In Her Words

 “She never appreciated me", he complained as he allowed the couch to swallow him. He recognized the way Mira looked at him. He knew that sympathetic look that everyone gave him these days. He knew he shouldn't be angry at them. But he didn't want their pity. He wanted her back. All those moments that he will never get to experience with her, he wanted them. He felt the weight on the couch shift. From the corner of his eye, he saw Mira, his late fiancé's sister, get up. 

 "Where are you going?" He asked even without turning to look at her. 

When Mira didn't answer anything, he turned to look at her, head still resting over the couch. He saw her walk up to the boxes stacked by the wall. A single tear rolled down his cheek as he realized what they held. All the belongings that Jiya had left behind were in those boxes. He wanted to know what they were all doing in those shabby boxes, but he felt Mira had told him the reason. Somehow he had managed to forget it. A question then nagged at the back of his mind, will one day he forget her too? 

He shook his head, trying to erase the question. Mira finally stood up, clutching a book to her chest. A faint smile graced her features. Just like him, Mira too had wrapped the shroud of heartache tightly around herself, and the sunshine that her personality once was had changed into rain-cast moor. She sat back on the couch, her fingers ever so tenderly traced the edges of the hardcover. 

“Here”, she said at last, catching his attention. “This is for you.” 

Curious, he took the book. The book was one of those spiral bound sketch books, the edges of whom were tattered and rounded. It bulked from all that was pressed inside it and all the pages that stuck out of it. It seemed like a scrapbook. 

A memory flashed in his mind. He saw Jiya, sticking cutouts in some book. He remembered she had brushed off his questions about it. Didn't that scrapbook look similar? His hands trembling he flipped to the first page. 

A photo was stuck there, of clouds drawn in blue ink, like those Japanese illustrations. And in red ink between those clouds were the words ‘For you, About you’ written.

 He flipped open the book to a page where a banyan tree was drawn. Its aerial branches spread across two pages. And in this tapestry were the words written ‘The Tree of the Netherworld’. He didn't stop to read the story but instead he flipped a couple more pages until he saw the inscription at the end of the story, “From when we visited Cabo de Rama and I told you a story.” 

His stomach did a somersault. Not sure what to make of it, he turned towards Mira. She sat with her legs tucked under her and chin in hand. Mira gave a small smile, encouraging him to continue to reading further.

 He flipped a couple more of pages, encountering more stories and more drawings; at the end of which written in that same red ink were names of places they had visited, of things they had said. Here a greeting card, there a piece of yarn-gift receipt, hotel bills-all traces of their lives together scattered across the pages of the book. 

His voice shook as he asked, “What's all this?” He knew what it was; deep down in the recesses of his soul he knew the truth. She had appreciated him, even when he grumbled and complained. She had silently collected pieces of their lives and created a beautiful picture. And yet, almost feverishly, he had hoped to not encounter the depth of her affection. How could he stay mad at her for leaving now? 

A teardrop splattered onto the page, smudging the ink a little; even before Mira spoke, he had realized it. 

 In almost a whisper, trying to not let her voice quiver, Mira answered, “The stories she wrote; all about places you showed her. And your hometown.”