Chapter 12 — Kabir and Priya

KabirPriya was on the couch when he came home.Not unusual — she worked from home often and the couch was her preferred location. But the quality of her sitting was different: the very still sitting of someone who has been holding something and waiting.He knew this quality. He sat across from her."Tell me about February," she said.He sat with it for a moment.He could have asked what she knew. He could have gauged the conversation. He could have done the thing that people did, which was to answer a question with a question, to understand the terrain before committing.He said: "Something happened. At the conference. Between Aanya and me. It was one night. I told her about you — in the middle of it, I told her, because I needed her to know. She left the next morning." He looked at Priya. "I should have told you. I'm telling you now because the not-telling was wrong and I knew it was wrong and I did it anyway."Priya looked at him."Is that everything?" she said.He looked at her. He thought about the texts from Rishikesh — are you okay, the non-answer, what are you carrying, the answer that cost her something. He thought about the conversation on the wall at five-forty AM. The quality of what she was managing."I don't know," he said honestly. "I think — I think there's something else. Something I don't know yet."Priya looked at him for a long moment.Then she told him.He sat very still while she told him.He sat very still afterward."She called you," he said."I called her," Priya said. "I found the photo from the conference. I called her." She paused. "She wasn't going to tell you.""I know," he said. And he did know — he had known something was there, he had felt the weight of it on the wall at five-forty AM, he had not been able to name it and he had named it now and it was — the thing was — enormous.He sat with it being enormous.He sat with what it meant that she had decided to carry it alone. He thought about her texts — some things are mine to carry — and what that had cost her to decide and what it had meant for her to decide it.He thought about what she had said at the wall: whatever you think you understood — the pact is closed. You're free.She had said it knowing this.She had been telling him he was free knowing she was carrying this."Priya," he said. His voice was different. He could hear it."I know," she said."I need to—""I know," she said again. She said it steadily, which was who she was, and he felt the specific quality of her steadiness as both the most grounding and most painful thing in the room. "I need to know something first."He looked at her."February," she said. "What was it? Honestly. I'm not asking to punish you. I'm asking because I need to understand what I'm deciding."He thought about February. About the conference dinner, the conversation, five years of a pact compressed into a single evening. He thought about what it had meant — not in the way of a justification but in the way of a true thing."It was the last thing," he said. "I think — I think I needed to know. Whether it was the story I'd been telling myself or whether it was real. And it was both. Real and a story. And then it was done and I understood it was done." He looked at Priya. "And then you, and what we have — this is not a consolation prize. That's not—this is not me settling. I need you to know that.""I know that," she said. Quietly."How do you know that?""Because I've been paying attention for eighteen months," she said. "And because I saw your face in Rishikesh when you looked at her. It was—" She paused. "It was the face of someone who was glad to see a person and was also completely clear about where home was." She looked at him. "You were never confused. You were just—unfinished."He looked at her."You're the most clear-eyed person I know," he said."Yes," she said. "I am. Which is why I can see this clearly." She folded her hands in her lap. "You need to call her. You need to — I don't know what you need to do, I don't know what she needs, but you need to have a real conversation with her. Not about February and not about the pact. About this.""And us?" he said.She looked at him for a long moment."I'm still here," she said. "I'm—" She stopped. "I'm not leaving in anger. I'm not making any decisions tonight. But Kabir—" She held his gaze. "Whatever you decide about what you owe her, about what this baby needs from you — you talk to me first. Every step. That's what I need.""Yes," he said. "That's not a question."She nodded.He picked up his phone.