In honor of Valentine’s week, all week long, FemmeFuel is proud to post excerpts from A Nice, Doctor Son, written by our very own FemmeFuel writer, Bindu Adai-Mathew.

Loosely based on Bindu’s own personal experiences, A Nice, Doctor Son is about the heartbreak of losing your first love, the importance of giving love a second chance, and the hope that maybe, just maybe, the 3rd time will be the charm.

Click here if you missed Excerpt One…

Click here if you missed Excerpt Two…

Click here if you missed Excerpt Three…

Click here if you missed Excerpt Four…

A Nice, Doctor Son (Excerpt Five)

By Bindu Adai-Mathew

The sky is pallid and grey, a befitting backdrop to an otherwise barren, dead landscape. The cold, dreary weather permeates the atmosphere, sending a deep chill through me despite the layers of clothing. When I arrive at Central, I see that it is completely empty. Dry, brittle twigs and branches snap beneath my feet as I walk the well worn path, past the swings and slides of my childhood, refusing to veer of to the left or to the right, past the bridge of my youth.

With eyes focused, I march on, refusing to be pulled back into the web of self-pity that had entangled me for so long. I march on forward, eager to see something new. The landscape, once thriving and full of life, now looks naked, stripped of its golden, autumn beauty, which now lays crumbled and gray like ashes beneath thin spiny limbs. But even in the desolate bareness of the trees, there is an arresting beauty. A beauty in its nakedness. A sereneness in its very stillness.

For a moment, it feels as if time has stopped. There is no wind, not even the slightest breeze. I have been here hundreds of times since childhood, and yet here I am, now a thirty-year old adult, feeling like I am seeing it all for the very first time. It was almost as if my vision had blurred through the years, dulling my perception, and slowly without realizing it, I had been looking at everything askew. Now everything seems so crisp, clear, and bright again, and I could finally see what I had once been blind to.  During the winter, everything had always seemed so dead, but now I finally understood that to make room for the new, the old had to be shed. This time, amongst all the barren, bare branches, I saw beauty. The beauty of what once was…and what would be once again.

I breathe in the chilly air, the acrid coldness pinching my nostrils like a sneeze. As I survey my surroundings, I look around the familiar terrain. Was it over a year ago and a half ago that I had come back from India and walked here with Reena as she told me about her engagement? And was it only the year before that when Armaan broke the news of his own engagement? Like the rings of a tree, each of these events mark a significant year in my life, scars reminding me of time passing, serving as a reminder of both pain, joy, and inevitable growth. And now another year has come and gone. And soon enough, this moment, too, would be a distant memory.

I could suddenly feel time ticking again. It is as palpable as my heartbeat. I could feel the grainy sands of time slipping through my fingers. As much as I want to curl my palm into a fist and cling on, it is inevitably slipping through my fingers. I have only one choice, I realize. To embrace it. To embrace this life—my life. Because Life was happening—with or without me. There was already so much wasted time spent on wishing, wanting, waiting…when life was all around me, ready to be experienced and enjoyed.

Our lives are like this forest. Seasons of beginnings and endings, marking both life and beauty as well as desolation and emptiness…all leading us to where we are, where we are meant to be.

I dig my hands deeper into my jean pockets in a futile attempt for warmth and march on, eager to explore parts of the forest that I had never seen. It seems to go on for miles, but how far had I ever gotten? Something had always stopped me from exploring—contentment…laziness…fear. Always saying I wanted to explore, but somehow I never had the time. I was always rushing off to somewhere, and somehow it never seemed to be the right time. But now the trail lies before me, a seemingly never-ending road of possibility stretches before me, winding and twisting, leading me…and now Life has simultaneously presented me all the time, the interest, and opportunity.

As I walk, while some markers are initially familiar, soon enough, I am on unfamiliar ground. I haven’t even gotten farther than a mile when I come upon it—there amongst the brittle, dead, seemingly barren branches—one little leafling, pushing through the lifeless tree bark. The beginning of the budding. Alone in its dark green, fragile glory, it dares to breach its tiny, blade through. It is a reminder that yes, change is on its way and what was once barren would bear life once again. One small bud. Of Hope. Of Life. I smile at the reminder. Lifting my head to the waning sun and with outstretched arms, I twirl around slowly and then faster, faster—for after the winter, the spring surely comes, and with it, I, too, am reborn.

