A Fresh Start

Prompt: A story about someone who’s haunted by their past

A Fresh Start

The light was too bright.

At 2 am, as the world slept soundly, oblivious to everything going on with him, the one thing Rahul noticed was the light. It was stark. White.  

The same as last time.

The circumstances were same too. The place was different, of course. But not all that different. Just, different enough.

He’d decided never to go back there, since. So, this time, he had chosen different. And he hoped that it would lead to a different outcome too. He hoped, the change of place, would change his fate, too.

Of course, it wasn’t merely the place, that was different this time. He was different too, from the Rahul he had been the last time…  

*****

The door of the operating room opened, and a nurse rushed out.

Rahul looked up from the floor he was staring at, seated on a metal chair in the corridor, elbows on his knees, his long, lean fingers intertwined.

He wanted to ask the nurse what was happening, how things were, inside. But even as he stood up, the nurse ran past him in her hurry, not really registering his presence.

Rahul stayed standing, his hand on the back of the chair behind him. It was bolted to the floor, the chair. And Rahul hoped, it would help ground him too.

He checked his watch. It was almost an hour he had been here, in this corridor, next to the operating room.

Half an hour later than the last time.

But that didn’t really mean anything. Right?

It had all been too fast, the last time. There wasn’t much they could’ve done, they had said. So this time, the fact that things were taking time was a good thing. Right?

His phone pinged with an incoming message. ‘Everything alright?’

It was his sister. She’d had a baby last week. That was why she wasn’t with him right now. But she was his pillar of support. Always had been. Right from the time when, even as a child herself, she had almost raised him, all by herself, after their parents’ death in a car crash.

“Yes, so far” Rahul texted her back.  

And then he sighed. Rahul would’ve really appreciated it if she were around right now. In fact, he would’ve been glad to have just about anyone for company tonight. As much as he loved, and fiercely protected his privacy, Rahul didn’t really want to be alone. Not right now. Not when his memories threatened to consume him.

Memories.

Good ones. Bad ones.

Always at the surface. Ready to claim him the moment he was by himself.  

Memories of his past. Of Anya. Beautiful, sweet.

A quick whirlwind romance. A proposal on a boat. And Rahul’s life had changed forever!

When Anya had told him he was to be a father, Rahul had been ecstatic!

And a little scared. How did someone deserve all this happiness?!

But there was no time to dwell on that. He had just floated his company. He had meetings to attend. Funds to raise. People to please. And he had done just that. Working hours that he hadn’t even known existed.

For seven months, as his lovely Anya carried their daughter, Rahul toiled to put his company on the map. He lost count of the days he left without kissing Anya in the mornings, or the nights he got home late and exhausted, only to catch a few hours of sleep before heading out the door again.

He remembered vaguely how radiant Anya had looked the day she had told him the news of her pregnancy. But as the months wore on, he barely registered the loss of that glow. He was never there, when Anya faced a rough first trimester and threw up at all hours. He wasn’t even aware of the bizarre cravings she had had, once the nausea had died down.

Seven months when he presumed Anya was comfortable, and looking forward to the birth of their baby. Seven months, when Anya kept the worst of her sufferings from him, because he already had so much on his plate, what was the point adding her misery to it too, really?

But the misery was there. Anya was suffering. And her health was steadily deteriorating as the pregnancy advanced.  

And then once night, Anya had gone into labour.

Prematurely.

Rahul wasn’t home.

His sister and brother in law had rushed Anya to the hospital.

Rahul had arrived much later. When Anya was already in the operating room.

Something had gone wrong. They had told him what it was, but that hadn’t registered. Only the fact that something was wrong, had. They would try to save both, the mother and the baby, they’d said. And then they’d come out to tell him that they couldn’t help the baby. They were sorry.

Aanya? he’d asked them. Aanya?!

They’d held his hands. Nodded their heads sagely, and said they were doing their best.

And then he’d lost her too.  

His beautiful, loving, warm-hearted wife. His baby daughter. Lost. In a single night.

*****

That was two years ago. Rahul had thought he would never be able to live. Not without his wife. And not with his guilt. He had found it difficult to even breathe, that first month. He’d barely eaten anything. Hardly made it to work.

His friends had visited him less and less, until, one day, he found himself awake in the small hours of the morning, eyeing the bottle of sleeping pills on the counter in his bathroom. They were prescription tablets. Meant to help him sleep. Fight his nightmares. But it was extremely tempting to end the nightmare that was his life, in just one swallow. The end of all his problems. The end to his loneliness.

