Chapter 8
Remission.
The word sounded like music.
We went home two days later.
Maya walked through the door of the apartment on her own two feet.
No wheelchair.
No IV.
Just her, in the pink knit hat, smiling.
I carried her over the threshold.
Like I had on our wedding night.
She laughed, wrapping her arms around my neck.
“Put me down, you idiot. I’m not gonna break.”
“Never taking the chance,” I said, setting her on the couch.
I’d spent the day before cleaning the whole apartment.
Put fresh sheets on the bed.
Bought her favorite flowers—sunflowers, bright and yellow.
Made her favorite dinner—butter chicken, naan, the way her dad used to make it.
We ate at the small kitchen table.
Holding hands across the wood.
Talking about everything and nothing.
For the first time in years, there was no silence between us.
No awkwardness.
No hurt waiting to bubble up.
Just us.
Later, we sat on the balcony.
Watched the sun set over Budapest.
The sky pink and orange and purple.
Maya’s head was on my shoulder.
Her hand in mine.
“I was thinking,” she said soft.
“About the divorce. About why we let it happen.”
I tensed.
She squeezed my hand.
“It’s okay. I’m not angry anymore. I just… I want to talk about it. So we never make the same mistake again.”
I nodded.
“Okay.”
“I shut you out,” she said.
“After the second miscarriage. I was so hurt. So scared I’d never be a mom. That I’d let you down. I thought if I pushed you away, it would hurt less when you left. And then when you said you wanted a divorce… I thought I was right. That you didn’t love me anymore.”
She looked up at me.
Eyes glistening in the sunset.
“I was wrong. I should’ve talked to you. Should’ve told you how scared I was. Instead, I hid. And I almost lost us forever.”
I pulled her closer.
“I was wrong too,” I said.
“I saw you hurting, and instead of holding you, I ran. I hid in work because I was scared I couldn’t fix it. Scared I wasn’t enough for you. I said the worst thing I ever could’ve said. And I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”
I reached into my pocket.
Pulled out the small velvet box I’d been carrying for a week.
The same ring I’d given her five years before.
I’d found it in a box of my things the day I moved into the apartment.
Couldn’t bring myself to throw it away.
Maya gasped when she saw it.
“Arjun…”
I opened the box.
The diamond glinted in the sunset.
“Maya,” I said.
My voice shook.
“I love you. More than anything in this world. I was an idiot to let you go. I’m never making that mistake again. Will you marry me? Again? For real this time. No running. No hiding. Just us. Together, through everything.”
Tears streamed down her face.
She nodded so hard her hat slipped.
“Yes,” she sobbed.
“Yes, a thousand times yes.”
I slipped the ring on her finger.
Kissed her.
Long and slow.
The kind of kiss that says everything words can’t.
I’m sorry.
I love you.
I’m never letting you go.
We planned a small wedding.
No big party.
No fancy clothes.
Just the people who mattered.
Rohit, as my best man.
Ananya, who’d flown back from Vienna to be Maya’s maid of honor.
A few close friends from work.
The judge who’d signed our restraining order, who’d become a friend after hearing our story.
We got married in the park near our apartment.
Under an old oak tree.
Maya wore a simple white dress she’d found at a thrift store.
Her hair was growing back now, soft black curls that framed her face.
She didn’t wear the pink hat.
She was beautiful.
More beautiful than the day I first married her.
Our vows were short.
Raw.
Honest.
When I said, “I promise to never run again. To hold you through every hard thing. To love you, even when it’s hard,” she cried.
When she said, “I promise to never shut you out again. To talk to you, to trust you, to love you for the rest of my life,” I cried.
Ananya cheered.
Rohit whooped so loud the ducks on the pond flew away.
Afterward, we had a picnic in the park.
Cake, sandwiches, soda.
Ananya made a toast.
“To the couple who fought the world and won. May you have a hundred years of happiness. And may I be the favorite aunt to all your kids.”
We laughed.
But her words hit something in both of us.
The old dream.
The one we’d buried after the miscarriages.
A family.
Kids.
A home full of love.
That night, as we lay in bed, Maya’s head on my chest, she said soft.
“Do you think… we could still have that? A family?”
I kissed the top of her head.
“Whatever you want, baby. Whatever it takes. Adoption, surrogacy, foster care. We’ll do it together. Okay?”
She nodded.
Smiled against my shirt.
“Okay. Together.”
But life wasn’t done testing us yet.
Three weeks later, we got a letter in the mail.
From Lakshmi and Priya.
They were suing us.
For defamation.
For emotional distress.
May you like
They wanted 50,000 euros.
And they wanted custody of Maya, claiming she was “mentally unfit” to make her own decisions.
