Epilogue
The movement of the rubber ball going up and falling back down to the bed was damn near hypnotizing. Neev Sharma watched from his place on the floor as his best mate since childhood, Harsh Khanna, threw and caught the rubber ball while lying on Neev's bed.
"I'm bored," Harsh yawned as he caught the ball and threw it back up into the air. "We haven't been graduates of St Xaviers for a full day yet and I'm already bored out of my bloody arse."
"My mum said you can't keep cursing around here. Ansh is starting to pick up words, and she said if his first word is 'bloody,' 'shit,' 'bugger,' or 'arse' then she's going to kill you," Neev replied, pulling at a loose string from his sock.
Harsh laughed and threw the rubber ball at Neev. "Masi wouldn't harm a hair on my head. She loves me too much."
"Nah, mate, I'm pretty sure she only just tolerates your presence for my sake," Neev said.
"Liar."
"I'm not lying," Neev said with an innocent smile.
"MASI!" Harsh yelled.
They heard Nupur's footsteps coming down the long hallway and watched her poke her head into the room. "Why are you screaming?"
"Tell Neev that you love me completely, and that you wish I was your son instead of him," Harsh said from the bed.
Nupur rolled her eyes. "I really have no idea when the two of you are going to grow up. Dinner is almost ready, by the way. Wash up, please, and can you make sure your siblings are washed up, too, Neev?"
Neev nodded and watched her leave the room. "I told you she only tolerated you," he said to Harsh.
"Wanker," Harsh laughed and threw a pillow at his friend.
"You also can't say 'wanker,' you wanker," Neev said, getting another pillow thrown at him for good measure.
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Neev knocked on Sheen's door and opened it when she told him to come in. He found his eight-year-old sister sitting on the floor with a large pile of dolls surrounding her.
"Hi, Neev!" she said with a bright smile on her face. "You wanna play with me?"
Neev looked at the dolls with something a little less harsh than horror. "Ah, no thank you. It's almost time for dinner. Mum said to wash your hands."
"But my hands are clean," she said, making two of her two dolls smash into each other. "Ishan's hands are dirty, though. Go tell him to wash up."
"Someone's extremely bossy today, aren't we?" Neev teased.
Sheen smiled widely at him, displaying three missing baby teeth. "Daddy says I'm perfect."
"Yeah, well Daddy also spoils you to the point of nausea," he muttered.
"But I'm his little Shehzaadi Sheen!" she said proudly, with all the hauteur of a Sharma.
"Of course you are," Neev said. "Now, go wash your hands."
He watched her scramble out of the pile of dolls and run to the bathroom connected to her room, her curly, dark brown hair streaming behind her. She looked so much like Nupur that Neev had no trouble understanding why his father spoiled her so much. The hair color only made Sheen that much more adorable. The baby fat and the missing teeth and the light brown eyes always made any male who talked to her a complete sucker, ready to do whatever she wanted. She had all of her male relatives wrapped around her chubby, little finger.
He left her room to check on Ishan, his twelve-year-old brother. Neev and Ishan were quite close despite being five years apart in age.
The door to Ishan's room was open and the young boy sat on his bed with his headphones, a gift from their maternal grandfather, stuck in his ears as he browsed through an Electronics magazine. Yeah, they actually had magazines devoted to electronics. Ishan was the brainiac of the family, taking after his father.
Neev walked over to his brother's bed and snatched the magazine out of his hands.
"Hey!" Ishan said in his pubescent, cracking voice, his dark brown eyes narrowing at his older brother. "I was reading that."
"Mum says to wash up for dinner," Neev said, throwing the magazine back onto the bed.
"My hands are clean," Ishan said with a roll of his eyes.
"Just wash them," Neev said on his way out of the room, listening to his brother grumble behind him.
He walked back to his own room where Harsh was still on the bed, except now he was sleeping. Neev shook his head at his friend who always liked to fall asleep when he was bored, usually on any flat surface he could find. Neev crept back out of the room and closed the door behind him.
He walked to the kitchen where Nupur sat at the table, trying to get Ansh to eat his crackers. Ansh was Neev's youngest sibling at only ten months old. Everyone knew that Mayank and Nupur had planned to stop having kids after Sheen, but then Ansh had come along eight years later as a complete and utter surprise. Neev liked to call him Ansh the Accident Baby.
With a mop of jet black hair, Ansh was a lively babe with pudgy cheeks and bright hazel eyes he inherited directly from his grandmother, Shilpa. He also couldn't talk, which made him Neev's favorite sibling.
"Sweetheart, could you hand me that towel over there?" Nupur asked.
Neev picked up the towel draped over the counter and sat down at the table next to his brother's high chair. Ansh immediately reached out to cover Neev's face in soggy cracker crumbs. Great.
