Chapter 9: Cursed

-Archi-

@-Archi-

The content of this story belongs strictly to the author, -Archi-. Any unwarranted use/copy of it is not encouraged and is strictly prohibited.

Chapter Nine

Cursed

Arnav watched his namesake wife hug her brother, seeing more than what he expected. There was relief on her face, relief like he often felt when he went home after a long stretch of time to his mother’s embrace, but there was also a little bit of dread. He could tell she put on a confident front, but her eyes kept darting to the darkened hallways, looking for someone.

“Papa is…?” she finally asked. 

“Sleeping,” Vihaan answered. “You know he doesn’t stay up past ten.”

It was almost midnight. Arnav had spent the whole day in the office, making sure all the papers were in order. His father was resuming work from the next day –after a four-month hiatus thanks to his disastrous stroke– so he went out of his way to make sure everything was perfect, which meant by the time he arrived at his penthouse, it was much too late. 

“I know,” Khushi said. “We were late because-”

“It’s my fault,” Arnav interrupted quietly. “I got caught up with work, I am sorry to keep you waiting.”

Vihaan smiled. “Don’t be silly, it’s no problem at all! Come in, I will show you to your room.”

Arnav felt Khushi’s eyes dig into his back as he began walking with Vihaan. He knew she was surprised to see him so… civil. It was clear she wasn’t expecting him to follow any of the rules she laid out the previous night. 

She should have known better. 

They finally arrived at what he assumed was Khushi’s bedroom. It was big like the rest of the house, but also simple. A single king-sized bed occupied the room, while a few armchairs rested beside the window. There were no pictures, no handlooms. It was so bare of memoirs that he found it hard to believe this used to be her room.

“Well, good night then,” Vihaan said. “I will see you both in the morning.”

Arnav continued inspecting the room in silence, when he heard her speak.

“I will sleep on the floor… you can take the bed.”

A line appeared on his forehead. “Why?” he asked. “The bed is big enough for both of us.”

Surprise darted across Khushi’s face. 

What was with her and beds? Did she have some weird vendetta against them?, Arnav thought to himself.  She had refused to sleep on the bed at the Raizada mansion the last time they were there, and she even refused to use the spare one at the penthouse, preferring to crawl up on the sofa every night. 

“Umm… you are okay… sharing the bed?” she asked timidly. 

Arnav didn’t see what choice they had. They were supposed to happy, isn’t that what she said herself? So, what would happen to their perfect charade if they were caught sleeping in two different rooms? 

It suddenly dawned to him: She didn’t trust him to put her needs before his own comfort. 

“A deal is a deal,” he said. “You kept my family happy, so now it’s my turn.”

And it was true. Despite resenting her and all the mayhem she brought to his life, Arnav honoured her dedication. As his mother and sisters reminded him endlessly, Khushi never complained about his lifestyle and actually found a way to cope with it. She didn’t demand for her rights as his wife and neither did she go yapping about his lack of interest to his family. 

For whatever reason, she kept up the pretense pretty darn well, so it was only fair he returned the favour. 

Ignoring her look of surprise, he quietly changed into his pyjamas and slipped underneath the sheets, ready to call it night. He eventually felt her crawl up next to him, though she made sure she kept as much distance between them as possible. 

He couldn’t care less. 

* * *

Arnav woke up to the rings of his phone the next day. “Hello?” he answered, groggily. 

It was his father. “Good morning Chote.”

Sleep was driven far from his mind. “Papa? Is everything okay?”

“Yes, it is. I am on my way to the company right now.”

Shit! Arnav jumped out of his bed, hurrying to the shower. “Give me ten minutes, I am on my way.”

“That’s okay,” his father replied. “Why don’t you spend the day with Khushi? She probably needs help with the wedding preparations.”

He stopped short. When and how did his father find out that he was spending the next three weeks with the Guptas?  

“Chote?” Shankar said. “Are you still there?”

“Yes,” he croaked. “There are a lot of meetings today-”

“I will ask your secretary to re-schedule them. I am sure they aren’t important.”

“But today is your first day back-”

“I will manage. Shyam is there too, he can give me a run-down of anything important.”

