A Pause In The Heaven...
A big thank you to SONIA for suggesting this awesome plot and as well as helping me with the dialogues and editing... You’re an awesome person and I’d love to collaborate with you again in future... Such a sweet soul🤗
Amidst the eerie darkness, as the soft snores of her husband filled the room, Pallavi felt the conjectures that she refused to entertain in broad daylight worm their way inside her mind. The inferences she brushed aside as nothing but result of her habitual overthinking, now, seemed threatening somehow.
The PI she had hired to look into Mandaar’s death told her that Mandaar was working for some diamond merchant when he met his untimely demise. The said man cannot be RR but his evident annoyance at the mere mention of the topic suggested things that shook her entire world.
Amusement and love and a little nagging pain took hold of her as her eyes scanned his sleeping figure. She recalled how this storm named Raghav Rao came into her life, violent, undisciplined. And literally plucked her out of her miseries. And, now, when she was finally living her happily ever after another storm was threatening her world.
Abruptly, she knew she cannot witness her happy world crumbling down in front of her eyes as a mere spectator. Curse her if she let these stupid qualms leach the peace out of her mind. If there’s a place that could’ve settled these rising suspicion, it was his study.
Yes! His study. Going by how systematic he likes to keep things there’s no way he wouldn’t have it in records if Mandaar has ever worked for him.
Just as Pallavi’s legs slid over the edge of her bed, the full realisation of what she was going to do came down on her like a heavy weight that made her reel back.
Was she betraying the man whose trust meant more than anything else in the world? Was she ready to risk his love for a mere speculation made by a hired PI?
A tear escaped the corner of her eye as she recalled the strained look Raghav had worn the last time she had brought up the topic of Mandaar’s mysterious death. She put her hand on her chest and rubbed, trying to ease off the pain she felt there.
Tears were useless. They always had been. And tonight she had no time for them. There were things that needed to be done and Pallavi intended to finish this for once and all.
As Pallavi, frantically, racked through the files and folders which were once arranged in a neat orderly manner in Raghav’s study, the constant urge to flee back to the safety of his arms dominated her thoughts. Tears streamed silently down her face as she recalled curling in the warmth of him on the same rug she was kneeling on. The memories were woven in each fibre of the rug.
This one decision can cost her everything... him, she realised and a chill crept up her heart. But her shaking hands just wouldn’t stop. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for. A trace of Mandaar or the proof that whatever happened to him her husband had nothing to do with it.
Now, as she looked at the situation, upclose, digging into Mandaar’s death didn’t seemed such a harmless idea.
“What is it, exactly, you’re looking for?” the door to the study silently opened to admit her husband inside. He swept his disarrayed study with a cursory glance before returning his attention to her.
“Is there something I can do to aid your little “I spy” game?” his voice was pleasant to the point of rudeness.
He shut the door behind him as he neared her but the door did not shut as quietly as it had opened. Pallavi felt her body flinch as it cracked against the wooden frame.
He wasn’t as calm as he appeared to be.
“Raghav... I was...”
“You, my dear wife, were looking for something... anything to satiate your need for a constant villain in your life. It’s my turn again. Isn’t it? Is it fifth time? Sixth? Or sixteenth? I’ve lost the count, you see.” His smile was slow, almost menacing. His tone, dry enough to leach out all warmth out out of his eyes.
“Has Mandaar worked for you? Ever?” there was no point in twisting the words now. Her, further, trying to be sneaky about it will put him off more than he already was, she knew. So asking him straight seemed like the sensible thing to do.
“That’s not what you’re here for. Had it been answers you were seeking, we’d have been having this conversation in our bedroom. But No. It was the evidence you were looking for. A proof...against me?” He looked wolffish suddenly. Akin to a man from her memories who hadn’t hesitated before tossing her in front of a truck, who hadn’t felt an ounce of guilt while he made her run on the streets fearing for her life, who shamelessly looked her in the eye with a smug look and "i don't care" air no matter how many nightmares she had to endure because of him. And nothing like the Raghav she’d come to love.
Pallavi, the girl who was the answers to all his Amma’s prayers she’d ever said for him or so he thought. Boy, was he wrong? She embodied his every hopes and dreams of normal life and a happy future. But as he looked at her, then, standing in the sea of files and papers with uncertainty in her eyes, she looked like an extension of his nightmare.
