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Hello all,
A sincere attempt at a one shot. Comments/criticisms welcome.
Geet sat on her bed thinking how she would know, one way or the other, what her options were. She was very much afraid they didn't include Maan.
Since she'd told him about the baby, although he'd been kindness itself, he hadn't been near her. He hadn't held her, hadn't touched her, hadn't kissed her. And if he was keeping such a distance from her, it could only mean that he didn't love her and want her. The knowledge was bitter and the inheritance she got from Pinky's Dad seemed like her way out of a impossible and painful situation.
She had got enough money from Pinky's Dad who had distributed his inheritance equally to Geet and Pinky claiming Geet to be his eldest daughter. That gesture of his had brought tears to her eyes. She had refused but Pinky and her Dad had insisted. The money was enough to put down a deposit on a little house, so she could work and pay a small mortgage and give her baby some kind of lifestyle. That was all she wanted. Just enough of a leg-up to give her some security. Then she could stop worrying about the future and get on with their lives.
---------------------------------
"I don't think I can keep it."
They were sitting on the steps at the end of the garden staring out over the moonlit sky. Geet was mulling over the money she had received from Pinky's Dad.
"Why can't you keep it?"
"Because I ought to give it back to Pinky."
"Rubbish. Pinky's Dad really loves you. You know that he thought of you as a daughter, don't you?"
"Gosh." She swallowed the sudden lump in her throat and stared down at her hands. "He and Pinky were wonderful to me. I really will miss them."
"Well, you'll be able to think of him every time you walk up to your front door and put the key in it and let yourself into your very own home. That's a fitting legacy, don't you think?"
Oh God, how lonely. Even if she would have the baby for company. I don't want to do that! I don't want my own front door! I want yours - I want you to ask me to stay here with you, to tell me you love me. Not tell me that moving out into a house of my own would be a fitting legacy, for heaven's sake! Geet thought.
"Yes, it would be, If I keep it" she said, throwing him a probably very unconvincing smile.
"Well, you'll have to keep it for the baby's sake. And as a long-term investment, property has outperformed all other forms of investment substantially over the past thirty-odd years, so buying a house with the money would be a sensible thing to do."
The bit of her that wasn't screaming insider about out-performing investments actually managed a laugh. "What else would I do with it?" She asked.
"You could finish your studies," he suggested more seriously now. ' Get qualified, and set up a foundation to help people who can't afford to fight for their rights."
What a wonderful idea. "I could," she said slowly.
She rubbed her temples. She had a headache, probably brought on by the stress of the past few days. She stood up, brushed off her clothes and said "Maan, do you mind if I have an early night? I'm feeling a bit tired." "And I need to go and cry my eyes out, because all you seem to be able to talk about is me going, and I don't think I can bear it......" she thought.
"Sure." He stood up and walked back in with her. "Can I get you anything?"
She shook her head. "No, I'm fine. Thank you for everything."
"You're welcome."
She hesitated, gave him a chance to hug her, to kiss her goodnight - dammit, anything at all - but he just stood there and waited, so she turned on her heel and walked down the hall into her room, closed the door and started to cry.
----------------------------------------
"So what the hell is this about Geet going away?" Dadi asked Maan as soon as he entered the house.
He looked startled. "Well, she's going to buy a house and move into it. What's so odd about that? It's the obvious thing to do, I should have thought."
"Really?" Dadi looked stunned. "But what about you two?"
"What about us two? What us two? And anyway, there are three-----"
Dadi growled and rolled her eyes. "God, you're obtuse. For heaven's sake, Maan, I thought you loved each other."
He blinked. "What the hell gave you that idea?"
"Oh dear, I've seen you together?" she said, as if he was a slightly dense toddler.
"You're imagining it," he said flatly.
"Am I? I don't think so. You're really close. Or you were before she told you about the baby. Lots of lingering glances and little touches - it was obvious. A blind man on a galloping horse could see you were in love." She frowned. " Although since then you've been a little distant ----"
"She doesn't love me, don't be ridiculous - and anyway, she is having a baby!"