A Little Bit About Bindu Adai-Mathew:

For most of my life, I have been a writer in one form or another. Through high school and college, I worked on and contributed to the school literary magazines as well as the school newspaper. After graduating with a Bachelor of Science in English and Mass Media and a Master of Arts in English Literature with a specialization in technical writing, I have been working for the past 15 years as a business analyst/technical writer in various fields, from IT to healthcare. While I have written a few short stories, A Nice, Doctor Son is my first novel.

In honor of Valentine’s week, all week long, FemmeFuel is proud to post excerpts from A Nice, Doctor Son, written by our very own FemmeFuel writer, Bindu Adai-Mathew.

Loosely based on Bindu’s own personal experiences, A Nice, Doctor Son is about the heartbreak of losing your first love, the importance of giving love a second chance, and the hope that maybe, just maybe, the 3rd time will be the charm.

Click here if you missed Excerpt One…

Click here if you missed Excerpt Two…

A Nice, Doctor Son (Excerpt Three)

By Bindu Adai-Mathew

He was engaged.

For a moment, my mind reeled. Had he misspoken? Surely, he meant to say, I want to be engaged to you. I waited for him to correct what he said. But he didn’t. He looked at me, waiting for the words to sink in. But I just stared at him and repeated his words, “You’re engaged?”

“Sarai…I’m engaged…to Sandiya.”

Just like that. It was that simple. No, Sarai, I’m engaged and I’m sorry. No, Sarai, I’m engaged, but I still love you. No, nothing…but a simple—I’m engaged. As if he were asking me, “and how was your summer?”

I looked at him incredulously, the words taking only seconds to sink in. Now I may have had my tendencies to live in denial. But when the truth is front of me, staring me straight in the eyes, telling me that he now belongs to another, that tendency to be in denial is no longer an option. 

“Engaged?” I asked, my voice belied of a calm that I did not feel. It was someone else’s voice. For my voice wanted to immediately scream that this was not possible. That we were the ones supposed to get married. That I had known it from the first time we met, I had fallen in love with him, hopelessly…deeply…forever…once upon a time…happily ever after. That was supposed to be our story, too.

“I got engaged in India,” he said.

“Engaged?” I croaked out again. This time my voice was raspy, almost hoarse, as I asked, “How is that possible?” My eyes settled on my hand that still lay rested on his shirt, against his heart. His hand still covered my hand and tightened.

“It wasn’t planned…I swear…it was…well, you know they’ve been pressuring me for a while. And I made them promise to leave me alone about it while we were in India. And then we were there. And my father got sick…very sick. Sarai, we all thought he was going to die. He thought he was going to die. And he even had one dying wish…

“To see you married…” I said as I fought waves of nausea.
“Yes, to see me married…”

Unbelievable. I wondered if his family had even staged it. I had seen that in an Indian movie once. The family was so desperate to force a marriage that the father had faked a heart attack. But wait! They weren’t married. They were engaged. He could break off the engagement. That didn’t sound so bad. It was fixable. A hurried promise made in a time of duress. It was excusable, right?

“Take it back,” I said, simply. The solution was evident. Just say no…like to drugs…don’t fight it…don’t justify it…just say no. They couldn’t make him get married like that.

“Sarai, I can’t take it back. Our whole family was there at the ceremony. I think my getting engaged helped my father to recover.”

“You can take it back. You were basically forced,” I said emphatically. Why wasn’t he cooperating? Why wasn’t he thinking of solutions to get out of this? He couldn’t be with this girl. Whoever she was. That was NOT an option.

“Tell the girl you can’t marry her…tell her about me…she’d understand…she wouldn’t want you if you were in love with someone else.”

“Sandiya…” he supplied.

“Tell the girl…” I repeated. I refused to say her name. I couldn’t say it.

“But they’d understand…you don’t love her…you love me…right? Right?!! You just have to tell them. They can’t force you. This isn’t the Middle Ages. This isn’t India fifty years ago. This is America. You have rights! You have the right to fall in love with whomever you want. The right to chose whomever you want.” I pleaded desperately.

But he just shook his head. “Sarai…I can’t.”

What he did he mean he can’t? Every solution, he was shooting it down. He wasn’t even trying to get out of out it. He didn’t want out of it, I realized. Did he want to be with this girl?

