Latest / My Playful Wife — A Tender Literary Love Story / My Playful Wife — Season 1, Episode 13: What Meera Noticed

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My Playful Wife — Season 1, Episode 13: What Meera Noticed · My Playful Wife — A Tender Literary Love Story

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My Playful Wife. Episode 13. What Mira Noticed.
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Written by Mia. Mira noticed things. I had understood
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this within an hour of meeting her. The way you
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understand the weather of a person before you
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have any specific evidence for it. Just the pressure
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change of being near someone who is taking in
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more than they let on. But the evidence accumulated
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over four days. and by the end of it the accumulation
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was, frankly, impressive, the more so because
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she did so little with what she gathered. Most
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people who notice things are eager to be seen
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noticing. The noticing is half performance, a
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way of saying, look how much I see. Mira noticed
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the way a good camera notices, silently, for
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later, without any apparent need to develop the
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film in front of you. She noticed the way Celonie's
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attention distributed itself around a room, the
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slight asymmetry of warmth between her various
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subjects, the way she gave Piyush a particular
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register and me another and Mira a third, each
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one calibrated, none of them false. I watched
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Mira clock this on the second evening, watched
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her eyes move from Celonie with Piyush to Celonie
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with me and do a small private arithmetic and
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file the result. She noticed that the guest room
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had been prepared differently from ordinary domestic
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readiness. More carefully, more specifically,
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the flowers not a gesture but a decision. She
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said nothing, but on the second morning, she
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thanked Saloni for the coconut dish by its regional
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name, correctly, which was her way of saying,
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I saw what you did, I know what it cost you to
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know to do it, and Saloni's face did a small
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pleased thing at being caught. And she noticed,
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I am fairly sure, the calibration between Piyush
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and me. The way we occupied space together. The
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particular ease of two people who have arrived,
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through some unspoken process, at an understanding
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they did not used to have. An ease that is not
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the same as the ease of brothers who have always
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been easy, that has a slight deliberateness to
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it. The care of two people handling something
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between them that they have agreed not to name.
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She would have seen that. A person who notices
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the asymmetry of a hostess's warmth does not
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miss the texture of two brothers' truce. The
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clearest single instance came on the third night
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at dinner. We were several dishes deep into one
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of Saloni's two -day spreads, the table loud
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and easy. When Piyush told a story from our childhood,
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the cat he had once smuggled into his hostel
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room and kept alive for a glorious illegal month,
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a story he tells often and badly and with enormous
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joy. Saloni had heard it a dozen times. She laughed
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anyway, in the right place, with real warmth,
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because she is generous with my brother's stories
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and always has been. But there was a half second,
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just before the laugh, when her face did a small
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private thing, a flicker that was not quite sadness,
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the particular expression of a person hearing
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a fond story about the family she married into
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and was forced, this year, to see all the way
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to the bottom of. It lived for less than a second.
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I only caught it because I am always, now, watching
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her. The watching has become the resting state
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of my face. Mira caught it too. I saw her catch
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it. She was across the table, mid -sentence,
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and her eyes flicked to Celonie's face in precisely
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the half -second the flicker lived in, and then
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she did the kind thing, which is the part that
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stayed with me. She picked the story up. She
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asked Piyush a question about the cat, some detail,
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pulling the whole table's attention onto him
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and away from Celonie, buying Celonie the unwatched
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moment she needed to put her face back in order.
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She did it without signaling, smoothly, folded
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into the ordinary motion of dinner, so that no
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one who wasn't already watching would have registered
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that a small rescue had taken place at all. For
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a quarter of a second her eyes met mine over
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the dishes. Hers gave away nothing. Mine, I hope,
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said thank you. Then she was laughing at the
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cat with everyone else. and the moment sealed
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over itself, and only the two of us ever knew
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it had occurred. That was the thing about Mira,
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distilled. She noticed the wound, anyone observant
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notices wounds, and then she noticed what the
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wound needed, which is the rarer and better skill,
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and what it needed was for everyone to look away.
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So she made everyone look away. I have spent
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my life around people who, having found a tender
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place in someone, Cannot resist pressing it,
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if only to confirm it is there. Here was a woman
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who found the tender place and immediately, by
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instinct, covered it. I understood, in that one
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quarter second across the dinner table, why my
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brother loved her. Understood it completely,
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watching her hand my wife back her own composure
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without anyone needing to know it had slipped.
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She said nothing about any of it. She was not
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the kind of person who said things before she
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was sure of them, and even once sure, she was
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the kind who weighed whether saying served any
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purpose before she spent the breath. On the last
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evening, the night before they left, she found
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me alone in the kitchen. Saloni and Piyush were
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in the living room. I could hear them through
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the wall. the voices of an ongoing conversation,
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the brother and sister -in -law register that
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had its own long history I would never fully
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have access to. I was at the sink, doing the
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small after -dinner things, when Mira came in
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and poured herself a glass of water from the
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matka and leaned against the counter, settling
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in with the body language of someone who has
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chosen this moment. You're an interesting man,
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she said, not... Flirtatiously, there was nothing
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of that in it. Observationally, the way she'd
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say a piece of code was elegant or a fabric was
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well cut. I'm very ordinary, I said. That's what
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interesting people say. She drank some water.
