Page 8 of Born in Grief

“Amay please.”

He couldn’t get the whispered plea out of his head. There had been a time in his life he would have done anything for Dhrithi Sahay. All she’d had to do was ask. Apparently, that time had not completely passed. And so, here he was. Seeing this shitshow through to its bitter end.

A nurse pushed the door open and they filed into the room, horrified silence shrouding her parents as they got their first, good look at their daughter.

“Dhrithi!” Her mother’s shriek had Sushant wincing, the first human reaction Amay had ever seen the man make. “Your face!”

Her face? Amay glanced at the woman disbelievingly. Her daughter had just come out of life threatening surgery and her mother was worried about her face?

Dhrithi’s eyes scanned her parents before shooting to the space behind them and then to the door. Her hand trembled against the sheet, the cannula in the back of her hand kinking at the movement.

“Ma? Pa?” she whispered.

“How are you?” her father asked formally, like they were standing at a charity ball.

“Fine,” Dhrithi replied just as cordially, her frantic eyes ping ponging between them and the door.

Sushant looked at Amay who nodded. He wasn’t going to be the bearer of this news, no matter that it was technically his, as the seniormost surgeon, to deliver.

“Mrs. Gokhale.” Sushant stepped forward. “I’m very sorry but I have some bad news.”

“Bad news,” she parroted, her fearful eyes coming to his face, then shooting past it to Amay’s. The wicked cut in her lower lip, one which Amay had stitched up himself, stretched a little causing her pain. She winced, her gaze still meshed with Amay’s, neither of them looking away. Echoes of a past shrouded in pain and a present drenched in blood hung in the space between them.

“Yes. I’m sorry to inform you Mrs. Gokhale that your husband did not survive the car crash.”

He saw the moment the news sank in. Relief blazed in her eyes, a split second there and gone before she shut them, finally breaking eye contact with Amay. Shudders racked her body as tears flowed down her cheeks.

Her mother broke down again as she sat down beside her daughter. The two women wept, a torrent of tears. Only one of them was mourning though. Amay knew what he’d seen and it had confirmed all his suspicions.

“Enough,” her father said gruffly, showing more emotion than Amay had thought him capable of. “Enough now both of you. Dhrithi, you just concentrate on getting better.”

“You’re looking a slightly longer healing arc,” Sushant said now. “But there is no reason why you shouldn’t make a full recovery, Mrs. Gokhale.”

“Dhrithi,” she rasped, evading her mother’s comforting pats to her tangled hair. “My name is Dhrithi.”

“Yes, of course,” Sushant murmured.

“And plastic surgery?” her mother asked, sniffling and blowing her nose.

“I beg your pardon?” Sushant stared at her, startled out of his blank professionalism.

“Her face,” she said. “Look at her face.”

Amay looked. Aside from the jagged gash on her lip, Dhrithi had a cut from her right eyebrow to the corner of her mouth. A large blood clot bloomed below one eye swollen almost to shutting and on her right temple, a bruise that looked like someone had wielded a hammer to her head spread like an ink stain on the creamy satin of her skin.

She looked terrible and she was still the most beautiful woman Amay had ever seen.

“You need to focus on healing her internal injuries,” Amay said gruffly, taking over from Sushant who, for the first time ever, seemed speechless. “Her superficial injuries will heal with time.”

“But the scars!”

“Are not important,” Amay snapped, steel infusing his voice. “Your daughter needs your love and support, now more thanever. Focus on that. Focus on being the mother she needs now even if you haven’t been able to do that in the past.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mr. Sahay’s outraged voice cut through Amay’s tirade.

Before the situation could devolve any further, a knock sounded on the door. Amay looked up to see a stranger in frighteningly formal clothes, followed by a lady officer in khakis, enter the room.

The man’s sharp eyes scanned the room, sharpening even further at the tense vibes floating around.

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