Arnav knew it was a lost cause. His father never ordered him to do anything, but everything he said was an order nonetheless. So, accepting defeat, he agreed and hung up the phone. 

It was then that he realized Khushi was oddly absent. He knew that she was not a morning person, she was always fast asleep when he used to depart for work almost at sunrise. So then where did she disappear to at six o’clock in the morning? 

A hot shower later, Arnav set out to find her. Only, he didn’t know where to look.

The Gupta manor was humungous. Resembling a castle from the outside and a hotel on the inside, it was jaw-droppingly incredible. The last and only time he had visited was when their marriage was officially settled. He had accompanied his parents for the customary viewing of the girl, which was awkward, embarrassing and just plain old-fashioned. When he was asked if he would like to speak to Khushi alone, to his great surprise, she had refused point-blank. 

He was glad, no doubt. What could you possible say to someone, who everyone had decided was your life partner whether or not you were happy about it? It was all a façade that Arnav had the least interest in partaking. 

Arnav sighed and continue walking through the upper hallways of the Gupta manor admiring how exquisitely it was arranged, when he found himself in front of a slightly ajar door. Curious, he peeked inside to see the room beeping with various machines. At the center, lying on a bed, deep asleep, was an aging woman. An oxygen mask covered her face. 

“Can I help you?”

Arnav looked to his left to see a nurse staring at him expectantly. Slightly ashamed for snooping, he stepped inside. 

“Err sorry, I thought the room was empty,” he mumbled. 

The nurse narrowed her eyes. “Are you a family member?”

The obvious answer was yes, and yet, it felt very wrong to say it. “Sort of… I am married to Khushi.”

Understanding dawned to the nurse. “I am so sorry! I haven’t met anyone other than Mr. Gupta and his children.”

“It’s alright,” Arnav said quickly, relieved. “If you don’t mind me asking, who… who is she?”

The nurse stared at him with disbelieving eyes. 

“It’s okay if you can’t tell me,” he replied, uncomfortable under her scrutiny. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

She shook her head. “No, it’s just…. I thought you would know. She is Garima… Mr. Gupta’s wife.”

A stunned silence followed her words. Arnav turned blankly to the woman and unknowingly took a step closer, seeing what he foolishly missed: the uncanny similarity between her and Khushi.  

It took a very long moment for him process the sight in front of him and find his voice again. “What happened?” he asked meekly. 

“An unfortunate accident,” the nurse replied. “She fell down the stairs over a year ago. The doctors tried everything... but they couldn’t bring her back.”

Arnav stared at Garima, seeing her chest rise and fall. “But… she is alive right?”

“Depends on what you call being alive is,” the nurse said with a sigh. “Her brain was severely damaged, so she is on life support. Without these machines…”

She will die. Arnav didn’t know how to react to that. 

“But she can wake up at any time, right?” he asked. “I mean if her brain recovers from the damage…”

The nurse smiled, probably seeing the naivety of his words. “I wish that were the case, but she is gone. She cannot recover from the damage. The only thing keeping her here is these machines.”

Arnav felt his heart stricken at that. How painful it must have been for the Guptas to witness this?

“Do… do they know?” he asked. “That she will never wake up?”

The nurse nodded. “Yes, the doctors told them after the surgery. But Mr. Gupta insisted that she must be kept intubated…”

Sympathy clouded Arnav’s mind. He didn’t blame his father-in-law.  “Can she really never wake up? Aren’t there always those miracles you hear about…?”

A new voice spoke. “No.”

Arnav whipped around to see Khushi standing at door, her face devoid of emotions. He gulped, suddenly feeling as though he crossed some invisible line.

“Breakfast is ready,” she said. “Everyone is waiting for you.”

Arnav had no choice but to follow her out the room, as the nurse watched them go in pity.

“Khushi,” he murmured, an urge to explain himself overtaking him.  

But she ignored him, preferring to keep a step ahead of him as they zig-zagged through the hallways and eventually made their way downstairs. The only thing she said was to touch her father’s feet for blessings before sitting down himself. 

