Anjali smiled without looking up. “And let the washerman see how you fold? No. Not till you bring home a wife.”
One monsoon evening, Vikram brought Sahiti home.
Vikram was quiet. Then: “That’s how I feel with Sahiti.”
Anjali cried then. Not from sadness, but from the strange relief of being seen—not as a mother, but as a woman who had once loved, and deserved to be part of a new love too.