Note: I'm going by the Tulsi shown in S1 who's very fluent and comfortable in English. Remember the way she used to tell off Gautam and then Ansh in the beginning - when both entered. I don't understand why they showed her sort of uncomfortable in English in the Bill Gates episode.
Chapter 44: My Husband's Suite
Consciousness returned slowly, the way it rarely did for her on a flight - no jolt, no disorientation, just a gradual surfacing into warmth and weight and the low, constant hum of the aircraft around her.
She didn't open her eyes right away.
The first thing she registered was his scent - familiar in a way that predated words, the particular mix of him that she could have picked out of a hundred strangers even now, even after everything. Then the warmth of him beneath her cheek, solid and unmoving. Then his arm, still curved around her, his hand resting where it had apparently spent the last several hours - cupped protectively against the side of her head, holding her away from the window's cold glass.
His breathing was slow and even against her hair, the particular rhythm of someone deeply asleep.
She let her eyes open, just slightly, taking in what she could without shifting - the darkened cabin, a few scattered points of light from other passengers' screens further down the rows, the faint gray suggestion of the morning light beginning to edge the window shade beside her.
She didn't move.
There would be time enough, in a few minutes, for the ordinary business of the day to reassert itself - the descent, the landing, the conference, the version of both of them that the world outside this cabin would expect. But not yet. Not while he was still like this, his face slack and unguarded in sleep, some old tension she hadn't even fully registered in his waking face now smoothed entirely away.
*Let him rest*, she thought. *As long as he can.*
So she stayed exactly where she was, matching her own breathing to the quiet, patient stillness of his, watching the light at the window's edge grow by degrees, in no hurry at all to be the one who ended this.
It was perhaps twenty minutes later that she felt him shift - the small, halting movements of someone surfacing from deep sleep, his arm tightening briefly around her before it seemed to register where it was, what it was holding.
She lifted her head then, unhurried, and found him blinking down at her, still half in the fog of sleep.
"Jai Shri Krishna," she said quietly.
"Jai Shri Krishna," he murmured back, his voice rough with disuse, and for a moment neither of them said anything more, the ordinariness of the greeting doing exactly what it was meant to do - folding the last several hours quietly into the shape of an unremarkable morning, nothing that needed announcing, nothing that needed to be anything other than what it already was.
He took out her glasses from his pocket and handed them over. Tulsi put them on and glanced at the small screen still glowing faintly in front of her, checking the distance counter ticking down in the corner.
"Kareeb teen ghante mein land kar jaayenge," she said, straightening slightly, though she made no particular hurry of it. She glanced toward the Toilet queue further down the aisle, already forming with the particular restlessness of a cabin nearing its destination.
"Freshen up ho jaayein? Pehle tum jaoge, ya main?"
"Pehle tum jao," Mihir said, his voice still thick with sleep, making no move yet to get up himself.
Tulsi nodded and reached for her handbag, then paused, holding it out to him instead of taking it with her.
"Yeh sambhalna," she said, lowering her voice slightly. "Saari jewelry isi mein hai."
He took it without question, and then eased himself up to let her out - wincing sharply the moment he put weight on his legs, the stiffness of hours spent folded into an economy seat finally announcing itself. The passenger on the aisle seat stirred too, grumbling faintly under his breath as he stood to let them both pass.
Tulsi caught the wince and paused halfway into the aisle. "Dekha," she said, not quite smiling but close to it. "Maine kaha tha na, itni der iss seat mein baithna theek nahi hoga."
"Main theek hoon," Mihir said, straightening with visible effort, though his hand went briefly to the back of his own knee.
"Suno," she said, as he was lowering himself in his seat once the aisle passenger had settled again. "Thodi der tangein seedhi karke rakho jab tak main aati hoon."
He lowered himself back down clutching her handbag carefully, stretching his legs out slowly into the space she'd vacated, and watched her disappear down the aisle before finally letting his head rest back against the seat, eyes closing again for just a few more minutes of quiet before the day properly began.
-----
The arrivals hall was a small organized chaos of placards and lanyards by the time they emerged, and it took the organizing staff only a moment to sort them into their respective categories - a young man in a conference blazer immediately falling into step beside Mihir with the practiced deference reserved for the biggest name in the room, while a woman with a clipboard approached Tulsi with a considerably more apologetic air.
"Mrs. Virani - representing Bandhej, yes? If you don't mind, we have another participant's flight landing shortly - from France. Would it be all right to wait just a few minutes and share the car? It would help us with the logistics."
