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May 15, 2016

The one with the Tea Stain

Read the first part here

Moving houses was a pain. Packing was a pain. And doing it all on her own was an even larger pain. But she was grateful that at least it was happening during the break so the home was relatively calm.

Source: https://www.quora.com/What-is-a-cutting-chai

She was perched in her perfect little sitting position surrounded by dozens of half packed boxes, the contents of which were meticulously decided after running through its need, its history and if it deserved a place in her new home. There were photo frames, all sorts of books and handicrafts, some smaller knick knacks and all those wedding gifts, half of which she had never seen after having opened them years ago.

The doorbell rang, rudely disturbing her reverie, resulting in a muted curse. That was her thing - muted curses which even in their worst would probably make a 8 year old laugh. She opened the door to find her husband grinning broadly at her.

"Didn't think I'd let you have all the bubble wrapping fun by yourself, did you?"

"Well ain't you a bundle of surprises" she said as she hugged him.

They'd been married for long enough for her to know that if he had not carried his "official laptop case" on a weekday then he was planning on coming home early. And it takes only so much to connect the dots, especially after the house looked like a war zone, only strewn with boxes instead of buildings and targets.

"I'll finish off the stuff from the study?" he enquired.

"Uh huh" she confirmed as she walked back to her half done boxes.

She took a minute to wiggle back into her spot on the floor, and tried to recall what she was examining before husband dearest had decided to announce his arrival.

A wrapped set of books. But not just any books, there were her precious diaries. The one's she wrote a long long time ago, a detailed, neatly written memoir of days of happiness & sadness. And the latter being the reason she stopped writing, after she abruptly adjudged the memories too painful to be recorded.

She paused a second and against her better judgement decided to take a look. She opened the second book, a blue one with a white border. A beautiful paper smell hit her as she she turned the pages that were locked up for more than a decade. She let her glasses slide down to her nose as she began reading out some of her pages.

"I don't understand why the hurry to get me married off. It's almost like Pa wants to throw me out and get done with it. It's just bloody irritating. If I had known this was their sinister plan then I would have not even bothered with this stupid place and stupid college and would have been happy in Bangalore. And to think I actually wanted to spend time with them and this is what I get. Anyways, its been ages since I spoke to Dippy, so I called her today. She seems to be happy and so far not a word from her parents about marriage, but her brother is very suspicious that she has a boyfriend. I shudder to think if only he knew who her boyfriend was! ha ha ha!..."

"Hey! Do you need this stuff?"

She looked up at her husband quizzically, her spectacles perched precariously on the edge of her nose.

"This notebook of yours, an antique piece from college! Fancy how it landed up here", he said, tossing it on to the bed within her arms reach.

"Hmm, interesting. Let me see." she replied, as her husband went back.

She looked at the hard bound notebook. As if by habit, her fingers reached out and turned open a page from the middle of the book. An inconspicuous looking page undistinguished from the rest of the pages, with lines full of identical looking sentences in Parker blue ink. But as yellow as it had been with age, the pages could not hide the dark brown stain at the center of the book, that had by now turned her sharp eyes a bit blurry with emotion.

She stood up and made her way to the kitchen, determined to cheer herself up with a Cup of tea. Ironically the very same drink that had left the stain not only on her notebook, but also on the pages of her heart that were long buried in a dark corner, till a few minutes ago.

(to be cont'd)

...

Read the first part here

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