Chapter 13: Reason

-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 Thirteen

Reason

- June 2019 -

“I have already explained this to you Mr. Gupta. Garima is on life support, there is nothing we can do other than make her comfortable. You waited this long in obstinacy, but it’s high time you accep-”

“That’s enough Dr. Bedi. I don’t need you to lecture me on what’s right for my family.”

“But-”

“You should know better than to cross me Dr. Bedi. Instead of wasting time preaching, I suggest you do what I am paying you to do – find a cure for my wife or keep her alive until then.”

Dr. Bedi pressed his lips, furious.

“If that’s too much for you, then I assure you there are thousands who can take your place.”

Khushi watched her father depart the room in ice cold silence. It was once again the day her comatose mother was due for a check-up and like she had predicted, the doctors urged them to reconsider their decision to keep her on life support and her father arrogantly refused, although this time he was also a tad bit rude. 

“At least you understand what I am saying, right?” Dr. Bedi asked her miserably, shaking his head. 

Khushi nodded, empathy flooding through her. She knew too well what it felt like to be belittled by Alok Raj Gupta.

“Then maybe you can explain to Mr. Gupta why there is no cure for his wife.”

Handing her Garima’s files, Dr. Bedi walked out of the room, exasperated. Khushi pulled out the reports, seeing her mother’s latest MRI scans. No doubt, she was brain dead. Even a first-year medical student would be able to assess that from the images, and Khushi was well on her way to finishing her internship. 

Fourteen treacherous months had passed since her mother tumbled down the stairs literally to her death. Even to this day Khushi had a hard time recollecting what had exactly happened. Any time she tried to access those memories, her mind was filled with panic and anxiety, leaving no room for conscious reason. The only thing she could vaguely recollect was the doctor on shift that night in the emergency room, telling her Garima had lost too much blood and that there was almost no chance of her recovering. 

Alok was devastated. They all were. 

But no one came close to Vihaan, who had somehow held himself responsible for the entire accident. He adamantly refused to be consoled by his sister, claiming that had he kept his cool that night, Garima would have never stepped on that broken vase and she would have never lost balance on the staircase. It was silly, but he genuinely believed it, so much so that Vihaan had completely exiled himself to solitude, not really talking or registering what was happening around him. All Khushi could do was watch on in silence, hoping that maybe time would heal his wounds. 

Her father took another route to grieving. If he was stringent before, he was now downright ruthless. He had summoned all the top doctors of the country, ordering them to find a cure for his lifeless wife. In the initial days, Khushi had thought that maybe he was seeking closure, for the accident was both sudden and ghastly. But now, more than a year later, she wasn’t sure what was running on her father’s mind anymore. Did he really have hope that Garima would wake up one day? 

As for Khushi… she threw herself into work. Without informing her father, she had applied to all the hospitals in the city for an internship and accepted the offer that was the farthest from the house. She did not and could not stay in the eerily empty manor devoid of her mother’s comfort any more than she had to. 

She had a suspicion her father knew about her job, after all nothing escaped his eagle eyes, but she felt until and unless he had a good enough reason for her to stop working, she didn’t think it was necessary for her to sit at home. Her mother’s condition had, in many ways, severed the ties holding her down.  

“What happened?” whispered a voice in her ear.

Khushi glanced up to see her brother. They were seated at the dining table now, waiting for the butlers to finish serving dinner. Her father, occupying the seat at the head of the table, was grim and silent. He usually badgered Vihaan about the company at this time, so needlessly to say, it was very obvious that something was wrong.

“Dr. Bedi came,” Khushi whispered back. 

Realization dawned to Vihaan. “Oh…” 

As they began to eat their food in silence, Khushi couldn’t help but notice the dejection in her brother. While he had accepted Garima’s fate much more easily than Alok, she knew that he still had hope every time the doctor came by with the latest reports. But when Dr. Bedi would reaffirm what he had been saying for the last year, Vihaan would once again withdraw into himself, guilt stricken. 

It was pitiful to watch. 

“Vihaan,” Alok finally said. “Find a new doctor. Bedi is not working hard enough.”

Vihaan exchanged a look with her, before nodding meekly in obedience. Although he had accepted Alok’s decisions much more gracefully than her in the past, his lack of questions in this particular context just made Khushi angry. She had enough.

Clearing her throat, she asked, “And what is the point of that Papa?”

Alok looked up, startled to hear her objection. “Excuse me?”