Tulsi opened her mouth to agree - it was, after all, a reasonable enough ask, and she'd never been one to make a fuss over small inconveniences.
Mihir's jaw tightened before she'd even answered. He said nothing yet, but something in his stillness was unmistakably close to the outrage from the ticket printout yesterday morning, the same instinct rising in him again - that she was being made to wait, made smaller, while he was swept forward without a second's delay.
He glanced at her.
It was barely anything - a flicker, a question held in his eyes rather than spoken aloud. *Kahoon kuch?* Or, more precisely, underneath that: *Do you want to acknowledge our relationship here?*
Tulsi held his gaze for a moment, and then, almost imperceptibly, nodded.
Something eased in him instantly.
"She doesn't need to wait for anyone," Mihir said, turning to the woman with the clipboard, his tone even but leaving no room for negotiation. "She'll come with me." A brief pause, and then, softer, glancing back at Tulsi. "If she doesn't mind, that is."
The organizer looked between them, faintly puzzled but too well-trained to ask.
Tulsi felt the corner of her mouth lift before she could stop it - at the sight of him, a man who ran boardrooms and cracked whips over billion-rupee decisions without blinking, suddenly uncertain over something as simple as whether he was allowed to claim her in front of strangers.
*Woh confuse ho rahe hain*, she thought, *ki humara rishta yahaan acknowledge karna chahiye ya nahi. Aur main... main toh aaj finally woh step lene wali hoon jo shayad kaafi pehle lena chahiye tha. Pata nahi kyun nahi le paa rahi thi, ghar pe.*
It wasn't a new thought, exactly - it had been forming, quietly, over the last day or two, and had settled into something close to certainty somewhere over the ocean, in the dark of the cabin, with his arm around her and nowhere else in the world demanding her attention. No family watching. No expectant chachis exchanging looks in a doorway. No Shobha biting back a comment. None of her other kids looking everywhere but the two of them. No unspoken pressure sitting in every room she walked into. Just the two of them, a relatively unfamiliar city, and whatever she decided to make of it.
*Aaj sahi din hai*, she thought. *Yahin, ghar se door*.
"No," she said aloud, the word landing with more quiet certainty than the moment strictly required. "I don't mind at all." She had to bite back her smile at the absurdity of the situation.
The car pulled away from the terminal, the driver navigating the early-morning traffic with the practiced ease of someone who'd done this run a hundred times for a hundred equally important passengers.
"Yeh treatment," Mihir said, still visibly unsettled, "mujhe bilkul samajh nahi aata. Invite kiya hai unhone tumhe, phir aise behave kyun kar rahe hain jaise tum koi extra baggage ho?"
Tulsi looked out the window, unbothered, watching the relatively unfamiliar skyline slide past. "Sach kahoon toh, mujhe khud abhi tak pata nahi main yahaan hoon kyun." She glanced at him. "Humara koi international collaboration ka plan hi nahi hai abhi, Mihir. Jab invite aaya tha, maine Vaishnavi se saaf keh diya tha - yeh opportunity abhi humare liye nahi hai. Uski aur baaki ladkiyon ki zidd ki wajah se hi main maani thi aane ke liye." She paused. "Mera maqsad sirf itna hai ki humare craft ko, humari workmanship ko thodi pehchaan mile. Bas itna hi."
"Dekho, don't get me started again," Mihir said, frustration still sitting plainly in his voice. "Agar unhone tumhe invite kiya hai, toh unhone Bandhej mein kuch dekha hoga, kuch potential dekha hoga. Lekin ye acceptable nahi hai. Khud invite kiya hai unhone tumhe. Toh phir yeh behaviour kyun - jaise tum koi afterthought ho?"
"Yehi toh tareeka hai iss duniya ka, aur ye mat bhoolo ki Bandhej sirf chhe saal pehle hi shuru hua, bahut hi chhote scale pe, aur hume yeh invite milna hi bahut badi baat hai. VIP treatment expect karna hi galat hai." Tulsi said simply. "Aur yahaan har cheez mein yehi hoga - har session mein, har networking event mein, har jagah. Jitni jaldi tum yeh accept kar loge, utna aasaan hoga."
Mihir looked at her, something in him still wanting to argue the point further, but she continued before he could.
"Bina matlab ke apna BP mat badhao," she said, a faint smile tugging at her mouth now. "Main jaanti hoon kaunsi ladai ladni hai aur kaunsi nahi. Yeh waali ladai ladne layak nahi hai."
He exhaled, some of the tension leaving his shoulders, though not all of it. "Tumhe itni aasaani se kaise chal jaata hai yeh sab?"
