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The drive back to her house was rife with tension.

Brahmi, like the day before, had knocked out cold.

It was apparently a thing. She would fall asleep right after getting off a horse and saying goodbye to her coach and friends.

Samarth glanced at Ava, navigating the same road they had taken yesterday, no care in the world when he was bursting with questions.

What was Vincent Delacour to her? Her daughter’s coach or more?

Who kissed their daughter’s coach? Even in France.

Were they friends? Was that why Brahmi was enrolled in this particular riding school?

The short conversation that had ensued in front of him was platonic, small talk.

But then there was a moment at the end, when Ava had gone into the stables to collect Brahmi after her lesson.

Delacour had also followed, waving to the kids.

A part of him had wanted to skid inside and stand there like a sentry. The other part was too ashamed to even think about claiming the two girls that he had, forget earned, not even deserved.

“Your car.”

He blinked out of his thoughts, gaping at her. Ava pointed at his window with her chin and he realised she had stopped the car at the gate.

“Can I come in?”

“No.”

“Please. One hour. Give me one hour with you. Listen. Just listen. If you then don’t want to talk then it’s ok.”

She shook her head. Samarth paused, glanced back at the sleeping little girl, her head lolling to the side, wisps of her hair framing her sweet face.

Her lashes were so long that they looked like sooty feathers on her cheek.

Samarth felt his heart and his chest and his face contort.

Ava was right. He wouldn’t put her through paternal rights and custody battles.

Ever. He wouldn’t put Brahmi through that.

How defeating it was to be a man of consciousness.

He wished in that moment that he had some ruthlessness in him to bulldoze through this, through Ava’s tough shell.

Instead, he took an extra second to memorise Brahmi’s face, to remember as well as to describe to Rajmata. He already had a thread of texts from her he hadn’t opened all day.

Samarth turned in his seat, nodded at Ava — “Thanks for taking me to her riding lessons.”

She unlocked the door and he pushed out, walking to his car.

Hers rolled inside the gate. Samarth opened the door of the driver’s seat and settled inside, the heat of its interiors hitting him.

He sat there quietly. There was no way he could see ahead from here.

He had come on his high horse to ‘win’ them.

But was there even a chukker here to ride?

He pushed the start button and turned the wheel just as the wrought iron gate opened. His hand stalled on the steering wheel. Ava came striding out, her hand raised for him to stop. Samarth cut the engine and rushed out — “What happened?”

“You can spend an hour here,” she allowed.

“Seriously?”

“It’s lunchtime. You can eat with us.”

Samarth pushed his keys inside his pocket and quickened his footsteps. She turned and strode inside. He followed, running to catch up.

————————————————————

Lunch was surprisingly a happy affair. But Brahmi talking up a storm while eating her perfectly round roti cooked by her mother and a simple kadhi with pakora could make any table happy.

Samarth noticed how connected she was to her Indian roots.

She ate the homely food without a fuss, told him the story that Ava’s mother had told her about Ganpati’s elephant head last evening, then asked him if there was a god with a horse head.

He didn’t know it. But Ava did.

“Hayagriva,” she told their daughter, pushing a spoonful of rice into her plate.

“I don’t want to eat rice…” she whined.

“You can’t only survive on roti and pasta. Come on, try this. You used to eat curd-rice all the time when you were a baby…” she began mixing her rice with kadhi.

“You like curd-rice?” Samarth asked, incredulous.

“My favouritest when I was a baby. I don’t like it now.”

“How come?” He took a spoonful of rice in his own plate, reached for the bowl of curd and mixed it in.

The texture was heavy, more like yogurt, so he tasted a small morsel to check if it was sweet.

It wasn’t. He sprinkled salt, mixed it up again, crushing it like Rajmata had crushed for him, and checked for the salt again. It was perfectly gooey, cold and zingy.

“Try this, it’s a special secret one,” he fisted his dirty hand and pushed his plate towards her. She opened her mouth. Samarth glanced at Ava. She stalled.

“Aaaa!” Brahmi opened her mouth wider.

“Rice is still hand-fed,” Ava nodded at him. Samarth felt his hand tremble as he made a morsel, a tiny one, and took it to her mouth. Her little lips closed around his fingers and he wanted to cry.

“How is it?” He croaked, clearing his throat.

