The return of passion (Sample)

Sample chapter 1:We part ways

1 AND 1/2 YEARS LATER

Filling her lungs to its fullest, she slowly exhaled, closing her eyes at the feel of cool air against her skin. It was certainly a very welcoming change to be back to her home in Mumbai after one and half year of her chemotherapy in Chicago. It was still the first stage of cancer she was caught in and after loosing all her hair bit by bit she got her life back.

But the pitiful irony, that she wanted the exact opposite.

She didn't want to live! It was so so painful for her sometimes that she had tried to use numerous tricks to get out of this all.
But each one of them had failed, from the drowning in her bathtub to the excess intake of sleeping pills.

And then she had decided, if she is to live she would do so with a good cause detesting even the thought of the names or incidents in her past. A past that she never wants to revisit.
Although she had done her best to preserve some of the best moments of that past.

The things and the people that she never wants to forget.
Jonaki her daughter for example who was and will be forever the most important person to her.

And so the first thing she had done with the money of her father was to buy that little 2bhk flat in east shyambazzar where she had spent five summers and winter with the little bundle of joy who was no more with her.

And then she had kept the place intact, just like it had been before with Joe's toys closed in a cartoon box in her room, her own and Joe's dresses, ironed and neatly kept in the almirah.

Her school bag, water bottle her books of 1st standard still at the exact places that they have been before.
She visits the place as often as she could.

Spending a day or two in the solitude when she was very much depressed. She would just lie on the couch of living room and close her eyes with the television showing the little cartoon characters running about filling the room with their voices so that it could help Alisha to imagine better that her daughter is happy even if she isn't here.

Sometimes she would even cook Joe's favourite dish and then with absent mind she would put two plates on the table and then she won't be left with an appetite anymore.

Realizing that she had seen the person burning down into ashes a few months ago for whom she had accidentally served that plate.

And then she would go back the next morning for Chicago until the life again starts to weight too much on her shoulder.

Opening her eyes in the sunlight, she looked at her pink strapped wrist watch. It is already seven in the morning.
The people who comes here daily for a little exercise and fresh air in the early morning had already started to disperse. To go back home with their dogs or partner.
She clipped the ear-plugs back into her ears, attached to her phone as soft music started to fill her negativity.
Running another round through the greenery of the vast park, she at last messaged her driver that she was ready to leave afterall, she have a long day ahead.

***

In her first month in Chicago going through the painful process of chemotherapy all alone, she had received numerous calls, the lawyers of Bose Interprizes, from the head of HR and few of the share holders and board members, all of which wanted her to be the next CEO and continue the legacy while only she knew that it wasn't her legacy!

So she refused, once. Twice. Thrice and so on until one month ago that she was sure she was going to live enough to take the responsibility of a company that she is to run.

But it was a little too late for things to start running smoothly. It looked like Surya Bose's gambling habit was paying off, the company was a the verge of bankruptcy and so she decided to do what was essential! To sell it!