Everyone Has a Story 2

by Savi Sharma

  They say that right before you die, your life flashes in front of you, but watching Kabir struggling with his own survival made our life together flash in front of me, almost like someone was taking pictures and dropping them in front of me.

  That very first time we met, when Kabir gave me the coffee and ice cream, I barely saw the man in front of me. I was so wrapped up in my own grief.

  But even as the leaves are falling in autumn, you know that spring will come. It’s a promise of the future, and Kabir was that for me. I loved him forever, but it wasn’t until now that I realised how much. At this moment, I realised that the level of pain you feel for something proves how much it means to you. And oh, I was feeling pain.

  Through his kindness and patience, his heart reached out to mine, and tentatively, I took his hand, starting on a beautiful journey of happiness and love together.

  Your dreams don’t disappear just because you lose your way and so slowly, I allowed myself to start dreaming again. Where I thought love was a lie, he showed me it was the truth.

  The first time he asked me to marry him, I laughed bitterly. I didn’t feel truly worthy of his love; I thought he was saving me. It took me a long time to realise that he wasn’t trying to rescue me, that he actually wanted me.

  He loved me, quietly, patiently. And oh, how I loved him too.

  I recalled my pregnancy. Even as my body stretched around Jianna, to the point of utter discomfort, Kabir found a way to ease the pain, with his hands or his words.

  What I wouldn’t give to hear his hearty, deep laugh right now.

  But here he was in front of me, wrapped in a blanket of never-ending pain. I wanted to pull him from the bed, plunge the IVs into my own arms and offer myself up to take the pain from him. If I could, I would have.

  Tears dripped from my eyes, saturating the mask over my nose and mouth. What would I do if I lost him? How could I go on myself?

  Early in the morning, I heard the door open and turned to see a nurse coming in. Silently, she checked his vital signs, noted the levels of medicine in the IV bags, and then turned to me.

  ‘I think you need to take a little break,’ she said quietly.

  I shook my head. ‘I need to stay here with Kabir.’

  ‘I understand,’ she said. ‘Truly, I do. Your friend in the hall has been asking to see you though. Why don’t I stay here while you go talk to him?’

  I thought of Vivaan, our faithful friend, keeping vigil in the hallway too, and nodded. ‘Just for a few minutes,’ I agreed.

  ‘Ask him to show you the courtyard,’ she suggested. ‘A little fresh air would do you good.’

  I pressed my fingertips to the lips behind my mask, kissed them, and brushed the kiss onto Kabir’s cheek. It felt warm and I frowned, wanting to stay. But I did want to speak with Vivaan, maybe convince him to go home for a little while.

  I nodded to the nurse and told her I would be back in a few minutes, and then left the room, walking down the hall to the waiting area where Vivaan was sitting.

  Although he was half asleep on the chair, he sprang to his feet when he saw me.

  ‘Any change?’ he said, rushing to hug me.

  I shook my head. ‘Nothing yet. I hate seeing him in so much pain, Vivaan,’ I said, my voice wavering with more tears that wanted to break out.

  ‘I know,’ he said with a sigh. ‘I wish there was something we could do. What I can do is take care of you for now. Do you want to get something to eat?’

  I shook my head, nausea clawing at my stomach at the thought of food. ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘Let’s go outside then,’ he said. ‘The nurse that just went into Kabir’s room mentioned a courtyard.’ He held out his hand. ‘I’m not taking no for an answer,’ he said firmly.

  I allowed myself to be tugged down the hall and we stepped into a beautiful, peaceful area draped with lush green plants. There was a small fountain and even though it was hot, the shade of the trees and the moving water seemed to keep away the stolid heat.

  We sat on a smooth stone bench for a good half hour. I was lost in my thoughts of Kabir, but Vivaan pressed on with a one-sided conversation.

  Suddenly, the peace I felt was ripped away from me. ‘I need to go back in,’ I said, standing up quickly. ‘Something’s wrong.’

  To his credit, Vivaan didn’t try to placate me but stepped ahead of me to open the door.