"Well, it's not exactly some foul disease, Maan! And why is it ridiculous? Just because she's having someone else's baby doesn't stop her loving you, and it shouldn't stop you being nice to her. You can still cuddle her. And you haven't" she said accusingly. "I thought she was looking a bit glum. When I spoke to her earlier, she didn't sound too happy, and I've been thinking about it."
"Oh, God help us," Maan said, rolling his eyes, and Dadi gave a tiny scream of frustration.
"Maan, I'm serious," she said. "She loves you to bits. And you love her. You do love her," she said again, when he opened his mouth to argue. "You know you do. So when are you going to admit it?"
He swallowed hard and rested his head back on the sofa, closing his eyes. "She doesn't love me, Dadi," he said gruffly. "She's still in love with her husband."
"Oh rubbish! She's no such thing! She outgrew him long ago, Maan. She loves you dear and she needs a real man - one who's grown up enough to love her back. A man like you - kind and thoughtful and safe."
"God, damned the faint praise," he said, and Dadi rolled her eyes again and dropped back into the sofa.
"Is that what you think? Faint praise? Look at her, Maan. Your love is one of the most important things you could give her. So when are you going to tell her you love her? When are you going to tell her that you don't want her to move out, you want her to stay here and marry you and spend her life with you, so that you can be a part of the baby's life and watch her grow up and give her brothers and sisters ---?"
"Enough! For God's sake, Dadi, that's enough!" he said panicking, his palms breaking out in a cold sweat. "I can't do that."
"Why?" she asked relentless. "Because Sameera cheated on you? Geet isn't Sameera. Sameera was a real piece of work. She never loved you. But Geet does. She loves you with all her heart, and she'll never hurt you, and she needs to know you love her back."
He sat forward. "You really think that? That she loves me?" He shook his head. "She's still thinking----"
"No! No, Maan, no, no, no! She's over him! It's you she loves. You have to tell her!"
He swallowed remembering Sameera, how when he'd said he loved her, thought she loved him back and she'd just laughed at him. Thrown back her head and laughed-----
"What if I tell her all that and she laughs at me?" he said, his voice uneven.
Dadi frowned. "She won't. But what if she did? So what? What have you lost? Just pride. What's that compared to a lifetime of loving her?" She sat down beside him, sliding her arms around him and hugging him. "Give her a chance, Maan," she pleaded. "Give both of you a chance. Go and talk to her now."
He shook his head. "She's asleep. She wanted an early night."
"So why is she standing at the end of the garden looking at the sky as if she wants to be one with it?"
Dadi stood up, kissed his cheek and left him sitting there starting out of the window at Geet.
The woman he loved. The only woman he'd ever really loved, he realised. Please, God, she wouldn't laugh at him.
He got to his feet and walked slowly, mechanically, to the door and slid it open, going out into the night. It had been a warm day, but now there was a chill in the air - or was it fear making him cold?
He swallowed, took a deep breath and started walking down the lawn.
------------------------
Geet didn't hear him coming, but she felt his presence and turned as he reached her.
"Hi there," he said, and she scanned his face. He looked grave, and she gave him an unsteady smile in the moonlight. Was this it? The grand goodbye?
"Hi," she managed.
"I thought you were having an early night?"
"I couldn't sleep."
"Want me to leave you alone?"
She shook her head, wondering if he could see the tears on her cheeks or if they'd dried in the wind. "Not really."
He sat down on the top step and patted the place beside him. After a long pause, she sat down, and he took her hand, and rubbed it softly, his thumb grazing over the back of it, slowly, back and forth. "You really miss your family, don't you?" he murmured. "You've had a tough time."
"Tough? It was momentous. But I am glad I came here. This is a beautiful place."
"Is this a beautiful place to live?" Maan asked. Geet looked at him, hardly daring to hope.
"Here?" She turned and stared at the house, wondering what he meant. Not that, surely. He was talking about the out-performing damned investments again. She sighed. "It's a beautiful place to live. But I could never afford something like this."
"Marry me," he blurted out, and she turned and stared at him in astonishment.
"What?"
