Living Room
Swarna's POV
Kaha's back in the room.
Not locked in.
Not hiding.
Just… tired.
She mumbled something about Kanaka following her and disappeared down the hallway like a wave receding into the shore.
I let her go.
Mom's folding laundry on the sofa like it personally offended her. Shirts snapped with extra tension. Pillowcases smoothed like they've committed crimes.
I hover near the edge of the room, sipping the lukewarm chai she made. The one she said was "on the stove"—even though it wasn't. She made it after seeing Kaha.
"You don't have to glare at the towels," I say carefully.
She doesn't look up. "Someone has to."
"…You want to talk about it?"
She finally stops folding. One shirt half-bent in her hands.
"You know I want the best for you."
Here we go.
"I didn't say you didn't."
"But this—" she gestures vaguely toward the hallway, "—this isn't what I imagined."
I take a sip. "Me neither."
"I thought marriage meant something more than silence. Locked doors. Blank faces."
"She's been through something, Ma."
"Everyone's been through something."
"That doesn't mean they don't deserve kindness."
She looks at me now.
Long and hard.
Then sighs. "You always did have too much softness."
"I call it spine."
A pause.
She presses the shirt into a neat square.
"She looked like she hadn't slept in days," she mutters. "Like she was… scared."
I nod. "She is."
"She doesn't have to be."
"She doesn't know that yet."
Another long pause.
Then—so quiet I almost miss it:
"You looked like that too, once. When you came back from college that year."
That catches me off guard. My fingers tighten around the cup.
She's never mentioned it before. Never asked why I stopped laughing so easily. Why I stopped bringing friends home.
I don't answer.
But she doesn't push.
She just folds the shirt and says, "Tell her the guest room has heavier blankets. And that I can show her how to use the washing machine if she needs it."
I nod.
Not victory. Not surrender.
But something in between.
A start.