"Kyunki mujhe pata hai main yahaan kyun aayi hoon," she said. "Aur woh wajah kisi ke treatment se badi hai. Aur aisa bhi koi bura nahi treat kar rahe hain mujhe agar tum impartial hoke dekho toh."
Mihir couldn't bring himself to agree, but realized there was nothing to argue about as well. So the rest of the drive was mostly silent, unless one of them pointed out a passing landmark, that they'd seen together on their trip to New York decades ago.
The car pulled up beneath a sweeping portico, uniformed staff already moving toward the doors before it had fully stopped. Tulsi leaned slightly toward the window, taking in the sheer scale of the building rising above them.
"Arre," she said, half to herself. "Yeh toh ab bahut zyaada grand ho gaya hai." She frowned slightly, working through the memory. "Main last jab aayi thi tumhare saath - shayad das..." A pause, correcting herself. "Nahi, gyaarah saal pehle. Chicago mein tha tab. Itna grand toh bilkul nahi tha."
"Har saal scale badhta jaa raha hai iska," Mihir said, glancing up at the building himself as they stepped out. "Pehle sirf kuch bade countries participate karte the. Ab dekho - kitna bada ho gaya hai."
Inside, the lobby opened up into something cavernous - soaring ceilings, an enormous chandelier suspended at its center, the low murmur of a dozen languages overlapping near the registration desks. Along one long wall, a row of illuminated panels displayed the names and banners of participating companies and countries, arranged by size and apparent prominence.
Virani Industries' banner sat near the front, large and impossible to miss, flanked by equally prominent displays from established textile houses out of USA, Italy, UK, France, and Japan.
Tulsi scanned the wall, her eyes moving past name after unfamiliar name, searching.
"Wahaan," Mihir said after a moment, nodding toward a smaller panel tucked near the far end of the row - modest, easy to miss unless you were specifically looking for it. Bandhej - India.
Something in Tulsi's face softened at the sight of it, small as it was.
She pulled out her phone, angling it to capture the whole wall - Virani Industries' banner, the international giants beside it, and finally, at the very end, Bandhej's own small, unassuming placard.
"Yeh," she murmured, already recording a slow video of the entire display, "ladkiyon ke liye."
The registration desk was a study in quiet hierarchy - a dedicated attendant already stepping forward the moment Mihir approached, clipboard in hand, practically bowing with deference. "Mr. Virani, welcome. Your suite is ready - 2104, the Presidential Suite. If you'll just-"
"Thank you," Mihir said, then turned slightly, waiting.
Another staff member, younger, less immediately certain of the protocol, turned to Tulsi with a polite but clearly separate script. "And you must be - Mrs. Virani? Representing Bandhej. Your room key is right here, ma'am, room-"
Tulsi took a slow breath, something settling into place behind her eyes. *Yehi woh pal hai*.
"Actually," she said, calm and entirely unhurried, "I know I should have informed beforehand, but I don't need a room. I would like to stay in my husband, Mr. Mihir Virani's, suite."
For a moment, nobody at the desk moved.
Mihir went very still beside her - not surprised, exactly, though it took him a second longer than it should have to fully register what she'd just said, out loud, in the middle of a hotel lobby, to two strangers who had no idea what those words actually carried.
The younger staff member blinked, glanced at her colleague, then back at Tulsi, entirely unbothered beyond the logistical adjustment required. "Oh - of course. We had no idea you were related. I'll update the booking right away."
"Thank you," Tulsi said simply, and turned to look at Mihir, something quiet and steady in her eyes, waiting to see what he'd do with what she'd just handed him.
Mihir didn't say anything at first. He simply looked at her - a long moment, unhurried despite the desk staff already moving on to the next item on their clipboard, unaware they'd just witnessed anything worth pausing over.
Then, quietly, he reached out and took her hand - just for a moment, a brief press of his fingers around hers, nothing performed for the lobby around them, before letting go again just as naturally.
"Chalo," he said, his voice steadier than his face quite managed to be. "Room mein chalte hain."
They walked toward the elevators together, unhurried, the weight of what had just happened sitting comfortably between them rather than needing to be filled with words.
Only once the elevator doors had closed behind just the two of them did Mihir turn towards her properly.
"Tulsi?"
She looked at him casually.
"Aisa nahi karti toh tum din mein das baar aate mere room mein."
Mihir understood immediately.
She was being herself - practical, unbothered, refusing to acknowledge outright that she had finally chosen to share a room with him. So he decided to meet her on her own ground.
