“We are fine. Thank you for asking. Atharva shamelessly says that his wife is strong enough to run the house single-handedly. Which is crazy, because he manages it all so effortlessly. But Arth is growing, our goals are shifting as a family as we move from his baby phase into his schooling phase. Expenses just keep multiplying as kids grow.”
“Either have kids, or buy couture. Can’t do both,” Amaal shrugged, scared of the life she had so badly begun coveting and wondering if it was even possible.
“That’s enough about me. What is happening with you and Samar?”
“Nothing is happening.”
“Weren’t you two together? Didn’t you cry and stick yourself to his bedside for months after his accident?”
“He recovered then.”
“Amaal.”
“I am serious.”
Stop asking. Please.
“So am I. Did he say he did not want to get married?”
“No.”
He said — Let’s get married to obtain a nikahnama so that we can continue living together.
“That means he wants to get married?”
Amaal opened her mouth and let out a breath. It condensed in front of her mouth. And she finally uttered the words that she had not dared utter even to herself.
“Samar is not a man I can live with.”
“But you love him.”
“He is good to love from afar. You saw how he is. That can be acceptable once, twice, maybe three times. As friends from afar, you can even forgive that behaviour. But living a lifetime with that? I know where he comes from, I see his habits, his shortcomings, his compulsions, even his suffering. I can accept all of that. Today, I know I will be able to live with it because love is young and everything is rosy. But Iram, we get bored of a phone within a month. Nothing is novel forever. And when novelty wears off, I do not want to scream back at him after his nonsense. I don’t want it to become a daily ritual between us. It’s not cute every time.”
The noveltyhadworn off, and shehadexperienced what life would be like with him on the bad days. And she had seen enough of life to know that it was more bad days than good, more neutral days than bad.
“Did you tell him all this?”
She shook her head.
“Why?”
“That man lives on the precipice of guilt and self-loathing. You want me to add onto it?”
She wanted to live with him, be with him, but could not. And she could not tell him this, nor hear it back from him. What a mess they had made!
“But if you are not committing to him then it’s anyway adding onto it.”
“It’s not as if he has asked me to commit.”
“You just said he wants to get married.”
“He has just spoken about settling. Believe it or not, he is planning to settle here in Shimla.”
“Of course he is, he is the President of HDP and basically its founder.”
“Not for that.”
They stopped, eyes on each other.
