Chapter 7: The Call to Mumbai
The sheets were cold.
Savita reached for him before she opened her eyes, her hand sliding across the empty space where David's body should have been. The pillow still held his scent—something clean and warm, like cedar and soap—but the indent of his head had already begun to fade.
She sat up. The bedroom was bright, the curtains pulled back to let in the morning. Sunlight poured across the hardwood floor, catching the dust motes suspended in the air. Outside, Elliott Bay glittered under a cloudless sky, the water so blue it looked painted.
She found her phone on the nightstand. 9:47 AM.
She'd slept through her alarm. Again.
The bathroom was empty. The shower dry. She pulled on one of David's t-shirts—grey, soft, falling to her mid-thigh—and padded barefoot down the hallway.
She found him in the kitchen.
He was sitting at the island, two cups of chai steaming in front of him, his phone unlocked and face-up on the counter. He wasn't looking at it. He was looking at her.
"Morning," he said.
"You're up early."
"I didn't sleep much."
She slid onto the stool beside him. The chai smelled perfect—cardamom and ginger, the way her mother used to make it before everything went wrong. She wrapped her hands around the cup and let the heat seep into her palms.
"Did you make this?"
"Yeah."
"You didn't have to."
"I wanted to."
She took a sip. It was good. Not quite her mother's, but close. The kind of close that mattered.
David didn't say anything else. He just sat there, his shoulder inches from hers, his presence steady and quiet. He wasn't going to push. He never pushed. He just waited—patient as stone, warm as sunlight—for her to decide what came next.
She looked at the phone on the counter.
"I should call her."
"Yeah."
"She's going to be furious."
"Probably."
"She's going to say terrible things."
"Maybe." He turned his cup slowly, watching the liquid swirl. "But you don't have to listen to them. You just have to hear them."
Savita stared at the phone. Her stomach twisted. Her throat tightened. Every instinct in her body screamed at her to run—to hide, to delay, to pretend this moment wasn't happening.
But she'd been pretending for twenty-seven years. She was tired.
She picked up the phone.
The screen was already on the contacts app. Her mother's name sat at the top of the list—Amma, with a small heart emoji she'd added years ago and never removed. Her thumb hovered over the name.
"I don't know if I can do this."
David's hand found her knee under the counter. Warm. Solid. Real.
"You can," he said. "And if you can't, I'll be right here."
She pressed call.
The phone rang once. Twice. Three times.
Then—
"Savita?"
Her mother's voice was raw. Cracked. Like she'd been screaming or crying or both.
"Amma."
"Where are you?" The words came fast, sharp, tumbling over each other. "Where are you, what have you done, do you know what you've put us through? Do you know what you've done to me? To your father? To everyone?"
Savita closed her eyes. The words hit like stones—each one landing somewhere soft and vulnerable.
"I'm in Seattle," she said. "I'm safe."
"Safe?" Her mother laughed—a bitter, broken sound. "Safe? You disappear in the middle of the night. You leave a note—a note, Savita, like a servant—and you tell me you're safe?"
"I didn't disappear. I told you I was leaving."
"You told me you were going on a trip. A trip. You said you'd be back in two weeks."
"I know."
"And then nothing. No calls. No messages. Your phone disconnected. Your office said you'd quit. Your friends said they hadn't heard from you." Her mother's voice cracked. "I thought you were dead. Do you understand that? I thought my daughter was dead."
Savita's tears came then—hot and sudden, spilling down her cheeks before she could stop them. She wiped them away with the back of her hand.
"I'm sorry, Amma. I'm so sorry."
"Sorry?" Her mother spat the word. "You're sorry? You destroy your family, you humiliate us, you run off with some—some foreigner—and you're sorry?"
Savita's grip tightened on the phone. She could feel David beside her—not touching, not speaking, just there. Breathing. Waiting.
"I didn't run off with anyone," she said. "I made a choice."
"A choice? What choice? To abandon your mother? To abandon your culture? To spread your legs for some white man who'll use you and throw you away?"
The words hit like a slap. Savita's vision blurred. Her chest constricted.
"Don't," she whispered. "Don't say that."
"Why not? It's true, isn't it? That's what you've done. You've given yourself to a stranger. You've thrown away everything we gave you—your education, your reputation, your future—for what? For a man who doesn't know you? For a life that isn't yours?"
Savita's jaw tightened. The tears kept coming, but something else rose up inside her—something hard and bright and burning.
"No," she said. Her voice was quiet, but it didn't shake. "That's not what I've done."