Of course, Arnav obliged without complaint, guilt pooling in the pit of his stomach. He mentally kicked himself for setting out to explore – wasn’t he the one who had suggested that they keep their personal lives to themselves? So, what right did he have to pry into hers? 

“Sit with me,” he murmured to her, when she finished loading his plate with breakfast. 

She shook her head infinitesimally, before vanishing to the kitchen. 

“So Arnav,” his father-in-law said in a deep, grave voice. “How are the contracts working out? I saw that you had some trouble with the workers a few days ago.”

Alok Raj Gupta was a stern man. Arnav was told of his legendary tactics in business long before he even met him, so he was expecting to be drilled about contracts the second he got there. But seeing him perched at the head of the table, not even a smile in his eyes at the upcoming festivities, he was convinced that perhaps Alok had taken his business tooseriously. 

“It was a small misunderstanding,” Arnav replied. “Once I talked to them, they agreed to continue working. I think when you run a company so big, it becomes a broken telephone. The message gets lost when there are so many intermediate people involved.”

“And that is what makes a good businessman,” Alok answered, looking at his son pointedly. “I told Vihaan multiple times to keep a close eye on the factories. At the end of the day, they are the ones who are earning the bread, not us.”

A wave of empathy passed through Arnav. He knew only too well what it felt like to be an underwhelming son to an overachieving father. 

The rest of breakfast passed by in prolonged discussions about the merger. Arnav noticed that Khushi stayed mostly to the side, not eating, while Vihaan kept silent, listening to his father. He did not understand why they appeared so reserved.

Finally, Alok stood up to leave. Arnav waited until he was out of the room before following Khushi to the kitchen, where she was instructing the cook. 

“I need to talk to you,” he said, clearing his throat. 

Khushi signalled the cook to leave. “I have nothing to say.”

“I am sorry about your mother.”

She didn’t reply. 

“I didn’t mean to pry,” he continued. “I was lost this morning and just happened to stumble into that room.”

“It’s fine.”

There was dismissal in her voice, but Arnav couldn’t get himself to leave. “Does my family know?”

“Yes.”

“How long have they known?”

She finally met his eyes. “Does it matter?”

He didn’t have an answer. Why was it so surprising that he wasn’t aware of her mother’s condition? It’s not as though he cared about her. At least not as his wife. 

 “There can be a miracle you know,” he finally said. “Doctors can sometimes be wrong.”

“They are not.”

“Maybe they made a mistake-”

“They didn’t.”

“Maybe in a few years, she will wake up-”

“She won’t.”

“You don’t need to be so pessimistic. There is always hope-”

“There isn’t.”

“Khushi-”

“Enough,” she said, glaring at him. “I don’t know why you care, but please just stop. I know what her condition is, more than you can ever understand, so I know there won’t be a miracle. She will never wake up.”

“You don’t know the future-”

“Yes, in this case, I do. The first twenty-four hours after a brain injury are the most crucial. If the patient shows improvement, then there are chances of recovery. My mother did not respond at all, which means that there is an eighty-seven percent chance she will die or remain in a vegetative state. After a month of no improvement, this increases to ninety percent and after a year, it’s almost impossible for her to ever gain consciousness…. It’s been eighteen months.”

Arnav wished he had a rebuttal as strong as hers. “Almost impossible, but not impossible-”

“Yes, it’s impossible! You people act as though the body works on magic, that if you have some extra blessings to spare, you will miraculously heal from anything. But it doesn’t work like that. There is no brain activity in my mother, she is brain dead. I looked at the MRI scans myself, she is gone.” 

He simply listened to her. 

“And the longer my father refuses to let her go, the longer I have to be reminded of her death.”

“He is hopeful-”

“No, he is stubborn. He thinks that just because her heart is beating, she is still there somehow. But her heart has given up three times already, so you tell me, is she really there or are we keeping her body alive for our own selfishness?”

Arnav couldn’t answer. 

“So please stop trying to reassure me. I know exactly what happened to my mother, and I don’t need you to tell me what to do about it.”

With that she stalked away, leaving him alone with his thoughts. 

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