Latest / My Playful Wife — A Tender Literary Love Story / My Playful Wife — Season 1, Episode 7: The Rose Silk

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My Playful Wife — Season 1, Episode 7: The Rose Silk · My Playful Wife — A Tender Literary Love Story

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My Playful Wife, Episode 7, The Rose Silk, written
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by Mia. She wore it on a Tuesday. Not a special
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Tuesday. Not one that had been announced or circled
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or given any particular weight in the calendar.
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I came home from work at the usual time, half
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past six, the city in its evening state, the
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commute unremarkable, and I did the usual things.
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Key in the lock, shoes off, bag on the floor.
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The small decompression ritual of a man re -entering
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his domestic life. And then I looked up. She
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was in the living room, standing at the window
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with the curtains open, looking out at the city
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in the last light. She had not heard me come
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in, or she had heard, and was choosing not to
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turn yet, letting me arrive at the scene on my
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own. The blouse was finished. I stood in the
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doorway between the hall and the living room,
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and I did not move, and I looked at my wife.
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The dark rose silk caught the last of the evening
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light differently than any fabric I had seen
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her wear. She had been right in the market when
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she'd said it held light rather than reflected
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it. There was a quality to it against her skin.
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of something that had absorbed warmth over time
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and was now giving it back. The cut was exactly
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as she had sketched it, structured across the
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shoulders, falling to a clean line at the hip
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and in the back, the back, almost nothing. Two
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fine straps crossing between her shoulder blades,
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the rest of her back bare, the curve of her spine
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visible, the particular beauty of a back that
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has not often been looked at. Her hair was up,
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pinned away. She was wearing a plain dark skirt
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with it. Nothing that competed, nothing that
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distracted. The silk was doing what it needed
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to do. Everything else had simply cleared the
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way. I stood there for what was probably 30 seconds
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and what felt like longer, and I thought about
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many things simultaneously. The sketch on the
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bedside table, the six weeks of hearing her in
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the workroom, the pale rose silk being bought
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in the market with Piyush beside her, the whole
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long history of this single piece of fabric from
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its beginning to this moment. And underneath
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all of those thoughts, going steadily, like a
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current below a surface, my wife was extraordinary.
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I had always known this. I was only now fully
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feeling it. You're home, she said. She had felt
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me, perhaps the change in the room's atmosphere,
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perhaps just the knowledge of me that had accumulated
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over three years. Yes, I said. She turned then.
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She turned and faced me, and she didn't perform
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it, didn't check my face for the response, didn't
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adjust herself to meet my reaction. She simply
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turned and was. Well, she said. It's... I stopped.
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The word I had reached for was inadequate. I
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tried again. It's extraordinary. She received
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this without false modesty and without particular
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pride, with the equanimity of someone who has
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made something she fully believes in and has
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already made her peace with the fact of it. Come
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in, she said. Don't stand in the doorway. I came
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in. She made dinner in it. This was the thing
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I had not anticipated, that she would cook in
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the blouse, that she would carry it into the
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kitchen and stand at the stove in it, moving
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with the same ease she brought to everything.
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The rose silk at the cooker, the back strap catching
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the fluorescent light differently than it had
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caught the evening gold, the fabric shifting
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with her when she reached for the pan. She moved
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in it with no particular awareness of it. This
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is the thing about Celonie and the things she
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made. She wore them as though they had always
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been hers, as though the garment had simply been
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waiting to become itself on her body and had
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arrived, with the blouse, at its right form.
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There was none of the self -consciousness of
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someone wearing something new. She was simply
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in it. I sat at the table and watched her cook.
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The doll was the long kind, the kind that announced
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itself through the whole flat and required time
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and could not be hurried. She moved from the
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stove to the counter and back, each movement
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followed by the fall of the silk, each rotation
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of her body showing me the back, the straps,
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the bare skin, the architecture of what she had
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made. I watched. I didn't look away. This was
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the choice I had been practicing, to receive
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what I saw without flinching from it, to sit
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with the full experience of my own life rather
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than managing it from a safe distance. It cost
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me something. It always cost something. But the
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cost was different now from what it had been
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in October. It was not only grief. It was a broader
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feeling, the feeling of being present in something
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large and true. She turned and caught me watching.
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She met my gaze and held it for a moment. There
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was something in her expression that I had not
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seen before, a question being asked, not with
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words, about what she was seeing in my face,
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whether what was there was what she hoped. She
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went back to the dowel. Before she served, She
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stood at the counter for a moment with her back
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to me. I could see in the line of her shoulders
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that she was gathering something, deciding. She
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turned. I want to ask you something, she said.
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Ask, I said. When you see me like this, she gestured
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slightly, vague, meaning the silk and everything
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it represented. Does it make you feel less? Is
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there less of me for you? I looked at her, at
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the rose silk, at her face, which had the specific
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openness of someone who has decided to be vulnerable.