"Then what? What have you done, Savita? Tell me. Tell me what was so important that you had to destroy us."
Savita took a breath. Let it out.
"I fell in love."
Silence.
"I fell in love with a man who sees me," she continued. "Not the version of me you wanted. Not the daughter who did everything right. Not the woman who smiled and nodded and pretended to be happy. He sees me. The real me. And he loves me anyway."
Her mother made a sound—something between a sob and a scream.
"You don't know what you're saying."
"I know exactly what I'm saying." Savita's voice grew steadier. "I'm saying that I was drowning, Amma. I was drowning in Mumbai. In that apartment. In that life. And I didn't even know it until I met him. Until he looked at me and asked me what I wanted—not what you wanted, not what society wanted, not what anyone else wanted. What I wanted."
"And what do you want?"
The question landed like a knife. Savita felt it twist.
"I want to be happy," she said. "I want to wake up in the morning and not dread the day. I want to make choices that are mine—not yours, not anyone else's. I want to love someone who loves me back without conditions. Without expectations. Without the weight of a thousand years of tradition pressing down on my chest."
"Tradition?" Her mother's voice rose. "Tradition is what made you. Tradition is what kept you safe. Tradition is—"
"Tradition is what kept me invisible."
Silence.
"You never saw me, Amma. You saw the daughter you wanted. The one who wore the right clothes and went to the right school and got the right job. The one who would marry the right man and have the right children and live the right life. But you never saw me. You never asked what I wanted. You never asked if I was happy."
"I gave you everything."
"You gave me everything except a choice."
Her mother sobbed—a raw, ugly sound that tore through the phone. Savita's heart clenched. She wanted to take it back. She wanted to apologize. She wanted to be the daughter her mother needed.
But she couldn't. Not anymore.
"I'm not coming home," she said.
The words hung in the air like a guillotine.
"What?"
"I'm not coming back to Mumbai. I'm staying here. With David."
"You can't—"
"I can. I am." Savita's voice didn't waver. "The work permit is already in process. I'm looking at apartments. I'm building a life here. A real one."
"But your father—your family—your—"
"I love you, Amma. I always will. But I can't live my life for you anymore."
The silence stretched. Savita could hear her mother breathing—ragged, uneven, broken.
"You'll regret this," her mother whispered. "You'll regret leaving us. You'll regret choosing him over your own blood."
"Maybe," Savita said. "But I'd regret staying more."
The line went dead.
Savita stared at the phone. Her hands were shaking. Her face was wet. She felt hollowed out—empty and raw and strangely light.
David didn't say anything. He just opened his arms.
She fell into them.
He held her for a long time. Minutes or hours—she couldn't tell. The chai went cold. The sun climbed higher. The city hummed below, oblivious.
She cried into his chest. Ugly, heaving sobs that left her breathless. He stroked her hair. Pressed his lips to her forehead. Didn't speak.
When she finally pulled back, her eyes were red. Her nose was running. She looked like a disaster.
"Sorry," she mumbled.
"Don't be."
"I ruined your shirt."
"I have other shirts."
She laughed—a wet, broken sound—and wiped her face with the hem of the t-shirt.
"You stayed," she said.
"I told you I would."
"I know." She looked at him—really looked—and something in her chest shifted. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me."
"Why not?"
He cupped her face in his hands. His palms were warm. His eyes were steady.
"Because this isn't charity," he said. "I'm not doing you a favor. I'm here because I want to be here. With you. That's it."
She kissed him. Slow and soft, salty with tears.
And then, because she didn't know what else to do with the enormous feeling inside her, she pulled him off the stool and led him down the hallway.
The bedroom was bright. The sheets were still rumpled from sleep. She pushed him onto the bed and climbed on top of him, her hair falling around them like a curtain.
He let her take control. Let her unbutton his shirt. Let her tug at his belt. Let her do everything—not because she needed control, but because she needed to touch him. To feel him. To prove to herself that he was real.
His hands found her waist. Her hips. Her thighs. She gasped when he sat up beneath her, pulling her close, his mouth finding hers in the dark.
"You okay?" he murmured against her lips.
"I'm not okay."
"What do you need?"
"I need you to fuck me."
The words hung there—vulgar, honest, vulnerable. She'd never said them before. Not out loud. Not like that.
His eyes darkened.
"Say it again."
"Fuck me."
He flipped her onto her back. The world spun. His weight pressed her into the mattress. His knee pushed her legs apart.
"You sure?"
"I've never been more sure of anything."
He kissed her then—deep and hungry, his tongue sliding against hers. She moaned into his mouth. Her fingers tangled in his hair, pulling him closer.