“Do you love her?” I asked, hating myself for even voicing that. I don’t think I could bear it if he said yes.

“No! No—how could I love her…I don’t even know her.” I was relieved to hear that because that meant he would never marry her. But the next words killed that momentary victory. ”But I could grow to love her…”

“I don’t understand,” I said shaking my head, mumbling it over and over. Tears were beginning to stream down my face, and I could feel a raw lump developing in my throat. I sat down on the picnic table and then looked up at this person whom I loved and whom I thought loved me back. “What changed? This was just supposed to be a vacation—you promised me that you had no intention of giving into your parents’ pressures for marriage!”

He said nothing and just looked down at me apologetically again. Was he feeling sorry for me, I wondered? Where were his tears? Why wasn’t he torn up about this? My heart ached….my stomach was nauseous…I was fighting a losing battle with the hysteria that building up within me. I was feeling like my life was over. And there he was, just giving me his sad, apologetic puppy dog eyes. Pitying me. I didn’t want his pity. I wanted his love. How could things have changed so quickly? What happened in India? How had they brainwashed him? Where did the love go? How could 3 months have changed 5 years of what we had built? I shook my head. I just didn’t get it.

“What changed, Armaan….really…I need to know. What changed?”

“I don’t know, Sarai…I don’t know…” He shook his head and then looked at me helplessly. “It just got too hard, Sarai. It just got too hard.”

“That’s it?!” I asked, hysterically, my arms flailing like a madwoman. “I gave you 5 years of my life, and all I get is a ‘it got too hard.’ I’d like to know when it all got too hard…because I thought we were happy, that everything was fine.”

“It was…we were…but, Sarai, when I was in India…I have a huge family. They would never accept you, and your family would never accept me. And you know family is everything to me. What about our kids? How would we raise them? Hindu or Christian?”

“We’d figure it out…because that’s what people do when they love each other. They figure it out. They don’t just find someone else to marry just because it’s easier. They stick it out with the one they love. And they figure– it– out,” I said, almost biting the words out. But inside, I knew the answer. He knew the answer. I would have raised them Christian.

“Sarai, I want to raise my kids as Hindu. I love my religion. It’s a part of who I am. It’s a part of my family. And they are a part of me. You’d never allow it—for you, it would only be them going to your church, believing in only your god.”
I resented him implying that I was close-minded. “You don’t even practice your faith! I truly believe mine. For me, Faith isn’t my preference…it isn’t tradition. It isn’t even culture. It’s what I truly believe to be the truth. I can’t change that as much as I can change the fact that gravity exists or that the sky is blue.”

We had had this argument before. In fact, it was truly the only time we ever did fight about anything. It was the one thing I was unwilling to compromise on, and he always seemed to acquiesce. Apparently, I was wrong. He had never given in. And now he had just given up.

Having him break up with me was devastating, but having him break up with me while also telling me he was engaged to another woman was almost more than I could bear. There would be no chance of reconciliation. No breaking up and then getting back together. It was over. Just like that. That simple. For him. But for me, I would be recovering from him for the rest of my life. I felt betrayed. I felt abandoned. I didn’t trust myself to have loved someone so blindly. And worse, I just felt empty. Empty with the void that he once filled.

“Sarai,” he said, pleading with me to understand. “You don’t know how hard it was for me there…my father was sick. I thought he was on his deathbed. I thought I could do something to save him, and I did. If I told him about you, he would have died right there. I would have killed him. And then I could never forgive myself, and my mother would hate me for life as well.”

“But your father is fine now…just tell him about us, and they’ll understand.”

He shook his head, “It’s not that simple. Promises were made. My family is obligated to keep them. Our family name and reputation is at stake.”

“What are they going to do? Arrest you?” I realized I was fighting a losing battle. God! What was I hearing? I couldn’t believe he was seriously considering this. I wanted to shake the sense back into him. How could he let go of our love like this? I could never, ever consider anyone else. I looked at him, standing there on the bridge and just shook my head.

“God! Things happened so fast…” he said, pacing back and forth again, running his fingers through his hair. He looked at me desperately “Please believe me—I never meant to hurt you.”

I didn’t understand what the confusion was. ”Just get out of it, Armaan.” I looked at him matter-of-factly.

”I can’t Sarai…”

“Just tell them you can’t go through with it!”

