago."
"You did not," Maa says.
"I absolutely did."
"You predicted they were secretly planning to overthrow the palace kitchen because they kept disappearing together after dinner."
"Same difference."
"It is not remotely the same difference."
"I was spiritually correct."
Amish laughs so hard he has to lean away from the table. "You were just making things up."
"I call it intuition."
"It's called gossip."
Before Kairav can defend himself further, a neatly rolled napkin sails across the table and bounces cleanly off his forehead. He stares at Anamika in mock betrayal.
"You assaulted a prince."
"You deserved worse."
"I agree," Maa says serenely, reaching for another paratha.
"You encouraged him."
"I raised him."
"Exactly."
The table erupts again. Sara giggles so hard she nearly slides off her chair. Amish is laughing openly now. Even the staff quietly serving breakfast are smiling to themselves. I sit there listening to it all.
The overlapping voices. The laughter. The teasing. The familiar chaos.
Anamika's hand is still resting comfortably inside mine beneath the table.
Every now and then her thumb brushes lightly against my knuckles without either of us acknowledging it.
Such a tiny thing. It somehow feels bigger than every council meeting I've ever attended.
I look around the dining room. Years ago this table felt impossibly large.
Breakfast meant silence. A newspaper folded beside my plate. Reports balanced against the water jug. Staff moving quietly enough that the scrape of cutlery became the loudest sound in the room.
I convinced myself that was enough. That duty filled the same spaces family was supposed to. I know better now. Because this . . . This noise.
Kairav arguing over imaginary predictions. Maa pretending not to laugh while laughing harder than anyone else. Sara announcing life-changing discoveries with complete scientific confidence.
My wife sitting beside me in a pale pink kurta, cheeks still carrying the faintest trace of rose-red every time our eyes meet.
This is what I had been missing.
Not silence.
Life.
I tighten my fingers around Anamika's hand once more. She glances at me. Smiles. Small. Private. Entirely ours.
And I realise, with a fullness in my chest so overwhelming it almost steals my breath, that I could spend the rest of my life at this very table, being teased by my family, watching my daughter orchestrate chaos before breakfast, and seeing my wife blush every time someone catches me looking at her .
. . and I would never once ask for anything more.