Dobie and Me: Chapter 13

Read Chapter 12 here, if you missed it 

Telling my sons was not easy. Shiva looked dazed and Amit… Oh my poor boy! He couldn’t speak. I felt miserable as I watched them struggle with the news. “How, what? What are you saying?” Amit asked.

“I know it is not easy for you, Amit, Shiv…”

“It is our age to have girlfriends, not yours to have a boyfriend!” Shiv burst out, leaving me baffled. “You have us! Aren’t we enough?” he asked and started crying.

I went up to him to console him. But he pushed me away. “Keep those hands away from me!”

My hands dropped to my sides and my heart stood still. I felt as if I had been slapped.

“Shiv!” Amit intervened angrily. I turned to him, half gratefully, half scared. “Ma…” He came and put his arms around me. “Ma, this is embarrassing for us.”

I felt my body trembling and my tongue becoming stiff. “Embarrassing?” I asked with difficulty.

“And really, who is this man? We don’t know him and…”

I broke away from his hug and paced up and down, agitated that I had to explain myself to my sons. I could not handle the guilt.

And so, probably, I was harsher than I intended. “I know him Amit, and that should be enough,” I said. I wish they were young enough for me to order them about; or old enough to understand how I felt.

“Ma, you are still beautiful, well off…vulnerable.”

“I am no fool!” I cut in vehemently. Tears sprang in my eyes.

“I mean…”

“Why would he be interested in a woman my age?”

Amit did not respond. That silence spoke volumes. “He is not a young man himself, in case you remember!” I said with dignity. “I am only three years older than him,” I said, feeling even more humiliated.

“So… What do you plan to do? M-marry him?” Amit asked. Shiv got up.

I was silent. “It’s not so easy, Amit. His mother has Alzheimer’s, because of which he had to divorce his first wife. He…”

“Was that his pickup line?” Shiv burst in.

I glared at him, my palm itching to slap him, but I controlled myself. “Have some respect, Shiv.”

“You betrayed dad!” he shouted. My eyes widened. My breath came fast. He stared back at me defiantly.

“What do you mean?” I asked coldly but felt myself going hot with shame as Pratyush’s face flashed in my mind. I realised with a pang that in all the years we had been together, he never mentioned Shankar even once to me.

Shiv looked away, unable to, or unwilling to, meet my eye.

“Should I have died with him?” I asked bitterly and felt foolish for asking such a question to a boy barely out of his teens.

Amit placed his hands on my shoulders, as if restraining me. “Ma, you know he doesn’t mean it.”

I glared at him. “You also think the same, don’t you? That I have betrayed your father?” His silence confirmed my fears. I could think of many arguments, but nothing would change my children’s views or make them understand my feelings. I went to my room and closed the door behind me.

The trouble was, I could understand their feelings and I knew I was responsible for them.

I buried my face in my hands and cried for the first time in a long time.

If you haven't read the beginning, go here

For Chapter 14 click here