Part 2

An Unexpected Encounter

Chapters 5–7

Chapter 5
Making Room

For several mornings, the closed shop remained his turning point. Vineet was still recovering; even that short walk sometimes left him needing a rest. He followed the advice he had been given, increasing the distance gradually.

One morning, he reached the shop and felt able to continue to the next corner. On other days, he turned back sooner.

Months later, he joined a gentle day hike outside Bengaluru. A woman in her sixties overtook him while discussing pickle recipes. At the rest point, she offered him some with his sandwich.

“Is this your regular walk?” Vineet asked.

“Regular enough to know where to stop,” she replied.

He enjoyed the morning more than his sore legs suggested he should. Exercise was becoming preparation for somewhere he wanted to go.

His enthusiasm soon occupied the space his stamina had not yet reached. He bought walking poles and a headlamp. Shreya found him arranging the equipment beside a schedule for a longer outing.

“Are you going somewhere or opening a shop?” his wife asked.

He showed her the plan. She noticed the date.

“That’s my presentation weekend.”

“I thought you said the following week,” Vineet replied.

“I said the fifteenth. My presentation is on Sunday morning. You said you’d take Ananya to her audition. My parents are coming to stay with Aarav.”

He explained how difficult it had been to secure a place on the trip.

Shreya grew still.

“You’ve found time for yourself,” she said. “But you’ve booked it out of everybody else’s time.”

He cancelled that evening. For a day, he was resentful enough to recognise something unpleasant in himself.

On Sunday, he drove their daughter, Ananya, to the audition and waited without opening his laptop. She emerged declaring it a disaster. By the time they reached home, it had improved to possibly all right. He was glad he had heard the whole account.

At the company, Sid, his co-founder, had managed the company with the senior team through his illness. Vineet began considering which decisions still needed him and which he had merely grown used to reviewing.

Suzan, his executive assistant, helped him examine his calendar. He asked for agendas, shortened recurring meetings, and returned decisions to the people appointed to make them.

“Have you lost confidence in me?” Sid asked after one unusually brief discussion.

“Apparently I’ve acquired some,” Vineet replied.

It did not work every week. But he slept more regularly, kept appointments, and began arranging things instead of leaving the arrangements to Shreya.

When she mentioned three weeks on a conservation project near Bhuj, he started listing difficulties. Then he stopped and asked her for the dates.

They opened their calendars together. He moved a trip. They discussed responsibilities with the children. Her parents could visit for part of the time.

“You don’t have to solve it alone,” he said.

“Neither do you,” Shreya replied.

---

An astronomy outing with their son, Aarav, produced nothing but cloud.

“Excellent cloud,” the boy said. “Worth the drive.”

They stopped for dosas on the way home. Aarav spoke about a disagreement with a friend. Vineet’s phone vibrated, and his hand moved towards it. He caught the boy’s expression and left it in his pocket.

Three days later, he asked what had happened with the friend. Aarav looked surprised before answering.

More than two years had passed since Vineet returned from hospital. By then, restrictions had eased, and the family had grown comfortable travelling again.

For an October holiday, their friends Rohan and Leena suggested the Kumaon hills. Shreya found a small lodge near Binsar with forest walks and a building she wanted to see for herself.

Ananya would be away on a school programme. Aarav chose a holiday with his grandparents, where nobody objected to a second breakfast.

Vineet left his laptop at home. At the airport, he checked his bag twice.

“It’ll be there when we return,” Shreya said.

“I know.”

“Try not to sound disappointed.”

Chapter 6
A Familiar Face

The last stretch to the lodge followed a narrow road through trees. When the car stopped, Vineet could hear birds before anyone opened a door.

The woman who owned the lodge met them on a stone path edged with ferns. Beyond the veranda, the hills lost their colour in successive layers. There were comfortable rooms, deep windows, and one dining room that smelled faintly of wood polish and fresh bread.

“No breakfast buffet?” Rohan asked.

“You’ll survive,” his wife, Leena, said.

The owner smiled. “Breakfast is cooked to order. You won’t go hungry.”

As she poured the tea, she asked whether they would be staying for dinner. “We serve it at a fixed time, so just let us know.”

The forest walks had persuaded Vineet. Shreya had been examining the windows since they arrived.

On their second morning, they joined a guided walk through the nearby forest. Rohan began talking to a man beside him after discovering that both had packed raincoats and left them in their rooms.

The man’s name was Sameer. He ran his own business, and Rohan asked who was looking after it while he was away.

“People who keep telling me they can manage without me,” Sameer replied.

“And do you believe them?” Rohan asked.

“I’m trying.”

He and his wife had added a few days in the hills after visiting relatives in the plains. She had chosen the lodge; he had agreed when she promised there would be no shopping for their house.

His wife walked ahead. When they stepped aside for a porter with a heavy basket, she waited until the others had moved too before continuing.

At a rest stop, Rohan asked where they had been visiting relatives.

Sameer named a town in the plains. “Mahira grew up there. We thought we’d come this far and keep going into the hills.”

Vineet glanced towards her. He had heard the name during the introductions without making the connection.

“Vineet’s from the same town,” Shreya said.

“Which school?” the woman asked, turning.

“Navchetan Vidyalaya,” Vineet replied.

“The old building, with the classrooms around the courtyard?”

“Yes.”

She turned fully towards him. Her dark hair was loosely tied back, her posture upright and assured. She looked younger than he had expected anyone from those school days to look. Then her eyes narrowed slightly as she studied him, and he recognised the expression.

