Chapter 1
Sandhya’s POV
The living room hums with too many voices.
Silver trays clink against glass-topped tables. The AC breathes loudly from its perch above the curtain rod, struggling against the summer. Perfumed laughter floats on top of it all, flimsy, overripe, and meant to impress. It smells like jasmine, naphthalene, and something deeper. Something sour.
I sit on the edge of the mustard velvet sofa, a cushion balanced awkwardly behind me like a wall I can’t lean on. Everyone is dressed like they’re expecting someone important. Maybe they are. Or perhaps this is just what family gatherings look like when appearances matter more than connection.
My mother is in the center of it all, as always.
Her voice cuts through the crowd like the clink of a spoon on china. She’s in her element here, hovering just enough between charm and cruelty that no one questions the taste.
“Oh, Sandhya? How could she afford to go anywhere when she works from home?” she says, laughing lightly like she hasn’t rehearsed this line before.
I’ve heard this one.
Polished to perfection. Polished like the cutlery we’re not supposed to use unless guests are over. She pats Shikha’s arm as if I’ve just provided entertainment. Like I’m a character, she’s made up for a party anecdote.
The laughter that follows is indulgent.
No one finds it hilarious. But they laugh anyway because that’s what you do when the script is familiar and when the target is already quiet.
I stare at the condensation on my glass.
It’s cold. My hands aren’t.
Not today.
The thing is… I’ve heard worse from her.
Quieter, sharper things were said across dining tables while laying rotis on plates I paid for—the kind of things that leave no mark but don’t fade either.
I could say something. I’ve rehearsed my lines.
“I paid for three of your flights in the last two years.”
“Do you think the electricity bills pay themselves?”
“You never complained when my ‘not-real-job’ money saved Jagriti’s wedding from embarrassment.”
But I don’t say them.
Not because I can’t, but because I know exactly how the story ends.
She will cry. Someone will rush to her side. The room will twist into a courtroom, and I’ll be the villain again, ungrateful, difficult, dramatic.
Instead, I stay still.
Not silent, exactly. Just… measured.
The room moves on.
Shikha is swiping through her photos from Paris. She says the Eiffel Tower was “disappointing but aesthetic.” I wonder if she even left the Champs-Élysées.
Across from me, a painting of Krishna playing the flute stares down at all of us. He looks amused.
My phone vibrates once, then again. A client approval. A content calendar update. An invoice cleared.
I swipe the notifications away without reading them.
Then comes the announcement.
Ruchi Tayi sets her glass down with a little flourish, the way she always does when she’s about to share something important, her version of a drumroll.
“Didi, I’ve found someone for Sandhya,” she says like she’s unveiling a prize on a game show. “Engineer. Working in Dubai. Good package. Respectable family. Broad-minded, but not... too much, you know.”
Maa perks up just a little. That polite smile she wears when something interesting is on offer, but she doesn’t want to seem eager.
I glance at my drink. It’s mostly water now; the ice has long melted. The glass sweats against my hand, but I don’t bother setting it down. The condensation feels real. Grounding. Everything else in the room is trying a bit too hard.
Ruchi Tayi leans in, her voice dropping to a performative hush. “I think it could work. Sandhya is twenty-eight now, no? Jagriti was also married at twenty-eight. If we start now, maybe by thirty, we’ll find someone decent.”
She says it like I’m a renovation project. If we start now, maybe we can fix her before the structure collapses.
Maa clicks her tongue lightly, playing modestly.
“Oh ho, Didi,” she says with a practiced chuckle. “You really think someone this accomplished would want our Sandhya? Let her be, na. Her whole life is that laptop now. Romance it.”
Laughter. Just enough to be noticed. No one is laughing with me. But they’re not laughing at me, either. I’ve become something else entirely background material. A point of discussion. A blank canvas on which they sketch their assumptions.
I offer nothing in return. Not a smile. Not a glare.
Nothing they can use.
Ruchi Tayi picks up again, more amused than annoyed.
“Do you want a stay-at-home daughter, Didi?” she asks, with a smirk that almost passes for affection. “At some point, the window closes.”
There it is.
The old threat dressed up as a concern.
I check my phone again—a few client updates, a calendar reminder, and a voice note from someone on my team. Real things. Real people who expect something from me beyond whether I wear a mangalsutra in my profile photo.
I get up and smooth my kurta. Calmly.
“I have a call,” I say.
It’s not a lie.
I just don’t specify which kind.
Maa looks at me like she wants to say something, probably something about timing or guests or tone, but I’m already halfway to the hallway. I don’t rush. I don’t explain. I simply leave the conversation the same way I entered it uninvited.
The air in the corridor is cooler. Still.
I pass the old sideboard, the one with the framed photos lined up in chronological order: baby pictures, weddings, graduation caps.
Not one of me alone.
I don’t mind. I don’t need evidence.
I know who I am.
In my room, I close the door without drama.
No statement. No metaphor.
Just space. Quiet. Mine.
I set the glass down, stretched, and opened my laptop. Not because I have to. But because I can. And because I like the way the cursor blinks steady, expectant.
They can keep their theories. Their timelines. Their curated lives.
I’ll keep my name on the invoice.
