DARLING

“Being a family means you are part of something very wonderful. It means you will love and be loved for the rest of your life.”- Lisa Weed.

You were my only family.

People said you were always remote. No one ever knew what you were thinking. But I knew love because of you.

I remember at Siddharth’s wedding last year, I thought you were angry all the time because of the fight we had earlier that day. You sat there on that chair and watched while we danced. Not that you ever danced at parties, but sometimes, I would catch a smile on your face when a familiar song came up, or when we all did our slightly silly Bollywood filmy dance steps. But that night, at Siddharth’s wedding, you looked blank.

Then later, driving home, I asked you if you were still mad and you smiled and said, “no darling.”

Everyone has a particular tone when they use the word Darling.

When I am at my desk and painting and I need the knife or a pair of scissors and you can’t find them so I say “they’re right There darling.”

Or when I get really angry at Kiran for leaving all her trash on the staircase outside the apartment and I’m ready to storm across the landing, ring her doorbell and shout at her, you say, “It’s ok Darling. Let me talk to her.”

Or when you’re lost in thought so deep that you’re looking straight at me but you’re not seeing me at all and I say, “Darling?” and I see reality flood back in your face.

I know what all darlings sound like. 

Not that day.

In the car, that ‘darling’ was flat, devoid of any emotion. The tone, the cadence, the rhythm was all correct, yet there was no meaning behind that.

I knew then that we were over.

18 years, we have been together. 20 if you count the years after college. I think I first noticed you at the Bandra fair. You were taller as compared the entire gang of boys who stood by the DJ booth. All the girls noticed you, but I noticed something else. You already seemed older. You were 21, but you were a man already. The other boys had a fidgety energy about them, especially around the girls, but not you. You seemed to be looking inside people instead of looking at them. All my girlfriends said you made them feel awkward. I used to think that you were judging people. It took me a couple of months to realize how wrong I was. You just looked at people and understood them. It was miraculous with you.

All the people I hated or fought with or bitched about to you, like Seema at the travel agency, Terence at the parish, Rena, my boss. You knew what they were going to do, way before I did. I was wrong about Seema and Terence, and now they’re such good friends of ours. I told you that YOU were wrong about Rena, but you told me Rena was going to ruin my career, and boy I found that out the hard way. You have been telling me that Kiran isn’t bad, and look at Shawn, she’s a good Mom to him, and that’s why maybe I talk nicely to her, and haven’t scratched her eyes out. I always wait inside my own apartment, if she’s called for the elevator and only after she’s gone, do I step out the door. You want me to be neighbourly, that’s the best I can do.

So yes, you know people. But you’ve stopped knowing me. 

I fell in love with you right after easter 2000. We were at Siddharth’s party at Lower Parel at his terrace. And you were the DJ. I hate to say it, the music sucked. Look, you can’t be the Dj if you don’t like dancing. The girls had asked me to tell you to play dance songs, but then you played Elliot Smith. I know you did that for me, because they all hated that song. Only you knew how much I love Elliot Smith. I remember feeling a strange sensation then. My eyes filled up, my heart sort of sank to my stomach. It felt like a pain in my chest, and a burning in my eyes. This was love. I was in love with you Kevin. And you looked across at me with that half smile and I knew how you felt as well.

And then when Mom died that morning and you were away at Basketball camp and you left the camp mid-way and you came home. I remember seeing you at the door and I remember seeing the pain, my pain on your face. You just looked at me and then you held me. I had been in control then but when you came, I broke down and cried on your collar. In my mind I had been saying all day that I’m an orphan but I’ve never felt like an orphan since. I think we all knew, that you were my family now.

I never thought that you felt trapped.

You never proposed to me formally. Why? Because you didn’t have to? Because you knew how much I loved you? Because I was so small and all alone in this world and you felt you needed to protect me?

That’s why this always felt incomplete and now it’s over. And I don’t need protection.

I don’t know when it started to feel incomplete. I read somewhere that when two people can be silent around each other and not feel awkward then it’s true love. That’s what I thought we had. But I’ve also seen couples who sit together at cafés and just stare at their phones for hours. That’s what we’d become.

I didn’t change. I’m still the same. I still cook the food you like. I still love listening to music, I still love to paint and I still feel my heart stop when you walk towards me when you’re all dressed up in a suit. Tall and so beautiful and mine.

You’re not mine any more. I know that. I’ve known that for years.

I knew the first time you cheated. You came home and I was waiting by the elevator and you quickly said, “I need to take a shower”, and you squeezed past me to go inside and you didn’t touch me. We had been together 4 years.

My heart breaking that day was a physical sensation.

This was long before Kiran. This was before Susan, before Ankita. Before all the others. By the time Kiran came around, it didn’t even hurt anymore. It just meant that the pain was closer to home, because now I saw her almost every day.

I have known for the last one year that you wouldn’t be able to keep up this charade. But I never thought I would be one you would discard. I was the one you always came back to. I was your first one. I was the one you were going to walk into the sunset with. But I never ever thought you were going to choose Kiran.

That night I knew you were going to destroy us. Your family. My family. I have never felt terror so vividly. I asked if everything’s alright and you said, “No darling.” I knew what that darling meant. I felt bile in my throat, and I couldn’t breathe. I went to the kitchen to get your drink and I had to stop for a couple of seconds. I was choking and bent over double, while you stood looking over the balcony, your back turned to me.

I poured the poison into your drink and watched you drink it.

Tears poured down my face, and you broke my heart for the last time.

It’s your funeral today and Terence and Siddharth are holding me right now. I'm inconsolable. 

I’m so sorry Kevin. I love you so so much. I don’t know what happened, what came over me. I love you so much. What have I done!!!!

No-one knows. No-one suspects a thing. They’re all there thinking I am as shocked and heartbroken at your sudden cardiac arrest. Siddharth, Seema, Terence, my neighbour Kiran who's your wife and your son Shawn.

The priest calls for Kevin’s best friend Jonathan to say a few words. I brace myself and get up, and I whisper before I walk to the podium

“Goodbye Darling.”