He worked his way down her body. His mouth found her neck. Her collarbone. Her breasts. He took one nipple between his teeth and bit down—just hard enough to make her gasp.
"David—"
"What?"
"Don't stop."
He didn't.
He pulled the t-shirt over her head. His mouth trailed lower—across her stomach, over her hipbones, down to the apex of her thighs. She was already wet. Already aching. He could smell her. Taste her.
He licked her once—long and slow, from her entrance to her clit. She jerked beneath him. Her hands fisted in the sheets.
"God—"
"Relax."
"I can't—"
"I've got you."
He spread her open with his fingers and went to work. His tongue was relentless—circling her clit, dipping inside her, circling back. She bucked against his face. He held her down.
"Please—David, please—"
"What do you want?"
"I want you inside me."
"Not yet."
"Please—"
"You're going to come first." He slid a finger inside her. Then two. She gasped. "I want to feel you come on my tongue."
She did. Minutes later, with his name on her lips and her thighs shaking around his head.
And then he climbed up her body and pushed inside her.
She cried out. He was thick—thicker than she remembered, or maybe she'd just forgotten. He filled her completely. Stretched her. Made her feel every inch.
"Fuck—" she breathed.
"Too much?"
"No." She wrapped her legs around his waist. "More."
He pulled out slowly. Pushed back in. Slow and deep. Deliberate.
"This isn't fucking," he said. "This is me loving you. Do you understand?"
She nodded. Tears pricked her eyes. Not sad tears. Something else.
"I understand."
He moved harder. Faster. She met him thrust for thrust, her nails raking down his back. He didn't flinch. Just kept going—muscles straining, breath coming in short, sharp gasps.
"You're mine," he said.
"Yes."
"Say it."
"I'm yours."
He buried himself in her and came with a broken sound—half groan, half prayer. She followed a moment later, pulled along by the feeling of him spilling inside her.
They collapsed together. Sticky. Sweaty. Boneless.
The sun moved across the room. The chai sat cold in the kitchen. The phone stayed dark on the counter.
Savita pressed her ear to David's chest and listened to his heartbeat. Steady. Real. A drum she could march to.
"My mother won't forgive me," she said.
The words were quiet. Simple. Too tired for drama.
"Maybe not." David's voice was soft. Rumbly. A flicker beneath her ear. "Or maybe she will. You can't control that."
Savita watched the light move across the ceiling. She thought about her mother's voice cracking. The sharp edges of betrayal. The way grief can turn into something with teeth when it's left alone too long to feed on itself.
"She told me I'd regret this."
"And will you?"
She turned over. Pressed her palms to his chest. Felt the coarse hair and the skin beneath. Looked at him fully.
"I don't know." The honesty scraped its way out of her. "But I know regret has two shapes. One looks like staying. The other looks like leaving." She paused. "I already know what the first one feels like."
David didn't answer. He just pulled her closer, tucked her head beneath his chin, and held her the way you hold something that might break.
Later, when the light had shifted and her breath had evened out, Savita got up. She walked naked to the kitchen, the hardwood cool under her feet, and opened the sliding glass door to the balcony.
The city breathed below. Elliott Bay stretched out like hammered silver—cold, enormous. The mountains cut through the horizon like teeth. She had never seen anything so beautiful.
She thought about Meera, asleep in the guest room, probably recharging her phone and planning her return flight.
She thought about her father, who hadn't called once. Not a single time in six months. A silence that said more than any screaming match ever could.
She thought about the child she had been—the quiet girl, the good girl, the one who never asked for anything because she'd already learned that asking was the same as being unreasonable.
Her phone buzzed on the counter.
She looked at it. Her mother's name lit up the screen. A text message.
One line.
I don't understand you. But I love you.
Savita stared at the words until they stopped looking like letters and started looking like shapes. Then she pressed the phone to her chest and closed her eyes.
It wasn't forgiveness.
But it was something.
She showered. Threw on jeans and one of David's sweaters. Found him in the kitchen again, loading the dishwasher, completely naked.
"You know Meera could walk out here any second," she said.
"She's not gonna walk out here."
"How do you know?"
He turned, his cock swinging freely, a dish towel draped over one shoulder.
"Because she texted me twenty minutes ago asking if we were decent. When I said no, she said she was gonna stay in her room until noon." He shrugged. "She's got self preservation instincts."
Savita laughed. A real laugh. It surprised her.
"There's more chai," he said. "I made a fresh pot."
She poured herself a cup. The steam curled up toward the ceiling, carrying cardamom and clove.
