EMPIRE OF THREE
YUVAAN
I've arranged for the entire park to be closed to everyone else for the day.
Not because I particularly enjoy empty amusement parks, but because the alternative involves navigating crowds with Sara, trying to keep track of her between strangers, and spending half the day worrying about whether someone is going to knock into her. This seemed easier.
Anamika doesn't agree.
She stands beside the entrance, staring at the deserted park with its colourful rides sitting completely still beneath the morning sun, then turns slowly toward me. "Yuvaan." I know that tone.
"What?"
"You rented an entire amusement park."
"It's only for the day."
"That's not the part I'm questioning."
I glance toward the gates, where two staff members are standing discreetly at a distance. "I thought it would be quieter."
She stares at me. I wait. She shakes her head, but there's a smile tugging at her mouth despite herself. "Normal people just come early on a weekday."
"We've established that we're not normal people."
"You've established that."
"I think the evidence supports me."
She laughs and swats my arm. Before I can say anything else, a small hand slips into mine and yanks hard enough to pull me forward.
"Papa! Come on!" That word still does things to my heart.
Anamika notices, she smiles and squeezes my hand.
Sara has apparently decided our discussion is irrelevant. She is already halfway toward the rides, practically vibrating with excitement. "I want that one!" She points at the brightly painted teacups spinning lazily in the morning light.
"I want to go really fast."
"That seems like a questionable ambition."
"No, it's not." She looks over her shoulder at me. "It's the best ambition." I don't bother arguing with a five-year-old who has already made up her mind.
She climbs into a teacup and pats the seat beside her. "Sit."
I look at Anamika. She is laughing. "Don't look at me," she says. "You created this."
"I did not create this."
"You rented the park."
"Different problem."
She laughs again and climbs into the seat opposite us.
Sara grabs the wheel in the middle. "Papa, ready?"
"No." She starts spinning it. "Too late!"
The teacup lurches into motion. Within seconds, we're turning fast enough that the park becomes a blur of colour and sunlight.
Sara's laughter rises above everything else, wild and delighted, while Anamika's starts as a laugh and quickly turns into a startled squeal when she loses her balance and grabs my knee.
My hand closes instinctively around hers. "Are you all right?"
"I'm going to kill you."
"You agreed to this."
"I agreed to a ride. I didn't agree to being spun into another dimension."
Sara is practically hysterical. "Faster!"
"Absolutely not," Anamika and I say together. That only makes Sara laugh harder. When the ride finally slows, Anamika sits there with one hand pressed against her chest, hair slightly dishevelled, cheeks flushed from laughing.
"Never again."
Sara immediately jumps down. "Again!"
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
"Papa?"
I look at her. She smiles. I sigh. "One more."
Anamika stares at me in betrayal. "You are the reason she gets everything she wants."
"I've accepted that."
We make our way through the park after that at Sara's pace, which means we stop at absolutely everything.
A little roller coaster has her screaming so loudly that the operator looks more alarmed than she does. Anamika holds my hand throughout the entire ride, her fingers squeezing mine every time we drop, and I find myself paying far more attention to the warmth of her palm than the track beneath us.
The carousel is next.
Sara chooses the horse with the golden mane and then points firmly to the ones on either side. "You two sit there."
"Why?"
"So we're together."
Anamika smiles and climbs onto the horse beside her. I take the other. Sara looks between us and nods, apparently satisfied with the arrangement. At the ring-toss stall, I miss deliberately. Three times. Sara wins every round and immediately decides this is proof of her superior athletic ability.
"I told you," she says proudly. "I'm better than both of you."
"Obviously."
Anamika laughs. "You didn't even try."
"I was distracted."
"By what?"
I look at her. She catches the meaning immediately and her cheeks turn pink. "Yuvaan."
I smile. She shakes her head, laughing under her breath. We move on. Somewhere around the middle of the morning, we're waiting beside one of the smaller rides when I notice Anamika go quiet.
It's subtle.
Most people wouldn't see it.
I do.
The slight change in her face. The way her fingers curl against the safety bar. The faint tremor in her hand. I don't ask. I reach into my jacket. She looks at the chocolate I place in her palm. Then at me. "How did you know?"
"I always notice you, Daisy." Her fingers close around it. "I carry them now."
She unwraps it slowly. "Where?"
"Everywhere."
She gives me a look. "I'm serious."
"So am I." I tap the pocket of my jacket. "Every jacket. Every bag. There's one in the car too."
Her expression softens. "You actually carry chocolate around for me?"
"Of course."
"Everywhere?"
"Everywhere."
