“Homewrecker”

Of shared coffee cups and memories

Homewrecker

Sleep has weird ways of coming to her. It’s 10am in a café. She has just wolfed down an Earl Grey, a cookie and her favourite bowl of Maggi made with eggs and sweet corn, a few broccoli stems sticking their small green heads up in that mass of yellow, almost too pretty to eat. She has lost her appetite and her head swims as each individual strand of noodle threatens to outdo one another.

Remember my love, I was supposed to get you that book on woman’s day this year, buy you a cup of coffee and a t-shirt from the nearby mall? I was going to run to you at the airport arrival gate and you were going to lift me and my gigantic backpack, in the colours of Christmas, as if I didn’t weigh anything at all. It always freezes mid-air after this, you happy and beaming, meanwhile I squeal in laughter, barely suppressed embarrassment and just pure joy. Remember that rental we booked one Sunday when you missed me, and we fought because we couldn’t be with each other the way we wanted?

She takes a sip of water and hears something snap inside her head. Mostly, when this happens and she needs to tune herself out from everything to just be able to look straight, not fall, walk, breathe, do stuff, her body heaves and takes control of her mind. Every last atom of sadness is wiped clean, her eyes that were glazed over just a while back start taking on a brittle shine again, she feels something change and she gives into it, as she has done for most things in life. Her phone rings. She knows who has called. She debates how much he means to her. His voice washes through her, her cold heart remembers and somewhere at the back of her eyes, her lachrymal glands itch.

Hello! She chirps cheerily, off to the office, are we? Go safe. Don’t drive too fast. She hears herself rattle these things. Why do you sound like that? He seems to be a little taken aback. Like what? She says and hunts through her mind for strangeness. She finds none.

Do you remember how the shower ran while we sat on the floor, my love? How starved we were by the time we made our way to the rental. But all kinds of hunger dissolved underneath that shower, and we lay spent beneath its cool waters. You were worrying if the March weather and that cold shower would conspire against me. Did I ever tell you I find your broad shoulders so capable? As if they could carry the weight of my errant thoughts. Sometimes, when you are not looking, I stare at them. Why do your eyes turn red, my love? Do mine do too, under all that water?

She always finds his voice like warm water. Never boiling, no. It has a nice warmth to it without ever being tepid. She closes her eyes and breathes in his voice even though it mostly sounds like distant babble to her right now. It smells like sunshine on the grass. He is telling her something, but her mind focusses on chastising her lachrymal glands. Today she will discipline herself. She feels her mind trying to take over. Whatever you think best, she blurts out. Whatever works for you, she says. What are you trying to escape, he asks. She closes her eyes inside that café. She opens them and looks at the quaint setting, the rattan lights on the ceiling casting contrived warmth, the young birds of paradise outside fluttering in the morning breeze. They’re so young, some stems bowed down by the weight of large leaves, yellow and diseased. She looks at her nails, why aren’t these yellow and diseased yet?

Do you remember the walls were green in that rental, my love? We didn’t have enough time to look deeply at that abstraction of a painting on the living room wall though. The one room and kitchen apartment, so neat, seemed larger than it did in the photographs. You remember the balcony, my love? The one where we watched the night set in, those mint green IKEA cups in our hands, you had made ginger tea for us, just the way I like it, without ever staying with me. You know me well, don’t you? Remember how you slipped those three silver rings on my tiny fingers? Knowing I love silver more than I do gold. Knowing there will never be permanence. Why couldn’t I make it to the finish line, my love? What joy we had in discovering the rental had Netflix and Prime Video! Oh, the movies we could watch. Remember how we looked for cobwebs and hidden cameras?

She calls her mind back to his voice. Do you hear me, he says. She nods and then remembers she’s on a call and needs to use her voice. She responds yes. He always has a problem with us, do you hear me? Why can’t he adjust, and give us our space, like we are adjusting, he says. She hears the sadness in his voice and mumbles an apology. She hates making him sad. She cannot see sadness in her partner’s eyes either. She closes her eyes and the image of her dead friend, hanging from a fan on that cold November day, her face carrying a serene smile, her toes painted bright pink, toes that dangled dangerously close to her own face, she tells her friend, now I understand why. He asks from the other side, what do you understand? She tells him, I just understand. He says, I don’t. I never wanted to be a home wrecker, you know. Am I one, she asks. You are not, he says. Yes, I get it, she mumbles and looks outside. The world on the other side of the glass is growing really bright. What time is it?