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Ordinary people are usually quite keen to tell
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you the ways they're not. I dried my hands on
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the towel and turned to look at her properly.
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The sharp eyes, the composed manner, the glass
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held loosely. There was no threat in her, but
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there was a directness that I understood I was
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being invited to match. Are you asking me something?
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I said. No. She considered the glass. Not asking.
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A pause, and then she set it down on the counter
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with the small click of a decision being made.
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I just wanted to say... Piyush is lucky. In a
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lot of directions. She looked up. People are
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complicated. Most people spend their whole lives
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pretending they aren't, and pretending the people
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around them aren't, and the pretending is what
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breaks everything in the end. The ones who understand
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that people are complicated and don't run from
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it, who stay in the complication and make something
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out of it instead of fleeing to somewhere simpler,
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they're rarer than they should be. I think you
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might be one of them. That's all I wanted to
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say. I was quiet for a moment. It is a strange
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thing to be read accurately by someone you have
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known for four days. It bypasses all the defenses
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that years build because the defenses are built
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against the people who were there for the years
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and a stranger walks in under them. I felt, standing
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in my own kitchen, oddly exposed and oddly relieved,
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The way you feel when a doctor names the thing
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you've been afraid to name yourself. How much
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does she know? I asked. I meant Celonie, what
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Mira understood about Celonie, about the visits,
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about the shape of the year that had brought
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all of us to this kitchen. Some things, she said
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again. The same phrase Piyush had used, and I
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wondered if they had agreed on it or arrived
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at it separately, two careful people reaching
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for the same careful words. Not everything. What
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she needs to know. To be safe in her own life.
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Not the parts that are only yours to carry. She
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looked at me steadily. I don't need the whole
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map. I need to know the ground is solid where
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I'm standing. He's given me that. The rest is
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yours and his. I thought about that. the parts
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that are only yours to carry, and felt something
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settle in me that had been faintly unsettled
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since they'd arrived. The fear, never quite spoken,
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that the year would have to be relitigated every
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time a new person entered the frame, explained
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and justified and refelt. Mira was telling me
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it wouldn't, that a thing could be known partially
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and held respectfully, that not every door in
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a house has to be open for the house to be a
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home. She seems good, I said, meaning Mira herself,
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turning it back. She is good, Mira said simply,
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without false modesty, which I also liked. From
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the living room, Saloni's laugh, the real one,
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the stomach one, all the way in, we both heard
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it, something passed between Mira and me, hearing
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it. A shared brief gladness at the sound of a
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person we both, in our different ways, cared
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about being happy. You too, I said. She smiled,
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the slow one, the one that took its beat to arrive
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and then arrived completely. We should all have
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dinner, she said, properly, in Bengaluru in my
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city, on my ground. You should come, both of
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you. Saloni mentioned Piyush said that. I'm saying
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it too, she said. And when I say a thing, it
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happens. Piyush says things the way you set a
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kite loose and hope the wind takes it. I say
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them the way you book the tickets. She picked
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her water glass back up. So, it'll happen. I
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believed her. There was no reason not to. Okay.
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I said, we'll come. She went back to the living
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room. I stayed in the kitchen a moment longer,
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listening to the four of us, Saloni's voice,
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Piyusha's, Mira's rejoining them, the sound of
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an evening winding down, a family that had assembled
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itself in an unexpected shape and was, against
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all reasonable prediction, working. I thought,
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she is 24. She is younger than the marriage she
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has just diagnosed. And she has more sense about
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how people actually survive each other than I
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had at 35 before the year taught me. I wrote
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it down later. Mira in the kitchen, the parts
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that are only yours to carry. She is 24 and she
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handed me, without knowing she was doing it,
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the sentence I'd been looking for all year. Not
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everything has to be confessed to be honest.
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Some things you carry, so the people you love
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don't have to. I lay awake that last night longer
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than I meant to. Beside me, Celonie slept the
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way she sleeps after good days. All the way under,
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her breathing gone slow and even. In the next
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room, my brother and the woman he would one day
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bring back as his wife slept too, and the flat
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held all four of us in the dark, and I lay there
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turning over what Mira had said at the sink.
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The parts that are only yours to carry. I had
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spent so much of the year afraid of being known,
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afraid that the truth of us, if a single new
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person so much as glimpsed it, would curdle in
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their mouth into the cheap and obvious thing.
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the thing with the crude one -word name that
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small people would give it. And here was this
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24 -year -old who had glimpsed it, more than
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glimpsed it, had read the whole household in
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four days, and had not reached for the cheap
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name at all, had reached instead for complicated,
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and for the ones who stay, and had handed me,
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without quite knowing she was doing it, a more
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generous way to hold my own life than the way
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I had been managing to hold it. Saloni stirred.
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You're awake, she said, not opening her eyes,
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a statement, the way she does, not a question.
