Come Back Home
“I don’t know what went wrong between us, but my daughter should not have to suffer because of it. She is my baby.”
Anjali was bruised and battered. She slumped onto the worn-out sofa of a modest flat in Rajouri Garden.
Her sari was torn. Red and blue patches on her face and arms.
It was a Friday evening, but there was no relief.
A deep-seated worry was etched across her face as she appeared to engage in a conversation with someone sitting opposite her.
The small living room bore silent witness to the conversation that unfolded within its confines.
The pale light from a single bulb casting an eerie glow.
Anjali’s eyes locked onto the person before her.
“I’m begging you,” she implored, her voice trembling with the weight of a mother’s concern.
“Akriti is not well. She’s been sick ever since… ever since you left.”
She clenched her fists, gathering the strength to continue.
“She needs you. We both do.”
The person opposite her remained silent, wrapped in the shadows.
Anjali, feeling the weight of their silence, pressed on. Her voice soft.
“I don’t know what went wrong between us, but my daughter should not have to suffer because of it. She is my baby.”
Her eyes welled up as she continued.
“She asks for you every night, you know. Cries herself to sleep because she doesn’t understand why you’re not here.”
Anjali took a deep breath.
“My daughter thinks it was her fault. She knows she shouldn’t have reacted the way she did when she found out.”
She paused, searching the face before her for any sign of reaction.
“I told her we are good friends. That going out a couple of times for a cup of coffee at a hotel doesn’t mean anything more.”
Anjali leaned forward, desperate.
“She is ready to accept you back. Please, son, this is a request from a mother for her daughter. You two are getting married in a month. Her father and I can’t wait to welcome you back into our family.”
The silence was suffocating. Anjali’s plea hung heavily in the air.
Suddenly, the light in the apartment flickered, vanishing for a moment before sputtering back to life.
Anjali’s heart pounded in her chest.
The man she was talking to remained silent, not a word escaping his lips throughout the conversation.
Anjali’s smartphone buzzed on the coffee table, startling her.
She picked it up and glanced at the screen.
A notification flashed across the display, causing her eyes to widen with alarm.
Now acting in a hurry, she stood up, her movements frantic.
“Come now. No more living in this middle-class house,” she said, almost to herself, as she rose from her chair.
“Come with us. I have to take you home. You are coming home. Come, Rahul,” she urged as she moved towards him.
As she approached, the dim light revealed the truth that she had been denying to herself all along.
The figure she had been pleading with was not a living person but the lifeless body of her future son-in-law.
His skin was cold and pallid. His eyes vacant and staring into nothingness.
Anjali dragged the lifeless form out of the apartment.
“You have to come home, beta,” she murmured to the lifeless body as she struggled to move it.
“My daughter can’t live without you.”
As she moved down the darkened hallway, she continued to speak to the lifeless form as if it could hear her.
“She needs you, Rahul. We all need you. You can’t just leave us like this.”
“You promised to be there for her, remember? You can’t break your promise. It’s just not fair.”
