She and I had good days and bad days after that. I pushed back relentlessly against her resistance, but when she went to bed and didn’t want to come out, when the lights went out and the drive seemed to leave her, I realised something. I couldn’t do this alone. Couldn’t help keep her afloat while she fought to go under. I liked Ashray; he was good for her, even if I was sceptical to begin with. He offered her a gentleness when I had to be firm, and he didn’t know her history beyond what she told him. I knew he was in pain himself, but somehow the two of them seemed to heal each other, and he brought a spark to her eyes that I had never seen before.

I was hesitant to call him, worried that he may be fighting his own demons that evening, but he didn’t hesitate to come to her, to hold her and pull her out of whatever it was that had taken hold of her this time. The best I could do was watch and wait for her to emerge from the darkness. To have faith in a man that I barely knew, to be the lifeboat for both of us. There was something human about him, a proof that being a person meant that, in some way or another, we were all dealing with something that threatened to separate our sanity from our minds. And so he came to our rescue and she came out of her darkness, slightly stronger, a little more willing to continue her fight.

While we ate the meal that I had promised Ashray, Jhanvi smiled. A genuine smile. One I hadn’t seen in far too many years. One that reached her eyes and brightened her face and gave me hope that the little girl inside her, my sister who I loved, was still in there and on the path back out into the world.

35. ASHRAY

35

ASHRAY

Getting through the day was challenging—knowing that today was Maa’s birthday, knowing that no one other than Jhanvi and I knew about it. I did my best to make small talk with Rishi. But my mind was on what I was going to do when I got home. Nothing that I could do would honour her life in a way that mattered enough to show the impact she had on me. I convinced myself that it would have been easier if she had left after her birthday. At least I would have had the chance to recover then, a few months, maybe more, to adjust to not having her in my life anymore.