Serendipitous Saturation ✔ [Completed]

Chapter 13 - Reunion

Six weeks later.

Vansh sat on a park bench watching the hypnotic to and fro of children on swings in front of him. Their laughter swirled around him in the air like rainbow coloured butterflies, his eyes honed in on his daughter who had just lobbed herself off a swing and was bounding towards a slide at lightning speed. She had a fierce zest for life like most children did and a thirst to experience everything in as short a time as possible, and as if every second of it mattered and had to be cherished and enjoyed to its utmost without fear. He wondered sometimes how he'd managed to raise such a carefree and happy go lucky child when he was so full of neuroses of the opposite persuasion. And if she would continue to act so unafraid under his continuing guidance.

His mind predictably wandered to Riddhima Gujral as it often had since that awful day in the hospital.

She'd be mostly healed by now, he expected, and was more than likely back doing the job she loved and in the field again. He pulled out his phone on a whim and brought up her number. Her smiling face, caught in a side view when she didn't realise she was being watched, brought a sad smile to his lips. He'd taken the candid shot on the last afternoon they'd spent at the beach, her chestnut waves whipped up by a soft ocean breeze and her eyes out to sea as she talked animatedly to him. He let out a breath of regret and his finger hovered over the green call button as it had at least once a week since they'd last seen each other.

His mother had predictably not taken the news of their break up well. She'd relented from badgering him about it after a week's worth of nagging, sensing his mood changing from grim and determined to outright sad. Even if he'd made a monumental cock up in her eyes she was still his mother and couldn't bear to inflict more pain on him and knew he was putting himself through hell as it was. Aadhya had grown weary of the lavish toys and days out after a fortnight, her bright brown eyes too sensing a change in his demeanour and pushing stuffed animals onto him to keep him company in bed at night as if that would salve whatever troubled him.

"Sorry, is anyone sitting here?" a female voice said at his side, startling him from his thoughts.

He put his phone away and smiled politely at the redhead who'd interrupted his indecisiveness.

"No, not at all." He shifted slightly on the bench to create more space between them.

"Thanks," she smiled. "Vansh, isn't it?"

He turned his head towards her and nodded, immediately recognising her as one of the parents from the school Aadhya attended. "Yes...you're Josh's mother, right? Emma, isn't it?"

She beamed back at him. "Yes, that's right. Good memory."

"I try," he said affably, facing front again.

They watched their children play together for a few moments. Emma said, "It's hard, isn't it? Bringing one up by yourself? I've only realised how hard lately."

He looked at her quizzically for a second then nodded, noting the lack of wedding ring on her left hand. "Sorry, hadn't heard. You broke up with Tom?"

She shrugged. "Yeah. What can you do, huh? Life sucks."

He cocked an eyebrow. "Yep."

"Few months ago actually." Her tone was noticeably more traced with seductiveness.

Vansh pulled back the impulse to roll his eyes. He was in a minority as a widower in all the parent/toddler groups he'd brought Aadhya to attend and his participation inevitably sparked some interest from single (and occasionally married) women. The old showman in him was flattered by it some of the time. But this afternoon he wasn't in the mood to be looked at like he was a gazelle targeted by a bloodthirsty cheetah. He gestured to an ice cream van ahead of them at the other side of the playground, deciding to escape before she pushed him awkwardly for some sort of 'play date'. "Think I'll get an ice cream before I get my one home, it's getting late. Nice seeing you again."