by Zee Monodee
Fortunately, she’d had the good idea to leave when he’d let go of her. Good riddance, once and for all. But the damage had already been done.
He’d so wanted to tell Diya he hadn’t kissed Camilla. She’d lunged at him, and taken by surprise, it had taken a few seconds before his senses had reeled in and he’d clutched her shoulders to push her away.
But in that precise instant, he’d seen Diya on the threshold, agony paling her beautiful features and betrayal burning bright in her intense eyes.
He’d known the right time to disclose of his past had come and gone, passed him by. But what more could he have done? Either way, she’d think he hadn’t come clean with her.
Yes, it’s too late.
A ragged sigh escaped him, but he had to close the empty hole she’d left in his life and in his heart. The children’s laughter would help fill the silence.
The coach bus crawled into the lot and stopped. Streams of children poured out of the open doors and into the waiting arms of their parents.
Matthew and Josh were among the last to emerge. When they saw him, both ran to him and giggled when he engulfed them in an enormous hug.
“Blimey, I missed you lads.”
They laughed, too, and launched into recounting their trip. Trent listened while he buckled them in the back seat, and then he got behind the wheel.
“I’ve got a surprise for you,” he said in a casual tone.
The chatter stopped, and in the rear-view mirror, he caught the glance both boys exchanged. Maybe life wouldn’t be so bleak, after all.
“What is it?” Matthew asked.
“Well, if I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise any longer.”
“Oh, come on, Daddy. Pleathe?” Josh asked.
“No.” He chuckled.
They bombarded him with questions, and he relented. “Okay, we’re going home.”
“Tell us something new, Dad,” Matthew said.
His forehead creased a little. When had his eldest son become such a smart mouth?
“You just watch, lad.”
When he swerved the car into the driveway to La Porte du Paradis, the backseat went quiet as a tomb.
There. Served them right. The little buggers.
“Why are we goin’ to the cathle, Daddy?”
“I told you already, Josh.”
“Hold on one sec’,” Matthew said. “The castle is our home, now?”
“Bingo.”
“Wow,” Josh said, Matthew exclaiming, “No way!”
No sooner had he stopped the car in the garage than both his sons struggled with the doors. Let them try; he’d left the child-lock on. He let them fight with the handle, and unlocked only when it appeared they’d break something to get out.
They shot out of the car and raced along the driveway and up the steps. But they had to stop at the front door, which was locked. He took his time strolling up the steps and then opened the door under the glare of two pairs of indignant eyes.
Once inside, he took them on a tour of the mansion, from the ballroom, to the sitting rooms, and the main suite. In the kitchen, they found Mrs. Nandee, who was preparing their dinner.
Trent had left their bedrooms for last.
Stopping before the door on the far right of the corridor, he pushed the panel open and nudged Matthew inside. “This is yours.”
Matthew took one step in and stopped. Wonder dawned on the boy’s face. Diya had decorated the room in tones of red and white, the official colours of Arsenal F.C. She’d gone further, and the rug, bedcover, pillows, and the decorative strip running along the walls all sported the cannon design that was the club’s crest.
“Like it, son?”
Matthew’s jaw hung gaping, and he nodded.
“Who did this?”
“Diya.”
Trent’s voice came out hoarse, and he coughed to ease the catch in his throat. “She re-did the whole interior.”
“Do I get a room, too?” Josh asked.
“Of course, you do.” He ruffled the little boy’s dark hair. “It’s right here.”
He opened the door next to Matthew’s. Josh bolted in as soon as the opening was wide enough to allow him in. The little boy let out a squeal of delight and then barrelled into his father’s legs for a massive hug.
A laugh escaped Trent. Josh, too, seemed pleased with his room. Diya had decorated the walls with hand-painted murals of Formula One cars, and nearer to the ceiling, F16 jets danced among fluffy white clouds. When she’d set out to do this room, Josh hadn’t yet developed a precise taste for something specific, like Matthew, so she’d taken all his likes and inserted them into the decoration.