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No, I said. You're more. You're the most you
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I've ever seen. She stood there, receiving this.
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Okay, she said, quietly. We ate at the kitchen
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table. Two plates, the dal, rice, some quick
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pickles she had made while I was not paying attention.
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She sat across from me in the rose silk and we
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talked, and the conversation was the ordinary
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evening conversation of a married couple. Work,
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a neighbor who had been making noise, a thing
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her sister had said on the phone, a problem at
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my office that I was not interested in discussing
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but mentioned anyway because it was there. The
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normal traffic of two lives running in parallel.
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And all the while the silk was there, moving
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slightly when she moved, catching the light from
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the overhead bulb in its specific dark warm way.
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The silk, I said, at some point in the meal.
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What about it? Piyush sees it this weekend. She
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looked up. She met my eyes directly. The full
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clear gaze. Nothing between us. Yes, she said.
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Simply. Without apology. Without hedging. Without
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the small defensive architecture that people
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build around the truth when they're afraid of
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it. Just yes. I nodded. She waited. Does it fit?
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I said. The way you wanted it to? She understood
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what I was actually asking. She understood that
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I was asking about more than the garment, about
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the whole project of it, about what she had made
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it for, and whether the making had produced the
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thing she intended. She put down her fork. Yes,
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she said again, and then, very quietly, I made
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it to fit exactly. Those words, I made it to
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fit exactly, landed in the room with a weight
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that was more than the words. They described
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the silk. They also described the conversation
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we were having, the arrangement we were in, the
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specific precision of a woman who did not make
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things accidentally. She had made everything
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to fit exactly. The silk, the arrangement, the
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way she held both parts of her life with the
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same hands, the careful balance she had been
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maintaining since before I'd known any of it
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existed. I picked up my fork. Good, I said. Piyush
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arrived on Saturday. The door opened, and he
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stood in the hallway with his bag and the usual
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Friday evening ease of someone who has been on
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a train and is glad to be arrived, and he saw
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Saloni. He stopped. She was in the doorway in
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the rose silk, light from the flat behind her,
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her hair down this time, She had made this choice,
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I noted, the deliberateness of it, and the blouse
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in this light was different again from the evening
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light of Tuesday, more saturated, the rose darker.
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He stood in the hallway, and he stopped. Completely
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stopped, the way a person stops when the body
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has registered something before the mind catches
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up, and his face did the thing it did when something
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came at him that he hadn't prepared for, an unguarded
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opening. a split second of pure response before
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the management arrived. She let him look. She
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was good at this, at receiving attention without
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either shrinking from it or leaning into it with
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performance. She stood in the doorway in what
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she had made, and she let it be looked at, and
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her expression was warm and private and pleased
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in the specific way of someone who has done something
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well and knows it. Bobby, he said. Finding his
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voice. You made this. Last month, she said. Come
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in. I was in the kitchen. Visible from the doorway.
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Close enough that the scene had a witness. She
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had arranged this deliberately, I was certain
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of it now. Had placed me here the way she placed
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things in designs. Where they needed to be for
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the whole to function. She wanted me seen. She
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wanted us all to know that I was here. that I
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knew that my presence was part of the arrangement
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rather than a thing it had to be hidden from.
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He came in. His eyes found mine, a flicker, a
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check, the look of someone confirming that the
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ground is solid before he steps on it. I raised
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my chin slightly. He nodded. The whole transaction,
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half a second. Dal, she said from the kitchen.
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God. Yes, he said. The dinner that evening was
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the best dinner of all the visits. Not the food,
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though the food was good, but the quality of
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the gathering. Something had opened in the room,
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some constriction that had been operating since
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October, slowly releasing its grip. We were,
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for the first time, genuinely at ease. All three
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of us. Not performing ease, not constructing
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it through careful management, having arrived
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at it through the slow months of adjustment,
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at something real. Piyush talked about Bengaluru.
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The offer had come through properly now, a letter,
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a number, a decision he was going to have to
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make. He laid it out on the table the way you
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lay out something you're trying to see from all
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sides, and Saloni asked questions, and I asked
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questions, and he answered them, and it was the
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conversation of people who cared about the outcome
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rather than people performing the appearance
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of caring. The lamp was on. The city outside,
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cool December, the particular smell of deli and
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winter coming through the slightly open window.
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Saloni poured chai at some point and brought
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three cups without asking. She sat back on the
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couch, and Piyush was on the floor again, his
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back against the couch, and I was in the chair,
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and her hand moved to his shoulder the way it
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had moved the visit before, naturally, without
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announcement. I looked at her hand on his shoulder.
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I looked at my wife's face, turned toward him.
