# Taken For Granted The kitchen smelled of yesterday's lentils. Mita stood at the sink, her hands submerged in water that had long gone cold, staring at nothing in particular. Outside, the monsoon had turned the street into a river of clay and refuse. A cycle-rickshaw splashed past, its passenger hunched under a tattered umbrella. She had been standing there for how long? Ten minutes? An hour? Time moved differently now—in the mornings when she waited for her son to call, in the afternoons when she didn't, in the evenings when she pretended not to listen for the telephone. "Are you making tea?" Her husband's voice drifted from the other room, irritable with the edge of hunger. Mita pulled her hands from the water. They had become like her mother's hands—wrinkled, spotted, unfamiliar. When had that happened? She dried them on her sari, the same faded cotton she'd worn for fifteen years, and moved to the stove. The tea leaves were measured out by habit: three pinches into the pot. Milk added before the water had finished boiling—he preferred it that way, though he'd never actually told her so. She had simply learned it. The way a stone learns the shape of the river that flows past it. "Your tea," she called out, setting the cup on the small table where he sat reading yesterday's newspaper. He didn't look up. Not because he was rude—he wasn't, not really—but because looking up would require acknowledgment. And acknowledgment, after thirty-two years, felt somehow too intimate. Mita returned to the kitchen. There were vegetables to cut for dinner. Potatoes, onions, tomatoes. The same vegetables, the same cuts, the same order she had followed for decades. Her hands moved with the certainty of ceremony. The knife rose and fell. Rose and fell. Outside, the rain continued its patient work of washing away the city. She thought of her daughter-in-law, whom she had taught to make these same curries. The girl had laughed—actually laughed—when Mita corrected her chopping technique. "Aunty," she'd said, "it's just going to be in curry anyway. Does it matter if it's cut this way or that way?" Does it matter. Mita had not answered. But she had continued to show her, anyway. The proper way. The way things were done. The way they would continue to be done after Mita herself had become a photograph on a shelf, her hands finally still. When her son called—and he would call, eventually, because his wife would remind him it was his mother's birthday—he would say, "Maa, are you eating properly? Are you taking care of yourself?" And she would say, "Yes, beta. Everything is fine." This too was habit. This too was love, though neither of them seemed to know it anymore. The potatoes steamed in the pot. The onions hissed in the oil. The kitchen filled with the smell of what had always been, what would always be. Necessary. Invisible. Taken for granted. Mita stirred the curry with a wooden spoon worn smooth by years of use, and she did not think of anything at all.

Hello, my little one.
Hello, my pain.
Hello, my sin.
Hello ...
How are you? Are you happy?

I heard you were married. I hope you're well. I hope you're happy. I hope he gives you everything you deserve. Everything I failed to give you. Everything I didn't want to give you ...

Yes, it stings to admit, but I didn't want to. I didn't want to give it to you. Because giving you the love you wanted—the love you gave me so freely—terrified me. More than that. It's terrifying to let someone penetrate so far inside. Terrifying because they'll dismantle your defenses. They'll tear down the walls that surround and shield your heart. Walls that protect it from yourself. Walls that keep you from feeling exposed, defenseless, unguarded ...

"We hurt ... you who never minded the pain you were inflicting on me ..." --- you'd say it with a sneer, one eyebrow arched. Yes, in the end you mocked my excuses. And my promises too. I told myself I wasn't what you needed. And I swore I would be. But you stopped trusting me. And you were right. Because I didn't trust myself ...

I lost faith in myself long ago. In my capacity to live truthfully. The way you taught me to live. And to love. I lost myself somewhere in the drift. Lost myself among hollow flirtations and aimless wandering. Lost myself among women's mouths, whose taste has faded from memory ...

But yours. I remember yours. I always will. I'm still burning from it. I always will be.

Because your kisses were real. Like your love. Like you.

But I wasn't ready for true love. Wasn't ready for real commitment. Wasn't ready to be truly myself. And now I'm not. And I don't think I ever will be. Because I had one chance to return to the truth in my heart. And that chance was you. A chance I missed. A chance I squandered. A chance I didn't deserve ...

No, I didn't deserve you from the start. Didn't deserve you because I was always postponing. Postponing our meetings, postponing our kisses, postponing the weight of my arms around you. Postponing because I knew you'd wait for me. And you did wait ... But why? Why did you wait for me? ... I wouldn't have waited. I wouldn't have forgiven myself the way you forgave me. Wouldn't have loved myself as you loved me ... Wouldn't have shown myself the same grace you showed me ...

You were always by my side. Behind me to keep me safe. At my shoulder to hold me steady. Upon my chest to warm me. And I grew accustomed to you. So accustomed that you became an eternal promise—a given, a certainty. And we never treasure what we’ve come to expect. That’s how we lose things. How we let them slip away. How we allow them to leave our lives without grasping how desolate we’ll become in their absence.

I felt you drifting from me. Yet I did nothing to hold you back. Not because I couldn’t. I didn’t want to. I was weary of meeting your eyes—full of love, full of hope. Weary of sketching a future I didn’t truly wish to inhabit. Weary of pretending to be the man you needed instead of the man I was. The man I am. So I released you. I was certain I would find another like you. Others like you. And I’ve known many others since. But none has been like you. None is like you. None ever could be.

Now you’re somewhere else, with someone else. Building your life anew. And I know you’re happy. Without me. Chiefly because you’re without me.

I wish you fair winds, my dear. Thank you for all you gave me. Forgive me for all I took from you.

And if you think of me now and then, don’t let it fill you with anger and pain. Because I loved you. I love you still. It’s only that… I’ve grown more accustomed to loving my solitude.

From a man who feared love.

From a man who feared the risk.

From a man who feared being real.

From me to you.