AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Um, thanks,” said Reeva, unable to bring herself to pay Jaya a compliment in return. Why was her sister acting like everything was fine? They hadn’t seen each other since the biggest betrayal imaginable, and now Jaya was exchanging pleasantries? But she felt satisfied that Jaya had noticed her outfit, especially after she’d spent an embarrassingly long time choosing it for this very moment.
“God, this is, like, completely crazy,” said Jaya. “I don’t even know what to say.” Reeva nodded slowly, glad that Jaya was finally acknowledging the enormous elephant in the room. “I mean, as if Dad was alive all this time!”
Reeva blinked in surprise. Was Jaya really going to skip straight to the Dad stuff and ignore her treachery? She should be groveling for forgiveness!
“It’s just so sad,” continued Jaya. “How could Mum deny us a lifetime of having a father? Especially when he seems so normal and sweet. Look at his little house. Isn’t it cute?”
Reeva felt her head spinning. None of this was panning out the way she’d thought. She should be the one in control of thisconversation, making Jaya feel small and stupid. But instead, it was happening in reverse. Why was Jaya acting like she hadn’t stolen Reeva’s boyfriend and ruined her life? And why wasn’t she doing anything about it?!
“Typical Mum.” Reeva swung around to see Sita standing behind her in the doorway, arms crossed. “Dropping this on us the day he dies. Because it never occurred to her that we might like to visit him while he was still alive.”
“I know, right,” agreed Jaya. “She’s the worst.”
Reeva cleared her throat and forced herself to speak. She needed to get out of her head and act normal. “Yeah. It was not what I expected when I took a call from her at work.”
Sita’s eyes narrowed. “You still speak to her?”
“Wow,” gasped Jaya. “What did she say? I didn’t know you guys spoke. I haven’t spoken to her in years!”
“Uh, well, we don’t exactly speak every night. We just FaceTime sometimes.”
Sita shook her head. “Obviously you still speak to her. You always were her favorite.”
“That’s not true,” protested Reeva. “She barely even remembers what my job is.”
“At least she recognizes you have one,” pointed out Jaya. “She thinks being an influencer is a hobby.”
“You think that’s bad; she doesn’t even know the names of her only grandkids,” added Sita. “She texted me asking how Alisha and Anisha are! Is it really that hard to remember Alisha andAmisha?”
Reeva was impressed her mum had got only one letter wrong, but now didn’t feel like the time to voice that thought.
“She’s never been a real mum to us,” continued Sita. “I’m twice the mum she’ll ever be, and I spend most of the time sleep-deprived, wishing I’d waited another decade before I had kids.”
“Well, I’ve long given up any expectation of her being any different,” said Reeva lightly. “So speaking to her doesn’t really bother me. She is what she is.”
“Yeah, a full-blown narcissist,” declared Sita. “It took hersix monthsto come and visit the twins after I gave birth. And when she deigned to grace us with her presence, do you know what she gifted us? Therapy.”
“Amazing!” cried Jaya. “I’m totally going to get therapy when I have kids. I mean, if. It’s really important to heal your blockages before you raise children.”
Reeva closed her eyes and tried not to imagine a day when Jaya and Rakesh had a child together.
“It is an insulting and inappropriate gift,” said Sita. “And she didn’t hold the twinsonce.But I still made the effort to go to her wedding. And then you know what happened...”
Reeva frowned; how was Rakesh cheating on her linked to Sita cutting out their mum?
“She spent the entire speech going on about MJ’s grandkids—some average toddlers who spent the whole time crying—without evenmentioningthe twins,” continued Sita indignantly. “That was when I vowed to never speak to her again.”
“My moment was when I posted a photo of me and her on Mother’s Day,” said Jaya. “I wrote the nicest caption, and it got loads of engagement. But then Mum calls me screaming, asking why I posted it without asking her! As if you need your mum’s approval to share a picture of her holding you minutes after giving birth! Honestly, I can’t deal with someone as vain as that.”
Reeva raised an eyebrow but decided not to say anything.
“Well, seeing as you’re the only one of us who hasn’t been forced to cut off ties with her, what did she say?” asked Sita. “When you spoke to her about Dad.”
Reeva smiled tightly. “You know what she’s like. It’s impossible to get anything out of her that she doesn’t want to share. I just got the basic facts—that she’s in Mumbai on a film set for the next few weeks. Minimal signal, naturally. And that Dad died suddenly and his last wishes were for us to come here. Oh, and he’s an optometrist.”
“We already know all that,” said Sita. “Did you not ask herwhyshe hid all this from us?”
“Of course I did! She was her typical self about it. Avoided it all. Said it wasn’t easy for her, and it wasn’t something she wanted to discuss on the phone.”