He said it again, this time more slowly, “I can’t, Sarai….”

“So you really are going to go through with it?”

“It’s done. I can’t go back on it. My family would be shamed. And I can’t do that to them. Sandiya deserves better.”

Sandiya deserves better? Sandiya deserves better? “Oh, you can’t hurt someone you barely know, but you can do it to me, the very woman you professed to have loved for the last 5 ½ years?” I asked accusingly.

“I know you won’t understand now, but one day you’ll thank me. I’ve thought a lot about it, and I think this is for the best.”

I looked at him like he was crazy. “For the best? How is this for the best? We date for several years, and you break up with me out of nowhere, and somehow that’s for the best? Why didn’t you realize this was the best when you first asked me out? In fact, why the heck did you stay with me for so long anyway?”

His eyes were filled with apology, but I saw nothing that indicated he was in agony like I was over his decision. I continued trying to convince him. “Why should you have to grow to love anyone? Can’t it just be there…from the beginning….like it was for us?”

“It would never work, Sarai. Who are we kidding? You would never go to temple with me. Neither of our parents would ever really accept it. My parents like you, but they’d never accept you as my wife. And your parents would never accept me. Hell, you haven’t even introduced me to them!” he said, looking at me like I was the one who had hurt him.

“How could you say that? I told you I just need the right time to tell them…” I said, my voice no more than a whisper.

“In five years you haven’t found the ‘right’ time!” he said accusingly. He then softened his voice, “Don’t you see, Sarai, if you can’t even tell them about us dating, then maybe this is just wrong.”

I looked at him. His beautiful face. The face I thought I would look at for the rest of my life. The one that made me believe that anything was possible. In our Indian culture, an engagement was almost as official as a wedding. Although it could technically be broken, I knew by looking at him that somehow, between the time he had left me to his return, something had changed. I had lost him. He had made his decision to follow his family’s wishes, and no matter what I said, he would not break it his engagement. He wanted to be with this girl, and he no longer wanted to be with me.

Almost on cue, the sky crackled and rumbled, echoing the discontent, turmoil I felt. Huge droplets of rain started falling at first, and then a deluge of rain followed. My soft, flowing, perfectly blow dried hair was a matted, tangled mess in seconds. I hadn’t expected the slight scent of summer rain to turn into a torrent of lashing wind and pouring rain, but I didn’t care that my hair and my dress were now plastered to me and that I probably looked as attractive as a wet, drowning rat. I stared at him through the rain, endlessly hurt and shocked as I tried my best to digest the moment. I stared at his face, begging with him to change with every fiber of my being, but he just looked at me with apology and pity in his eyes. I shook my head again, feeling utterly defeated. It was over.

It could have such a romantic night…like in the movie Kaho Naa… Pyaar Hai…love birds caught in a beautiful summer storm, something right out of a Bollywood film I had come to love, but our Bollywood story had now reached its abrupt, tragic, and very unfair ending. The playful prancing of innocent lovers in the rain was over. Every true love story had an untimely tragic element, and unfortunately, even though I thought I was the star, I ended up being the casualty. It was like the movie Kuch Kuch Hota Hai where the seemingly main character dies, and by the end of the movie, the “hero” ends up with the secondary character.

“Come on, I’ll take you home,” he said, reaching for my arm.

I shirked away from his touch as if he had just burned me. ”No!” I yelled out, my voice drowning against the loud sound of falling rain. “Just leave me alone. I’ll walk,” I said as I started following the path out of the park towards the main entrance.

”Quit being stubborn, Sarai. I’ll take you home. You’ll get sick out here like this. It’s getting cold and you’re going to end up with bronchitis or pneumonia!” He reached out for my hand but I once again pushed his hands away and stepped out of his reach.

As I walked away, I paused and looked back at him. He was a stranger to me. I didn’t know this person. He couldn’t be the same guy with whom I had just spent the past 5 1/2 years. With my teeth were chattering again the cold rain, I said, “Y-y-y-you have no r-r-r-rights over me! Y-y-y-you gave away that right when you became engaged to another w-w-w-woman-n-n.”
He wanted to argue with me, but he knew I was right….just as I knew it was over between us. Sometimes I would look back at this moment, wondering if there was something I could have said…something I could have done that would have changed his mind. But at that moment, I knew what it took me weeks, months, and years to realize over and over again—that our relationship was truly and irrevocably over.