  I retraced my steps back to Kabir’s room, but terror froze my feet when we turned a corner and I saw the activity of people rushing in and out of his room. I looked at Vivaan, and his eyes were wide with fright.

  ‘Kabir!’ I cried and started to run the rest of the way.

  A nurse saw me approaching and reached out to stop me. ‘We need you to stay outside for now.’

  ‘No,’ I cried. I felt Vivaan’s arms circling around me. I pushed at him, trying to get to Kabir. ‘I need to go to Kabir!’

  ‘He has a high temperature,’ the nurse explained quickly. ‘He started to seize. Please, we need space to work on him right now.’

  Vivaan pulled me aside, out of the way of the rushing medical staff. ‘Give them room, Nisha. They need to focus all their efforts on Kabir.’

  My legs gave out from under me and I slid to the cold floor. Vivaan eased me down and then knelt beside me, glancing around to make sure we were out of the way.

  ‘Kabir,’ I heard myself moan. ‘What if I lose Kabir?’

  Tears streamed down my face and I wrapped my arms around myself and started rocking slowly. Back and forth, like I was rocking Jianna. With his eyes on the medical staff, he reached out and took my hand.

  ‘Vivaan,’ I choked out, ‘what is happening?’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’ll try to find out.’

  ‘No!’ I said. ‘Please, don’t leave me.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said and settled into a sitting position beside me. I clung to his hand, squeezing tightly. My hand hurt with the effort, but the pain felt good. It anchored me to the hallway.

  Finally, a doctor left Kabir’s room, still barking out orders to the nurse. He glanced our way and started to walk over. I scrambled to my feet, Vivaan doing the same.

  I wanted to ask what happened, but the words didn’t come. What if Kabir had died? No! I shook my head violently, tears clinging to my cheeks. My legs shook and threatened to buckle again, but Vivaan held me up this time.

  The doctor took a deep breath and I could see the weariness in his eyes. ‘Kabir has stabilised again, but he has a very high fever. He started to go into a seizure.’

  The few bits of food in my stomach churned and threatened to erupt. I pushed my hand against my mouth and started to breathe hard. I made a whining sound, horrible even to my own ears. How could I have left him? He was okay when I left, I should have stayed! I should never have gone to that stupid courtyard. I should. . .

  ‘Fortunately,’ the doctor said, breaking into my thoughts, ‘the nurse was right there so he was in good hands.’

  ‘So the fever caused a seizure?’ I whispered.

  ‘It can happen when a fever is very high,’ he responded. ‘I have to warn you, although the seizure is over, and we are taking steps to bring his temperature down, the situation just got even more critical. A fever often indicates an infection, which can. . .’

  His words trailed off, but I knew what that meant: Kabir could die.

  He might die, and I could still lose him. . .

  I fell against Vivaan.

  ‘He’s strong though,’ the doctor continued. ‘And he has a lot to fight for. I heard you have a young daughter.’

  I nodded, but couldn’t speak. My throat burned, and I started to shake.

  Our life was so good. How could that just be yanked away from us so abruptly?

  ‘We added another medication to combat any infection and we will be watching him closely. If you will excuse me, I’m going to go check on him.’

  I nodded dumbly and watched him go back into Kabir�
�s room.

  Vivaan tugged on my arm. ‘Let’s go sit in the waiting room so we’ll be out of the way here,’ he suggested. He told the nurses where to find us and led me to the waiting room where he had been sleeping.

  ‘How?’ I whispered once I was sitting down. ‘How could all of our dreams just disappear like that?’

  Vivaan shook his head. ‘They haven’t disappeared, Nisha,’ he said with urgency in his voice. ‘You have to hold on to that.’

  ‘My heart is breaking,’ I cried. ‘I can’t see any dreams right now. I just see us losing them.’

  ‘Like what?’ he asked gently.

  ‘Kabir! My family. Oh God, Vivaan. . . . How can I go on if I lose him?’ I buried my face in my hands and started sobbing. ‘I just can’t. . .’

