Healing Hearts

Chapter ~ 3

MANGALORE — MORNING

Nandini closed her eyes before the aircraft doors were shut and kept them closed, which was a message, and Priya received it.

She let her be. But she had decided something in the night, sitting on a bathroom floor with a phone against her ear, and she was going to act on it.

PRIYA'S POV

I do not know what happened that night. You have never told me and I have stopped asking.

But I know it was not your doing. I would not believe it if the sky opened and said otherwise, because I know you, and I have known you since you were 8 years old, and you are not capable of the thing you have decided about yourself.

6 months you have been serving a sentence for a crime you did not commit.

That ends now. I do not know how yet. But it ends.

POV ENDS

NANDINI'S POV

You are frightened for me, dii. That is exactly why I have stopped letting you see anything.

Because I know what you believe, and you are wrong, and one day you will find that out and I will lose you too. Amma and Appa are dead because of me. Not because of the rain and not because of the road.

You were not there. That is the only reason you can still look at me.

And you loved them so much. From the day they brought you and Navya home you belonged to them more than I did in some ways. Appa was proud of you in a way he never quite managed with me. And Amma — Amma was not your mother, she was your friend, which is rarer.

I remember the day you had to leave for Mumbai to study.

POV ENDS

*Eight years earlier.*

"Ishimaa, please. I do not want to go."

Said Priya.

She was on the floor with her head in Ishita Murthy's lap, 19 years old and crying like a much smaller person.

"I can study here. What is wrong with here? And how will I manage Navya without you, you know what she is like. And Nandu — how am I supposed to leave Nandu, and you, and Appa. Please talk to him. I will do anything else you ask me for the rest of my life. Please do not send me away."

Ishita was smiling and there were tears on her own face, because there was a girl in her lap who had every opportunity in the world in front of her and was sobbing at the idea of leaving her parents.

She smoothed the hair back off Priya's forehead.

"Priyu."

Said Ishita.

Priya looked up, red-eyed, still hiccupping.

"From the day you came into this house you have been my daughter.

Not like a daughter. My daughter. And do you know what the first time you called me Ishimaa did to me? I already had Nandini. And still, standing in that kitchen, I felt as though I had been made a mother for the first time."

Said Ishita.

"Then why send me away?"

Said Priya.

"Because your father has been telling me for 4 years that one day you will run his business better than he ever did. He says it to guests. He is unbearable about it. And I would like him to be right. And more than that, I want you to be independent, standing on your own feet."

Said Ishita.

"Do you think we want this? We do not. But nothing worth having comes free, and it is 5 years, and Raman is already talking about moving the business to Mumbai, and every single holiday you will be on a plane home. And in return you will make us proud, and you will not waste one day of it."

Priya wiped her face on her sleeve.

"You will come and see me? Promise?"

Said Priya.

"I promise, princess. Now get up. There is a flight in an hour and you are not dressed."

Said Ishita.

At the door, Priya stopped her.

"Ishimaa. I promise you something too. I will make you and Appa proud one day. I will not waste this. And I will never break your trust."

Said Priya.

Ishita looked at her for a moment.

"I know."

NANDINI'S POV

You never knew that we heard it. Appa and I were both listening, from separate rooms, neither of us aware of the other.

He was crying. I saw him afterwards in the hall, pretending to look for his glasses.

You loved them like that, dii. And I took them away from you.

That is what I do all night, every night, and it always comes out the same.

POV ENDS

A tear went down Nandini's cheek and she wiped it fast with the back of her hand.

Priya, two seats away, had already put her own hand out, and had already stopped, and put it back.

Neither of them said anything for the rest of the flight.

MUMBAI

They came out into the arrivals hall and Priya spent 10 minutes scanning faces before she remembered her phone was still in flight mode.

Sorry Priyu. Emergency meeting, I cannot get to the airport. I will come tonight. I am extremely sorry, please do not be angry, and take care of yourself. Love you.

Priya read it twice and typed with considerable force.

Wonderful. Once again. Aman, I am not speaking to you. Keep your love to yourself. Do not show me your face this evening.

"What happened, dii? Where is jiju? He was supposed to be here."

Said Nandini.

"Your jiju is not coming. I am getting a cab. Stand here with the bags."

Said Priya.

Navya and Nandini looked at each other.

"Relax. Something urgent must have come up, that is all."

Said Nandini.

"Naturally. You will take his side. He is your beloved jiju, why would you not."

Said Priya.

"Dii—"

"No. Not this time. This time he is going to have a very difficult evening and I intend to enjoy every minute of it."

Said Priya, and marched off towards the taxi counter with her handbag over her shoulder like a weapon.

Nandini put a hand over her face.

"She is going to forgive him in 9 minutes."

Said Navya.

"Seven."

Said Nandini.

And for one second, standing between two suitcases in an airport, she almost laughed. Navya heard it and did not comment on it, because commenting on it was the fastest way to make it stop.

"Navya, is there a washroom here?"

Said Nandini.

"Inside, on the right."

Said Navya.

"I will be back in 2 minutes. Stay here. Do not wander off."

"I am 19, not four."

Said Navya.

"You are both."

Said Nandini, and went.

She walked fast, scanning the signage on the left-hand wall, not looking where she was going.

Coming the other way down the same corridor was a man who was not looking either.

He had landed 40 minutes earlier off an overnight flight with a bag on one shoulder and headphones round his neck and dark glasses pushed up into his hair, and he had not slept, and he had not spoken to a single person since London. His whole attention was on the phone in his hand.

Neither of them saw the other until it was far too late.There are two people in this story who have not slept properly in a very long time. One of them has not slept in 6 months. The other has not slept in 3 years.

They are about to walk into each other at speed, in an airport, in front of 200 strangers, and neither of them is going to handle it at all well.