Chapter 3: Restless Nights
I shook my sleeping wife awake and asked her,
"Look at this photo. What does the outline on the wall look like to you?"
She answered sleepily, her hair mussed, eyes still half-closed,
"It doesn’t look like anything... just some wall stains..."
I hesitated, but still said my daughter’s name:
"Doesn’t it look a bit like Ananya?"
Her eyes cleared instantly, but after a second, she snapped at me,
"It’s just wall stains! Are you mad or what? In the middle of the night... Go back to sleep, please."
I was stunned. I hadn’t expected her to react like that. Her voice, usually gentle, was sharp as a knife now.
"Stop creating a scene... It’s been so many years... If you have energy, think about our son instead..."
With that, she turned her back to me, adjusting her saree pallu over her shoulder and letting out a soft, tired sigh as she pulled the sheet over herself.
I sighed.
Our son, Kabir, is undergoing treatment. It’s not going well, and the costs are draining our savings. The medicine bills pile up in the corner of our kitchen shelf, and every evening my wife counts the remaining tablets, her brows furrowed.
But I also remembered—
The reason I was waiting for Ananya downstairs that day was because of my wife. She had called down from upstairs, saying Ananya should get some exercise and come down by herself. Her voice, echoing from the open window, had sounded so casual, so ordinary.
So I just waited foolishly downstairs, pacing near the shoe rack, tapping my foot, thinking she’d skip down any second.
Thinking of this, my mind was in turmoil. I kept hearing echoes of that day—the shouts of children playing cricket in the courtyard, the clang of utensils from the kitchen above.
I decided I had to uncover the truth.
I want to find my daughter.