We couldn’t find the AC remote, do you remember? You laughed at all my needless running around and said that sweat made it better. You said I tasted like freshly made curd and that you couldn’t get enough of me. I smiled into your arms then. We watched the sweat seep into our bodies, the night cool, comfortable, the ceiling fan generous with air, as if it understood we didn’t want to be touched by anything other than ourselves. You watched me sleep, you had a smile, I know that because I had one myself. Time was funny then. It seemed to run at two different paces. Like flash and anti-flash. One fast and one faster still to dissolve the speed with which it flew by. We had stolen just two nights for ourselves after all.

So, what now, she asks. Well, for starters, we start talking less. You must adjust. I need to adjust as well, he says. She nods and mumbles absentmindedly, yes, whatever works best. Why are you talking like this as if I demand obedience from you, I don’t. This needs to be a discussion, he bristles. It is a discussion, she says. By now, she has begun yawning. Her body gathers a curious lethargy and her legs feel heavy. In her mind, the bright, cheerful person, right there just a few minutes ago, wants to take a leave. She breathes in, do you love me, she asks? He says he does and adds, you do know you cannot get away from this unscathed. I don’t understand why you have to be so careful. The sooner you accept it, the better it will be for the two of us. She nods at the truth of his statement. However, she wonders since when does loving someone mean not loving someone else? She has been fighting this battle for some time now and she knows it is wrong of her to expect things to always go her way. Her mind is made up, but she doesn’t want to choose, not yet anyway. She thinks of the home she has built, with bits of her being strewn over the furniture, bookshelves, the plants on her terrace, and she spots her partner amidst all of it, walking with his customary morning gait. She wants to make it a little easier for her partner for a little longer. His forlorn loneliness weakens her. Forms of affection are seldom easy to unclasp. Objects have more permanence in our minds than we give them credit for. Well? He demands from the other side of the phone.

Remember my love, you took me for that chicken stew breakfast to Dekker’s Lane? I still remember how you ridiculed me for not ever being there although it was my own city. You marveled at how little I use my feet. I laughed then. All I wanted was to bring you back to the rental and watch movies with you. I wanted to make believe, did you realize that? After all, I did wait so long for you, dearest. Remember how we saw all those couples clicking pre-wedding photographs at Princep Ghat and discussed how our own marriage would look like if it ever did happen? Remember how you had leaned in to kiss me and how I put my head down and laughed? You had taken my head and murmured “to his coy mistress" and we had both guffawed loud enough to scare the other couples nearby. Remember how you made dinner and love on that marble kitchen counter that day? I told you I wanted exactly that kind of sturdiness in the flat we are perhaps never going to have.

She knows he has almost reached the office. She looks at her fingers and says softly, do you see us together in future? I used to, he says, but today I am not so sure. You are a habit. I don’t know what kind of person you are… You don’t? She interrupts. No, I don’t think I do at times. He hesitates and then goes on, we will have to start speaking less, form new habits, he says. She nods, yes, perhaps, in time, we will slowly get each other out of our systems, do you think that will happen? She asks, her voice showing the tiniest wear and tear and she doesn’t know why she thinks of kintsugi, and silver joined creamy white plates. We will have to adjust, he says, the last thing I want is to wreck your home if you still want it. His voice is strangely calm. She shivers at its temperature. I have decided I will not come on the 8^th. I am cancelling my flight. There’s no point in making things more difficult for us than they already are. Her voice breaking, she asks, are you sure this is the right thing to do? We must for our own sake, he says with a finality that doesn’t keep space for words.

Do you remember how we wept at the airport on the morning of 10^th, my love? We stalled the security check till the very last minute, searching for tea stalls at 5am in the morning to have spiced tea, do you remember? How you vowed to take me away some day, once and for all? Do you remember you promised you’d be back in a month or two before I travelled again? Our life suspended in flights, travel and planning till we could be with each other indefinitely. And how all the rentals in my city and your city and all the cities in between framed our idea of home? Do you remember, my love, do you remember?

Gypsophila Magazine, Vol.3, Issue 7, Untitled Digressions, June 2025

https://gypsophilazine.com/v3-i7-untitled-digressions