And he had.

But life wasn’t done with him yet.

He had woken up in the ER, disoriented. With a massive headache, and an IV in his arm.

He had screamed then. Pulled at the IV. He wanted to get out of there, and finish what he had started.

But then an angel had walked into the room.

“You need to take it easy,” she said, her voice dipped in honey, barely audible through the hammering in his head.

“Where…who…” he had stammered, trying to get up.

She placed a soft, firm hand on his shoulder, pushing him gently but resolutely back into the pillows.

“Like I said,” she smiled, “you need to relax.”

“How? Who…?”

And she had told him.

He had been found by his sister who had tried to get hold of him on the phone and when he didn’t answer her for hours, which was very unlike him, she had come over to his place and entered the house with her key. He had been unconscious when the ambulance got there and had been so even in the ER till they had finally managed to pump out the last of the poison from his stomach. His sister had waited with him all along. She had left only an hour ago, and was expected back any moment.

“Who are you?” he croaked.

She was clearly a doctor. The white coat said as much.

“I am Pooja, a resident here,” she said.

Ah, so not a full-fledged doctor yet, then.

“I am here to take care of you,” she said.

And she did.  

She visited him every day. Most times with an attending doctor. But sometimes, also on her own. She took the visitors’ chair when she came by herself. And talked to him. All manner of random things.

She never asked him why he had wanted to kill himself. She must’ve thought it, surely, but never asked him about it.

Gradually, he began to look forward to her visits. He liked it that she talked to him. He appreciated that she respected his privacy and never once mentioned his suicide attempt.

Eventually, he was well enough to be discharged. But he wasn’t sure he wanted to go.

Not until she asked him if he was comfortable going out with her.

He was.

They went on a date. Then another. And in a few months’ time, Rahul had found his life changed beyond recognition.

He’d never thought he would ever forget Aanya. He’d never thought he would be able to live without her.

And yet, here he was, glad, somehow, that Pooja was in his life; and wondering, how that could possibly feel right.

Pooja had changed his life. And his outlook towards life. In just a few months.

They were married soon after, and it looked like his life was beginning to turn into something good. Again.

And then, one day, the news came. Pooja was going to give him the best gift of his life! They were to become parents!

And just like that Rahul found his heart constricting and everything going black!

*****

It will be different. Pooja assured him. We will be fine. 

He’d found it very difficult to believe her. What with the way things had gone on for him before. He was scared, more than anything.

But Pooja was his rock. And they had survived. The whole nine months of it.

Not seven. The whole nine. Surely that was a good sign…

And then, right on time – not prematurely, see? – Pooja had gone into labour.

He had almost begun to believe, that that things would be different now.

Until, complications arose, and Pooja’s almost normal delivery, turned into an emergency C section at the last minute. One minute he was holding Pooja’s hand as she went through her contractions; and the next minute, they were wheeling her into the operating room, the doors closing on him.

And now, here he was – waiting in the harsh lights of the waiting room for news of Pooja.

Waiting for things to go right this time.

Wanting that things go right this time.

Because he knew now, more than ever before, that if he got a chance, he would do things differently this time.

Something from a movie he had seen as a child came back to him – from The Lion King, his favourite movie from when he had been a little child, mourning his parents – the past can hurt. But the way I see it, you can either run from it, or learn from it.

And Rahul had decided to learn. He had decided to do things differently.

He was just waiting to be given the chance.

*****

“Mr. Khanna?”

Rahul looked up to see a nurse, standing just outside the operating room, holding a swaddled baby in her arms.

“Come, meet your son, Mr. Khanna. He is the most handsome newborn I have ever seen,” she said, smiling, as she held up his son to him.

She must have said this to every father waiting out here, Rahul thought. But it didn’t matter. Because she was holding his son out to him. That is all that mattered.  

His son.

Rahul cradled the baby awkwardly.

“Pooja…?” he asked the nurse, afraid to know the answer.

But she nodded reassuringly, and said, “Your wife is doing fine. She is in recovery. You can see her in a little while.”

And Rahul let go of the breath he had been holding. He didn’t care for the fat tears that fell on his cheek as he blinked rapidly.

And it was through the haze of those tears, that he got the first glimpse of his son.

“Hey, buddy,” he whispered, “You heard her? Mum’s fine, buddy!” he said, cuddling the baby; “Mum’s fine. We are fine. We are going to be fine.”