“The same,” her mouth twisted. “You fooled me, Sam.”

“How come?!” He widened his eyes, shocked. “That can’t be. Wait,” he went into the small heap and pulverised it finer, rubbing it between his fingers until it was porridge consistency. Then fed her the morsel.

“Now?” He narrowed his eyes playfully.

“It tastes sweet,” her eyes screwed comically. “Now sour…” she kept chewing. “Now salty.”

“See?” He fed her the third and final morsel and eyed Ava to fill his plate. She did. He mixed up another batch and Brahmi kept guessing the taste as he kept alternating the intensity of his pulverising.

————————————————————

Samarth glanced at the clock. His one hour was about to be up and he hadn’t gotten a second alone with Ava.

“Movie time!” Brahmi screamed, running into the hall and laying down on the sofa, head turned to the television mounted on the far wall.

“Movie time?” Samarth glanced at the sun streaking inside the house from the window behind the sofa. “In the afternoon?”

She nodded — “Mama has a holiday on Saturday so afternoon movie. At night it’s story time or serial time.”

“Serial?”

“Ramayan!”

“Which movie?” Ava walked in, tying her hair up in a ponytail.

“Is Sam staying?”

“He will have work to do…”

Samarth wasn’t ruthless but he definitely knew when to claim an opening.

“Oh, it’s Saturday. So holiday for me too.”

“Yay!” Brahmi clapped, dancing even when lying down. “You can stay till evening, then you have to go home because you are friend and only family sleeps in the same home, ok?”

He pushed a smile to his face — “Ok.”

Ava did not oppose that plan, just turned on the TV, swiped through to Netflix, and after a long discussion with Brahmi, put on the good ol’ Ice Age.

The curtains were drawn on the window behind them, and the hall plunged into darkness as he took a seat at the far end of the long sofa, away from Brahmi’s little feet.

Ava went to the other side and took her head in her lap.

Samarth noticed one more quirk about his daughter then. She could talk nonstop all day but was quiet during a movie, to the point that if he as much as sneezed she shushed him. It was after half an hour into the movie when he realised that he only had fifty more minutes in this house.

He pulled out his mobile, went to Ava’s contact and with a wince, unblocked her. How had he thought this was ok? Alright, at the time he had been in grief and helpless and completely drowned. This had been the only way she would have taken an insult and said ‘fuck you’ to him to move on.

SAMARTH

Hi

He texted, hoping her number was still the same. Her phone lit up in the dark room and he prayed she would respond. She read it, then locked her phone, taking her eyes back to the movie.

Samarth had nothing to lose at this point except 50 minutes. Now 49. So he opened his phone and went all in.

SAMARTH

I wanted you to move on

I wanted you to forget me and make your life elsewhere.

Unlike last time when you quietly went and swore your life to only our memories.

Ava I was weak and helpless and ashamed after all the promises I made to you that no longer remained in my power to fulfil.

There is nothing I can say now to justify what I did then.

Hukum told me that day that I will be able to regret what I was doing but not be able to repent it.

Those words haven’t stopped ringing in my ears since the moment my eyes fell on you both.

Blue ticks began to appear. He kept typing without looking up.

SAMARTH

I have spent the last eight years in your memories, cut off from any news or relation that could bind me to you because then I would hear you got married, had kids, made a family…

and then even thinking about you would become wrong.

I have spent my life in your memories and I am so so sorry that you had to do the same without any fault of yours except that you loved a man like me.

When I look at our daughter I see the happiest child I ever saw, happier than even Sharan.

You did this all on your own and I cannot begin to imagine what it must have been like.

And how effortless you would have made it look while doing it with everything and more inside you.

You are right, I was never as bright as they made me out to be.

But one thing I know, that I have lived is — life without one parent is not as easy as it looks, even with all the luxuries of the world.

Lucky for her, she hasn’t seen her father to think about him walking away. But it will crop up someday.

You asked me once long ago if I ever missed my mother.

I said I didn’t. That was true. I did not miss her but I missed a mother.

I didn’t realise it until very recently.

Parts of my unfinished childhood, parts of my life have begun to fall into place and I am among the lucky few in the world who get that.

I don’t want our daughter to spend a lifetime before she experiences the fullness that she deserves.

Blue tick.

SAMARTH

It is already a lifetime too long.