The Promise (17 page)

'YOU DON'T KNOW SHIT ABOUT WHAT I WANT AND WHAT I DON'T. SO, DO NOT MAKE ASSUMPTIONS.'

'Raising your voice does not make you right and me wrong.'

'YES, BUT TRUTH DOES. Now, GET OUT,' she tried to calm herself down but failed horribly. Her life was in pieces. The man who ruled it had no idea how much he was hurting her and she just wanted it all to end. She wanted peace. 'I don't need you, Arjun. For anything. I can manage on my own. I can handle a child without your help. I do not need your wealth, your time, your presence, your fake love, ANYTHING. Just GO.'

He gave her one final stare, which told her that he was disgusted by her and left. She fell to the washroom floor once again. Only, this time, she knew there would be no Arjun who would come to her, hold her and make it all go away. She had nothing to look forward to-no one to look after her.

Hours passed, and she went on with her day, living like nothing was wrong with her. She was sure her face betrayed what she was feeling, but there was no one who would notice the change. From her home, she had gone straight to the hospital, where her father had been admitted since the last four months. He was not conscious to register her mood from her facial expressions.

She knew her father was not getting better, only worse, and that broke her heart.

It all started almost exactly a year ago, in March 2010, with dizziness, double vision and impaired hearing. When she had taken him to a doctor, they had gotten the news of the tumour in his brain-a pituitary tumour, clinically termed-Pituitary Adenoma. It is basically a non-cancerous tumour, but lethal still. The one her father had was large in size and needed immediate surgery.

Her father was her only family, after her mother had passed away when she was four. She panicked. The surgerymedically known as 'craniotomy'-required opening of the skull to operate. Even the thought was scary, but they had no option. There was no room for delay; his tumour was in the second stage, which meant it was of a size larger than one centimetre and if untreated, would have extended above the sella, which is a depression on the upper surface of the sphenoid bone.

He was operated upon the next week, after pooling together all his resources to pay for the surgery. Fortunately, the surgery had been a success. Or so they had thought. There were still a few nights when he had woken up with searing pain, but the doctors brushed it away as routine.

It was only after five months, in September 2010-a little after Shambhavi had completed the Ahluwalia assignmentthat during a routine check-up, the doctors had discovered that the tumour had not been in the second stage, but in the third when he was operated. There was not just a threat of expansion to the sella, but the invasion had already occurred.

Due to neglect of the condition and lack of medical care at the needed site, his tumour had swiftly gone to the fourthand the final-stage by the time the real problem was detected.

All Shambhavi's savings to take her father to Paris, the one place he wanted to visit before his disease killed him, had gone in his treatment. After weeks and weeks of radiotherapy, slowly and steadily, the truth had seeped in-he did not have long to live. He had accepted that; so had Shambhavi.

There was no sense in being sad, so they had taken on the challenge cheerfully. She knew he had no funds left. She had never let it show, but she had known it all along. His surgery had had a great impact on both their lives. For the first time in her life, she had thought seriously about her future and had taken work seriously.

When they had first detected the tumour, Mr Sen had gotten quite a scare, understandably. After all his assets went into the surgery that followed, he had told Shambhavi sadly that his only regret was not visiting Paris before he died. That night, Shambhavi had promised her father that she would take him there. She had devoted herself to the Ahluwalia's Mansion and had worked sincerely on it to earn the amount her hard work deserved.

But once again, she had not expected what was coming next. As soon as the assignment ended, she had gotten the news of his tumour being in the fourth stage. This time, a surgery was not possible, because of the unfavourable location of the tumour. Also, they did not have the means to pay for a surgery. They chose the second option-radiation therapy.

That is where her Paris-savings went. Since then, she had bounced back to her feet and had been taking up and working nights on any job she was offered. The Ahluwalia's mansion and a few good ones before it had let her form a decent reputation. Although no assignment she took up was as lucrative as that, she was slowly and steadily working her way to taking her father to Paris. Just that this time around, she did not have much time to waste; Mr Sen's condition was deteriorating by the second and the psychiatric symptoms were beginning to show-depression, emotional instability and anxiety.