"Main? Tumhe kya lagta hai, main itna lovesick hoon ki iss busy conference ke beech, main din mein das baar tumhare room mein aata?"
"Nahi aate?"
He shook his head emphatically. "Main toh pandrah baar aata, minimum."
For a moment, Tulsi simply stared at him.
Then the corner of her mouth lifted. "Achha?"
"Haan."
"Kaam nahi hota tumhara?"
"Tumhare room mein aane ke liye time nikal leta."
The elevator chimed softly, climbing past another floor, and neither of them moved to fill the silence that followed - the banter having done exactly what it was meant to do, letting something enormous settle into the room without either of them having to name it directly.
The suite itself was spacious and quietly luxurious - sitting area, a wall of windows overlooking the skyline, the particular hush of a room designed to make even movement feel deliberate.
Mihir set the room key down on the entry table, and Tulsi walked past him toward the window without any visible hesitation, already taking in the view with the same practical curiosity she brought to most new spaces.
"Achha lag raha hai," she said simply, glancing back at him. "Space bhi kaafi hai."
"Haan," he said, equally unbothered, already loosening his collar. "Kaafi accha hai."
Neither of them lingered on the moment longer than that - no charged glances, no unspoken tension hanging in the air. It simply was what it was now: their room, for the next ten days, and both of them moving through it with the same ease they might have shown settling into any hotel room on any ordinary trip together.
A knock came a minute later. The bellhop wheeled in their luggage - two suitcases, Mihir's suit carrier - setting everything down with practiced efficiency before excusing himself.
He returned again a few minutes after that, this time slightly apologetic, carrying a single branded conference kit.
"My apologies," he said, setting it down on the console table. "This was delivered to your originally assigned room, ma'am. We've brought it up for you."
Tulsi glanced at it as he left, and Mihir came to stand beside her, both of them looking down at the kit's embossed cover.
Mrs. Tulsi Virani
Bandhej, India
Something in her expression flickered at the sight of her own name printed that way - plainly, officially, alongside the label of the business she'd built entirely on her own - and for a moment neither of them said anything, the small, formal card somehow managing to hold both halves of who she'd become in the years apart and the years before them, side by side, in the same two lines.
They'd both stood by the window for a while, taking in the unfamiliar skyline, before the practical matter of jet lag reasserted itself.
"Agar abhi so gaye," Mihir said, glancing at his watch, "toh raat ko bilkul neend nahi aayegi. Aur kal subah se conference shuru ho raha hai."
"Haan," Tulsi agreed. "Behtar hoga thoda fresh ho jaayein, phir bahar walk pe chale jaayein. Car mein baithna abhi bilkul theek nahi lagega - itni der baithe rahe hain already."
"Sahi hai. Thodi der paidal chalna achha rahega."
They took turns showering, and Mihir emerged first, dressed in loose casuals, rolling his shoulders slightly as he crossed the room. Just as Tulsi was heading toward the bathroom herself, she caught him arching his back, a small wince crossing his face.
"Suno, thoda let jaao," she said, stopping in the doorway. "Thoda aaram do apni back ko. Main bhi shayad thodi der letna chahti hoon - fresh hoke."
"Neend aa jaayegi," he said, though he was already sitting on the edge of the bed, clearly not fighting her on it very hard.
"Main jagaa doongi," she said. "Alarm laga loongi."
He hesitated for a moment, something visibly working through his mind - she could see it with his gaze turned toward the sitting area - the small, unspoken calculation of whether he ought to offer the bed to her and take the couch in the sitting area instead, the old formality of it still sitting somewhere in him even now.
She didn't give him the chance to finish the thought. She simply walked over, put a hand lightly on his shoulder, and guided him down onto the bed herself.
"Lete raho," she said, matter-of-fact, already turning back toward the bathroom. "Main abhi aati hoon."
By the time she came out, showered and changed, he was lightly asleep - his breathing slow and even, one arm resting across his chest.
She crossed the room quietly, sat down on the other side of the bed with the same careful stillness he'd once shown her on the flight, and he stirred faintly at the shift in weight, though he purposely didn't move or open his eyes.
She reached up and slowly unpinned her hair, letting it fall loose, then set her glasses down on the bedside table beside her. A moment later, she picked up her phone and set an alarm for thirty minutes, placing it carefully within reach before lying back and pulling the shared duvet over both of them.
She turned to face him, watching him for a while - his face slack with sleep, unguarded in the particular way it only ever was like this - and let her own eyes close, still facing him, something settled and unhurried in the moment.
