Chapter 19: The Palliative Care Meeting
The garage’s stale air clung to them as they drove in silence, Vikram’s soft breaths from the back seat the only proof of a world outside the one that had narrowed to the space between their seats. Rohan kept his eyes on the road, his mind repeating her words like a struck bell.Not as my son. As my partner.The old market was a chaos of senses after the hospital’s sterile hush. The air swam with the smells of overripe fruit, diesel, and frying spices. Rohan navigated the car through throngs of people, the midday sun casting sharp, hot shadows. He found a spot near Sethi’s general store, its faded blue sign visible above the crowd.
“He’s usually right there,” Rohan said, pointing to a shaded corner by a sugarcane juice press. The kulfi cart, a modest three-wheeled thing with a faded canopy, was there. The vendor, a lean man with a generous mustache, was fanning himself with a newspaper.
Anjali stared at the cart, her expression unreadable. She unbuckled her seatbelt with a decisive click.“Come with me.”
They walked side-by-side, not touching. The market stared. Men unloading crates, shopkeepers haggling, boys on bikes—their eyes snagged on Anjali, this elegant anomaly in a grey salwar kameez moving through the grimy heat.Rohan felt a familiar, sour heat rise in his throat. He walked closer to her, a deliberate barrier.“Madam! Welcome!” the kulfi-wallah said, his face breaking into a grin of recognition and surprise. He’d seen her before, but only in the dim, anonymous night.In the harsh daylight, she was a spectacle.
“Two malai kulfi,” Anjali said, her voice clear and pleasant.“Only two? Nothing for him?” The vendor nodded towards the car.
“No,” she said, her smile not reaching her eyes. “Just for us.”
The man busied himself with the steel cans, chipping out the dense, creamy slabs.Rohan stood awkwardly, his shoulder almost touching hers. The market pulsed around them. A group of college-aged boys passed, their loud chatter dying abruptly as they caught sight of Anjali. One of them elbowed his friend, who turned to look, his gaze lingering on the curve of her back where the thin fabric clung in the humidity. Rohan took a half-step, placing himself directly in their sightline, his jaw tight.The boys muttered and moved on.
“Here, madam. The best in the city.” The vendor handed over the two clay pots, the kulfi already beginning to glisten in the heat.
They took them and walked a few paces to a slightly quieter ledge near a shuttered shop.Anjali didn’t wait. She spooned a large piece into her mouth, closing her eyes as the sweetness hit. A small, almost pathetic sound of pleasure escaped her.When she opened her eyes, they were brighter. “Eat,” she commanded Rohan.It was rich, overpowering.A childhood taste. They ate standing there, amid the fly-strewn garbage and the honking scooters, saying nothing. It was an act of shared rebellion, a small, sticky sacrament.
Anjali finished hers first, scraping the clay pot clean.She looked at the empty pot, then at the bustling intersection ahead. Her gaze fixed on a small, dusty sign hanging from a second-floor window: “Passport & Visa Photos. Fast.”
“Come,” she said, discarding the pot into a bin.
“Mum?”
She was already crossing the street, not checking for traffic, forcing rickshaws to swerve and blare their horns. Rohan hurried after her, his heart pounding from the sudden, reckless move.The staircase to the photo studio was narrow and dark, smelling of damp cement and developer chemicals. A bell tinkled when she pushed the door open. The room was tiny, dominated by a large DSLR on a tripod and a wrinkled white backdrop. A ceiling fan wobbled overhead, distributing the heat.A young man with headphones on looked up from a computer, his eyes widening.
“Passport photos,” Anjali stated. “For both of us.”
“Mum, what are you doing?” Rohan whispered, the “partner” echo now feeling dangerously literal.
“We need them,” she said, not looking at him.“For ID. For… things.” Her voice was evasive, charged.The photographer shrugged.“Stand there.Straight against the backdrop. No jewelry.Plain expression.”
Anjali went first. She stood before the white sheet, her hands at her sides.The photographer peered through the lens.“Look here.Yes. Good.” The camera clicked. She was a study in contrasts—the everyday salwar, the devastating bone structure, the eyes that held a storm the camera couldn’t possibly capture. She looked like a queen in exile on a bureaucratic document.“Your turn,” she said, stepping aside.
Rohan took her place.The white backdrop felt like an interrogation wall. He could feel her gaze on him from the side of the room, hotter than the studio lights.The photographer adjusted the stool.“Little lower. Look here.” He tried to school his features into neutrality, but his mind was in the car, in the hospital corridor, her head on his shoulder.Partner.The flash fired.
“Wait,” Anjali said.“One together.”
The photographer paused.“Together? For a passport?Not allowed.”
“Not for a passport.Just a photo. Together.”
The man shrugged again, adjusting his setup.“Stand close. Frame is small.”
They moved into the space before the backdrop.There was nowhere to stand without touching.Her shoulder pressed against his arm. He could feel the heat of her, smell the faint sugar and milk of the kulfi on her breath. He slid his arm behind her back, his hand resting lightly just above her waist, on the smooth cotton.Her breath hitched. She leaned into him, her head tilting slightly towards his shoulder, not quite resting there.It was the pose of a couple.“Ready?” the photographer asked.
In that second before the flash, Rohan turned his head.She was already looking up at him. Her expression was raw, open, full of a terrifying question. The camera clicked, capturing them not as mother and son, but as two people suspended in a dizzying, shared freefall.
The flash blinded him temporarily. When his vision cleared, she had already stepped away, her professional mask sliding back into place with an audible almost-physical snap. “How long for the photos?” she asked, her voice crisp.“Ten minutes.”
They waited on the cramped stairs, not speaking. The sound of the market below was a distant roar. He could still feel the ghost imprint of her waist under his hand.When they got the small printed sheets, she looked only at the joint photo. The others—her solo, his solo—she tucked into her purse without a glance. She held the small rectangle of the two of them, staring at it under the weak bulb at the top of the stairs. In the photo, their closeness was unmistakable, their locked gaze electrifying even in the cheap, flat print.She looked from the photo to him, her eyes gleaming in the semi-darkness. She leaned in, her voice a whisper meant only for him, charged with a new and terrifying resolve.“This is what we look like,” she said, tapping the photo. “Remember it.” She slipped it into her purse.“Now let’s go home. We have a nurse to meet. And a world to arrange.”
She started down the stairs, leaving him in the dark, the taste of kulfi and impossibility thick on his tongue.