Vodka on the rocks

The Choice [Pallavi's POV]

Pallavi frowned and woke up abruptly as her hand hit the cool unmade sheets instead of a warm body as her brain had subconsciously expected. She sat up disoriented and dishevelled and looked around the empty dark room. She sighed mentally noting the clear evidence of her absent husband. 

It was weird how busy he had become all of a sudden since the past two or three weeks. Well she herself had been keeping busy, shuffling from work to Deshmukh Nivas and back to Rao Mansion but strangely she hardly saw Raghav anymore. He would almost never be in sight, always busy in some meeting or the other, moving out by dawn and coming back at some ungodly hour in the night and the cycle repeated. She would manage to catch glance of him once in a while at the breakfast table or if he deigns to pick her from the D'House someday. 

But even when she did see him, he would look too preoccupied inside his own head, giving her monosyllabic answers and zoning out frequently. She couldn't remember when they had had a decent conversation in a while let alone spending some quality time together.. 

What in God's green graces was happening?

Pallavi climbed down the bed and wrapped herself in a silk robe, over the knee length satin nightdress she was donning and went out in search of her husband, hoping that maybe he was in the mansion at least if not asleep beside her. She checked her mobile for any messages from him, whether he was in staying back in office or had gone out of town for any impromptu meetings he was lately getting into often but there was nothing. 

Only a missed whatsapp call from Mandar and a few unread texts from Krishna regarding some old client of theirs. She swiftly texted back to Krishna solving the issue and promising to call her in the morning and wondered why Mandar had given her a missed call. She had been to the D'House in the evening itself that day. It had been a rather fun affair, they had all sat down in the courtyard and played antakshari just like the old times. Pallavi had felt so elated for Aai and Baba, seeing that old spark of unbidden joy in their gazes after so long. She had also thought that maybe this would jostle up Mandar's memory a bit. 

Her former husband had thoroughly enjoyed the game but now that she thought back, he didn't seem to recall anything specific. The Deshmukhs didn't appear to bother about his old memories resurfacing any longer. Maybe, having Mandar close again had sealed their wounds for good and they didn't care whether he remembered the past or not. Somewhere she thought, it was for the best. Who knew, if Mandar would ever regain his memories... it was better that he makes new ones and not get embroiled in running behind the old ones. 

Maybe in this way, they can all go back to their old lives. She was frankly getting drained from his mental and emotional tug of war daily. It was also a physically taxing job of running around from both places all the damn time. And whenever she would stay with the Deshmukhs she felt slightly guilty about leaving her new family alone. 

As Pallavi took further steps towards Raghav's study, the impromptu sleepy monologue of her mind had slowly started to unfurl into a realisation that one of the biggest reasons for her recent exhaustion was probably because she was missing her husband. She was missing her life with him. Raghav and her had somewhere along the line of these few weeks, started to behave like strangers living under the same room. 

She hated it. 

Pallavi slowly opened the heavy teak doors to his Den and Study and peeped in. She had expected Raghav to be seated at the desk, going through his laptop or files or in the midst of his designing spree and had already prepared a long speech about the need to maintain healthy circadian rhythm and the importance of giving attention to one's spouse after marriage but all her words dried up the moment she laid eyes on him. 

He was not seated at the desk nor working like a workaholic madman as she had thought but was lying on the couch, fitting his long frame painfully into that cramped space, a blanker thrown haphazardly over himself, not even out of his vest and suit pants.. fast asleep. Pallavi silently slunk in and inched towards him in disbelief and saw he had one of his arms tucked against his chest, hugging what seemed like a photo frame. He was probably having not that pleasant of a dream, she could gauge by the constant shifting his eyes under the closed lids, the perpetual frown on his brow and the nervous and restless twitches of his muscles.