Desertion

I sit by the window and watch the rain drops drip down the pane making long, straggly lines.

My head full of memories, roiling around like waves at high tide. My hand tightened on the mug unconsciously, his face kept popping up in spite of my best efforts to keep it out.

That dimpled smile. The brown eyes that searched my soul. The way he made fun of the way I eat carrots obsessively. The way he put his strong arm around me possessively. Orphan that I was, he taught me the meaning of ‘home’.

I had resisted his gentlemanly overtures. I just wasn’t interested in a relationship, least of all that. But he’d persisted. One long stemmed red rose a day till I had caved. And that wasn't the only thing either. I always made fun of him saying that he should write a book titled ‘Million Ways To Woo Your Woman.’

People say the magic lasts only till marriage. That was for pretentious people. We? We were blissfully happy, taking life on together. Or so I thought.

He was the only one who had gotten close enough to hurt me.

How could he do this to me? Ah, the million dollar question. I think wryly. Five years of togetherness, precious memories and full of hope for the future. But, apparently, that hadn’t been enough to keep him here.

Three days. It seems like eternity to me.

I had managed fine for 23 years without him, hadn’t I? How is it that suddenly he becomes indispensable? Nonsense. Shit happens and then we move on, don’t we? I reason.

But all my reasoning fails to hold my fragile world together. I know instinctively that I’ll never recover from this. And I’ll never forgive him for doing this to me. I wonder how long it will be before I can breathe properly again.

I choke up.

He’d promised me the moon and the stars and all that is in between. He’d promised me forever. The liar.

I should have known it wouldn’t last. Known that it was too good to be true.

I should have done things differently.

I should never have attended that call.

The call.

It haunts me. It was the stuff that nightmares are made of.

‘Is this Mrs. Nita Varma I’m talking to?’

‘Yes, may I know who this is please?’

‘Ma’am, this is Inspector Shinde from the Baroda police station. I am very sorry to inform you that your husband, Deepak Varma, has been involved in an accident. No survivors. I know this is insensitive but will you be able to come and identify his body?’