Sail Through Styx - A SwaSan SS

Chapter Two Part B

In her late twenties the woman in front of me looked a queen of sorts. She sat behind her desk, her manicured nails tapping the glass top and the faint wintery sunlight shone from the gaps between the blinders drawn over the glass wall of her office.

She had chin length hair, brown and curly and thin rimmed glasses rested on her nose. Looking through them she shuffled the papers on her desk and fished out a report from her drawers before turning her attention on me.

There was a minute before she spoke and in my mind I could see our cold sitting room back in Himachal; now unfamiliar after the long time spent in Perth and Ma's cold stare as she folded her arms and refused to answer me.

"Forget him," her tone was unyielding. "There's no point in knowing who he was."

"There is no point in finding out the person who promised to wait for me?" I asked her in an exasperated voice.

"He left you." Her tone was harsh. " Will you go back looking for him?" There was an unknown edge of fear to her voice. I watched her for for a moment trying to comprehend her stand. What was she afraid about? I was already heartbroken, there was no possible pain that would be new to me. Why not return to Perth looking for answers?

"I don't want to lose you again," Ma's hands embraced me.

I stared ahead, not meeting her eyes. If I take in her anguish it would be hard for me to fight against the natural instinct to sooth her, stay behind with my doubts weighing my soul.

" But I've left a part of  my soul with him, Ma. I can never be myself until I know why he did this. Why I meant nothing to him when he played with my feelings but still why he couldn't let me simply die without a fight. I need to know why he deceived me into this life Ma I need to hear him explain."

"But I don't!" She sounded firm in her decision. "I don't want you going back to them."

I frowned in thought. Them, my Baba and his second wife; what had I done that made Ma think I wanted to go back to them?

"I'm not going for them, I'm going for my own sake,  for my own peace of mind."

The memory slipped my mind as I returned to the wintery surrounding of Perth around me. Dr. Roy was patiently waiting for my attention.

" Dr. Maheshwari said he only played a minor part in healing me and that it was you who handled my case. I have some questions for you Dr. Roy, and I've been told you have answers."

*

Kavita studied the young woman sitting before her, there was a strange sense of calmness veiling her features. For a fragment of a second the atmosphere switched to a one of two chess players,  the white and black checked warfield lying between them. The white had made an opening, while the black waited in calculative silence.

"Why don't we begin at the beginning Miss Gadodia; tell me what urged you to come here."

The pawns staggered ahead, square by square with no qualms of the lessening distance between the target and themselves. The question led to another truth.

She heard the story she was already familiar with, perhaps more so than the narrator herself.  But still she let her continue without hindrance and made a few annotations to her report.

"I'm confused, I know what I saw, but nothing leads me to him anymore.  Was he real, or simply a fragment of my imagination?"

"was that your question for me?"

" No," admitted the young woman. "when I returned looking for answers I realized there were many more questions than those I knew. And my question changed. It's true that I wanted to find out about the man who broke my heart, but now I have more pressing doubts. What was I diagnosed with?"