"I said marry me," he repeated, but this time in a calmer, surer voice, as if having said it out loud, it suddenly seemed like the most sensible thing in the world. "Marry me and let me love you. Because I do love you, you know. I've loved you since the day you landed at my office. And I know I've been a bit slow on the uptake, but I really thought you were still in love with your husband."
"Really? You love me? Then why've you been keeping me at arm's length since I told you about the baby, Maan? Why didn't you stay with me? Why didn't you tell me?"
He shrugged. as if he was looking inside himself and finding the awkward truth. "I think - I felt that the baby belonged to your husband, and it was as if you were still in love with him, because you are with the baby and the baby is a part of him. And I felt as if I didn't belong, as if I was intruding on something private."
She started to smile, a slow smile that lit up the depths of her eyes as she stared up into his beautiful, beloved face.
"Oh, Maan!" she said softly, reaching up and touching her fingers gently to his cheek. "Of course you belonged. You were there for me when I was at my lowest ebb, and at my highest high. You have been my rock, the only thing that got me through."
She reached up and pressed a tender, loving kiss to his lips. "Ask me again, Maan. Ask me to marry you. Ask me to live here with you."
Maan swallowed hard, then, taking her hand, he stood up, walked down a few steps and went on one knee just below her, stared up into her eyes and said, his voice gruff and sincere and steady as a rock. "I love you, Geet. And I love your baby. Stay with me. Marry me, and live here with me and turn this ridiculous great house into a home. Help me fill it with children, and help me turn us into a family. A proper family. Forever."
"Oh, Maan!"
As she reached for him and lifted her face to his, she could feel the tears tracking down her cheeks - tears of joy, of happiness, and a love so profound she thought her heart would burst from it.
"Of course I'll marry you," she said softly. "I'd marry you and live with you and give you children wherever we lived. This house is just that - a house, but it's a beautiful house, and a wonderful house, and I can't think of a better place to make our home. So long as I'm with you, I couldn't ask for anything more.
Maan smiled down at Geet and feathered a gentle kiss over her lips. He kissed her again, and again. And arm in arm, they walked back up the garden to their home, and their baby, and their future....
A sincere attempt at a one shot. Comments/criticisms welcome.
Geet sat on her bed thinking how she would know, one way or the other, what her options were. She was very much afraid they didn't include Maan.
Since she'd told him about the baby, although he'd been kindness itself, he hadn't been near her. He hadn't held her, hadn't touched her, hadn't kissed her. And if he was keeping such a distance from her, it could only mean that he didn't love her and want her. The knowledge was bitter and the inheritance she got from Pinky's Dad seemed like her way out of a impossible and painful situation.
She had got enough money from Pinky's Dad who had distributed his inheritance equally to Geet and Pinky claiming Geet to be his eldest daughter. That gesture of his had brought tears to her eyes. She had refused but Pinky and her Dad had insisted. The money was enough to put down a deposit on a little house, so she could work and pay a small mortgage and give her baby some kind of lifestyle. That was all she wanted. Just enough of a leg-up to give her some security. Then she could stop worrying about the future and get on with their lives.
---------------------------------
"I don't think I can keep it."
They were sitting on the steps at the end of the garden staring out over the moonlit sky. Geet was mulling over the money she had received from Pinky's Dad.
"Why can't you keep it?"
"Because I ought to give it back to Pinky."
"Rubbish. Pinky's Dad really loves you. You know that he thought of you as a daughter, don't you?"
"Gosh." She swallowed the sudden lump in her throat and stared down at her hands. "He and Pinky were wonderful to me. I really will miss them."
"Well, you'll be able to think of him every time you walk up to your front door and put the key in it and let yourself into your very own home. That's a fitting legacy, don't you think?"
Oh God, how lonely. Even if she would have the baby for company. I don't want to do that! I don't want my own front door! I want yours - I want you to ask me to stay here with you, to tell me you love me. Not tell me that moving out into a house of my own would be a fitting legacy, for heaven's sake! Geet thought.
"Yes, it would be, If I keep it" she said, throwing him a probably very unconvincing smile.
"Well, you'll have to keep it for the baby's sake. And as a long-term investment, property has outperformed all other forms of investment substantially over the past thirty-odd years, so buying a house with the money would be a sensible thing to do."