She shakes her head, but there's something shining in her eyes now that has nothing to do with the ride. "You don't have to do that."
"Why?" I hold her gaze. "If not your husband, who else is going to take care of you?." She looks down at the chocolate for a moment before taking a bite but I don’t miss the red of her cheeks.
Colour slowly returns to her face. Then, without making a fuss about it, she rests her head against my shoulder. Just for a few seconds. I don't move. I don't say anything. I simply let her.
Sara comes running back before either of us has time to make the moment into something bigger. "Come on! There's another ride!"
Anamika lifts her head. I glance at her. She smiles.
"Go."
So we go.
By lunchtime, Sara has apparently decided that the park's food stalls exist specifically for her.
She wants cotton candy first. Then samosas.
Then something fried that neither Anamika nor I can identify.
She sits between us, sticky fingers wrapped around a piece of samosa dripping with tamarind chutney.
"Papa." She holds it toward me. "You have to try this."
I lean forward and take the bite. She watches me with enormous seriousness.
"Well?" I chew thoughtfully. "Best samosa I've ever had."
She beams. "I knew it." She immediately turns toward Anamika and holds another piece out.
"Mumma." Anamika takes it, laughing when a little chutney lands on her finger. "You're feeding everyone today?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I'm happy." The answer is so simple that neither of us has anything to say to it. I watch her continue eating, telling us some elaborate story about a talking elephant she dreamed about last week.
Anamika listens like the fate of the world depends on getting every detail right. She asks questions. Sara answers them. Then Sara interrupts herself to add something completely unrelated. Anamika listens anyway. I sit across from them and let the noise wash over me.
There is something almost unreal about watching the two of them together now.
Not because they're different. Because they aren't. They've simply stopped being careful around each other.
There is no performance in their laughter.
No checking whether the other person is still happy.
No quiet calculation about what they can afford to want. They are simply happy.
And somehow, without me noticing exactly when it happened, that happiness has begun to feel like mine too.
"Papa." Sara pulls me out of my thoughts. She holds out a huge cloud of pink cotton candy. "Why don't you have some?"
"I don't really like sweets."
She looks genuinely concerned. "That's very sad."
"It has been difficult."
She nods solemnly. "I'll help you." She tears off a piece and holds it out. I take it. The sugar melts almost immediately on my tongue.
"Good?"
"Very." I lie.
She smiles.
But I don't tell her that I barely taste the cotton candy. What I taste is childhood. Something light. Something uncomplicated. Something I never had enough of. And somehow, she is handing it to me in tiny sticky pieces.
The afternoon passes in a blur of rides and laughter. The haunted house turns out to be so unimpressive that Sara spends most of it criticising the monsters.
"That ghost was fake."
"It was supposed to be fake."
"It wasn't scary."
"I think that was the idea."
"Then they should make it better."
Anamika laughs so hard she has to stop walking. By the time we reach the Ferris wheel, the sunlight has softened. Everything is gold. The rides glow against the darkening sky, their lights beginning to come alive one by one.
Sara climbs into the cabin between us. She's still talking when we start rising. Something about tomorrow. Something about wanting to come back. Something about how she thinks we should buy the park because then we could visit whenever we wanted.
I promise to consider it.
She yawns. Then again. By the time we reach the top, she's asleep. Just like that. Her head settles against Anamika's shoulder, one tiny hand still curled around the edge of her dress. Anamika looks down at her and smiles. The kind of smile that makes everything inside me go quiet.
I reach across Sara carefully. Anamika looks up. Our eyes meet.
For a moment, neither of us says anything.
Below us, the entire park stretches out in pools of warm light. Empty.Quiet. Ours for one evening.
I take her free hand. She lets me. Our fingers lace together naturally.
Her thumb brushes once over my knuckle. "You know," she whispers, "I think she had a very good day."
I look at our sleeping daughter. Then at her.
"I think I did too."
Her smile deepens.
I squeeze her hand.
There are kingdoms I've inherited. Estates I've spent years protecting. Rooms filled with paintings and gold and things people would consider priceless. But sitting here, with Sara asleep between us and Anamika's fingers woven through mine, I understand something I never did when I was younger.
An empire doesn't have to be made of land.
Sometimes it's three people sitting together in a slowly swaying Ferris-wheel cabin, laughing until their stomachs hurt, sharing food from paper plates and sticky pieces of cotton candy.
Sometimes it's a little girl who calls me Papa.
Sometimes it's the woman I've loved since I was too young to understand what love was.
And if this is all I ever get to rule over, I think I'd happily give every crown I've ever been handed for it.
I look down at our joined hands. Then at the two of them. And for once, I don't wish for anything more.