[Umavictor32]

Chapter 17: The Truth Between Tears


Saturday, 2:00 PM — Chithra's flat, Porur

The Zomato delivery arrived at 1:50. Sandhya had ordered without asking—one chicken pizza, one chapathi, a small container of paneer butter masala. She set everything on the low wooden table in the living room and sat cross-legged on the floor, her pale night dress pooling around her knees.

Chithra sat across from her. The fan creaked overhead. Kreek, kreek.

"Eat," Sandhya said, sliding the chapathi toward her.

Chithra picked at it. A small piece. Then another. The paneer she left mostly untouched, pushing the gravy around with her fingers.

Sandhya bit into a slice of pizza—schmck—and chewed slowly, watching. Sandhya offered one piece to chithra and she also had it...




"You're not hungry."

"I'm fine."

"You barely ate."

"I'm fine," Chithra repeated.

The lie sat between them. Sandhya didn't call it out. Instead, she wiped her fingers on a tissue and leaned back.

"So," she said. "Tell me about Friday."

Chithra's hand froze mid-reach.

"Friday night. The first night. With Muthu."

A silence. The fan. The distant honk of an auto on the street below.

"There's nothing to tell."

"Chithra."

"I did what I had to do."

"That's not what I asked."

Chithra's jaw tightened. She broke off another piece of chapathi—crack—and shoved it into her mouth.

Sandhya waited.

And then—without warning, without reason—a small smile flickered across Chithra's lips. There and gone. A twitch of muscle she didn't control, didn't understand, didn't want. She caught it. Crushed it. Replaced it with the flat mask she'd worn for three years.

"I did everything for my family," she said. Her voice was steady. Rehearsed. "For Aaryan. For Vijay. For the debts. That's why I went. That's why I let him—" She stopped.

"Let him what?"

"Nothing."

Sandhya set down the pizza slice. "Why did Vijay sell you?"

The mask cracked.

Chithra's eyes filled—hot, sudden—and she pressed the heels of her palms against them.

"I never expected it," she whispered. "My own husband. The man I married. The man who—" Her breath hitched. "I was truthful to him. Always. I never looked at another man. I never—and he just—he signed me away like I was a plot of land."

The tears came. Real ones, this time. They slid down her cheeks and she didn't stop them.



"Being a woman in Tamil Nadu," she said, her voice breaking, "is pathetic. Nobody cares. Nobody asks. We're just—we're just things to be traded."

Sandhya didn't reach for her. Didn't touch her. Just sat there, still, while Chithra cried.

After a while, the tears slowed. Chithra wiped her face with the hem of her pallu. Sniffed. Took a breath.

"I'm okay," she said. "I'm okay."

"Good," Sandhya said. "Eat something."

Chithra ate. A bite of chapathi. A spoonful of paneer. Sandhya finished her pizza.

---

The plates sat empty. The fan creaked.

"Do you want to rest?" Sandhya asked.

"No."

"Then tell me about Aaryan."

Chithra's face changed—softened, hardened, softened again. "What about him?"

"How are you doing without him?"

"I'm—" Chithra stopped. Started again. "I'm only living for him. He's the only reason I—" She swallowed. "This is the first time I've been away from him for two days. Since he was born. Two days."

"Do you miss him?"

"Of course I miss him."

"Have you called him?"

Silence.

"The phone was cut off," Chithra said. "Vijay's phone. I don't have the number for the hotel. I don't—"

"You could have asked Muthu."

Chithra's jaw worked.

"You didn't ask," Sandhya said. Not a question.

"I—" Chithra looked at the floor. "I don't know. I didn't think."

"You didn't think."

Sandhya nodded. Slow. "Okay."

She stood. Cleared the plates. Took them to the kitchen—clink, clink—and came back.

"Tell me about your life before marriage," she said. "In Madurai."

Chithra blinked.

"Before Vijay. Before Chennai. What was it like?"

Silence.

"Did you have an affair?"

Chithra's cheeks darkened. A blush—deep, sudden, uncontrollable—spreading from her neck to her ears.

"Did you?"

"No," Chithra said. Too quick. Too loud.

Sandhya smiled. Just a little. "Chithra."