She’d been digging the past and when she discovered the skeleton in his closet she hadn’t bothered to give him a fair chance to explain himself. Infact, she played this loving and “Aww so trusting” wife cunningly and lunged at the first chance she got to backstab him.
“Raghav, trust me... I...”
“How can I?” his arms tightened cruelly into her forearms, allowing a terrible melancholy settle in her heart.
“How can I trust a woman who lies to me everyday and yet lays down on my bed beside me every night to satiate my soul? How can I trust a woman who might be out for revenge of her dead ex-husband while she claims she has only me in her heart.”
She stared at him for a long moment, breath suspended. Surely she was mistaken. Surely, he didn’t meant the words but the sting was real. And it did felt like a backhanded slap.
“Mandaar has nothing to do with me Raghav. But his parents need a closure. They have a right to know what exactly happened.” she’d have liked nothing better than to hit him with something hard. To give him a back a small fraction of pain his brutal words inflicted upon her. But, still, she found herself trying to reason with him.
“I was there... when he died. Honestly, I was the reason that rotten piece of shit jumped... from the ship... into the ocean. Thinking he’ll make it to the shore. But he didn’t. Good for him.”
She stared at him, wide-eyed. He didn’t look away.
“That dratted gutter rat and your damned closure is sedimented in the ocean. Go find it” Pallavi sank to the ground the moment he let go of her.
“You find it amusing. Don’t you?” she asked, dazed.
“Not in the slightest. Only cruel. To me. To you. And to the people I’ve come to love as my own family”
He was telling the truth. Dear lord! Was there a way she could unhear it? Was there a way she could go back in time to the unfortunate moment she decided to do this thing and stop herself?
She managed to envelope his hands in her violently shaking ones and looked up at his tall figure with tears swimming in her eyes.
“It was him. Not you. Of course, if you could’ve... you would’ve sav..”
“No I wouldn’t have. Infact, if he hadn’t jumped off I’d have murdered the blackguard with my bare hands” he replied even before she could finish her rhetorical question.
“Raghav..” she screamed, all color bleached from her face.
Coldly, he looked down at his wife, crying on her knees. For her ex-husband or doom of their own marriage, he didn’t knew.
The urge to do something wild, break something, hurt someone, hurt... her like she was inviting him to assailed him.
Raghav Rao hadn’t become what he’s today by bending to other’s wishes. Belittling himself by trying to tell his side of his story when nobody wants to hear it in the first place, when people had already formed opinions in their mind wasn’t something he’d favour.
But he’d always made exceptions for her from not breaking her phone for slapping him to apologising and groveling hard in front of her for his misdeeds, she’d always been an exception.
“His avarice knew no bounds. Stealing from wasn’t enough. He went on to gamble, get involved in drug distributing circles. But I didn’t care as far he stayed away from me and mine. But human trafficking was something I had to draw a line at. Between Police and RR himself he chose the ocean and saved me the trouble of relieving the earth of his dead weight”
He spared himself the trouble of looking at her face. Because he already knew what he’d see there. She didn’t trust him. He didn’t blame her... He’d been here before and his own family who’d known him all his life hadn’t trusted him then why would she?
“Police must’ve something in their records to prove it. I can go and get it for you”
He needed to stop. Pathetic, he must have been looking pleading like a child. It won’t change anything. He need to let it go. Clutching tighter will only make it ugly. Her silence was clearly shouting that “it’s all over”.
He turned and headed to the door. Her low but determined voice halted him in his track.
“Raghav, take me with you. Let’s go and find it together.” she said as she stood up wiping her tears and throwing her shoulders back in a dignified posture.
Her words slowly clarified in his brain. Dim but distinct. Together, she’d said to him. He wasn’t the only one nursing that hope in his heart. Together.
She studied him for a moment before adding with an encouraging smile. “And come back... together. Even if we don’t find it”
He crossed the ground between them with long strides and swept her up in his arms and a sigh escaped him as her arms tightened around his neck.
“Even if we don’t find it?” he asked.
“Even if we don’t find it.” she confirmed.
Pati Patni Aur Panga
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