“What good will changing the doctor do?” she continued daringly. “Maa is brain dead. What part of that is so difficult for you to understand?”

“Khushi,” Vihaan muttered, squeezing her hand in warning. “Don’t.”

Her father, however, glared at her, almost inviting her to continue. 

So she did, shutting away all thoughts of caution. What more could she lose? “She meant something to us too! We loved her too!”

“Clearly you didn’t,” Alok answered. His face was growing colder by the second. “Which children would ask for their mother to die?”

“She is already dead! That’s what we have been trying to tell you all this time. I looked at the reports myself Papa, there is nothing that can make her come back. Just because you have the money to afford life support and a full-time nurse doesn’t mean you get to decide whether she is alive or not!”

Vihaan was horrified. “Please, just drop it Khushi. It’s not worth it!”

She ignored him. “Do you have any idea how painful it is for us?” she asked her father, who continued to sit still. “For Vihaan? Every single day he sees Maa, he blames himself for her death. Every time Dr. Bedi tells us there is no change in her state, he kills himself with guilt. What kind of a father is willing to put his son through that for the rest of his life?!”

Alok didn’t reply, infuriating her even more. The absolute look of disdain covering his face, as though she was an imbecile, as though she was an unimportant person with an unimportant opinion… it made her stop seeing reason. 

“And more importantly what kind of a husband are you for not putting your wife to rest?” Khushi spat, defiant. 

She heard gasps echo through the room – even the servants were shocked to hear her question her father. “All you have done is ignore her, lock her away in this house while you made history out there with your business… so why do you care all of a sudden? Is it guilt-”

“Enough!”

Silence engulfed the room as Alok stood up, looking murderous. All of the servants scurried out of the room, knowing what was about to follow. Vihaan’s hand tightened around hers, fear drumming through his veins. 

“I have let this go on for far too long!” Alok barked, glaring at Khushi. “Did you delude yourself into thinking you are God to know whether or not your mother is going to wake up?!”

“Of course not! But the reports-”

“Reports that the doctors are giving us and last I checked doctors don’t know everything! And what kind of people are they, anyway, suggesting us to murder our own family-”

“She is gone-”

“Then why is she breathing?!” Alok fumed. “Why is her heart beating?! No one has given doctors the right to kill someone, don’t you ever forget that!”

“I am a doctor and I know-”

“OH!!” Alok said, as though everything suddenly made sense. “So that’s why you are arguing with me – you think you have earned the right to question me because you earned some degree in some medical school? Well, you didn’t.”

Khushi opened her mouth to object, but she wasn’t allowed to finish.

“Do not interrupt me,” her father threatened. “I only let you study because your mother asked me to, but I warned her not to let that get to your head. And I wasn’t wrong.”

“What does my education have anything to do with this-”

“I TOLD YOU NOT TO INTERRUPT ME!” 

Khushi jumped, Alok’s voice thundering across the room. It was as if the temperature had dropped a couple of degrees, such was the iciness emanating from him. 

“Clearly you have lost not only your manners, but also your common sense while working in that damned hospital! So, you will resign first thing tomorrow morning. You will go collect your things, come straight home and stay here until you have learned how to respect your elders once again. Do I make myself clear?”

Khushi froze, staring open-mouthed at her father, unable to believe that he had just ordered her to quit her internship, when she was less than a month away from finishing. 

“I said do I make myself clear?!”

Vihaan hesitantly stood up. “Papa-”

“Have you lost your manners too Vihaan?” Alok said, shrewdly. “Or have you come under your sister’s influence? If that’s the case, then you too can stay home until you have learned how to respect me!”

“Don’t get involved in this Vihaan,” Khushi said, regaining her voice. She turned to her father, and said in the calmest voice she could muster, “I am sorry for disrespecting you Papa, I am just trying to make you understand that there is nothing the doctors can do-”

“Did I ask for your opinion?” Alok snorted. “As the daughter of this family, your responsibility is to make sure the house is running smoothly in your mother’s absence, but all you have done so far is cause unnecessary havoc and-” 

“I wasn’t causing-”

“If you interrupt me one more time, I will personally make sure you will never leave this house again!”

Khushi shut her mouth, not wanting to worsen his anger. 

“As I said, you will resign first thing tomorrow morning, and forget that you ever even went to a medical college. You will not speak to Dr. Bedi or the nurse about Garima’s condition, you will not ask for her reports and you will not give your medical opinion to anyone. Do you understand?”

