Page 226 of A King's Oath

“You can’t only survive on roti and pasta. Come on, try this. You used to eat curd-rice all the time when you were a baby…” she began mixing her rice with kadhi.

“You like curd-rice?” Samarth asked, incredulous.

“My favouritest when I was a baby. I don’t like it now.”

“How come?” He took a spoonful of rice in his own plate, reached for the bowl of curd and mixed it in. The texture was heavy, more like yogurt, so he tasted a small morsel to check if it was sweet. It wasn’t. He sprinkled salt, mixed it up again, crushing it like Rajmata had crushed for him, and checked for the salt again. It was perfectly gooey, cold and zingy.

“Try this, it’s a special secret one,” he fisted his dirty hand and pushed his plate towards her. She opened her mouth. Samarth glanced at Ava. She stalled.

“Aaaa!” Brahmi opened her mouth wider.

“Rice is still hand-fed,” Ava nodded at him. Samarth felt his hand tremble as he made a morsel, a tiny one, and took it to her mouth. Her little lips closed around his fingers and he wanted to cry.

“How is it?” He croaked, clearing his throat.

“The same,” her mouth twisted. “You fooled me, Sam.”

“How come?!” He widened his eyes, shocked. “That can’t be. Wait,” he went into the small heap and pulverised it finer, rubbing it between his fingers until it was porridge consistency. Then fed her the morsel.

“Now?” He narrowed his eyes playfully.

“It tastes sweet,” her eyes screwed comically. “Now sour…” she kept chewing. “Now salty.”

“See?” He fed her the third and final morsel and eyed Ava to fill his plate. She did. He mixed up another batch and Brahmi kept guessing the taste as he kept alternating the intensity of his pulverising.

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Samarth glanced at the clock. His one hour was about to be up and he hadn’t gotten a second alone with Ava.

“Movie time!” Brahmi screamed, running into the hall and laying down on the sofa, head turned to the television mounted on the far wall.

“Movie time?” Samarth glanced at the sun streaking inside the house from the window behind the sofa. “In the afternoon?”

She nodded — “Mama has a holiday on Saturday so afternoon movie. At night it’s story time or serial time.”

“Serial?”

“Ramayan!”

“Which movie?” Ava walked in, tying her hair up in a ponytail.

“Is Sam staying?”

“He will have work to do…”

Samarth wasn’t ruthless but he definitely knew when to claim an opening.

“Oh, it’s Saturday. So holiday for me too.”

“Yay!” Brahmi clapped, dancing even when lying down. “You can stay till evening, then you have to go home because you are friend and only family sleeps in the same home, ok?”

He pushed a smile to his face — “Ok.”

Ava did not oppose that plan, just turned on the TV, swiped through to Netflix, and after a long discussion with Brahmi, put on the good ol’ Ice Age. The curtains were drawn on the window behind them, and the hall plunged into darkness as he took a seat at the far end of the long sofa, away from Brahmi’s little feet. Ava went to the other side and took her head in her lap.

Samarth noticed one more quirk about his daughter then. She could talk nonstop all day but was quiet during a movie, to the point that if he as much as sneezed she shushed him. It was after half an hour into the movie when he realised that he only had fifty more minutes in this house.

He pulled out his mobile, went to Ava’s contact and with a wince, unblocked her. How had he thought this was ok? Alright, at the time he had been in grief and helpless and completely drowned. This had been the only way she would have taken an insult and said ‘fuck you’ to him to move on.

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