The Woman My Grandmother Loved.

Chapter Twenty-four

Was it my fault? That something within Jeremy snapped? Did he know within that I could never love him in the way a wife is supposed to love her husband? I loved him the way I would love plant I had grown used to, I loved him as much as I loved a friend with whom I could discuss art over tea. I loved him, I now realize, not for him. I loved for the benign presence he was, but I had been foolish enough to forget that the very nature of mankind is not benign. He was never a violent and active thought in my head, until the very end. He was the background, the shadow while I pretended to have a nature that wasn't mine. I had grown accustomed to his shadows, so much that I didn't realize the sinister monster he had become. But somewhere down the line, the guilt still plagues me, if I am indeed the reason which led him to morph into something so ugly.

Now, I want to focus on your relationship with this other woman. It makes me jealous and spiteful Anita; I am not going to lie. It did make me bitter for a while. But then I re-read your letter and I saw how you say my name is etched on a molecular level. I cannot be mad at you when you save me so sweetly every time. My love, I am not mad at you. But I am mad. I am angry at this never-ending cycle of agony you and I have trapped ourselves in. I am mad that I live in a world that tells me that I cannot love you because saying that I cannot do something will not stop it from happening. I have married a man hoping to fix myself and only the guilt ate me up. Nobody can make me an honest woman but you. And I will make a horrid wife to anyone who isn't you.

I have spent two years short of a decade away from you and I have never stopped loving you. Time stands as a testament to this and if am to continue loving you, I refuse to be afraid about it anymore. I don't want to have to skim over information trying to fit it in an annual letter. If you have decided to move on with your life, may this letter not stop you from doing so. But if I am not yet late, promise me you'll write more. Anita, I am exhausted from torturing myself. I will never love someone as much as I have loved you. That is all I can say.

Yours,

Becky.

By Becky,

I hadn't cried since Bhuwan's funeral. But you made me cry. I sat for a long time as I cried and it was cleansing. My body hadn't felt such emotion in over two years and I think it was finally allowed the release. I cried because I cannot imagine the pain that he must have put you through. Becky, I wish I were there beside you. I would remind you of how much I love you and no, it isn't your fault he turned out to be so. It is not your fault, Becky. You have been nothing but good to him and you do not deserve such pain inflicted upon you.

I cried because you remind me of how it is possible to have even the darkest parts of my heart be loved and cared for. Beck, I want to write to you. I have wanted to write ten more letters to you after every letter I sent. But in my heart, I was always worried that Usha was right. She told me not to be greedy and that if I did more than the bare minimum, I would find my emotions to be unbearable. But the avoidance of suffering is a form of suffering and it has taken me long enough to find that out. Becky, I have tried to deny myself of you in every way, shape, and form. And it makes me sad, so painfully sad that you do not wish to do that anymore. Your letter, had it been a year early would have been enough reason for me to send ten more to you.

I'm engaged, Becky.

Engaged to be married, to a man. It makes me cry, the thought that perhaps you and I were never meant to be. After all these years, Becky, this is how we end. I will not ask you to stop writing your yearly letters for I did the same when you were married. But Becky, things will change. I know in my heart that marriage will inevitably change who I am right now; living in such close proximity to another person does that to you. And I can imagine what you meant when you said you loved Jeremy; I know that I shall grow to love my husband the same. Is it fair? That I must subject myself to such lukewarm love for the rest of my life, knowing that I will never love anyone the same way I have loved you?

Is love too overrated? A lot of scholars suspect that when Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet, he meant it to be a satire; an argument against love. They believe that he wanted to show people the ridiculousness of love and the destruction that it brings. Marriages were in reality not a proclamation of love, they did not originate from some saint's fancy idea about soulmates. No, my love, they were initially economic propositions to ensure that both the people benefitted from it and could go about life with a sense of security. Perhaps we were wrong, Becky. We have been fighting against sinking for so long; maybe there is hope in drowning. Giving up may lead us to where we ought to be.

I don't care whether love is overrated or not. I don't want to raise issues on whether things are fair or not anymore. I don't have the capacity to fight so relentlessly against all of these things. I just want to be able to go home, Becky. I am so, so tired. I now understand what you must have felt all those years and I am so, so sorry it turned out so horribly. Becky, I wish he had been better, I really do. But none of my wishes matter and the only thing I have is reality and the closest home is my fiancé. Becky, you remember how we scorned our parents for settling? Do you remember how passionate we were, how we believed in each other more so than anything else? Perhaps, this is how it ended for them as well.

I am sorry that I am getting married. I want you to know some things before I become an entirely different person. It is not love, that matters; I might be wrong. It is the truth that matters. I want you to know that I was truthful when I loved you. I have been truthful all these years when I said that I loved you. And I am truthful as I write this letter when I say that I love you. I love you so much that it has consumed all of my being until I began doing it with as much ease as I breathe. I was once told by a wise person that we only allow ourselves the truth we can afford. And Becky, with the world I live in, this is what my reality must look like and I shall stay truthful to it.

I cannot write to you anymore. My conscience does not allow me to because I want to be wholly yours or not at all. I will not demean my love for you with half-hearted appreciation.

But under every starry night, I shall think of you. I promise I will never love you less. But we have ended.

Yours forever,

Anita.