“Mahira?”

Her smile faltered, then returned. “Vineet?”

Rohan glanced between them.

“Good. Now we might hear something about him that isn’t on his company website.”

Introductions followed. Vineet supplied everyone’s name except his own.

“We’ve established yours,” Shreya said.

On the walk back, they moved uncertainly across the years: teachers, classmates, the old school gate.

“Do you remember the school election?” Mahira asked.

Vineet smiled. “You campaigned harder than I did.”

“Someone had to. You kept explaining your plans to people who’d already promised to vote for you.”

She turned slightly towards Shreya.

“He believed in freebies even then.”

“What freebies?” Vineet asked.

“The hundred rupees you spent on pens for our classmates. Two days before voting.”

“They needed pens.”

“Every one of them?”

Shreya looked at her husband. “How considerate.”

“She stopped me,” he admitted.

“I said I’d campaign for him,” Mahira told Shreya. “Not distribute his pens.”

They laughed. Vineet found himself remembering things he had not thought about in years.

---

Before lunch, Rohan asked the lodge owner about eating out that evening. She suggested a restaurant farther down the hill and offered to arrange a car. Sameer and Mahira were considering joining them.

Back in their room, Shreya stood at the mirror, easing an earring free from a strand of hair. Vineet sat on the edge of the bed.

“She was my school crush.”

His wife looked up. “Just a crush?”

He hesitated.

“The one I told you about. That evening at the beach.”

Recognition came slowly. Shreya put down the earring she was holding.

“Mahira?”

He nodded.

She remembered the conversation, nearly three years into their marriage. He had never known what the girl felt. She had never expected to meet her.

“Did you recognise her straight away?” Shreya asked.

“Only when she mentioned the school.”

“And are you all right?”

“Yes. Surprised.”

“So am I.”

Shreya turned back to the mirror. She had more questions, but did not yet know which one to ask.

---

By late afternoon, rain had drawn a grey curtain across the view. Water spilled from the gutters. Vineet’s phone rang.

“I’ve been looking at that road,” Rohan said. “How attached are you to dinner outside?”

“Not very.”

“Good. Leena has already cancelled us.”

Chapter 7
One Table

The lodge owner found them in the lounge.

“Dinner here, then? I’ll need to tell the kitchen.”

Rohan looked towards Sameer and Mahira, who had also decided against the drive.

“Shall we take one table?”

“As long as we don’t have to drive to it,” Sameer said.

By dinner, rain was running down the windows. The owner brought another dish to the table and warned them that there would be more food than they needed.

Mahira wore a blue shawl. Shreya noticed her striking face, her easy posture, and how readily she joined the conversation. She became conscious of her own damp hair and disliked the comparison she had begun making.

Sameer told them about a customer who had requested six revisions to a proposal before approving the first version.

“So nothing changed?” Rohan asked.

“The deadline. Apparently we were running late.”

Mahira smiled. “He complained about it for a week.”

“Only at home,” Sameer replied. “The customer said we were very patient.”

Leena shifted in her chair. A waiter noticed and brought her a cushion.

“Better?” Mahira asked.

“Much. It looked comfortable when I sat down.”

“That’s why I keep telling my clients to try furniture before ordering it,” Mahira said.

Shreya turned towards her. “You’re an interior designer?”

“Mostly homes. And you?”

“An architect.”

Mahira smiled. “That explains the windows.”

“What about them?”

“You were examining the frames while the rest of us were looking at the view.”

“They’re rather good frames,” Shreya said.

“I thought so too.”

Mahira glanced towards a chair beside the wall. “I’d put that nearer the window. A good place to read.”

“Something lower,” Shreya said. “That back would hide half the view.”

“Agreed.”

“Should we tell the owner?” Sameer asked.

“Let her finish feeding us first,” Vineet said.

Shreya laughed. When Mahira asked about her work, she answered more readily.

---

They carried their coffee to the covered veranda. Rain ticked against the roof; beyond the lamps, the garden had disappeared into darkness.

Rohan lowered himself into a chair and shifted experimentally.

“This one passes,” he announced.

“Give it five minutes,” Shreya said.

Mahira laughed. Shreya smiled into her cup, surprised by how readily she had enjoyed making her laugh.

The lodge owner appeared with their walking guide. He unfolded a map on the table inside the lounge.

“After this rain, I’d avoid the steeper section tomorrow,” he said. “Shall I show you the other route?”

Leena got up. Rohan followed her into the adjoining lounge. Sameer went with them, asking how early they needed to start.

Shreya remained seated a moment. Beside her, Vineet asked Mahira whether she remembered the school library.

“The cupboard they kept locked?” Mahira asked.

“We were encouraged to read. Apparently not those books.”

Mahira laughed. Vineet smiled, his phone untouched beside his cup.

Shreya looked from Vineet to Mahira. There were things she could ask him later. There were things he had apparently waited years to say.

She put down her cup before she could reconsider.

“I’d better hear tomorrow’s plan,” she said. “Otherwise Rohan will call it a gentle stroll.”

Vineet looked up.

“Finish your coffee,” she told him. “We’re only inside.”

She smiled, then picked up her cup again and followed the others into the lounge.

From inside came Rohan’s voice, asking how early they really needed to leave.

Mahira smiled, then turned her chair slightly towards Vineet. He moved his cup closer, then left it untouched.

For a moment, neither spoke. Rain tapped against the roof.

For years, he had imagined what he would say. Now he could think only of asking whether she wanted more coffee.

---

The next part is coming soon.