"Oh, Anshy, don't make a mess," Nupur sighed, handing Neev the towel. "Did Ishan and Sheen wash up?"
"Yeah."
"Where did you leave Harsh?" she asked, ducking as Ansh swung his tiny fist in many directions.
"He's sleeping," Neev shrugged.
Nupur smiled at that. "Your father is down in the cellar organizing the boxes. I swear, anytime I ask him to do something he complains more than an old hag."
"I do not complain like an old hag," Mayank said from the doorway, wiping his hands on his pants. "If you would let me employ a helper, I wouldn't say anything." He leaned down to ruffle Ansh's hair and kiss his head. "Give your mother hell for me, kid."
"Really, Mayank, what did I say about cursing?" Nupur asked with a frown.
"Hell is not a curse word. It's a place some people believe in," he argued, winking at Neev. "Places can't be curses."
She rolled her eyes. "Did you finish down in the cellar?"
Mayank snorted. "No. There're too many boxes. How on earth do you expect me to finish without help?"
"Would you stop with the extra help?" Nupur snapped. "That really wouldn't help you in organizing anything. All it would do is probably ease the burden off the heavy stuff. Are you saying that your arms are too weak to lift anything?"
"Shut it," Mayank mumbled as he grabbed a glass of water and glared at his wife over the rim.
Neev pressed his hand to his mouth to keep from laughing. His parents' fights never ceased to amuse him. He stopped laughing when Nupur spoke again.
"Maybe Neev can help you," she said.
Damn it!
"Are you busy, Neev? I could use your help," Mayank said.
"Uh," Neev sighed. "Yeah, okay, I can help. Harsh won't be up for a while."
"I swear that boy takes more naps than Ansh," Nupur said, making a silly face for her baby. "Doesn't he, Anshy? Yes he does! Oh yes, my little Shooshi!"
Neev and Mayank grimaced. Neither one of them could stomach the baby-talk, but Nupur loved all of her children so much she really couldn't help it.
________________________________________
Coughing strongly as a layer of dust scattered from an old box, Neev waved away the dust and moved the box with his foot. "What's in this one?"
Mayank looked up from his spot across the cellar. "Is it labeled?"
Neev shook his head and knelt down to try and open the box. "There's nothing written on it."
"It might be your old toys. Your mum said if we found them to bring them upstairs to give to Sheen and Ansh."
He carefully opened the box, trying not to spread the dust around too much, and reached inside. The cellar of the house wasn't too brightly lit, but he could still make out the shapes of all his old toys in the box.
He picked up the first two items at the top and stared at them with his mouth slightly hung open. His two favorite toys, the two things he had never let out of his sight: Rosie and Posey the dinosaurs. It had been ages since he'd seen them. On his ninth birthday, Mayank and Nupur had convinced him to give them up, and he had done it reluctantly.
Looking at the green dinosaur, Posey, his mind was suddenly filled with the reason he had it. He looked up at his father, who was rifling through another box.
"Dad?"
"Yeah?"
"Whatever happened to Annie?"
Mayank's movements stopped and he lifted his head to meet his son's gaze. "Annie?"
"You never talk about her, except for that time when Ishan was six and he drew a picture of a monkey, and Sonali said it looked just like Annie…"
"I haven't heard from her or heard anything about her," Mayank shrugged.
"Is she still married to that guy?"
Mayank shrugged again. "Why all the questions?"
"I don't know, I'm just curious. She is my mother after all…"
"Nupur is your mother," Mayank said sharply.
"Dad, I know that," Neev said patiently. "But it doesn't stop me from wondering. It's not like I can completely ignore who she is."
"I don't know what's happened to her, Neev, and I really don't care."
"Does mum know about her?"
"No, and I don't want you asking her," Mayank explained.
"Okay," Neev said quietly, putting the two dinosaurs back into the box.
"Neev," Mayank sighed, "don't be upset."
Neev looked up and shook his head, forcing a smile onto his face. "I'm not upset, Dad, honestly. I'm just curious. It's not like I've had a void in my life where a mother should have been. I promise."
Mayank looked at his son for a long moment and then smiled softly. "Okay, help me with those boxes and we'll be done for today."
Mayank was elated. After ages of time, effort and an amalgam of misunderstood feelings, he had gotten this far. A lifetime of happiness with his true family. These overwhelming feelings of love, togetherness and affection continued to inundate him, encapsulating him in an almost fantasy-like world similar to Utopia. However, unlike Utopia, this was very much real. Everyday, unbeknownst to his children and even Nupur, he prayed for this bond to remain intact, nothing disrupting this beautiful chapter they had formed.
Xxxxxxxx
The End
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