Chapter 38: Poornima

I didn’t say yes immediately.

Not because I didn’t feel it—but because I felt too much.

After Veeresh asked me to move in, after he said that word so surely—wife—something inside me paused. I smiled, yes. But when I was alone, the silence came back to ask its questions.

I had loved once. Fully. Honestly.
And when Mohammed left this world, he took a part of me that never returned the same way. I didn’t stop living—but I stopped expecting. Loving again felt like betrayal at first. Then it felt like fear. Then it felt like responsibility—to my children, to his memories, to the woman I had become.

People think widows don’t move on because of society.

That’s not true.

Sometimes we don’t move on because we loved deeply—and we don’t want to be careless with love again.

Veeresh didn’t demand space in my life.
He didn’t compete with Mohammed’s memory.
He didn’t ask me to erase my past.

He stood beside it.

That scared me more than anything else.

Every day, I watched him—how he waited, how he laughed with my children, how he spoke about my dignity before even thinking of his desire. How he never once tried to rush me.

And that’s when I realized something.

I wasn’t afraid of loving him.

I was afraid of being happy again—and losing it.

My children saw it before I did.

Rudra with his blunt honesty.
Ramir with his calm reassurance.
Mannat with her quiet strength.

They didn’t need me to sacrifice myself anymore. I had already done that. They wanted me to live.

When I saw Veeresh with Kayan and Kavya—trying, failing, learning—I understood something else too. This man wasn’t perfect. But he was willing. And willingness, at this age, mattered more than promises.

Moving in with him didn’t mean forgetting who I was.

It meant choosing who I wanted to be next.

I still carry Mohammed with me. Always will.
But love doesn’t shrink because it’s shared—it grows differently.

So when Veeresh waits, I don’t feel pressure.

I feel safety.

And I know…
When I say yes, it won’t be hesitation speaking.

It will be certainty.