So he followed me in his car while I walked. A gentleman to the end. No, not a gentleman….because a gentleman would never break the heart of a woman he purported to love. A gentleman would never get engaged to someone while still dating someone else.

But I didn’t go home. In the cold rain, with teeth chattering and in a drenched sundress and cardigan, I walked the half mile back to my subdivision, past my house and two streets down and took another right, a left, and another left— straight to Reena’s home. I walked past her shocked mother who answered the door, right up the stairs to Reena’s bedroom and collapsed on her bed like a rag doll while she tried to comfort me. But how do you comfort someone who’s inconsolable?

A Little Bit About Bindu Adai-Mathew:

For most of my life, I have been a writer in one form or another. Through high school and college, I worked on and contributed to the school literary magazines as well as the school newspaper. After graduating with a Bachelor of Science in English and Mass Media and a Master of Arts in English Literature with a specialization in technical writing, I have been working for the past 15 years as a business analyst/technical writer in various fields, from IT to healthcare. While I have written a few short stories, A Nice, Doctor Son is my first novel.

In honor of Valentine’s week, all week long, FemmeFuel is proud to post excerpts from A Nice, Doctor Son, written by our very own FemmeFuel writer, Bindu Adai-Mathew.

Loosely based on Bindu’s own personal experiences, A Nice, Doctor Son is about the heartbreak of losing your first love, the importance of giving love a second chance, and the hope that maybe, just maybe, the 3rd time will be the charm.

Click here if you missed Excerpt One… 

A Nice, Doctor Son (Excerpt Two)

By Bindu Adai-Mathew

It was a beautiful evening, I thought, as I began the trek to Central, a park located just a half-mile from my house. If ever there was an evening for a proposal, this was it, I thought to myself. It was one of those magical nights where the sun, moon, and stars all seemed to be in alignment. Although it was dusk and the sun had settled, it was still eerily bright outside, reminding me of one of those Winnie the Pooh viewfinder scenes I used to stare at for hours on end when I was a kid. The sting of the summer heat had already subsided and a fresh breeze had further cooled off the evening, giving it a light balmy feel. The grass smelled fresh and crisp, reminding me of summer rain. I glanced quickly at the sky and noticed dark, menacing clouds in the distance. They were headed the other direction, I determined. Nothing was going to ruin tonight…because whether Armaan proposed or not, I knew it was going to be a special evening. Besides, even if it rained, the night might even be more romantic. Many a Bollywood love story had blossomed under the nurture of a summer shower.

As I made my way to the bridge, I could see the faint outline of a full moon. Yes, it was most certainly a perfect night! The humidity was low tonight, thank God! Otherwise, my summer dress and matching cropped cardigan would have been drenched in sweat.

Central wasn’t your regular kids’ playground park. Donated by Rudolph Holbus Wolfgang, it was 20 miles of everything one could ever hope to find in a park—a playground, a jogging path, a bike trail, a hiking trail, and a picnic area. The edge of the park jutted against a forest and Lake Juniper. As a child I had gone to the playground hundreds of times, but I had probably only seen less than one mile of what it had to offer. I vaguely recalled taking a kayaking ride with my Girl Scout’s troupe when I was in 5^th grade. It wasn’t until my senior year in college that I even knew that there were miles and miles of unexplored wilderness just waiting to be hiked.

In high school, I had ventured beyond the playground and discovered that if you followed the hiking trail for a quarter of a mile and then veered off to the right, you’d find yourself in an empty meadow that in the summertime would bloom beautiful wildflowers. To the right of that was our signature spot—an abandoned wooden bridge that overlooked the most picturesque little creek. It was a place I had only shown to Reena and Armaan. It was one of my favorite spots at the park, and it reminded me of a scene right out of one of those nature calendars that we got from my parents’ car insurance agent, Jerry Knowles, every year. My family rarely traveled anywhere, and I often thought being here was like what I imagined being in upstate New York would be like.

The entrance of the park was the play area, complete with a swing set, jungle gym, monkey bars, slides, and a merry-go-round. The rest of the park was modeled after Central Park in New York City, and the outer back edge of the park was more of a forest. The park wasn’t your typical park. It was 20 miles of undisturbed nature.

