Beautiful Girl

Thirty five

"Stop pulling Daddy's hair, Toshi!"
She chides the three year old in her attempt to tie his hair in a pony. They've been at it since last fifteen minutes and Toshi has yet to let go of his hair.
She looks beautiful, his wife. Still in her yesterday clothes, she looks just like the girl he saw all those years ago. She raises her eyebrows in question when she finds him staring.
He shakes his head gently even as Toshi protests her slipping grip on his hair.
"Toshi, baby, Mama likes your Papa's hair. Please don't pull it all out." He tells his daughter as his wife cajoles the girl to open her fist to let go of his hair.
Toshi is deposited in his lap after a minute, squirming and babbling, trying to get back to his hair.
"Why is she so fascinated with your hair?" His wife asks in amusement as she pecks him on the lips. She moves away before Toshi can use her little hands to hit at her mother's face to get it away from her father.
Toshi is Daddy's girl. She doesn't like sharing him with anyone. She throws a fit if he hugs his wife in her presence. She will hit his face if he pecks his wife while he's holding her.
She bullies her brothers when he spends his evening hanging out with his sons.
Her favourite place to be is on his shoulder. Unlike his brothers, she likes when he carries her. Prefers it in fact. Even as kids, his sons had a mile long streak of independence like their mother.
"I don't know who this girl takes after." His wife jokes often when Toshi is giving her a stink eye for hugging him when she's in his arms.
"She's your daughter, sweetheart." He tells her, an answer regularly repeated, as he gets up to make her breakfast.
"I am not this territorial, am I? I don't think so." He hands their daughter to her and stretches his arms. The popping sounds make Toshi giggle and it's a blessing for she is distracted enough to forget that she's not in the arms of her father.
He opens the fridge and picks up the fruits he had set aside this morning. Next he picks up a couple of eggs before closing the door.
"You're like a dog when marking territory, my love. Have you forgotten the fiasco when we had to attend the same party as Arvind Malik and his wife?" He tells her as she continues to sway with their daughter in her arms.
"We don't talk about that night in this household, Arnav Singh Raizada," his wife whisper screams at him while he's breaking the eggs.
He has to press back a smile at that.
Toshi might be a terror that made nanny upon nanny flee from their household,  but in her mother's arms, she can never resist sleep.
None of their children can.
"Did the twins miss me?" She asks him as she comes to stand by his side while he quietly works on beating the eggs, their daughter snoring softly in her arms.
"Hardly. They woke up late and ran all over me so that they could get to the school on time."
"My poor husband! Have you even had your coffee yet?"
"I was waiting for you."
She looks at him so tenderly that he has to turn his head away. He doesn't want to get emotional this early in the morning.
"I'll be back in a snap after I put down your daughter."
"So, now she's my daughter?" He asks in amusement.
"Of course. All good parts of you and all naughty bits of me."
She leans in for a kiss and he presses his lips against her mouth. It's a whisper of a touch - chaste, fleeting and so full of love that he closes his eyes...

When he opens them, it's to a ceiling he has known past couple of years and a familiar cold that makes his teeth chatter.
He is disoriented for a couple of seconds. He was just making Khushi breakfast...
She had their daughter in her arms...
The realization sets in just as quick.
He was dreaming.
He was dreaming again.
He pulls the covers over his head and curls into himself. The sound of his sobs are soft enough to be buried beneath the voluminous folds of the duvet.
This is why he can never move on.
He wants the family he sees in his dreams. Khushi and their children that live only in his head.
Children that he loves to bits.
He was never fond of children, but he wants his with a desperation that would shame even the most desperate.
He wants baby Toshi to hang on to his hair. He wants to be the  harried parent who runs all over the house to send the twins to school on time.
He wants to make breakfast for Khushi when she comes home from her overnight shifts.
He shouldn't have stayed away when she walked out of their house. He should have been shameless and begged her to take him back.
He shouldn't have said those words.
He shouldn't have doubted her.
He shouldn't have met Lavanya.
He should have fessed up the vile scheme he had cooked with his sister to humiliate her at Aakash's wedding.
He should've...
He regrets a lot of things about his relationship with her, but what he doesn't regret is meeting her.
He could never regret meeting her.
He was meant to meet her.
He would've met her somewhere different had he not met her at Aakash's wedding.
Would it have been better?
He drags his sleeve over his eyes.
If he suffers enough, will she take him back?
If he is penitent enough, will she forgive his sins?
He wants the life he dreams of.
These dreams are the only things that tide him over, one day at a time.
He would be a mad, broken man if he didn't have them...

~

Ward duties are fun when you're learning new things, but hell on your feet at the same time.
Thank God for compression socks, and regular exercises that she is forced to do.
She missed her breakfast and it's way past one. Her stomach keeps growling like a mad beast.
She needs food.
Thankfully, the shift is about to come to an end.
The small bodily projectile that hits her legs apparently hasn't gotten the memo.
She goes down like a sack of potatoes and ends up sprawl eagled on the floor.
The cry that rings around her is too high pitch to be her own.
She had broken away from her group and on her way to the shortcut that would take fraction of what it would take her mates to make it to the canteen.
Thank God for small mercies. Those assholes would have laughed themselves silly at her expense.
She pushes against the floor and ends up sitting. The boy hasn't stopped crying.
He has fallen on his bum and appears unharmed. But you never know with kids. He has ducked his head and is wailing into chest.
She looks around and nobody is coming towards her to calm the kid down.
Is he here unaccompanied?
Where are his guardians?
Her shift in pediatrics has been scheduled roughly three months away. How does one calm a crying kid? She hasn't learned it yet.
Will bribe work?
That's what Mama Bird had used to make her eat in the beginning.
She digs into her white coat and out comes a five star.
Mama had slipped it in her pocket when he was signing off of his rotation.
She taps the boy's shoulder gingerly, her offering in plain sight.
Maybe he sees the glint of the gold wrapping, or he is tired of crying, he raises his head.
One look at his tear stained face...
He...he...
The ground drops from beneath Khushi's feet.