One showed her husband: distant, emotionally unreachable, already slipping into a new life where she existed only as a shadow.
The other showed her parents' home. At first, a sanctuary — her mother's arms, her father's quiet nods. But comfort was fleeting.
The house, once sturdy and warm, was crumbling under invisible weight.
---
Back Home: The Struggles
Her brother — well-meaning, foolish — had started a hotel, dreaming big but planning little. It bled money faster than it made any. Her father, gentle and overly trusting, had borrowed heavily from friends — no paperwork, just old loyalty and handshakes.
Now those friends were creditors. They came knocking with angry words and louder demands.
When she returned after the separation, home had changed.
She and her mother had quietly opened drawers, unlatched lockers. Her wedding jewellery, her mother's bangles — heirlooms and memories — sold to buy them a few more days of peace.
But the debt loomed large, a storm cloud too vast to ignore.
Her father, once proud, now sat in silence most evenings, staring at nothing. Her brother had stopped meeting her eyes. Her mother, now only whispered prayers to the stove flame.
There was no one left to ask. No one left to trust.
Only survival. One exhausting day at a time.
---
Back on the Bus
She woke with a start as the bus jerked to a stop at a dusty roadside stall. Her face was damp.
But Bani's voice had already trembled on the phone. Her father had heard it—really heard it.
And he had told her brother, without hesitation:
> "Go. Bring her home. Now."
Her brother had shown up that very evening. No warning. Just his quiet eyes, his bike, and his open arms.
There had been arguments. Tension. Tears.
But in the end, her father's voice over the phone had ended it.
> "Let her come back. We'll talk about children and family problems later. First… she needs to be safe."
That ride home was silent, except for the wind and the roar of her thoughts. And that was when she whispered it to him.
> "If I hadn't come back tonight… I don't know what I would've done."
Her brother slammed the brake harder than necessary at a red light.
His shoulders went rigid.
> "Don't say that, Bani."
She blinked. "I'm just saying the truth—"
> "No," he snapped.
"You don't understand what it does to people when someone they love gives up."
The light turned green. He didn't move right away.
> "You want to know the truth?" he muttered. "The real truth about why Appa sent me to get you that very night?"
She frowned. "What do you mean?"
He started driving again, slower now.
> "Do you remember two years ago, when Appa and I told you we were staying at Manju Uncle's place in Mysore?"
She nodded slowly.
> "We weren't at Manju Uncle's."
She sat up straighter behind him.
> "We were at the hospital."
> "What?"
> "Appa… tried to end his life."
Her breath caught.
> "He had taken poison. We were supposed to stay at Uncle Manju's house, yes, but the night before, Appa broke down. Completely. He thought he had failed us—failed as a father. The debts… the pressure... everything crushed him."
Bani couldn't believe what she was hearing. "But... you said it was a work trip—"
> "That's what we told you and Amma. Because Appa begged me not to tell anyone. Not yet."
His voice shook as they rolled through a quiet roundabout.
> "Uncle Manju is the one who saved him. He came to check in on us, just in time. We rushed Appa to the hospital. The doctors said we were minutes away from losing him."
> "That week… when you thought we were at Uncle's? We were in recovery. We were watching him breathe through tubes."
Tears stung her eyes. "Why didn't you tell me?"
> "Because Appa made me promise. He didn't want you to look at him differently. But tonight—tonight you said something that I can't let go."
They pulled up to the house now. Her brother killed the engine and turned back to look at her. His face was pale in the streetlight.
> "You think walking away from that house was hard? You have no idea how many times Appa thought of ending his own story to make life easier for the rest of us."
> "But he didn't."
> "He stayed."
> "And he heard your voice tonight, Bani. The pain in it. That same helplessness he once had. That's why he didn't wait till morning. That's why he sent me to get you without question. He knew. He knew."
She wiped her face, but the tears wouldn't stop.
> "I'm sorry… I didn't know any of this."
> "You didn't have to. We just wanted you to be okay."
He unlocked the gate and reached for her bag.
> "But now, you do know. And now you have to live. Not just survive. Live. For Appa. For Amma. For yourself."
These were the words told to her from her brother.
This time—this life—she knew what was coming.
---
Back in Class 8, she had been thrown into English medium like a swimmer tossed into the ocean without knowing how to float.
She had stared at her first English science paper like it was a foreign language—which it was. The once-proud top-scorer in Kannada medium had scored zero. Not out of laziness, but out of sheer confusion.
She hadn't known what "photosynthesis" meant, hadn't understood math problems with words she couldn't even pronounce. Kannada and Hindi were her lifeboats, but they couldn't carry her through science and social.
Her classmates snickered. The teacher had sighed. She walked home in silence.
But she didn't give up.
Through tears and tired evenings, she translated everything into Kannada, line by line. She built her understanding word by word, concept by concept. And by Class 10, she had pulled herself to 65% in the board exams.
It wasn't a number that made headlines. But to her? To her parents? It was proof of grit.
Her parents had never demanded marks. They had seen her pain, her late nights, her refusal to give up.
"Sixty is more than enough," her father had said softly. "You didn't stop. That's what matters."
---
But now… now it was different.
Sitting on that early morning bus from Dharmasthala to Bangalore, Bani felt something strange bubbling inside her chest. Not anxiety.
Readiness.
As if she wasn't going back to the same old Class 10, the same textbooks, the same struggle—but to something new.