And she’d done a really good job.
“I’ll pick thome flowerth for Diya, to thay thank you.” Josh peered up at him with big blue eyes.
Trent had to clear his throat again. “You do that, lad. I’m sure she’ll like it.”
“Where’s Diya, Dad?” Matthew asked.
Oh, no, the question he’d been dreading. He took a deep breath. “She’s back at the flat complex. That’s where she lives, remember?”
“Doth it mean we won’t thee her anymore?” Josh asked in a small voice.
He swallowed the lump in his throat. “You guys can still go see her.”
Her quarrel was with him, not with his sons.
“It’s getting late now, and I’m sure you guys must be starved. Let’s go have dinner,” he said as he steered them towards the kitchen.
He settled the boys at the glass-topped table and listened while Mrs. Nandee gave the heating and serving instructions for the dishes she’d made.
“Auntie, whath thith?” Josh asked.
He found his son standing at the sink, a small piece of dark-brown, earthenware ceramic in his hands. “Josh, how many times have I told you to ask before touching anything?”
“Let him be, sir,” the housekeeper said with a soft laugh. “It’s of his age to be curious.”
She walked to the boy’s side and picked the object from his hands. “This, Josh, is a diya.”
Josh frowned with a bewildered expression scrunching his small face. “Thith can’t be Diya. Diya ith a girl.”
Mrs. Nandee laughed again. “Your friend is named after this.”
“But what is it?” Matthew asked. He, too, appeared to have grown curious.
Trent threw his hands up. Did peace and quiet ever exist where small children lived?
“A diya is a lamp. You fill it with oil, and you insert a wick which you light,” the older woman explained to the enraptured children. “It is used a lot in temples. A diya symbolizes light, purity, and spirituality, and when it is lit, no evil can approach its midst, its flame burning bright in the name of Good.”
“Wow,” both boys exclaimed in wonder.
Another emotion racked through Trent, however. Loss. In those few words, the housekeeper had also spoken of the essence that made the woman he loved so special.
“I have to leave now. Will you manage?”
He pulled out of his grief and nodded. “We’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”
“Good night, then.”
“Good night, Auntie!”
Mrs. Nandee exited the kitchen, and seconds later, the creak of the front door told them she had let herself out.
“Right,” he said. “Take your seats. I’ll serve dinner.”
As they sat over their plates of cheese and ground meat pasta, silence fell, blanketing them in another world.
Josh broke the quiet. “Daddy, can we call Diya? I wanna talk to her.”
Oh, no.
“Josh, it’s late. We’ll call her some other time.”
“She’ll come see us if we ask her to,” Matthew said in a cool voice.
“Matt, it’s not so simple.” He dropped his fork and pressed his back in his chair. The thrum of a massive headache was starting to build at his temples, and he wanted nothing more than to drop the subject.
“Why won’t she come?” Mat
thew asked.
“Matt ...” He wanted to infuse warning in his tone, but nothing except weariness came through.
“She’s not coming, is she?”
How long could he keep them in the dark?
“No, she isn’t.”
“Why?”
“It’s a long story.” He dismissed the conversation with a glare in the older boy’s direction.
“You’ve been rude to her again, haven’t you?”
Trent sat up in surprise, all notions of a headache forgotten. Was that reproach in Matthew’s tone?
“I beg your pardon?”
The boy didn’t flinch under his hard stare, and all of a sudden, Trent realised he no longer dealt with a child, but with an emerging young man. The recognition floored him.
“You probably picked a fight with her, and now, she doesn’t want to hear about us.”
Blimey, were all twelve-year-olds so perceptive? The fight left him as he contemplated the eager faces of his sons. “Yes, I guess I was rude to her.”
“Did you thay thorry?”
Since when did a thirty-six-year-old man flinch under the accusing tone of a four-year-old?
