Armaan sat restlessly in his office, the dim hum of the fluorescent lights doing little to calm his racing thoughts. His eyes darted to the clock on the wall, its hands crawling with an almost mocking slowness. He ran a hand through his hair, the argument with Abhira replaying in his mind like a broken record. He knew his worry wasn't unfounded but he couldn't shake the feeling that his reaction had been over the top. Moreover, Dadi Sa had yet again taken a knife at her heart, scratching upon a wound gradually healing. That is all he had wanted to prevent, to make sure she is not hurt again but now that he had the space to contemplate, it didn't seem fair to be mad at her for allowing his family to hurt her when they shouldn't be hurting her in the first place.
The office door creaked open, and Armaan's head snapped up. His father stood in the doorway, a rare sight in this corporate environment. He was holding a box of lunch, a gentle smile playing on his lips.
"Papa?" Armaan's surprise was palpable. "What are you doing here?"
"I figured you might need a break," his father said, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. He placed the lunch box on Armaan's desk and took a seat across from him. "It was a stressful morning and I am pretty sure you haven't eaten anything given the mood that you left in, given I didn't smell any burning food from the outhouse which means Abhira hasn't eaten anything either."
Armaan sighed, leaning back in his chair. His wife would be the death of him. Of course she hadn't eaten, she would lose her appetite when distressed but she was supposed to be extra careful with her health after the stunt she pulled at the hospital with her stubbornness to donate blood despite being told not to. When would she learn to take care of herself?
"Did you talk to her Armaan, she would have been pretty hurt after everything Maa Sa said to her? God knows she might as well be scared, but she won't show it", Madhav prompted while opening the lids of the tiffin boxes now spread on the table.
Armaan stared at his father for a moment before he answered, "I didn't...I did not let her talk" he sighed again, "I might have rebuked her a little, it's just that I expressly asked her to stay away from the matter because I knew one step against Dadi Sa's wishes and she would use it to belittle her again. It already seems impossible to convince her for our wedding and now this whole fiasco just made it worse."
Madhav fed a morsel of chapati to Armaan as he continued to speak, "You are repeating the same mistakes Armaan. Your disappointment is justified but you have to listen to her. I am probably not the best person to give you any advise given the failure of a husband that I myself have been but that also makes me aware of what could subject you to the same fate. Be better than this Armaan, for yourself, for her. In a relationship...you don't just ask people to do something and expect them to follow it, programming them to believe that non-compliance would mean they have hurt you. That's what Maa Sa does but you are not her. I need you to remember that while Abhira is strong on most days she is not immune to the damage that words do. She is bravest of us all Armaan but she is very young and she does not have anybody to go back to if you refuse to listen to her. She is emotionally worn out too and probably scared right now."
Armaan listened carefully slipping into introspection before he took a deep breath and finally spoke, "I...I know there would have been a good reason for her to take up that case, I was just worried and I just walked out, I shouldn't have. What do I do now, I don't know."
Madhav rested a hand on his son's back in a soft pat, "a couple of days back when Rohit misbehaved with you and said things that you didn't deserve to hear, words that hurt you and scare you, what did Abhira do?"
Armaan closed his eyes feeling a deep sense of remorse for not instinctively wrapping her in a hug and comforting her when she was probably hurting at yet again being misunderstood by his family, a family she so selflessly and unconditionally loved, a family she would protect with her own life. He knew what he had to do.