"I—"

"You're blushing."

"I'm not."

"You are."

Chithra looked away. At the wall. At the window. At Aaryan's elephant, still sitting on the cot, its trunk bent.

"Muthu," she said. Barely a whisper.

Sandhya's ey

Chithra's hands twisted in her lap. "I loved Muthu. Before marriage."

The words hung in the air.

Sandhya leaned forward. "Tell me."

"He was my cousin. Cross-cousin. My parents had—they had it arranged. From when I was small. I would marry him." Her voice shook. "His name was also Muthu. Same name. He was a farmer. Kind. He used to bring me jasmine flowers—malligai—every morning. He would wait at the gate and give them to me and just—just smile."

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"Go on."

"My parents didn't let me marry him." Her hands gripped the fabric of her saree. "Because he was poor. We were—comparatively—we had money. He didn't. He had no job. No income. Just his land. Just his hands." She swallowed. "I cried. I begged. I told them I would run away. I told them I would kill myself."

"And?"

"My father said he would kill him. If I didn't marry Vijay, he would kill Muthu." Her voice cracked. "So I married Vijay."

Sandhya was quiet.

"I even told Vijay. Before the wedding. I told him I loved someone else. I told him to stop the marriage. I begged him." Chithra let out a hollow laugh. "He said he loved me. He said he wanted a life with me. He didn't stop it."

"He still married you."

"Yes."

"Knowing you loved someone else."

"Yes."

Sandhya's glasses caught the light. She pushed them up.

"Then what happened? To Muthu?"

"He left the village. After the wedding. I heard he just—left. No one knew where. No one knew anything." Chithra's voice faltered. "For months I waited. I thought he would come back. I thought he would find me. But—nothing. And then people started asking. Villagers. Tamil Nadu—you know how it is. If a woman doesn't get pregnant within six months, they start whispering. They start saying things."

"So you—"

"I had to forget. I had to live my present life. I had to—to become Aaryan's mother." She wiped her face again. "I stopped thinking about him. I forced myself to stop. And I was faithful. I was—I never let Vijay touch me. Because—because it felt wrong. Because it wasn't him."

She stopped. Breathed. The fan creaked.

Sandhya sat perfectly still.

Then she spoke.

"Chithra. Do you really love your husband?"

Chithra blinked. "Of course  i should—"

"I didn't ask if you should love him. I asked if you do."

Silence.

"Do you love Vijay?"

No answer.

"Because if you loved him," Sandhya said, "you would have tried to call him. You would have asked Muthu for Nirmala's number. You would have tried to talk to him. But you didn't. You didn't even try calling your son." Her voice was soft, clinical. "Every time you talk about Aaryan and Vijay, you say how much effort you took. You don't say how much they loved you. You portray yourself as a sympathetic figure. The martyr. The sacrificing wife."

Chithra stared at her.

"The truth, I feel, is that you never loved your husband." Sandhya paused. "And you love Aaryan because he's your son. Because society would say bad things if you didn't. But in the bottom of your heart—" She let the words land. "—you don't love anyone. If Muthu had been in your life, you would have loved him. But he wasn't. So you love yourself. That's all. Your love for Vijay and Aaryan is fake. For society. Nothing else."

Chithra's mouth opened. Closed.

"Excuse me," she whispered.

She stood. Walked to her room—slp, slp—and closed the door.

Click.

---

Sandhya sat alone.

For a long minute, she didn't move. Then—from behind the bedroom door—she heard it.

Hnnng. Hnnnk. Hnnng.

Muffled crying. Deep, choked, the sound of something breaking.

Sandhya stood. Walked to the door. Listened.

Then she turned, picked up her phone, and stepped outside—creak, thunk—into the corridor.

The dial rang twice.

"Sandhya." Muthu's voice. Low, calm.

"Things going as per plan." Sandhya's voice was flat. Professional. "Now it's your time to activate your plan."

A pause.

"Sure," Muthu said. "I will do it."

The line clicked dead.

Sandhya stared at her phone. Then she walked back inside, closed the door, and sat down on the floor in front of the television. The fan creaked overhead. From the bedroom, the crying continued.

She turned on the TV...