“I tried, but she wouldn’t listen.”
“You should try harder,” Matthew said.
Trent remained silent.
“Dad, you’re a real idiot, you know that?”
A small laugh escaped him. His son was calling him an idiot. If he’d ever thought he’d live to see the day!
“Okay, enough of this,” he said. “Finish your dinner, hit the bathroom, and then it’s off to bed. No buts.”
They ate their meal in heavy, suffocating silence. He also had to bear with the reproachful glances the two sent his way. Blimey, his life had really become a nightmare.
Matthew pushed his chair and stood to go drop his plate in the sink. He then trudged out of the kitchen, but Trent stopped him.
“Take a shower and get in your pyjamas. Then you can watch some TV. There’s a football channel from the satellite dish.”
Matthew nodded, but didn’t utter a word. The blow of his silence hit with a pang in Trent’s sinking heart. He got up and lifted Josh from his seat.
“Okay, off you go in the tub, big guy.”
Nearly an hour later, he dressed a squeaky-clean, sweet-smelling Josh into his SpongeBob Squarepants pyjamas. At least, this little lad still talked to him.
Josh kept up an unending stream of chatter and only stopped when he’d been tucked into his bed. He was already half asleep when Trent dropped a kiss on his forehead.
“Daddy, can we have a dog now?”
“We’ll see,” he said with a small smile.
“You know what, Daddy? I don’t want a dog. I want Diya.”
With that, Josh turned on his side, and his thumb found its way into his mouth. Seconds later, he was sound asleep.
Trent remained stock still as he processed the request. What was he to do? Diya would never take him back.
As knives tore his heart, he wanted to weep. For the happiness he’d lost, for the woman he’d let go of, and for his children who so badly needed a mother.
Not any mother. Diya.
With a heavy step, he trudged out of the room and closed the door behind him. The sound coming from the TV drew him to one of the sitting rooms, where he found Matthew sprawled across a comfortable sofa, watching a football game.
The boy gave him a cursory glance before switching his attention back to the screen. Trent sat down at one end of the sofa. When it seemed obvious Matthew wouldn’t speak up, he ventured in. “Nice game?”
Matthew shrugged. “It’s okay.”
“What teams are playing?”
The boy sat up. “It’s the Spanish Liga. Real Madrid against Villarreal.”
Trent nodded. For all he knew, Matthew could be speaking an alien language.
The silence stretched again between them, and every second increased the weight suffocating him.
“Matt, please, talk to me.”
Matthew finally glanced in his direction. The sadness in his son’s eyes took him aback. He hadn’t seen even a hint of that emotion when Crystal had died.
“Why’d you let her go, Dad?”
He closed his eyes and let his head fall into his hands. “I don’t know, Matt. I made so many mistakes.”
“Diya will forgive you if you say sorry.”
He lifted his head and peered at his son.
“I don’t think so, lad.” He took a deep breath. “I want her back, too, you know.”
“We have to bring Diya home.” The boy paused, his eyes lost on some distant point, his face scrunched in a frown. Then, his features lit up.
“I know how. But you gotta trust me.”
Trust a twelve-year-old to win back his flame? How crazy was that?
“Okay,” he said as he put his hand out. “You’ve got a deal.”
Chapter Seventeen
Bored senseless.
If Diya had to describe the past couple of days, she’d have used those terms. This Friday evening wouldn’t be any different.
She’d been pacing her flat for the last few hours, desperate for something to do. She’d thus cleaned the kitchen, the bathroom, the living room. Even her bedroom shone spotless, with not one item of clothing lying around. A feat, given she considered any vacant space in the room a makeshift wardrobe. She could see all of her pink bed cover as well as her whole collection of stuffed animals and rag dolls propped upon the lace-covered pillows and cushions.
Yet, why did she feel so restless? She’d decorated her flat so it would become her cocoon from the outside world, a place where she could be herself and let all concerns go.