Initially, her aim had been to earn enough just to be able to take him to Paris. But after the detection of the real state of her father's ailment, she realized that she needed the money soon. There was not much time left. There was not much progress in her savings, since all her income went into getting him a private ward at the hospital and keeping him there. She had blamed the progress of his tumour on improper and inadequate medical attention, so she did not want to take that risk again and therefore, to make sure his condition got proper attention, she had shifted him to the hospital, under twentyfour hour surveillance. But maintaining a place at the hospital was costlier than she had initially anticipated. Paris seemed like a distant dream. Going to Paris won't cost too much, but with all her earnings going into his medical care, she did not have significant savings left.

On top of it all, pregnancy was not something she could handle. That, apart from the shock, was the reason she had broken down and called Arjun. Slowly, she had begun to depend on him. He had become her escape from the world of gloom-seeing her father in misery, struggling with the expense of keeping him in a hospital, saving for Paris and finding a stable source of income.

She was the type of person who shared her happiness, but not her sadness. Her friends didn't know about her father's condition. They just thought that she was too busy making big bucks to have time for them. The only friends she had left were Mili and Tutul. Mili understood her, and supported her no matter what. Tutul was with her almost all the time due to working together, and had no reason to complain. Other than that, she had practically stopped going out, started forgetting birthdays and stopped calling her friends up. Eventually, they had forgotten her, too.

She did not mind. She was too involved with her work; she had priorities and responsibilities to take care of. And anyway, she had Arjun; he was all she needed. All her free time was spent with him. He was there with her and was a perfect stress buster, even though it might seem the other way round.

She had been pleasantly shocked when he told her about the hotel he had bought so that they could spend more time together, working. He did not know it, but that had been a boon to her in more ways than one. They could not have had a functional relationship had they not been working together; she would have been too busy on other jobs. By working together, they had time with each other and her source of income was taken care of, too.

But all that changed that day. The news of her pregnancy was just a shock to her initially. But once she told Arjun about it, his reaction more or less told her that she was on her own. Her life lay in pieces all around her-she did not have the one man she loved with her anymore, and on top of that, she had an unborn child growing inside her. She was already on the verge of breaking, taking care of her father, she could not handle a child too. On top of that, with the unpleasant exchange with Arjun, she could not work with him again. So she would have to quit the hotel assignment, leaving it in an unfinished state to fish for another job.

Of all the things going wrong in her life, what really pained her was losing Arjun. She loved him, even after all the caustic remarks he had made that day. He did not trust her. She was sure he had a good reason for having his reservations, and she hoped that he would realize that soon and come back to her. Because at the end of the day, despite the anger she had seen in his eyes, she knew that he loved her.

It is only when we truly need support that we realize who our real friends are. Those who make our enemies their own are the truest of all.

ood morning, Dad,' she greeted cheerfully, when she saw him open his eyes.

'Morning,' he mumbled gruffly.

'How are you feeling this morning?'

'I feel a sharp throbbing in my ears. Could you try and stop shouting? That might help.'

'Oops, sorry,' she crinkled her face and went over to kiss his forehead. 'Now seriously, how are you?'

'Fine,' Mr Sen nodded. 'I was going to ask you that question.'

'Who, me? What can happen to me?'Shambhavi said loudly, the pitch of her voice extra high.

'Shambhavi?'

'Yes, Dad?'

'I'm your father,' he said shortly.

The smile on her face disappeared in one second. She had fooled the world that everything was okay, but not her father. She knew that as soon as he gained consciousness, he would know something was off, and she was right. He had seen right through her facade. Suddenly, tears threatened to attack her. She felt the first prickling at the back of her eyes and blinked rapidly to prevent tears from flowing.

That was when Mr Sen motioned her towards him. She crashed on his chest and burst into tears. It was nice to have him take care of her, after it being the other way round for so long ... actually since she had grown up enough to realize that her father was just a lost child. It was a miracle he had managed to sail through the time his wife died, leaving a four-year-old daughter behind for him to take care of. He looked after her for six years, after which she turned ten and realized that her father was the one who needed to be looked after. Since then, she had been the grown-up and he the child.

As she sobbed in his arms, she realized how difficult it must be for him to see her like that. She knew he hated being bedbound and helpless and she tried her best not to make him feel like he was burdening her.