A few minutes later, Mihir's eyes opened slightly, and he glanced sideways at her without moving his head, careful not to disturb whatever stillness had settled over the room. Seeing her there - asleep, turned toward him, close enough to reach - he shifted slightly himself, turning onto his side to face her properly, watching her for a long, quiet moment with something unguarded in his own expression.
He didn't remember closing his eyes again. It simply happened, somewhere in the middle of looking at her, sleep pulling him under gently, the way it hadn't in longer than he cared to count.
The alarm buzzed softly against the nightstand thirty minutes later. Tulsi's eyes opened first, and for a moment she simply lay there, taking in the sight of him still asleep, facing her, unguarded.
She reached over and silenced the phone before it could wake him too abruptly, then let her hand rest lightly against his forehead instead, smoothing back a strand of hair that had fallen across it.
"Mihir," she said softly. "Uth jao. Warna raat ko phir neend nahi aayegi."
He stirred slowly under her touch, his eyes blinking open - and for a moment, before anything else registered, before the unfamiliar ceiling or the late-afternoon light or the fact of where they even were, there was only this: her hand on his forehead, her face close to his, the small, quiet miracle of waking up beside her after everything that had stood between them for over six years. Something in his chest tightened around the sheer improbability of it, still not fully believed even now, months into her being back.
"Kitna time ho gaya?" he finally managed, voice thick with sleep.
"Bas aadha ghanta," she said, already sitting up. "Chalo, uth jao. Thodi der bahar ghoomne chalte hain, phir dinner ke liye taiyar honge."
He nodded, pushing himself up slowly, and neither of them lingered on the moment any longer than that - the day, and everything still ahead of it, gently reasserting itself around them.
Their walk through the surrounding blocks stretched into a full hour, unhurried, the city's evening noise settling around them as they shared a single-serve stone ice cream from a small parlour Tulsi had spotted on a corner - something she declared, after one bite, "bahut zyaada meetha hai, par achha hai" - before they finally turned back toward the hotel to get ready for dinner.
The dinner was held in one of the hotel's smaller banquet halls - semi-formal, given how many delegates were still arriving through the evening, small clusters of conversation forming around scattered cocktail tables before people began drifting toward assigned seating.
A staff member led them toward the main table, where Mihir's placard sat prominently near the head. She hesitated for a fraction of a second before reaching for a second card further down the table - one marked simply Bandhej - India - glancing between it and Mihir with visible uncertainty, clearly unsure whether to seat Tulsi there, or somewhere closer to him, or whether the question even had a right answer.
Tulsi noticed immediately.
"It's all right," she said, her tone easy, putting the woman at ease before she could even finish stammering out an explanation. "For events like this - informal, semi-formal - you can seat me wherever works best for you. But for the actual conference sessions, panels, anything official - please treat me exactly as Bandhej's representative. Not any differently."
The staff member's relief was almost visible. "Of course, ma'am. Thank you."
She set the second placard down beside Mihir's without further hesitation.
Mihir said nothing through any of it - no surprise crossing his face, no urge to smooth things over on her behalf. This was, after all, exactly the kind of clarity he'd have expected from her; there was nothing here that needed his protection.
They settled into their seats as the room slowly filled around them, the low hum of a dozen languages once again overlapping at nearby tables.
It was only a few minutes into the meal that Tulsi rubbed her arms lightly, glancing up at the vents overhead.
"Mujhe toh khayal hi nahi raha," she murmured to Mihir, "yahaan AC itna tez rakhte hain. Lagta hai kuch woolen khareedna padega - mujhe thand lagne wali hai yahaan."
"Chalo, dinner ke baad dekh lete hain," Mihir said easily. "Shayad koi dukaan khuli mil jaaye, thodi jaldi kha lete hain phir nikal jaayenge." Then, almost as an afterthought, a small, satisfied smile crossing his face. "Waise, main tumhare wardrobe se teen shawls aur thermal wear laaya hoon. Mujhe pata tha yeh hoga."
Tulsi looked at him, faintly exasperated and entirely unsurprised. "Tumhe pehle se pata tha?"
"Mujhe tumhara sab pata hota hai," he said, unbothered, reaching for his water glass.
A while later, Mihir set his fork down, still chewing over her comment about the cold. "Phir bhi tumhe cardigans lene hon toh nikalte hain - Macy's shayad das baje tak khula rehta hai."
"Tum meri shawls aur thermals leke aaye ho na," Tulsi said. "Phir aur woolens ki zaroorat nahi hai."