It had to be a cruel joke, Khushi thought. But even without seeing the cold resolve taking over her father, she knew it wasn’t a joke. 

“Please Papa,” she whispered, her head hanging in desperation “I will never say a word about Maa again, not to you, not to anyone… But please don’t make me resign from the hospital. I just have a month left in my internship-”

Alok didn’t budge. “You should have thought about that before speaking out of turn.”

Khushi stared hopelessly at his face, throwing in her last weapon. “But you promised Maa…”

“I promised her that you will have permission to attend medical school and in turn, she promised me that you will learn your limits as a daughter of this house and marry the suitor we choose without any arguments. It was in my negligence that you even started that bloody internship in the first place, and it’s obvious I am going to be paying dearly for it for the rest of my life. But it’s never too late to rectify my mistakes.”

That was it. Her father didn’t even bother to pause and hear if she had anything to say in her defense. His only parting words were:

“This better serve as a good enough reminder never to cross me again Khushi.”

Khushi stood rooted to the floor, unable to digest the sudden turn of events. She felt Vihaan’s hand on her shoulder, trying to comfort her, but she simply shrugged it off and walked away, determined not to be weak. 

There had to be something she could do. Alok’s decision simply could not be the final one, although in the past, it had always been. Take her own brother for example. Despite following everything that was expected of him, he had not been made the Managing Director of the company, as was customary of all the heirs of the Gupta family. Alok had given them bogus reasons that the board of directors were requesting for a more matured candidate, however, they all knew that if her father had set his mind to it, he could have overridden the board. 

But Khushi was not her brother. No, she was stronger. And it was with this resolve that she woke up the next day, intending to go to the hospital as was normal. H

ow could her father make her resign if she didn’t want to?

She received her answer even before she went down for breakfast. Her phone rang tentatively, announcing a call from her hospital’s front desk. 

“Yes, this is Dr. Gupta,” Khushi answered, assuming that there was an emergency, although it was odd that they didn’t page her as per usual.

“Er… hi Dr. Gupta,” the nurse replied. “I was just wondering when you will come by to hand in your pager and clear out your locker?”

“Why would do I that?” Khushi answered sharply. An icy dread was settling in the pit of her stomach.

“Sorry I don’t understand,” the nurse said, confused. “Didn’t you resign last night?”

“No.”

“Umm are you sure? I have your resignation letter in front of me… you said you are quitting your internship due to personal reasons.”

Khushi felt her heart stop. It was worse than her worst nightmare. 

“Dr. Gupta?” the nurse called when there was no answer. 

“Connect me to Dr. Sharma,” Khushi said, asking for her direct supervisor. He alone could get her out of this mess. 

Khushi paced the length of her room, her pulse racing. What did her father do in the cover of the night? Did he really forge her signature and hand in her resignation?

After what felt like an eternity, she heard her mentor on the phone. 

“This is Dr. Sharma,” said a deep comforting voice. 

“Good morning Dr. Sharma, this is Khushi,” she said hurriedly. “I think there has been some misunderstanding. The nurse said someone handed in my resignation letter?”

A poignant silence followed her words.

“Dr. Sharma?” Khushi called. “Are you there?”

He cleared his throat. “I don’t think there has been a misunderstanding Khushi.”

“But I didn’t hand in my-”

“Your father did on your behalf.”

She had been expecting that answer, no doubt, but it was still a shock, nonetheless. “But you can’t take his word for it! Iam the person working there-”

“In this case, I think we will have to take his word.”

Khushi stopped short. That didn’t sound right. “What do you mean you will have to?”

Dr. Sharma took a deep breath. “I am sorry Khushi. But this is out of my hands… for the record, you are one of the best interns we’ve ever had.”

“You can’t do this,” Khushi murmured, her brain scrambling to find a loophole. “You can’t keep me from coming to work-”

“Then the hospital board would fire you,” he replied dejectedly. “Of the two options, I felt this was better… this way you might be able to practice at another hospital… someday.”

She closed her eyes in understanding. It wasn’t hard to guess what must have happened. With Alok’s money and reputation, in fact, it might have been too easy. 

As the phone went dead, Khushi felt whatever little determination she had, drain out of her. The only person that had anychance against her father was her mother, who over the years somehow managed to gain enough trust to bargain for Khushi’s freedom once in a while. But now that she was gone, it seemed that there was nothing standing in between the doom her father was ready to inflict upon her.

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