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asking him something about the Bengaluru firm,
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engaged and warm and present, and I looked at
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my brother's face, tilted up to answer her, his
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whole body oriented toward the conversation,
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and I held what I was looking at and let myself
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hold it. Here is what I actually felt in that
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moment if I'm honest about it. I felt love. For
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both of them. The love I had for my wife, which
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had been. Not damaged by what I knew, but changed,
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made more true, made out of the full reality
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of her rather than the simplified version. And
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the love I had for my brother, which had been
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through something and come out the other side
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still intact, which was its own kind of miracle.
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I also felt the grief. I want to say that too,
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because it's true. The grief was there, smaller
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now, but present, the specific loneliness of
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a man who loves a woman completely and knows
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that completely and exclusively are not the same
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thing. I held all of it. The lamp. The chai.
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The rose silk. The three of us in the room. You
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should take it, I said, about Bengaluru. They
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both looked at me. The job. I said, if it's the
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right one, you should take it. Piyush looked
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at me for a moment, then at Saloni. Something
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passed between them. Not a look of negotiation,
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but of shared recognizing. Of arriving at the
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same place from different directions. Yeah, he
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said. I think so too. Saloni looked at me. I
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held her gaze. After a moment, she smiled, the
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real one, from the stomach, and looked down at
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her chai. The lamp stayed on. The city went about
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its night. Piyush left the next morning. I drove
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him to the station early. The city not yet fully
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operational, the roads clear, the lights still
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low and gold. He sat in the passenger seat with
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his bag between his feet, and we talked about
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nothing in particular, the way brothers do when
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what needs to be said has been said, and what
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remains is just time. At the station, he got
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out and shouldered his bag. He stood by the car
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for a moment. The blouse, he said. What about
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it? When she wears it? He paused. You should
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see it. Really see it. Not just look. I looked
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at him. That's what I've been learning, I said.
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The difference. He nodded. I know, he said. You're
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getting it. He walked into the station. I sat
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in the car for a moment after he was gone. The
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engine running. The morning city starting to
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fill itself in around me. I thought about what
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he had said. The difference between looking and
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seeing. The permission in it, his permission,
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which I hadn't asked for and perhaps didn't need,
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but which was given anyway, with the ease of
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someone who has made his peace with the situation
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and chooses generosity rather than ownership.
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I drove home. Saloni was in the kitchen when
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I came in, still in her night clothes, the workroom
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not yet started, the morning her own. She had
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made chai one cup, hers, and she looked up when
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I came in with the question in her eyes. He's
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on his train, I said. She nodded. She looked
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at her cup. He said something, I said. About
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what? About looking versus seeing, I said. About
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the blouse. She was very still. He said I should
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really see it, I said. When you wear it, not
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just look. She raised her eyes to mine. Will
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you, she said. Yes, I said. I already am. I've
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been practicing. She held my gaze. Then she picked
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up her cup. There's chai in the pot, she said.
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It's still warm. I poured a cup and sat at the
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table across from her, and we drank our morning
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chai in the quiet flat, and the city went about
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its December day, and the rose silk waited in
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the workroom to become what it was becoming.
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I was learning, not finished, not arrived, but
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learning. The difference was everything. She
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wore the rose silk one more time that month.
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Not for Piyush. He was already in Bengaluru by
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then. Not for anyone. She wore it on a Saturday
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morning when she was alone in the flat with her
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work. When I had gone to the gym and come back
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to find her in the workroom, the silk on bent
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over the table. She hadn't heard me come in.
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I stood in the workroom doorway and watched her
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work. The silk moved when she moved. The back
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straps, the bare skin between them, the quality
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of the fabric in the workroom's ordinary light.
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She was making notes in her sketchbook, very
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fast, the ideas arriving faster than the hand.
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She felt me there and looked up. She was not
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startled. She was just herself in the silk in
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her work scene. Good session, she said. Yes,
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I said. She looked at me for a moment. Something
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in her face. Not self -conscious, but aware.
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Of how she was, of what I was seeing. The silk,
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I said. Yes. You look like the collection, I
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said. You look like the title. She understood.
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Distance. Something that looks like it's closing
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and is actually opening. Yes, she said. I think
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I do. I thought about that, the most you I've
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ever seen for a long time afterward. About what
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it meant that seeing her fully, all of her, had
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produced not diminishment, but expansion. That
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the complicated truth of someone you love does
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not make them less. That it makes them more,
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more real, more specific, more completely the
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person you chose. I was beginning to understand
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that this was the whole of it. This was what
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love was when it stopped being comfortable and
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started being true. To be continued in Episode
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was episode seven of My Playful Wife. If this
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story is staying with you, the next episode is
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already waiting. Subscribe so you don't miss
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it. The complete book is on Amazon and early
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episodes plus bonus chapters are on my Patreon.
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Links are in the description. I'm Mia. Thank
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you for listening.