Haunting Memories

Chapter 10

Even though she felt she couldn’t look anymore at things that she had overlooked for so long, she couldn’t stop now, and she walked on to the sheds. Immediately she noticed the rise in numbers. One of the cows had given birth. There was a new calf in the shed, thin, tiny and white as milk with two large black spots. The baby was busy drinking milk from it’s mother’s teets, and Ritika looked on in awe. New life. Life and death. The cycles of life. Her life had been devastated, but the world moved on. And didn’t it have the right to? We would all have our times, and our ends, so we needed to live and enjoy the beauty of life when and where we got it.

And here was the little baby, relishing life as it could. A middle-aged lady in a purple and yellow saree had been cleaning the area with a broom when she had arrived, and looked at her now anxiously. She nodded her head and greeted Ritika when she finally looked at her, and then waited on her. A man rushed out from the room then, and stopped in his tracks when he noticed her.

“Madam,” he finally said. His eyes flicked to the mother-child pair in the corner and a guilty look flashed across his face. The gesture confused Ritika, but she didn’t turn to look for what had caused his reaction.

“Hi,” she finally said, when she couldn’t think of anything else, “How’s everything going?”

“Uh, good, good,” he replied hastily, his eyes flickering again. This time she saw that he was looking at the metal milk container tied to his cycle leaning on a wall behind the cow, and realized what was going on. The nursing cows milk for the first few days after birth would be yellow in colour, very nutritious, and also sought after. She was quite sure none had reached the kitchens of the manor, so apparently this young man had been secretly selling it off. Instead of being angry, she was just amused. So much was going on. She had been asleep. God.

When Ritika didn’t respond, he continued, “All the cows are healthy. We’ve been using good hay from the adjoining farm. The one Sir had asked for.” He paused here, as though he had entered forbidden territory, and he had. The mention of Aarav felt like an arrow piercing through her heart, and it took every ounce of her strength to continue to stand impassively. Yes, he took care of every little detail. Ritika nodded and looked away. Her continued presence and refusal to talk made him feel as though he hadn’t said enough, so he said, “I’ve been sending milk to the kitchens every morning. Fresh.”

Ritika felt tired, Aarav’s face flashing in her mind, smiling smugly at the discovery of the new source of good food for their cattle. She walked around, pretending that she was taking an overview of the place, and used the time to pull herself back to reality. When feeling better, she tried to think what to do next. Things were in order, she could leave. But stealing wasn’t acceptable.

Ritika looked at the container a second and then looked back at him. He swallowed nervously, and appeared to have realized that he’d been caught, beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead. 

“I’ve not been around,” Ritika said firmly, “But I’m back now, so let’s get everything back in order, okay? You’ve done a decent job so far, but there’s scope for improvement.”

He nodded, and the lady- his wife- looked on fearfully. 

“Okay?” she asked.

He nodded quickly and spluttered, “Y- yes, madam.”

She didn’t want to say anymore. Apart from this small matter, they had taken care of the shed and the cows pretty well. So she looked around one more time, smiled at them appreciatively and walked off.

It seemed there was a lot to take care of, but Ritika felt she could take care of it. She could pull strength from her love for Aarav, her desire to keep this place as beautiful as he would have liked it to be. Satisfied, she smiled happily. It felt so different, and so good.

She wasn’t going to sell her land. She would have to go home and explain. But first, she would take a nice, long tour.

When she stepped into the house, a huge bundle of flowers from the green house in her hand, her spirits were very high. Her eyes darted to the large wall clock at the entrance. Another antique. Priceless. She wondered how long Mr. Arora had drolled over it when she hadn’t been around. It was one in the afternoon. Time for lunch. She had spent the entire morning in the grounds, and was surprised at how fast the time had gone. It had seemed a long day, and she had seen so much, felt so much. She felt stronger, more confident, about moving around, existing even, without Aarav. 

She walked through to the dining room, and watched as the maid set the table for lunch. She felt affection for every chair she straightened, every piece of cutlery she kept on the table. She looked lovingly and longingly at the chair that had been Aarav’s favourite. Even with the painful memories, she loved this place. She felt responsible for it. She wasn’t going to sell it. It didn’t feel like a wavering decision anymore, didn’t feel like a pendulum moving back and forth, capable of swinging back any moment. She felt sure of her decision as she never had the past few days. She was keeping her home. She would take care of it, and of the grounds.

The maid noticed her and rushed over, taking the flowers from her hands and transferring them to one of the glass vases on display. She smiled gratefully and turned to leave, but the maid spoke up, “Lunch will be served in another few minutes, ma’am. Everyone will be arriving any minute now.”

Ritika nodded, the mornings visit still in her mind. The only area she had missed was the vegetable gardens.

“Have we been receiving good vegetables from the farms?” she asked the maid.

The maid looked at her, her eyebrows raised in surprise at Ritika’s show of interest. She nodded slowly, and answered, “Yes. Almost everything we’re cooking here is coming from there. We still have extra, in case you want to send them to neighbours or the market to sell.”

Another job she had been overlooking. Ritika assured her she would return soon and walked out. She went straight to Joe. She spent the next hour discussing the sheds, stables, gardens and farming lands with him. He had looked over everything when Aarav had been alive, and it turned out that he had been doing so, albeit very minimally, the past few months. Once satisfied with all the work she asked him to execute, and feeling grateful for the encouraging smile on his face, she went back to the dining room. Lunch was over. She was surprised, and only mildly insulted. She asked the maid to send up a lunch tray to her room and retired for the afternoon.