"Abhi leke aata hoon room se," Mihir said, already half-turning as if to get up.
"Nahi, rehne do," she said, a hand briefly on his arm. "Dinner khatam hone hi wala hai - itni der mein wapas jaake, dhoondhke laana, phir se yahaan aana - koi matlab nahi. Agar tumhe abhi kisi se milna ya networking karna nahi hai toh chalo, aaj jaldi so jaate hain. Kal subah se conference shuru ho raha hai - poori tarah aaram karke jaayenge toh dhyaan bhi poora lagega." A small pause. "Kal toh tumhari keynote address bhi hai. Maine program dekha tha kal ka."
He agreed, and within five minutes they'd finished dinner, both waving off the dessert cart with matching, unspoken efficiency.
They were just making their way toward the exit of the banquet hall when a voice called out from behind them.
"Mihir! Mihir Virani, is that you?"
A tall, silver-haired man in his sixties was making his way toward them, weaving between the scattered cocktail tables with the easy confidence of someone who'd navigated a hundred rooms like this one. His name tag read Richard Hendricks - Hendricks Textile Group.
"Richard!" Mihir's face broke into genuine surprise, clasping the offered hand warmly. "What a surprise. I didn't know Hendricks was here this year."
"Wouldn't miss it," Richard said, and then his gaze moved past Mihir to Tulsi - his first thought, plain on his face, was simply that Mihir's wife had come along for once, the way spouses sometimes trailed into these things for a dinner or two before disappearing back to the hotel room. He gave her a polite, easy nod, the kind reserved for someone else's plus-one.
It was only as he opened his mouth to greet her properly that his eyes caught on the lanyard around her neck, half-turned against the drape of her saree's pallu. He tilted his head slightly, straining to read it.
Tulsi Virani - Bandhej, India.
His expression shifted - surprise resettling into something more attentive. "Mrs. Virani? Is that really you?"
"Richard," Tulsi said, smiling. "Bahut din - I mean, it's been a long time."
"It certainly has." He looked between the two of them, something in his face still working out the shape of it. "Bandhej - that's not one of Virani Industries' lines, is it? I don't recall it from the portfolio."
"She's here in her own right this time," Mihir said, and Tulsi caught the small, unmistakable lift in his voice - pride sitting right at the surface, no effort made to keep it down. "Tulsi runs her own textile business now. Bandhej. She's representing them at the conference."
"Is that so." Richard looked at her again, freshly, the polite nod from a moment ago quietly retired. "Well, tell me - what does Bandhej do?" He pronounced it slightly off.
"Ban-dhej," Tulsi corrected gently, without making anything of it. "We work with mostly traditional bandhani, I mean tie & dye and resist-dye techniques. Small scale, mostly artisan-led - we started six years ago, with a handful of women in Kutch. It's grown some since."
"Some," Richard repeated, glancing at Mihir with a faint, knowing smile, as though he suspected the understatement for exactly what it was. Then, to Tulsi again, his tone softening. "You know, I still remember visiting your home for dinner - must be, what, about eight years ago now? I don't think I've had hospitality like that anywhere else I've traveled. Your family made me feel like I'd known them my whole life."
"That's very kind of you to remember," Tulsi said. "You must come again - next time you're in India, please, you and your wife both, you should visit us for dinner."
"Oh, I was just waiting for someone to say that." Richard's eyes glinted, and he turned to Mihir with the air of a man about to enjoy himself. "Because the last two times I was in Mumbai, this husband of yours took me to some very fine restaurants - very fine - but not once back to that house."
Something flickered between Mihir and Tulsi, quick and wordless.
"Well," Tulsi said, recovering first, her tone easy, unhurried. "Consider this a standing invitation, then, Richard. Whenever you're in India - even once, even for a single dinner - please, come to us."
They talked a few minutes more - Richard asking after Gautam, whom he vaguely remembered as "the lawyer son," Mihir filling in the gaps about Ritik's upcoming wedding with visible enthusiasm, when Richard inquired if he was also attending with Mihir this time - before the room around them began visibly thinning, delegates drifting toward the exits in twos and threes.
"Well, I should let you go," Richard said finally, glancing toward the doors himself.
Then, just as they were turning to leave, he added, "So - Ban-dhej?" This time he said it carefully, and nearly got it right. "Well. I'll be keeping an eye out for any session that covers it."
"I'd like that," Tulsi said, something quietly pleased crossing her face at the correction landing right this time. "Please do attend, if your schedule allows."
They said their goodnights, and Mihir's hand found the small of her back, unthinking, as they turned toward the elevators.