The bit of her that wasn't screaming insider about out-performing investments actually managed a laugh. "What else would I do with it?" She asked.
"You could finish your studies," he suggested more seriously now. ' Get qualified, and set up a foundation to help people who can't afford to fight for their rights."
What a wonderful idea. "I could," she said slowly.
She rubbed her temples. She had a headache, probably brought on by the stress of the past few days. She stood up, brushed off her clothes and said "Maan, do you mind if I have an early night? I'm feeling a bit tired." "And I need to go and cry my eyes out, because all you seem to be able to talk about is me going, and I don't think I can bear it......" she thought.
"Sure." He stood up and walked back in with her. "Can I get you anything?"
She shook her head. "No, I'm fine. Thank you for everything."
"You're welcome."
She hesitated, gave him a chance to hug her, to kiss her goodnight - dammit, anything at all - but he just stood there and waited, so she turned on her heel and walked down the hall into her room, closed the door and started to cry.
----------------------------------------
"So what the hell is this about Geet going away?" Dadi asked Maan as soon as he entered the house.
He looked startled. "Well, she's going to buy a house and move into it. What's so odd about that? It's the obvious thing to do, I should have thought."
"Really?" Dadi looked stunned. "But what about you two?"
"What about us two? What us two? And anyway, there are three-----"
Dadi growled and rolled her eyes. "God, you're obtuse. For heaven's sake, Maan, I thought you loved each other."
He blinked. "What the hell gave you that idea?"
"Oh dear, I've seen you together?" she said, as if he was a slightly dense toddler.
"You're imagining it," he said flatly.
"Am I? I don't think so. You're really close. Or you were before she told you about the baby. Lots of lingering glances and little touches - it was obvious. A blind man on a galloping horse could see you were in love." She frowned. " Although since then you've been a little distant ----"
"She doesn't love me, don't be ridiculous - and anyway, she is having a baby!"
"Well, it's not exactly some foul disease, Maan! And why is it ridiculous? Just because she's having someone else's baby doesn't stop her loving you, and it shouldn't stop you being nice to her. You can still cuddle her. And you haven't" she said accusingly. "I thought she was looking a bit glum. When I spoke to her earlier, she didn't sound too happy, and I've been thinking about it."
"Oh, God help us," Maan said, rolling his eyes, and Dadi gave a tiny scream of frustration.
"Maan, I'm serious," she said. "She loves you to bits. And you love her. You do love her," she said again, when he opened his mouth to argue. "You know you do. So when are you going to admit it?"
He swallowed hard and rested his head back on the sofa, closing his eyes. "She doesn't love me, Dadi," he said gruffly. "She's still in love with her husband."
"Oh rubbish! She's no such thing! She outgrew him long ago, Maan. She loves you dear and she needs a real man - one who's grown up enough to love her back. A man like you - kind and thoughtful and safe."
"God, damned the faint praise," he said, and Dadi rolled her eyes again and dropped back into the sofa.
"Is that what you think? Faint praise? Look at her, Maan. Your love is one of the most important things you could give her. So when are you going to tell her you love her? When are you going to tell her that you don't want her to move out, you want her to stay here and marry you and spend her life with you, so that you can be a part of the baby's life and watch her grow up and give her brothers and sisters ---?"
"Enough! For God's sake, Dadi, that's enough!" he said panicking, his palms breaking out in a cold sweat. "I can't do that."
"Why?" she asked relentless. "Because Sameera cheated on you? Geet isn't Sameera. Sameera was a real piece of work. She never loved you. But Geet does. She loves you with all her heart, and she'll never hurt you, and she needs to know you love her back."
He sat forward. "You really think that? That she loves me?" He shook his head. "She's still thinking----"
"No! No, Maan, no, no, no! She's over him! It's you she loves. You have to tell her!"
He swallowed remembering Sameera, how when he'd said he loved her, thought she loved him back and she'd just laughed at him. Thrown back her head and laughed-----
"What if I tell her all that and she laughs at me?" he said, his voice uneven.