  I felt Vivaan slide to his knees in front of me and pulled my hands away, so I was forced to look at him. ‘You have to hold on to hope, Nisha! As the rains pour down, sometimes it seems like you’ll never see the sun again, but it still comes.’

  ‘Even now?’

  ‘Even now. There is one part of the night that is the coldest and the darkest: before dawn breaks. Just when we might give up on seeing the light again, the sun breaks over the horizon. Kabir will make it. He has to.’

  11

  FATE

  You must despise me right now, don’t you? Kabir and Nisha had a cosy little life with their cosy little family. Everything was going so good for them.

  I allowed that. . . for a time. But this is how I work. Things can’t be all good, all the time, can they?

  I’m sure you’re all optimistic and are thinking that they have to go through struggles to appreciate the good times, right?

  Dreams yield hope. Without those dreams, you have nothing. You may try to avoid your destiny, but it is waiting for you, no matter the path you take. It will find you.

  I don’t really care if they are struggling. I don’t make them struggle to enjoy the better times. I make them struggle because they deserve it.

  Nobody should be happy all the time. If people tell you that they’re happy all the time, they’re lying.

  I just force people to see the truth in life. I bring it front and centre and plop it right into their laps.

  Call it Karma. Call me Karma.

  Nobody is perfect, and I make them pay for those imperfections. I make them struggle and writhe through life. Why? Because it’s fun.

  Have you ever watched a cat play with a mouse? It doesn’t always kill the mouse right away. . . it’ll catch it, and let it go. Let it think that it has a chance at life. And just as it starts to scurry away, the cat pounces once again. This can go on and on until the mouse finally dies.

  Hopefully, the cat’s owner doesn’t step on it in the morning.

  But you know, listening to a screaming cat owner can be fun in itself. Kind of a bonus, in my humble opinion.

  I tricked you, didn’t I? I’m not humble. I am power. Just like that cat, I can toy with your emotions. I can make promises, and whisk them away just as easily.

  Do yourself a favour and make sure you wear shoes . . . and tread lightly around me.

  12

  KABIR

  I don’t remember ever being excited and filled with dread at the same time. After one very long month in the hospital, it was time for me to go home.

  I looked out the window at the same view that had kept me company for so many weeks. Every morning, I woke to the same building tops, and every night, I watched them dissolve into the darkness, to be replaced by the lights from inside those buildings.

  Some days, I liked the consistency; it was something I could focus on when I was trying to ignore the constant nag of pain.

  I hurt all the time. It was always there, reminding me of that horrible day. Some moments, the medication could keep it more manageable, but other times, especially before my next dose of painkiller was due, the pain took over more and more of my mind, rising like a great, ugly, fire-breathing beast.

  No matter my level of pain, it always came as a sharp, white dagger whenever the doctors came and poked at me. I knew they had to check on me and check my progress. But even something as light as a stray hair on my new skin was agony, forget when the doctors prodded, or the nurses changed my bandages.

  I learned this in the hospital: the winds will blow and howl around you. The rains will threaten and terrify. You will reach a point when you don’t know if you can survive, but know this: the winds will blow themselves out, the clouds will empty of the rain. Gradually, the storm ends, so slowly that you won’t even notice at first. You will emerge changed, not altered by the elements but by your own will to survive.

  Gradually, the intensity of my pain diminished. It was still there, still a great beast in the room, ready to bite at me when I least expected it. But it was getting better.

  And now, I was going home.

  So, why was I dreading that change that I so desperately desired at the same time?

  I knew I would be happy to be home, yes. To be in my own bed, to sit in my favourite chair that Nisha said was too ugly to keep. To smell the scents of her cooking, instead of this plastic antiseptic smell that I was sure was going to cling to me like an aura for years to come. To hear my precious Jianna giggling, or even arguing stubbornly that she wanted another biscuit or didn’t want a bath. . . I didn’t care. I just wanted to be a part of every phase of her toddlerhood.

  And the dread? Sadly, the list was much longer. Even just going home scared me to death. That hot, pressing sun outside the climate control of the hospital. My baby skin was so sensitive now, even a degree or two marked the difference between comfort and agony. While I was at the hospital, Nisha, Vivaan, and Meera encouraged me to go outside and sit in the lush green hospital courtyard, but I was careful to sit in the shade. It was safe, predictable. Sure, a small breeze might blow the branches above me, but if that happened, I could scamper inside.