However, as she glanced at the sparkling-clean glass panel on her front door, she knew why the former haven no longer felt like home.
Home was where Trent and his boys lived.
Shoot. She didn’t want to stay here any longer.
She grabbed her car keys and handbag from the kitchen counter and exited the building, to head for ALIDA’s office. Someone on the grapevine had informed her Blue Resorts would soon launch a contract on a shopping complex they wanted to build adjacent to their golf and spa resort. She could at least do some research on the company and try to devise some sketches for a potential bid.
The office was dark and deserted. Ange had to be out.
Who in their right mind would stay inside on a Friday evening, though? Other than broken-hearted fools who wept upon their fate, no one. It annoyed her a tad to consider herself one of those poor souls, but then, no one had said life was a fairy tale.
Two hours later, she pulled herself from her unfruitful attempts at concentrating and eyed the pile of paper balls by the bin with a sinking heart. All her sketches were crap, merely echoing the ice-and-heat scheme she’d created for Palm Palace. She snapped the pencil in two.
This can’t go on. Everything she touched was going down the drain. Why was she so unfortunate lately? She’d have given anything for a hug, to have someone care for her. But then, that’s what happened when one chose to be independent—broken ties hanging by fragile threads, and no one around when it really mattered.
She craved her family. Lara’s house was out of the question, her sister having just returned home with Raphael. She’d already imposed enough on Ange and Patrice, and everyone would find it strange if she went to stay at Agnes’ place—not that she ever would, Agnes scaring the bejeezus out of her even more than her mother did. Neha was abroad. Her only other option would be her parents’ house.
Diya had promised herself never to run to them whenever she’d need something. Setting out to achieve everything on her own and on her own terms had been her goal in life, and she’d made it.
But when the pain of lost love sliced through her heart yet again, it no longer became imperative that she had emotional independence. She needed her family, full stop.
She reached for her cell phone and dialled her parents’ number.
“Hi, Mum.”
“Diya! This is really a surprise. Is everything okay? Do you need something?”
Her mother had spoken all these questions on one single breath. Diya also didn’t like the pang clamouring inside when she realized her mum thought she’d called to ask for something.
“No, Mum. Actually, yes, I mean, everything’s good. I was simply wondering if you and Dad were okay.”
Gayatri Hemant didn’t reply, and Diya frowned when she imagined what her mother could be thinking about. “Mum? Hello?”
“I’m still here, darling. I’m just surprised, I guess. We’re fine. Your father was called for an emergency at the clinic, and I’m getting ready to go to a wedding function.”
“Oh.” They wouldn’t be home, then. A crushing feeling expanded in her chest; she missed them.
“Diya? What’s the matter, darling?” her mother asked in a gentle tone.
Almost too prudently. Goodness gracious, had she detached herself from her family so much that they felt this need to be so tentative around her? She shook her head. High time she rectified such perception.
“Nothing, Mum. I was just wondering if you’d be home tonight, ’cause I wanted to drop by.” She didn’t add she’d wanted to spend the weekend there. Too many questions would arise, and she didn’t feel like answering them. “Forget it, though. I’m glad you’ll be enjoying yourself.”
“Are you sure? I can stay at home, if you want.”
Diya smiled. Her mother thrived on being the social butterfly, and she wasn’t going to ask her to cancel the plans for her sake.
“No, Mum. It’s fine. Don’t worry.” She could at least have a short chat with her mother, in any case. “What time will this function start?”
“It’s the haldi ceremony. It starts at eight-thirty.”
“That’s in thirty minutes. You sure you’ll have enough time to get ready?”
Her mother gave a short laugh. “It’s just down the road, anyway, so I’ll make it. You remember the Saigals? It’s their daughter who’s getting married.”
The name sounded familiar, and she recalled their monstrosity of a house. They did everything in excess, to show off their fortune. “Knowing them, I suppose there’s a lot of dhoom dhaam dhamaka hustle and bustle down there.”