All my most significant moments with Armaan took place in this park, right here at the bridge. It’s where we had our first date…and then shared our first kiss. And if Reena’s hunch was right, it might also be where he was going to propose.

By the time I arrived, dusk had settled in. Tall black cast-iron lampposts were already lit throughout the park, making the evening even more magical. I glanced at the sky again and saw that the clouds seemed to be ever so shifting towards us, rather than away from us as I had initially thought. The sky had darkened a bit more, making me wonder if it weren’t going to rain after all. But I wasn’t made of sugar, and I certainly wouldn’t melt. I buttoned the last 3 buttons on my cardigan and straightened the skirt of the dress, wondering again if the outfit wasn’t overkill. Reena was still convinced Armaan was going to propose, but to avoid being too disappointed if he didn’t, I was being cynical and trying to have low expectations. I was trying my best to look casual but still dressed up, just in case our reunion date was more than just that. I pulled out my compact mirror to do a final check. Eyeliner, lipstick, base and mascara were all still in place. I had even spent some extra time to emphasize my best assets—shaping my eye lashes with an eye lash curler I bought a few weeks ago. My eyes, he had always told me were always his undoing. Bedroom eyes, he would always say.

I arrived at the park, quickly walking towards our favorite spot, just in front of the bridge, and to my surprise, Armaan was already there. He was leaning against the railing of the bridge, with his hands clasped behind him, deep in thought. He was wearing his Stanford polo shirt and jeans and his hair was cut very short but his bangs had grown and he wore them neatly combed to the side rather than his signature Caesar haircut. It was a simple haircut, making him appear more traditional than I knew he was.

I tried to sneak up on him and catch him off guard, but he heard my footsteps in the grass and immediately turned around, looking slightly startled. When he saw that it was me, he broke into one of his signature heart-melting smiles. I lunged into his arms, and his arms pulled me tight as my feet dangled just inches off the floor.

“Hello, stranger!” I said, squeezing him and breathing in his deep musky scent that mingled with his after-shave.

“Hello yourself!” he said. He then loosened his own tight embrace and once he placed me firmly back on my feet, he leaned back to look me over. He had a way of looking at me that made me feel as if I were the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. “You look cute. You cut your hair,” he said smoothing an unruly curl. “I like it. It suits you,” he said.

“Thank you!” I said, as I lightly touched his hair and affectionately squeezed his cheek. “You look cute, too…just like a good Indian boy who listens to his mommy and daddy.” I said the latter part of that in a thick Indian accent. He laughed.

“So how are you?” I asked, looking up at him, the adoration evident in my eyes.

“Good…I’m good.” he said, smiling into my eyes. He was still holding me loosely in his embrace as his eyes then dropped to my lips. Armaan was a good looking man, but even I forgot what a strong effect he had on me. I closed my eyes and leaned in for the kiss that I was sure that would follow. But he abruptly pulled away from our embrace and held my hands loosely for a few seconds and then dropped them altogether. He then shoved his hands into his pockets and began pacing up and down in front of me, occasionally raking his hands through his hair.

I had expected him to ravish me in an unforgettable kiss, so I was a little thrown-off when he pulled away. I sensed his slight restlessness, almost like a nervousness. I smiled as I guess the underlying reason for it. Plus, we hadn’t seen each other in 3 months, so even I was a little nervous to be around him.

“So how was your trip? Tell me everything!” I begged, eager to ward off the awkwardness.

He smiled boyishly at me, “Everything, huh? Well, there’s a lot to tell.” He walked over to the bridge, staring at the water, and then looked back at me with a wistful look in his eyes. I waited for him to say something, but he just stood there, staring at me oddly and then turned back to stare quietly into the waters of the lake. I joined him, standing close to him, expecting him to put his arms around me, but he didn’t.

Even a small brook could be so magical at night. The moonlight shimmered on the still water, and I could see hear the sound of the brook as it trickled down the rocks before it eventually joined the seemingly bottomless waters of the lake. The smell of fresh cut grass was now getting stronger, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before the rain started. He was once again looking at me, and my heart quickened in nervousness, but luckily the night shadows hid my blushing. Not wanting to break the magic moment, I remained silent even though every part of me wanted to know why he was being so aloof. He could be so enigmatic at times, but I was sure it was the jet-lag that made him seem even more so…or maybe it was being in India for three months. Our motherland had a way of changing you, of seeping in your bones in the slightest way and making you for a brief time into the person you would have become had you never left her shores.