  Now, what if the car I was to go home in turned a corner and suddenly, my burns were exposed to blistering sunlight?

  And when I got home, how could I protect myself from that scampering, energetic toddler? I used to love it when Jianna would jump in my lap. What if she did that when I wasn’t expecting it? I didn’t want to keep my little girl away from me, but I had to protect myself from getting hurt. She would be terrified if I reacted to the pain and cried out.

  Maybe I wasn’t ready. Maybe I needed to stay in the hospital for another week. Even a day or two, I didn’t care. I would be healed that much more. I sat heavily on the chair in my room, turning my back to the window. If I was going to stay here longer, those buildings would drive me crazy.

  The hospital bill beside me wasn’t giving me any strength. I don’t think I was supposed to see it yet, but in these last few days in the hospital, I wandered the halls, gaining some endurance, pushing my smoke-damaged lungs to heal faster. One day, I entered the billing office and requested a copy of my bill. I knew someone was keeping track of it, and I was the patient, after all. I suspected that Nisha had a copy of the mounting costs, but she kept it from me. Until that moment.

  So sitting beside me on the hospital bed I was expected to abandon today was the monetary value of my care. My surgeries, the medicines, the rounds from each doctor and nurse, the cost of living in my semi-private room. What happened in a few moments at Kafe Kabir that day—really, the time it took to take and fill an order for the most basic cup of coffee—came with a price tag of ten lakh rupees.

  Ten lakhs. How could so much damage be done in such a short amount of time?

  And. . . how could we possibly pay this bill?

  Vivaan walked into my hospital room, a huge grin on his face. ‘Ready to go home?’ he said, beaming and rubbing his hands together in heavy expectation.

  I quickly tucked away my reservations but my brave, tight-lipped smile must have given me away. Nisha always said my smile was like a television screen, projecting my feelings honestly and clearly, no matter how much I may try
to hide them.

  Vivaan’s eyebrow cocked in question and he sat down on the hospital bed in front of me. His feet swung helplessly before he reached for the controls and lowered the bed. Then, with his shoes planted firmly on the hospital tile, he rested his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. ‘Talk to me, Kabir,’ he ordered.

  I snorted a little dismissively and looked away from his piercing, bright glance. ‘Talk to you about what?’

  ‘What is bothering you? I know something is,’ he responded. ‘After being here for so many weeks, I was thinking you’d be running out that door.’

  There was no sense in lying to my good friend. After all, he and Meera had us shown their faithfulness and dedication this month. They didn’t hesitate to set their own lives aside to help both me and Nisha. Meera was an endless source of strength for Nisha, helping her with Jianna at the apartment so Nisha could be by my side, giving her support every moment when my own confidence in my healing would fail.

  I knew, even though Nisha never confessed any weak moments, that Meera was there, holding her up when she faltered as well. So, when Nisha was with me, she was a ball of positive energy.

  And Vivaan. I didn’t know if he and Nisha had worked out a schedule between them, but if she wasn’t with me, he was. I was never alone. If I was sleeping, I would wake to see Vivaan quietly sitting in a chair, reading a book. And if I was awake, he was there. The doctors and nurses were fantastic, but he had this uncanny way of seeing what I needed and wordlessly making it happen.

  It was Vivaan who broke the news to me that Kafe Kabir had been destroyed. I didn’t know for sure what had happened to my business and when I’d ask Nisha, she would smile, pat my bed and declare that we’d work everything else out.

  ‘Nisha, please.’ I usually left her alone about the café because when I pushed, she’d get this pained twitch like lemon juice had just squirted her in the eye. I guess I knew the truth because I didn’t push the issue. I had already brought so much discomfort to our family with my injuries. But one day, I just couldn’t stand it and I begged her for the truth. ‘I need to know. What happened to the cafe? Was it destroyed? Damaged? What? Tell me.’