A Heart of Stone with a Coat of Gold

The Last Letter

NOTE - Please try to understand the context of the story dear Readers. In India, Arranged Marriages are a lot more common than Love marriages. But hopefully and for the better, the trend is changing.

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For the next few days, things fell into a similar pattern. Neel didn't talk much unless it was necessary. He always ordered food, never cooking or asking her to cook. He left for office early in the morning. He took Aryan with him to the nursery and came back with him later in the evening. The occasional pleasantries were exchanged. And then they would go to bed. They had two blankets now, each one had his own. He would keep to his corner of the bed, never even touching her.

Anu was surprised. When she had married, all sort of thoughts had run in her mind. She knew that the man was a widower, older and had a child. She knew what she was getting into. It was not a marriage for love. It was a marriage of convenience. She was a maid, not his wife. One who would take care of his child, and would cook for him. In turn, her family would get a crutch they desperately needed, her mother needed. And when the man wanted he would sleep with her. Isn't what such marriages are supposed to be?

He came home after working long and would jump straight away into tending to his kid, never paying her any attention. They would have dinner and they would then retire. She noticed that he slept late, always staring into the ceiling, lost in his own thoughts. Several times during the night, the child would wake up, wailing at the top of his lungs. Neel would get up immediately and try to calm the kid. She heard him singing a lullaby a couple to times to lull the kid. It was very funny to her, a grown-up man singing it.

She could see the long day working and then the nights tending to the kid, take its toll. He seemed tired, still, he never asked her to take care of Aryan. She knew she didn't love the kid, but she didn't hate him even. Why didn't he ask her, she wondered. Did he think she would be like the stepmoms the stories said?

The days were long and she had nothing to do. It was empty and void like her heart. The house had a small PC, which lay in one corner. The second day, Anu used it to check her FB and Instagram. A mistake, she realised later.

There were all her friends in their normal lives. One of them had joined a good institute, one which Anu had once dreamed of, and uploaded a pic with her new friends. Nisha her best friend had uploaded a pic with her cute boyfriend. They looked very happy together. As she scrolled on and on, the realization was hitting. This was the life she could've had.

She looked around her. The walls of the room felt squeezing her. Tears started dripping down her face. All she had now was an empty house, an empty heart, and an empty future.

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What she missed most was someone to talk to. Neel would leave early and come late. The neighbours looked friendly but Anu hadn't had the heart to go to talk on them. She knew the awkward questions would come. Like why did you marry him? A question she couldn't explain. They would have to live her life to get it.

Then the notes started. Like the first day.

She woke up late on the third day. The tea waited on the bedside with a note. It was a heavily worked-upon note, with various words written and then overwritten. What it read finally was.

"Dear Anu,

I know you have been bored while I and Aryan have been gone. Why don't you go outside for a change? I have left my credit card and have texted you its pin.

Neel"

She noticed the words 'Love' written before his name Neel, which he had then hastily tried to hide.

When Neel came back he saw the cards and the note at the same place he had left.

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Anu unpacked her stuff and started arranging them in the wooden almirah. The upper shelf had Neel's work cloth and other casual ones. The lower shelf was empty which Anu supposed was for her. As she was arranging her clothes, she noticed a paper jutting out from the upper shelf. It was probably behind the clothes on the above shelf but somehow had slipped below in the space between the wooden slab and the wall of the almirah. She carefully removed it. The note had various creases as if had been read and reread again and again. The words were smudged so it was hard to read it.

"Dear Neel,

For the past 10 years, we have been married together, we have written hundreds of these letters to each other. This is going to the last one, at least from my end.

And I am going to tell you a story in it.

The story is of a small girl who went with her parents to one of their friend's place. She roamed around the garden all alone. She was lonely and sad. Kids used to tease her, she had a lot of freckles, she was ugly.

While roaming she reached a cherry tree, one which had no flowers. There he was, a boy hanging from one of the branches, smiling at her. The boy had blue eyes, bright, and beautiful with a smile that was infectious. Soon she was smiling too. They became fast friends.

One day he gave her a letter, along with his enchanting smile, one that said,

"Do not worry, when the time comes, you will blossom like the tree here. Afterall, you are mine, my cherry blossom." At that moment, the girl fell in love with the boy.

When they grew up, their families proposed, and the marriage was fixed. There was no second thought for the girl. The girl was marrying the man of her dreams. He was smart and had a heart of gold, he was a gentleman.

She knew over the years he had become reserved but she liked it. He was hers and hers only. He only needed to talk to the girl and no one else. How stupid she was!

The years flew by but the boy never talked. He only wrote her letters every morning. After many many years, all she could remember were the letters with the empty words. But not his voice. Never his voice.

Gone was the smile. Only to be replaced by a face of stone. One that didn't laugh. Not even cried with her.

When their first child died, the girl was broken. But it was not his death that hurt her the most. It was the boy. There were no words of comfort. No words of sorrow that he too was broken like her. He just stood in a corner, in the shadows and smoked. He disgusted her.

Neel, that boy was you, and that girl is me.

Gone are the days, and gone are the cherry blossoms, never to bloom again.

I loved you, dear. I loved you with all my existence. But even now, I don't know if you ever felt the same.

You never said you loved me. You only wrote it.

My love has waned, it has withered like those cherry trees where we first met. I am leaving, Neel. Even if you changed into the man I once believed I was marrying, I don't think I have it in me anymore

And I want to tell you that I'm pregnant. Your mom said a few months back that may be a second child would solve our problems. It won't. I realise that now. When our child is born, we can have a talk about custody. If you want to, you will have to say it to me. Say it, not write it. I hope that this child may fill the void in your heart. Because I can't. 

I know that you care for me in your own way, or at least I hope so. And I am sorry if I'm hurting you. I just cannot love a guy with a heart of stone anymore. Even, and even, if the heart has a coat of gold."

Your wife,

Shruti

The letter reminded her of Nikhil's letter; the first one he had written to her and the only one.It was smudged as well. Anu knew the reason for the smudges all too well.

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