The moon was full and round tonight. A true Harvest Moon tonight and for a few moments we just continued to stand on the bridge watching the moonlight play against the soft current of the creek. Finally he spoke.

“Sarai, there is something I have to tell you,” he said. My eyes widened and my throat constricted as I nodded in reply. I inhaled deeply as I tried to steady my nerves. This was it.

He cleared his throat and then rephrased his statement. “Actually, there is something I have to ask you.”

I know, you do, I thought silently to myself. Reena had been right. He was going to propose.

He reached for my hands and held them. “You know how much I care for you, right? And you know I want you to be happy, right?”

My heart thudded louder against my chest, almost drowning out his words, which were undoubtedly a preamble to his proposal. Did he realize I knew what he was going to do? I still couldn’t believe he was going to propose. Maybe it was being away from me for 3 months that made him realize that he wanted to be with me forever and that we did belong together.

“Yes…” I whispered. I was partially expecting him to get on one knee, but the poor boy was probably so nervous that he had forgotten about that one tradition.

“Okay, what is it?” I asked, smiling, suddenly feeling giddy. I reached out to smooth a non-existent wrinkle in his shirt. I just wanted to touch him. He had gotten a little leaner, I realized. He glanced down at my fingers, and then with his left hand, he clasped it over my hand. “Sarai…”

“Yes?” I asked gently, my voice tender, almost like a whisper. His face was so beautifully lit up in the moonlight. It was so good to see him. I thought of him every day, every hour, and at times, every minute when he was gone. Knowing he would be coming back to me is what kept me from missing him too much. But being around him again made me realize how much he had become a part of my life and a part of me.

He was quiet again, and said nothing for a few seconds. I could hear the hesitation in his voice. “Sarai,” he began again. But then he paused and looked away. I noticed the reluctance to speak. I looked at him questioningly, wondering why he was struggling so much with the words. Was he that nervous? Although I had expected him to be nervous, I hadn’t expected him to be so hesitant and unsure of himself. He had to know how crazy I was about him! He cleared his throat a couple of more times, and I held my breath, waiting in anticipation for him to say the words.

The night sky stood in the backdrop, providing the most unbelievable ambiance. It was now dusk, and between the smell of rain and the light fog that seemed to cover the ground like a sheer blanket, there was an undoubtedly a dream-like quality to the evening.

“Sarai…when I was in India, something happened…”

You realized how much you missed me and need me, I thought.

“My father had a heart attack, and he was in a coma for a few days.”

And you realized the importance of not waiting…but seizing the moment.

“And I vowed to Vishnu that if he brought my father back, then I would do anything required of me.”

And Vishnu told him to marry the Christian girl he was dating.

“And a few hours later my father woke up from his coma, and I made the same promise to him that I made to Vishnu.”

And you told him about me and how much we were in love.

“And he told me how his wish was always to follow in his footsteps and become a doctor and someday take over his cardiology practice.”

And you’re on your way of fulfilling that wish, I thought, proudly.

“And then he said there were only two things more he wanted.”

A wife and kids.

“He said he last wish was to see me married to the daughter of his childhood best friend, Sumas, and give him grandchildren.”

My heart quickened. What an odd thing to say, I thought. But then you told him about me and how much you loved me and could only be with me.

But then he looked at me, and I saw his eyes, filled not with anticipation but apology.

“And things happened so quickly…the family came to our house, and I met Sandiya and…” His voice trailed off, and he finally raised his eyes to me. They were sad. Those weren’t the eyes of someone who was about to propose. I began to brace myself as I tried to follow what he was trying to tell me. Somehow I knew that whatever it was he had to tell me also was not something I would want to hear.

And you told her how you could never consider her because you were already with someone else.

“Sarai…”

My heart must have stopped beating.

“I’m engaged.”

A Little Bit About Bindu Adai-Mathew:

For most of my life, I have been a writer in one form or another. Through high school and college, I worked on and contributed to the school literary magazines as well as the school newspaper. After graduating with a Bachelor of Science in English and Mass Media and a Master of Arts in English Literature with a specialization in technical writing, I have been working for the past 15 years as a business analyst/technical writer in various fields, from IT to healthcare. While I have written a few short stories, A Nice, Doctor Son is my first novel.