"Do you want to talk about the call?" David asked.
"Not yet." She wrapped both hands around the mug and looked at the phone on the counter. "But I should tell you something."
"What?"
"She told me I chose you over my own blood." She took a sip. "I don't think that's true. I think I chose me. You just happened to be the door I walked through."
He leaned against the counter. Crossed his arms. His expression open and patient, nothing to hide.
"I can live with that," he said. "But I want you to be sure you're not just using me as an exit. I don't want to be the thing that's keeping you from something else."
"You're not," she said. "I don't know how to explain it. You're not escape. You're presence. You're the first person who sat in a room with me and just... let me be quiet. Let me be whatever I was going to be that day."
He didn't say anything. Just watched her with those blue eyes, so steady and still it hurt.
"I need to call Meera," she said finally. "She should know we talked. She's probably been up for hours, pacing a hole in your guest room."
David grinned. "The floor can take it."
Savita smiled into her cup. It felt good—simple and good—to stand here in this kitchen, in this life, with this man. The call to her mother had cracked something open in her chest. But the crack was clean. Necessary. A break that would heal straight, not crooked.
"You know what I want to do today?" she asked.
"I was hoping you'd say me."
She laughed again. "I want to go to the market. The one on Pike. The one I keep passing and never stop at." She paused. "I want to buy food. Real food. The kind I used to cook with my mother when I was a kid. Not fancy. Just mine."
"You want to cook?"
"I want to try." She lifted one shoulder. "I haven't cooked in a month. Not properly. I've just been heating things up and hoping you'd think I was competent."
He snorted. "I've been eating frozen portions for six years. You could burn rice and I'd still tell you it's gourmet."
"I'm going to hold you to that."
"Please do."
The guest room door creaked open. Meera emerged fully dressed—hair still a disaster, face puffy from jet lag, but alert. Her eyes flicked from David to Savita to the dishwasher, then settled on David's naked form without flinching.
"I leave for five minutes and you're already naked in the kitchen?"
"I live here," David said. "I'm allowed."
Meera turned to Savita. "Did you call Mum?"
Savita nodded. The kitchen went quiet. Even the hum of the city seemed to pause.
"And?"
"I told her I'm staying."
Meera processed this. Her expression shifted through several things—anger, grief, worry—before finally settling into something softer. Resigned.
"She's going to call me next," Meera said. "She's going to ask me to fix you."
"Maybe you should."
"Maybe I won't." Meera dragged a hand through her hair. "Maybe I'll tell her you're an adult and she needs to stop treating you like a child."
Savita's throat tightened. "You would do that?"
"I don't know." Meera walked over, poured herself the last of the chai. "I'm still mad at you. I'm still worried about you. But I'm tired of fighting something I can't win." She took a sip. "And the truth is, you look better than I've seen you look since you were a kid. So maybe I should stop being angry and start being happy for you."
David raised both eyebrows. "Was that... approval?"
"That was nothing." Meera pointed her cup at him. "I still don't trust you."
"I know."
"I still think this is insane."
"I agree."
"And I'm still going to call you every week and ask invasive questions."
"I'd be disappointed if you didn't."
Meera squinted at him. Then she turned to Savita. "Where'd you find this guy?"
"I told you. I met him at a bar."
"Right." Meera picked up her phone from the counter and started scrolling. "Okay. I'm off to see the Space Needle because I'm not spending my entire trip in your apartment. When I get back, we're having dinner. Wherever you want. My treat."
"You don't have to do that."
"I know I don't."
Savita watched her sister walk to the door. Just before she stepped into the hallway, she looked back.
"Hey," Meera said. "You did good. The call. That took balls."
Savita's eyes stung. "Thanks."
Meera disappeared. The door clicked shut.
David moved behind her. Wrapped his arms around her waist. Pressed his chin to the top of her head.
"See?" he said. "She approves."
"She said she doesn't."
"She will."
Savita leaned back into him. Closed her eyes. Breathed.
The chai was still warm. The city was still out there—big and bright and full of strangers. Her mother was still in Mumbai, probably staring at the wall, probably crying, probably composing a letter she'd never send.
But Savita was here. Alive. Awake.
And for the first time in her life, she was ready to stop apologizing for it.
"Take me to the market," she said. "I want to cook something that reminds me of being a kid."
"Lead the way."
She put down her chai. Grabbed her coat. Walked out the door with David's hand in hers.
Behind them, the kitchen sat empty—two warm mugs, a half-full pot of chai, and a phone that would not stop buzzing.