Shape of the Sun

Night

"What?!"

Rajkumar erroneously kicked the plastic jar off the table so that some of the liquid spilled onto the wood, rosemary scent filling the living room. He hurriedly set his foot down and placed the jar in the center complete with the lid before rushing into the room, trousers still rolled up to his knees.

Barging through the door presented him to a Manmeet who was nervously pacing from one end of his bedroom to another with a phone pressed to her ear, face a perfect picture of anger.

"Mama, I can't believe this! And you are just telling me about Gunjan's stupidity? Why?" she moved the phone to the other ear, hand moving up to agitate russet hair, "You know what? Give her the phone, Mama."

Manmeet repeated the latter upon sensing her mother's hesitation.

"Give her the phone, Mama."

Rajkumar heard Vaishali's voice come off the phone. It was shaky and sounded like she had been crying.

"Don't scold your younger sister, Manmeet. Your father had kept going at it till he left the house."

Manmeet bit back the words she was dying to say, opting to agree with her mother. With all that she had heard, it was a wonder she was still calm.

"I won't."

She lied. As soon as Gunjan's shaky breath sounded in Manmeet's ears, she burst into a tirade.

"Stupid is what you are, Gunjan! How could you be so useless?!"

"Manmeet!"

Rajkumar grabbed the phone from her before it got any worse. Whatever it was that she had done, right now, the girl on the other end sounded like she was suffering, and Manmeet was not helping in any way.

He scolded her.

"Manmeet, you don't have to say those things to her, okay? Let's find a way to fix..."

"Fix? Rajkumar, was that what you wanted to say? That we," she pointed at him and then at herself, "should fix this? That's what you mean? Hahaha."

He frowned at her cynical expression, stuck between that and the wailing coming out of the phone.

"Manmeet..."

"Rajkumar, we are not fixing anything! Why don't you ask that stupid girl what she did?" she shouted into the phone in his hand, "Won't you tell him what you did, Gunjan? Won't you tell him how my younger sister was found in a married man's bedroom, instead of being in school? You shameless girl!"

"I-I didn't know that he was married..."

"Shut up for me! I have half the mind to tell Papa to throw you out..."

"Manmeet, that's enough! She doesn't need this!"

"Don't tell me what to do! That's my sister and I can call her anything I want!"

She went to the bed-stand and threw the alarm clock on it to the floor. And then, the pillows on the bed, the duvet too.

"I can call her anything I want, Rajkumar Reddy. If I say she is a damn whore, then that's what she is!" Manmeet was screaming at him, disheveled in his old off-white pajamas that Choti had brought over, eyes full of ferocity. She looked so out of it that Rajkumar decided that he'd rather not confront her, no matter how much he wanted to.

He had never hit a woman and he wasn't going to start now. She was pregnant. She was his lover. She was the one he wanted to die with. It was the mood swings, he kept telling himself, even as he willed himself to the rack where his shoes were.

Some time amidst the ruckus, Vaishali had grabbed the phone from Gunjan and was trying to intervene from the other end through her tears.

"Please don't fight! Don't fight...Gunjan, see what you have caused now. See what you have done!"

Rajkumar worked hard to pacify her.

"Auntie, please calm down. Don't get stressed."

"How can I not be stressed, Raj? How can I not?" There was more crying after.

"Auntie, please stop crying. I will call you on my phone on my way to work. No one should throw Gunjan out and tell uncle that if he comes back before my call." he insisted, "No one, auntie."

"Okay, okay. Just don't fight."

"Yeah."

He disconnected the call and threw the phone on the bed before he got to rolling down his pants and smoothing the creases on his scrubs with hands, willing himself to not look at the other person in the room.

But she wouldn't let him be.

Manmeet hated the way he ignored her like she was nothing. She hated that he yelled at her for other people, that he was defending another woman in front of her, even if it was her own sister.

Why did he contradict her despite the fact that she was getting ugly and bigger in places that she hated because of him, life draining out of her? Why was she wrong even if she was? Why was it a problem that she held him tight because she loved him, but it was okay to yell at her for another woman?!

She wanted to know.

Manmeet dragged Rajkumar's backpack and flung it onto the bed, the other hand grabbing the arm of a man who looked like he was about to lose his shit.

"Manmeet, let go of me."

"No, I won't." she shook her head, "I won't let go and why should I even? Should I let you go so that you can hurry over to that slut?"

"Manmeet! That's your sister!"

He pulled away, scandalized, shock visible on his features. It only encouraged the other woman. Manmeet raised her voice higher, hysterical.

"I know! She's nineteen and pretty and not thirty and fat." she quickly wiped away tears and mucus with the back of her hand, "I know she has seduced you like she seduced that married man!"

"Manmeet!"

He raised up his hand in anger to hit her, but slowly brought it down, fists clenched. There was so much grief in his heart. There was an ache there that caused his eyes to sting, to burn, a reflection of the hurt and disappointment he felt.

Why? Rajkumar suppressed the lumpy feeling in his throat so that he could ask why. His voice came out raspy, threatening to break.

"Why? How could you say such a thing to my face, Manmeet?" he couldn't help raising his voice, "Answer me!"

But the only reply that he got was the sound of the woman he loved crying terribly, hands pressed to eyes, her lips muttering the same words over and over. It was the first time he noticed how tired and different she looked, her rounded belly prominent under the rumpled cotton of his pajamas. He had always thought it and her beautiful, his precious treasure, his goddess divine.

"I'm sorry...so sorry...sorry."

Rajkumar said nothing and took her into his arms even as his own tears tumbled down his cheeks, a small but audible sob escaping his mouth. If they didn't, he'd choke on them. If he choked, he'd die. If he died, Manmeet and the baby would be left alone.

He didn't want to leave them alone because he loved them. Rajkumar had thought that was all he needed, that it was all it took.

But he was wrong. There was still so much out there.

Rajkumar wanted so much of this, of all that he held in his arms, to be perfect and be forever because she was his first and he was her first and there was no one else that could be first. They had claimed one another, souls and hearts branded to each other, alone together. But it felt akin to building sandcastles in the sky.

The sky wasn't meant to carry weights. It couldn't withstand them.