Back in the suite, Tulsi went straight for her suitcase, kneeling beside it to sort through what she'd need for the night and the day or two ahead - a night saree set aside, then a mental division beginning to take shape between what needed dry-cleaning and what could simply be hung. The rest, she decided, could wait; there'd be pockets of free time over the next couple of days to finish properly.
"Yeh," she said, holding up the small pouch of jewelry she'd worn that evening, "safe mein rakh dete hain."
She also started to take out all her jewelry from her handbag to put everything into the safe.
Mihir was already crossing to the closet, sliding open the panel that revealed the room's safe set discreetly into the back wall. He took all the jewelry from her, along with his own cufflinks and watch from the dresser, punched in a code of his choosing, and shut it with a soft, definitive click. He told her the code to which she simply nodded. Easy to remember since it was Gautam's birthdate.
It was only once Tulsi had turned back to her suitcase, absorbed again in folding something into the closet, that Mihir crossed quietly to his own bag and drew out a small box from beneath a fold of shirts - unremarkable enough that it could have passed for a tie clip or a spare set of studs.
He opened it briefly, just to himself, angled away from her.
A 5-carat sapphire ring sat inside, catching what little light reached that corner of the room.
He closed it again, and for a moment stood there simply holding it, some private calculation working behind his face. Then he crossed to the safe, entered the code again, and set the box inside next to the jewelry pouch.
His hand rested on the safe's door for a second too long.
He opened it again, took the box back out, and instead tucked it beneath a stack of his own folded shirts on the closet shelf - out of sight, but not behind a code, not somewhere that would need explaining if either of them opened it looking for something else.
He shut the closet without a word, and if Tulsi noticed the small detour, she gave no sign of it, still occupied with her own half of the room.
They changed for the night in easy, practiced silence - she into her night saree, he into his kurta-pyjama - and by the time she came to sit on her side of the bed, he was already lying back against the headboard, watching her without quite seeming to.
She reached up and began unpinning her hair, working through it with the unhurried efficiency of habit, until it came loose all at once and settled over one shoulder in a dark, heavy fall.
He didn't say anything - before the separation, this would have been thoughtless, a husband's hand finding his wife's hair the way it might find her shoulder or her hand, needing no permission because none had ever been required. Six and a half years had taken that certainty from him along with everything else. Even now, months into her being back, he hadn't quite let himself reach for her that freely again - some old caution still sitting between the wanting and the doing, unwilling to presume he'd earned back what he once hadn't had to think twice about.
Still sitting up, Tulsi glanced over at him. "Subah saat baje jagaaun na tumhe?"
She said it the way she always did - practical, already reaching for her phone to set her own alarm at six, the question more habit than anything requiring real thought.
He could have told her the truth - that he hadn't slept a full night through in longer than he cared to count, that some part of him had never quite recovered the trick of it since she'd left, that even now, months into her being back, his body still woke at odd hours expecting an empty room. He didn't say any of that.
"Haan," he said instead, simply, already sliding down to lie flat, harboring the quiet hope that tonight, at least, he might sleep long enough to wake to her hand on his forehead instead of the dark alone.
Tulsi set her alarm, then slid down beside him, turning briefly to the other side to set her glasses and phone on the nightstand.
It was only a second - her back half-turned, her attention entirely on the table, the room dim enough that even a careful look wouldn't have caught it.
Mihir's hand moved before he'd properly decided it should, reaching over to touch her hair once, lightly - and then withdrew just as quickly, tucked back at his side, entirely still, by the time she turned back around.
*Usne dekha toh nahi?*
Just in case, he didn't wait to find out. He decided to divert her attention. "AC ka temperature comfortable hai?" he asked, his voice perfectly even.
"Haan, mujhe toh theek hi lag raha hai," she said, settling back against her pillow.
He reached for the switch on the night lamp. "Light off kar doon?"
She was already fighting back a yawn. "Haan, kar do."
Just as he switched off the light, Tulsi's voice came through the dark, already half-drowsy. "BP ki dawai le li thi?"
"Haan," Mihir said, the single word carrying more than its length should have - her concern for him doing what it always did, some old ache in his chest loosening slightly just at being asked. "Le li thi."
"Good night," she murmured.
"Good night," he said back, and the room went dark and quiet around them.
Sleep took her almost immediately, the way it usually did now, her breathing settling into something slow and even within minutes.
It didn't come as easily for him. It rarely did.