Dadi frowned. "She won't. But what if she did? So what? What have you lost? Just pride. What's that compared to a lifetime of loving her?" She sat down beside him, sliding her arms around him and hugging him. "Give her a chance, Maan," she pleaded. "Give both of you a chance. Go and talk to her now."
He shook his head. "She's asleep. She wanted an early night."
"So why is she standing at the end of the garden looking at the sky as if she wants to be one with it?"
Dadi stood up, kissed his cheek and left him sitting there starting out of the window at Geet.
The woman he loved. The only woman he'd ever really loved, he realised. Please, God, she wouldn't laugh at him.
He got to his feet and walked slowly, mechanically, to the door and slid it open, going out into the night. It had been a warm day, but now there was a chill in the air - or was it fear making him cold?
He swallowed, took a deep breath and started walking down the lawn.
------------------------
Geet didn't hear him coming, but she felt his presence and turned as he reached her.
"Hi there," he said, and she scanned his face. He looked grave, and she gave him an unsteady smile in the moonlight. Was this it? The grand goodbye?
"Hi," she managed.
"I thought you were having an early night?"
"I couldn't sleep."
"Want me to leave you alone?"
She shook her head, wondering if he could see the tears on her cheeks or if they'd dried in the wind. "Not really."
He sat down on the top step and patted the place beside him. After a long pause, she sat down, and he took her hand, and rubbed it softly, his thumb grazing over the back of it, slowly, back and forth. "You really miss your family, don't you?" he murmured. "You've had a tough time."
"Tough? It was momentous. But I am glad I came here. This is a beautiful place."
"Is this a beautiful place to live?" Maan asked. Geet looked at him, hardly daring to hope.
"Here?" She turned and stared at the house, wondering what he meant. Not that, surely. He was talking about the out-performing damned investments again. She sighed. "It's a beautiful place to live. But I could never afford something like this."
"Marry me," he blurted out, and she turned and stared at him in astonishment.
"What?"
"I said marry me," he repeated, but this time in a calmer, surer voice, as if having said it out loud, it suddenly seemed like the most sensible thing in the world. "Marry me and let me love you. Because I do love you, you know. I've loved you since the day you landed at my office. And I know I've been a bit slow on the uptake, but I really thought you were still in love with your husband."
"Really? You love me? Then why've you been keeping me at arm's length since I told you about the baby, Maan? Why didn't you stay with me? Why didn't you tell me?"
He shrugged. as if he was looking inside himself and finding the awkward truth. "I think - I felt that the baby belonged to your husband, and it was as if you were still in love with him, because you are with the baby and the baby is a part of him. And I felt as if I didn't belong, as if I was intruding on something private."
She started to smile, a slow smile that lit up the depths of her eyes as she stared up into his beautiful, beloved face.
"Oh, Maan!" she said softly, reaching up and touching her fingers gently to his cheek. "Of course you belonged. You were there for me when I was at my lowest ebb, and at my highest high. You have been my rock, the only thing that got me through."
She reached up and pressed a tender, loving kiss to his lips. "Ask me again, Maan. Ask me to marry you. Ask me to live here with you."
Maan swallowed hard, then, taking her hand, he stood up, walked down a few steps and went on one knee just below her, stared up into her eyes and said, his voice gruff and sincere and steady as a rock. "I love you, Geet. And I love your baby. Stay with me. Marry me, and live here with me and turn this ridiculous great house into a home. Help me fill it with children, and help me turn us into a family. A proper family. Forever."
"Oh, Maan!"
As she reached for him and lifted her face to his, she could feel the tears tracking down her cheeks - tears of joy, of happiness, and a love so profound she thought her heart would burst from it.
"Of course I'll marry you," she said softly. "I'd marry you and live with you and give you children wherever we lived. This house is just that - a house, but it's a beautiful house, and a wonderful house, and I can't think of a better place to make our home. So long as I'm with you, I couldn't ask for anything more.
Maan smiled down at Geet and feathered a gentle kiss over her lips. He kissed her again, and again. And arm in arm, they walked back up the garden to their home, and their baby, and their future....
Bade Achche Lagte Hain Naya Season
Cricket
