Page 122 of The Art of Taking Second Chances

“Yes, sure. That’s what I am earning for, so my sister and my girlfriend can spend it all on clothes and shoes.”

“Don’t stereotype us, Sameer,” Riya chided. “We’re going to shop for books and art supplies, right, Tara?”

She winked.

We laughed. Aunty’s face was relaxed now. I looked at her and smiled. She patted my hand. “And don’t brag because Tara earns too,” she added proudly.

“Wow, now the three of you gang up on me!” Sameer threw up his hands theatrically, but our eyes were on the figure behind him. His father walked up to us and smiled, his eyes red and swollen.

“Riya,” he said with a smile. She looked around the table for cues on how to react to him. Sameer got up and stood behind her chair.

“Riya,” he said, gently holding her shoulders. “This is Dad. Our Dad.”

She burst into tears. “You can hug him if you want.” He bent down and whispered in her ear. But she didn’t budge. She just kept crying. Her father moved toward her and placed a light hand on her shoulder. Suddenly, she jumped up, as if his touch was the validation she was waiting for, and fell into his arms. They both wept uninhibitedly. Then we all cried a little. Behind those tears, I saw the smiles waiting to shine through like the rainbow after a storm.

After a light, animated dinner, we retired for the night. I was hesitant to join Sameer in his room and coyly asked his mother if I could use the same room as last time.

She gave me a mischievous smile. “Whatever works for you,” she said before proceeding to help Riya settle in.

They had prepared a beautiful, large room on the second floor for her, overlooking the backyard. We helped her unpack and organize her clothes in the closet. I asked her to make a list of personal care items she would need so we could buy them on our weekend shopping spree. After making sure she had settled in comfortably, Sameer and I retired to his room.

“I should really spend the night in the other room, for the sake of appearances, at least.”

“Who’s judging?” he asked with a frown. “My parents know we’re banging. Durgaben and Riya don’t care.”

“OMG, that’s so crude and vulgar.”

“Oh yeah?” He pulled me closer, his arms around my waist. “I thought you liked crude and vulgar in bed.”

“Stop it, Sameer,” I said, pushing him away as he tickled me.

He stopped and kissed my cheek. He held me from behind and exhaled against my neck, a feeling I had come to cherish in the past few weeks. It relaxed me. “You heard what happened. You know most of it now,” he began. “Remember when I told you Dad had incurred massive debts. He had used that money to set up his alternate life. A house, a lifestyle, the baby. He couldn’t use the money he had because it could be traced, and Mom would notice it was gone. What he hadn’t predicted was his removal from the CEO post. He hoped to repay the debts slowly, with small amounts. If he had been diligent, he could actually have pulled off the whole ‘two families, two lives’ thing. But he was so enamored with his new life that he began forsaking his duties at the company. It was humiliating to find out your father was living with another woman barely a decade older than you. Then to find out that he had fathered a child with her! I was furious. I called her every bad name in the language. I called Riya a bastard. Illegitimate.”

I could hear his voice choke a little. I placed my hand on his.

“No child is illegitimate,” I said softly. He squeezed my hand.

“I hate myself for what I did. I was so angry. We had lost everything. Ma still doesn’t know that Dad was ready to quit our family for his new one. I told him he could go live with them and figure out his own life. He had nothing—no assets, no savings. Or he could come with us, and I’d make sure Sangita and Riya would never want for anything. I used the leverage of the money he had invested in my mother’s and my name to blackmail him into giving them a secure life. When I asked him to choose between love and money, he chose money. He drinks to forget, and the only thing that kept him going all these years was thinking of ways to ruin me.”

My heart breaking, I turned to face him.

“He told me he orchestrated my surprise engagement to Aarti because he knew I was in love with you, and he didn’t want to see me happy. He wanted to see me in a loveless marriage like the one he thinks he’s in. He claims I took away his love, so he tried to take away mine.”

“Sameer, why did your mom stay? Why didn’t she leave?”

“She didn’t want to be the wife whose husband left her for a younger woman. He was rightfully hers, not Sangita’s, she said. But somewhere, I suspect, she still loves him. Some part of him, at least. I don’t understand it, but I did what I thought was right for her at the time.”

I cupped his cheeks. “It’s all in the past. We’re here now. All we can do is make a better, more loving future for Riya. For everyone, right?”

He kissed my hand. “I couldn’t have done it without you, Tara. No one else would’ve supported me and loved me after learning all this.”

“You don’t know that,” I said. “You don’t know how people will behave unless they’re put in that situation.”

“You always look on the bright side of things, don’t you? Always looking for the good in people.”

I smiled.

“If you didn’t, you probably wouldn’t have seen the tiny bit of good in me when we met. There wasn’t much there—”

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