He drifted for a while in that thin, restless place just short of sleep, and when his eyes opened properly again, the room was dark and unfamiliar, and for one disoriented moment his body braced itself for what it had learned to expect on nights like this - the particular, hollow weight of the other side of the bed, empty, cold, six and a half years of waking to exactly that.
Then his eyes adjusted, and he remembered.
Tulsi was there. Facing him, her hair loose across the pillow, one hand curled near her chin, sleeping with the kind of soft, unguarded stillness she rarely allowed herself awake.
The bracing he'd done a second ago had nowhere to go. It simply dissolved, and in its place came something so quiet and complete that it took him a moment to recognize it as peace - an actual, physical loosening in his chest, the kind he hadn't felt reliably in years, not even in all the months since her return, not like this, not in the dark, with no one watching and nothing to perform.
*This is my home*, he thought, watching her breathe. *Jahan bhi yeh so rahi hai - wohi mera ghar hai.*
He thought of everything it had taken to arrive at this - her six and a half years away, her return to Shantiniketan only as a mother and daughter-in-law, the media circus orchestrated by Noina, her tea offer, his chamomile offer, the confession night, the single rose petal, the jasmines, the phone call questioning her self respect in accepting him back, the Dhuleti ritual, the pillar jab, the fight over Ritik's reassignment, the argument over the conference paperwork, the long nights of not knowing if any of it would ever be enough, if he even deserved for it to be enough.
He thought of how close he'd come to losing her permanently, more than once, through failures that had been entirely his own to own. And here she was, sleeping three feet from him in a hotel room on the other side of the world, having chosen - again, still, after everything - to be here.
He didn't decide to cry. He simply became aware, several seconds too late, of the wetness on his own face, silent and unhurried, the kind of crying that asked nothing of him and demanded no sound.
*Shukar hai*, he thought, the words forming and reforming without any real shape. *Thank you Tulsi, mere paas wapas aane ke liye.*
He reached up and wiped his face with the back of his hand, slow and careful, still not looking away from her.
Tulsi stirred faintly - a small shift of her shoulder, her head turning a fraction against the pillow - and Mihir's eyes shut instantly, his breathing arranging itself into something even and unremarkable, the practiced stillness of a man who had spent a lifetime learning not to be caught looking.
She didn't wake. Her breathing settled again within a few seconds, and after a moment, cautiously, he let his eyes open just enough to confirm it.
He didn't watch her again after that, not directly - some line crossed once already tonight without her knowledge felt like enough - and eventually, sometime in the drifting dark, sleep found him again too.
Tulsi woke on her own a little after three, the way she often did, some internal clock from years of early mornings never quite switching off even here. She turned her head slightly and found him asleep beside her, undisturbed, his face slack in a way it rarely was awake.
She smiled to herself - small, private, needing no audience - and eased herself up with careful, economical movements, reaching for the water glass on her nightstand and drinking slowly, quietly, before setting it back down without a sound. She lay back down facing him again, moving as little as the mattress would allow, and was asleep again within minutes. She felt a contentment in her sleep that she'd not felt in over seven years now.
Mihir woke once more near four-thirty, some old habit stirring him awake out of nowhere the way it always did these days. He reached for his own glass, drank, and set it down.
He didn't remember falling back asleep. It simply happened - quick, uneventful, complete - in a way it hadn't in longer than he could easily place.
For the rest of the night, neither of them stirred again.
Author's Note:
Hi everyone! 💛
This chapter's been sitting in my heart for a while now, so I'm genuinely nervous and excited to finally put it out there. Getting to write Tulsi say those words in the lobby — "I would like to stay in my husband's suite" — felt like such a long time coming, and I hope it landed for you the way it did for me while writing it.
I also loved writing Richard in — sometimes it's the outside world, someone who has no idea what these two have been through, that ends up reflecting back to us (and to Mihir!) just how far Tulsi has come. Watching Mihir get to say "she's here in her own right" out loud, to someone from his own world, meant a lot to write.
And that quiet 1:45 am scene… I won't say much more, except that I think Mihir needed that moment as much as we did.
There's a little something tucked away in a closet shelf that I'm not going to talk about yet 👀 — but I promise it'll matter, in time.
As always, this story lives and breathes because of you all — every comment, every theory, every "finally!!" in the reviews genuinely keeps me going through the slower drafting weeks. So please, if you have a few minutes, do drop your thoughts below. I read every single one, more than once.
Thank you for staying with Tulsi and Mihir this far. New York's only just beginning for them.
Lots of love, ElitePerfumer 🌿
Edited by ElitePerfumer - 8 hours ago
Mihir want to utilize most of their time. 
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