Coming down the wooden stairs that rainy morning, she saw the dining table covered with papers marked with scribbles, arrows and coloured lines. Amitav glanced up when he heard the creak of the stairs and managed a weak smile. Susanna raised her eyebrows in lieu of asking him the obvious.
He answered her, “I was emptying the contents of my head onto paper, just in case,” he paused briedly and continued, “Not everything of course. Only the important stuff.”
“Just in case of what, Amitav?”
He let his eyes wander along the floor, as if an answer lay down there.
“Just in case everything important I know dies with me.”
With a sharp intake of breath, she sat down on the second last step of the staircase, feeling a sudden tiredness that went beyond the physical. Susanna, the only child of diplomats, had been educated in half a dozen countries that her parents were based in while she was growing up, and later finished degrees in Environmental Science and Literature. So beautiful was she, that they said she could have made it as a model in most countries, and instead of marrying any of the aggressive, wealthy and handsome men who had pursued her passionately, she choose to marry the man who had the ability to make her laugh every time.
Amitav stood only several feet away from her, across the table, but he may as well have been much further away. At times, she feared that the drifting was leaving him almost beyond her reach. She tried not to cry, not with him standing there, and casually wiped off tears that had welled in her eyes. And she thought,
When was the last time you had succeeded in making me laugh, Amitav?