Page 14 of The Circle of Exile
“I can’t make this any better. You will have to find a way to make this look good.”
“Nothing inthislooks good!”
“Then spin it, isn’t that what you do best?”
“For how many days?”
“Three.”
“Is that enough?”
“It has to be.”
“Yathaarth?” Her eyes skimmed down to his good boy. No fuss, no calls for attention. He was happily looking at the trees. Atharva ran a hand down his head.
“What about him?”
“Are you ok leaving him here with Begumjaan? Ada is also not here. I will come and stay…”
“He will go with me.”
“You can’t be serious!” She shot to her feet.
Atharva remained unmoved.
“Taking Arth there…? It’s… it’s…”
“Not dangerous. I am on an official visit.”
“No, not dangerous, but stupid. He needs to be at home, safe, secure… he is so young.”
Atharva swallowed. Didn’t he know that? His son was now four months old and crossing the most dangerous border in the world with his father.
“Atharva.”
He looked up at Amaal. Gone was his Press Secretary. Here stood his friend and Iram’s confidante. He wetted his lips, then confessed what he hadn’t been able to confess to himself.
“Maybe seeing him, she would return.”
Her face contorted.
“Maybe,” he went on, “by now she has found her roots and I can convince her to come back for Arth…”
“She loves you. More than anything, Atharva. Don’t you know that?”
He just tipped his head, non-committal.
“You are enough to bring her back.”
“I wasn’t enough to make her stay, neither was he,” he glanced down at Yathaarth, hoping, praying, begging god that his mother would look at him, forget the misgivings of her past and just come back home.
“Look, Atharva, I was too distraught at that time to understand what was going on. But I know for sure that Iram had something that pushed her. I wouldn’t call them reasons, but she loved you too much to leave.”
“We will know soon enough.”
To that, Amaal had nothing to say. Probably loving someone was there, it sustained, it existed. But loving them enough was the key.
“Atharva?”
