Chapter 17: The Locker

The sitting ended without a verdict.

The eldest uncle said he needed to think, and the aunts drifted out to the verandah in twos.

Rhea walked up the stairs with her head down. Nobody followed her.

Mira found Harish an hour later in his study with the door half open.

He sat behind his desk with his reading glasses in his hand.

"Papa," she said. "May I come in?"

"You will anyway."

She shut the door and stood in front of the desk.

The green steel cabinet stood against the wall behind him. It was the family locker, and the earrings were inside it.

"Why did you say it?" Mira asked. "You saw the page. You know whose handwriting it is."

"I said what I could say."

"You said it with your hand on your wife's name."

Harish put the glasses on the desk and did not answer.

"I have not come to fight you," Mira said. "I have come to ask for one thing."

"Money?"

"An apology."

His moustache twitched. "To you? You will have it. Whatever you want in front of the elders..."

"To Rhea."

The study went very quiet.

A clock ticked on the shelf. Outside, an aunt laughed at something and stopped.

"To Rhea," Harish said at last.

"For the road. For the file. For the pink curtain, and the plays you clapped at, and the years of Sundays when you asked God and not her."

"She forged your name."

"Yes. And she is wrong. And you owe her anyway."

Harish stared at her, and the pride went out of his shoulders in one slow movement.

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