Shape of the Sun

A marriage story

That night

"Manmeet is special." the edge of his fork hit the glass rim, "I love her like you love your red wine." She was all he could think about even here.

"I do love my red wines, so you are not wrong."

"Mmmn."

Rajkumar speared and cut a slice of chicken. He looked up after placing it in his mouth. Preeta was staring at him only to reach for a glass of juice and rush it down when she had been caught.

A faint absurdity came to mind - but he chose to ignore it. He chose to laugh instead.

"Take it easy, Preeta. I had no idea all that talk from the director made you so thirsty."

His remark elicited a chuckle.

"How did you know?"

"Why wouldn't I know? We go way back."

"Yeah. Way back."

She has stopped laughing at this point and there was a tension in the distance between them at that moment. They could choose to either saunter around or to poke at it.

Rajkumar silently looked at Preeta, non-verbal messaging in practice makes perfect. He didn't know if she got it. But she looked away, cleared her throat, and looked back at him.

"...You are such a good man. Manmeet is so lucky." she whispered the latter but he heard her. Rajkumar whispered back, looking into her eyes. 

"I am the lucky one, Preeta."

She nodded and looked down at her half-empty plate. She didn't feel so hungry anymore. 

"I don't feel so hungry anymore."

"Yeah. Me too." he looked at his watch, "It's quite a bit late too."

And then at her.

"Do you need me to drop you off?"

"...No. I'll take a cab."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Alright."  He wasn't too invested either. What Rajkumar wanted was to go home, the sudden tug too strong. He really wanted to see her face, tell her that he loved her, that he wouldn't look for others anymore.

He was done with looking for others.

Rajkumar told Preeta he'd see her at the conference, went ahead to pay the bill, and got into his Range, driving home. He dialed Anisha's number with the voice command as he did, but she didn't pick up the call, just like the other times.

Usually, he'd have gotten angry but not today. Today was not like any other. First, he had to get home.

And he did.

Rajkumar parked his car in the lot and hurried up the stairs of his apartment complex, ignoring the elevator. In under five minutes, he was standing in front of his door. He fished out his spare key from his bag, inserted it into the slot, and turned it to the right.

It opened rather easily.

Rajkumar stepped into the living room and placed his bag on the sofa, mentally noting the dim lights. There was a covered plate of food on the table. The little noise in the room was coming from the television. It was turned on, volume lowered. Rajkumar noticed that it was the channel that aired most of his rom-com reruns.

He picked up the remote and turned off the television before making a U-turn for the room.

But he paused and instead, walked over to the dining table. Rajkumar picked up the plate and took it to the kitchen, placing it into the fridge. He was not hungry for food, he had eaten. He was hungry for something else, for someone else.

But when he finally got to Manmeet, she was asleep. Rajkumar noticed how dim the lights were here too. He also noticed how stupid he was. He couldn't imagine that he had almost ruined this right here. This was the life that he wanted the most. This was the person that he wanted the most. So what was it that was stopping him?

Why was it that he was stopping himself? This was the one thing that made him happy.

Rajkumar walked over to the bed. He didn't even take off his shoes or his jacket. He just settled in the space beside her where just a single turn was enough to see the nape of her neck. On that exposed expanse of skin was his name in ink.

Raj.

He remembered how tight his chest felt when she first got it. His chest still felt tight today.

"I almost cheated, Manmeet." he whispered, voice echoing in the otherwise quiet room. "I wanted to hurt you just like you hurt me. I wanted to make your words a self-fulfilling prophecy. I hated that I even feel this way, that I feel hurt."

"Then why didn't you?" she responded, her voice pitched low. She had seen him dress up this morning and put on a dash of the cologne that she didn't like. He looked pretty. He looked so different from her in her maternity gowns and bedhead.

Rajkumar didn't remove the hand that was pressed to his eyes. Neither did he ask her if she'd been awake from the very beginning. He just responded to her question.

"Because I love you. I love you and our child and what we have. I don't want this...what we have to end."

"Do you love me or do you love the idea of a family unit?"

"God no. Honey, I love you. I love you to death, honey." He reached out and held her in his arms, forehead pressed to her back. He heard her crying and he felt hollow. He heard her talk through her tears.

"Y-you are just so bright and beautiful. You are so perfect. I love you, Raj. You love me. You said yes to marry me."

His heart hurt listening to her talk. She was saying good things...yet why did she sound so sad?

He knew very soon.

"But sometimes, it feels like you are holding back. Like there are parts of you that you don't want me to see. And the more I know, the more I think that's okay. It is right?" she whispered.

"Oh my goodness. It's not okay. It's not. This is all my fault, honey."

"I don't need to know, Raj. I am okay just being by your side."

What was this? What was this pain that threatened to render him apart? He held himself back from crying out loud.

"No, honey. Look at me. Please look at me, Manmeet. I beg of you to look at me."

Rajkumar had her look his way. There were tears streaming down her face. There were tears streaming down his face.

He reached out to wipe hers.

"Honey, you are the best thing that has ever happened to me. You better believe it."

Manmeet sobbed even harder.

"Why do I feel nothing like that? I think you could do so much better than me."

Seeing her suffer caused him to suffer too.

"I am nothing without you, honey." Rajkumar meant every word - but she couldn't hear him. She was too far away even when she was right beside him.

"If I hurt you and you cheated," she whispered, "you'd feel guilty and perhaps you'd stay. You'd stay even if you hated it."

Rajkumar hurriedly pressed a kiss in the center of the hand that reached for his face, in the warmth of her palm, sobs escaping his mouth.

"You don't know how many colors you have brought into my life, Manmeet. Goodness, you don't know how much you mean to me. You are my world, love."

"I know. Yet every day I see you, I dream on my feet that you'd walk away. I feel it in here, Raj." she pointed to the left side of her chest, where her heart was, "Why do I feel it? I feel like you can do it in ways that scare me. And what happens to me then? To our child? To RJ? Where do we go from there?"

Tell me, my love, where do we go when you are no longer here?