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Thinking. Still. A pause. About what? Mira, I
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said. She's good for us. Not only for him. For
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us. Saloni was quiet a moment, surfacing just
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far enough to consider it properly. She is, she
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said. She makes the room bigger. Then she found
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my hand under the blanket and held it and went
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back under, all in one motion, and I lay there
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holding my sleeping wife's hand and thought that
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a marriage is partly the people it can survive
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being seen by, that you could almost measure
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the soundness of a thing that way, by who you
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could let look at it without flinching, and that
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ours, it turned out, could be seen clear to the
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floor by a person who missed nothing. and could
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stay standing afterward. I slept, eventually.
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They left the next morning. The goodbye at the
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door was different from the previous ones, and
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the difference was a kind of progress. Piyush
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hugged Saloni, still held, still real, but briefer
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than the goodbyes of the old days. the ones that
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used to have a whole unspoken history compressed
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into their length. Something had settled in him.
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The urgency had gone out of it. He was a man
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with a life of his own now, a flat and a job
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and a woman beside him with sharp eyes and booked
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tickets, and the goodbye to Saloni had become
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what it was supposed to have been all along,
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warm, familial, finite. He shook my hand, held
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it the usual beat, the beat that had become our
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private punctuation. Come to Bengaluru, he said.
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We will, I said. Mira hugged Saloni, a real hug,
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two arms, the unguarded hug of two people who
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have decided over four days that they like each
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other and intend to go on liking each other across
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the distance. Then she shook my hand with the
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same firm, dry grip as the arrival. the symmetry
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deliberate, a person closing a bracket she had
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opened. Hold him to it, she said, about Bengaluru.
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He'll mean it, and forget it. You won't forget.
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I won't, I said. The lift, the doors closing
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on the two of them, Piyush lifting a hand, Mira's
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composed nod, the mechanical sound of the cables,
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the descent. The city outside, ordinary and bright,
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a Wednesday resuming. Saloni and I stood in the
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quiet flat, the flat that had held four people
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for four days and was now exhaling back into
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its two -person shape, the guest room already,
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in my mind, reverting. She's extraordinary, Saloni
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said. Yes, I said, she is. A pause. Saloni looked
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around the living room, at the cushions disarranged,
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the glasses not yet cleared, the small wreckage
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of hospitality, and I watched her not move to
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fix any of it, which was its own small evidence
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of ease. Are you okay? she asked. She asked it
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differently now than she used to. There had been
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a period, months, when are you okay from her
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was a braced question. A hand held out toward
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possible damage, the asker already half -flinching
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from the answer. This was not that. This was
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simply curious. Interested in the actual state
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of me, the way you're interested in the weather
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of a place you love. The question had been emptied
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of its fear and refilled with something better.
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Yes, I said. And meant it, plainly, with nothing
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held back behind the word. She nodded, satisfied,
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and went to the kitchen and made chai for the
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two of us now, the proportions automatically
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adjusted, two cups instead of four, the domestic
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arithmetic resetting without anyone having to
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announce it. I cleared the glasses. We moved
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around each other in this small space with the
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unconscious choreography of three years and a
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hard year layered on top of it. She handed me
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my cup at the right moment, the right temperature,
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the right hand, without my asking, the way she
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always had, the small daily evidence of being
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known that I had once received without noticing
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and now received the way you receive a gift.
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I had thought, before the visit, that adding
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a person to the frame would mean reliving the
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year. that every new arrival would have to be
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told, or made to sense, or carefully managed
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around, that I would spend the rest of my life
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explaining us to people. Mira had quietly disproved
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it. You did not have to explain. You did not
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even have to be wholly understood. You had only
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to be among people willing to let the unexplained
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parts be, who could hold a thing without needing
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to crack it open and see how it worked. The frame
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could grow. It could take a fourth corner and
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a fifth and not collapse. That was the discovery
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the four days had handed me, larger than I had
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registered while they were happening, that the
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life we had built was not a fragile secret to
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be guarded, but a sturdy thing that could be
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lived in, openly, in front of people, in the
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light. I sat a while longer in the cooling kitchen
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after she'd gone to the other room, not yet ready
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to give the day up, for people. One flat. A festival
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of light behind us and a wedding, surely, somewhere
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ahead. I had walked onto a balcony a year ago,
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a man who believed his life was one fixed shape,
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settled and known and finished, and I was sitting
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now in a kitchen that had held, this week, more
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people and more kinds of love than that man could
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have made room for in a lifetime. Mira had seen
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all of it and named none of it and stayed for
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dinner. It was, I thought, the best possible
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verdict, not absolution, which I had not asked
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for and did not need, but something plainer and
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better, that we were a household a clear -eyed
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stranger could sit down inside and find simply
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good. The flat settled around us, the right size
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for two, the new geometry holding, and a standing
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invitation to Bengaluru sitting in the air between
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us like a door someone had left ajar. We should
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go, Saloni said, reading my mind or reading the
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door, in February, when her ticket saying makes
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it happen. In February, I agreed. To be continued
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in episode 14, Distance and Closeness. All rights
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reserved. That was episode 13 of My Playful Wife.
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