"You need to tell me the truth."
Jhanvi looked at her younger son's hard face. There was no trace of his usual humour on his face. Her son was gone. Standing before her was a brother. And that's was it.
She was meeting him in the Hospital's parking lot. It was going to keep her awake for long nights. How had she gone from having a complete family to being thrown out by them to meeting her own son secretly? It was a glorious mess. But she braced herself and asked Rudra, "What do you want to know?"
"To begin with," he glared at her. "What happened with Roop Bua? How did she break all relations with us?"
Jhanvi grimaced for a moment. They all had collectively decided that they would never talk about that woman again. But it was not the time to keep up with such foolish promises.
"Why do you want to know about her?"
"Because," Rudra banged his hand on the bonnet of a random car. "I think you all are hiding something major about Roop Bua from us. And hence, Veer. He has some connection with our family. With Roop Bua."
Jhanvi exhaled. She leaned on to a car for support. Yes, they had hidden the wild details about Roop from their younger generation but they meant well. They didn't wish any of their children to know about the stupid things Roop had done. But she had to tell Rudra now.
"Roop had a torrid affair. She got pregnant. The man she was with, Ma didn't approve of him. Neither did Shakti and Tej. But we didn't want her to abort the child either. So we sent her away to a Shimla. She had her child there. It was a boy. But then Tej told her to give him up..." Jhanvi sighed. "A pregnancy out of wedlock was a huge deal back then. It could be detrimental for our business that was just about to take off."
"Of course..." Rudra sneered. What would Tej know about emotions and feelings except for business? A stone had more emotions. "Then?"
"Then Roop left him in an orphanage. She lived with us for a while before vanishing one day. She left a letter saying that she didn't want to have relations with us and was leaving everything. We all mutually decided to never speak about her. And then with time, everyone forgot about her. She anyway wasn't exactly the Ms Congeniality of the family. I never got along with her. So it was easy to forget her."
"That's it?" quizzed Rudra.
Jhanvi raked her brain for more. "Yeah. I don't remember anything else."
"Try Mom!" Rudra shook her. "This is important. There is something very important that you are missing. What happened between this period?"
"The Kalyani Mills fire."
Rudra and Jhanvi's heads turned to the source of the voice. Keeping his eyes on Rudra, Om stomped towards him. "Don't you know that these people will continue to lie to us? Gauri and I are putting together the dates of all events. Dadi told us the date when Roop Bua left our home. It's surprisingly right after the mills caught fire."
Jhanvi averted her eyes seeing Om's anger. He wasn't her son. Just Shivaay's brother.
"Yes," she hit her head and spoke out of turn. "I am sorry, I genuinely forgot. The fire at the Mills happened and we got busy dealing with that. Then of course, Pinky got pregnant and Shivaay came along..."
"Stick to the topic!" Om hissed and huffed away. With his back facing her, he thundered, "I don't want you to speak about my brother."
Rudra took a deep breath on seeing the discord between his mother and brother. The saddest part was that he completely understood Om and his anger. Jhanvi had set the ball rolling for this disaster along with his father. He was never going to be able to view them in the same light. There could never be any forgiveness. But he was also aware that it wasn't the time to fight with each other. If Om was losing it, he had to be the one to hold it together. He wanted to catch the culprits and not sit and fight with his family. It was his responsibility to make sure that things didn't go out of hand. Shivaay would want him to do that.
Hoping to make everyone understand what was more important, he asked, "O, could it be that Roop Bua had something to do with the fire? I mean, who is to say that she wasn't? This could be her way to avenge the Oberoi Family after what they did with her baby! She must have justified it in her head."
Om thought about it for a while and then turned to look at Rudra. With a horrified expression, he nodded. "You are right."
Reeling under the possibility, Rudra turned towards Jhanvi. "Mom! Who exactly had died in the fire? You need to be honest."
Jhanvi gulped. "A few workers. It was the night time so the top management was not there. Except for Mr Kapoor. He was a partner in the mill."
"What happened to Mr Kapoor's family? Could Veer be related to him?" questioned Rudra.
"No..." Jhanvi shook her head. "I remember clearly. Mr Kapoor had a daughter. He didn't have a son. I didn't meet him or his family much, but I remember Tej speaking about them."
"Don't you remember their names?" asked Om. "His wife and his daughter?"
"No..." Jhanvi sighed. "I never got to meet them."
All three of them fell into silence. The whole case was so distorted that they were going to take a long time to decode things. But until then, there was something else that Jhanvi wanted to tell her sons. It was something that she decided for her oldest son. She owed it to Shivaay. This was going to ber her repentance.
"I wanted to tell you two something else too."
"What?" said Rudra.
Closing her eyes, Jhanvi told them, "I am divorcing Tej."
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I think that this story will bleed into a few more chapters. So I have changed the title and made this as a different book altogether. Will make another book for other shorts. (Yes, I am wild like that)
