A Distant Heart by Sonali Dev (32)

32

Kimi
Present day

 

A transplant counselor had said that to Kimi after her surgery.

It was a lie.

Life was more spectacular than Kimi could ever have imagined.

Lying in Rahul’s arms was so much more than all the dreaming she’d done about it. It was like being inside an explosion of him. She was lost, drenched in the intensity of his scent and heat and sound. The memories of him flooding her on the inside, the reality of him wrapped around her on the outside. His hands. Everywhere. They could be everywhere. Everything. Strong and tender and hot and resourceful.

And the talking.

Rahul, making words, real ones. No decoding grunts. No deciphering the look in his eyes, the tightness of his jaw. It was like coming home after years of being lost.

“Why are you grinning?” he asked, tracing a callused thumb up and down her spine. Her (ahem) bare spine. “And now you’re grinning more.”

“How do you know?”

“You smile with your entire body,” he said.

She snuggled into him. Drunk. She was drunk on him.

He pulled her close. “How do you do it?” he whispered into her hair. “How are you not afraid that the joy will disappear?”

She breathed him in. “Because of you. I’m never afraid that you will disappear. Because you always come back.” She had been a fool to forget, over and over. She wouldn’t again. If anything went wrong, she would remember this, relive this moment, and use it as a beacon to find her way back to it.

He stiffened the tiniest bit. “Those were the last words you said to me before your cardiac arrest in the hospital.”

“You came back for me,” she said, remembering.

Without pulling away from her he turned on his side. She found herself facing the wall of his chest, lean and cut with tight, perfectly round nipples she wanted to touch. He pressed his lips to her forehead. “I’m sorry I left you that way that day. Not my proudest moment.”

She didn’t want him apologizing. She wanted no apologies between them. Not when they were fitted together like this. Two halves of a whole falling into place. Yes, it had hurt when he had left, but she understood now. “I sprung that on you. It still amazes me that you gave me that.” She still couldn’t believe she had just gone to him and asked him to have sex with her.

“I didn’t give you anything, Kimi. Nothing that wasn’t yours all along.”

He tipped her chin up, his dark, dark eyes drinking her in. His hand fitted around her butt and pulled her in tighter. Her fingers reached up and tangled in his hair. Yes, he was hers. Hers.

She stretched up until their lips touched.

They kissed lazily. Taking their time, soaking up each other’s admissions, spoken and unspoken, picking them from each other’s lips, turning them into reality, and stashing them away as memories. He had this sound he made when he kissed, like he couldn’t get close enough. It was a sound she wanted to tease out of him over and over. She wanted to rub it into her soul.

She had felt this same desperation when she had gone looking for him that day. This needing.

“I remember now what happened.” He pulled away and stroked her lower lip with his thumb. “Jen hurt herself, and I carried her up her stairs because she had glass in her foot. I had to pluck it out with tweezers. We were talking about you when she kissed my cheek. But it was just her way, it wasn’t—”

“I know. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was so afraid of losing you, and when you left it felt like I had lost you. And I was so tired of being afraid and of having no control over what slipped through my fingers. I had to do something about it. I couldn’t just sit there and wait for you to come back to me. So I came after you. I went to your chowki and they told me you were at the clinic.”

He stroked her hair. He seemed to love to touch her hair, seemed a bit obsessed with it, and she was totally okay with that. “I’m sorry. But it really wasn’t what it looked like.”

She knew that. A part of her had known it then too. But between being sick, and having made love to him, and knowing the surgery might not work, everything had been tangled into snarls inside her.

“You thought I had done that to you, left you and run into another woman’s arms, and you were still happy to have me back. Why?”

“I don’t know why. But right then, it was all I wanted. To see you once before I left.” She nuzzled deeper into him. “Sometimes I don’t know exactly how to navigate what I’m feeling. I don’t know if what I’m feeling is real or right or how to go on around it. I feel several things about one thing and it’s a vortex and I get stuck in it.”

“Kimi,” he said, although she wasn’t done. “You know I think there’s no one else like you, right? But that’s not just you. Most people have no idea what to do with their feelings. Most don’t even know that they don’t know.”

“So what you’re saying is that I really am like everyone else!” She bit the finger he was tracing her lips with. “Seriously, though, I knew even when I was angry that my anger was misguided, and then I was angry about that, and all of it hurt more and more and I started walking home, because I needed to get away. After that all I remember is feeling lightheaded and then it was like a truck had driven over my chest and parked there.”

His hand stilled on her lips. “I’m sorry,” he said again, and this time he pushed away from her and sat up, and a prickle of panic ran down her spine.

She sat up and pressed her forehead into his back. “But see, I knew. Even when I woke up in the hospital I knew you’d be there. Through all the feeling lost and being too tired to know how to go on, you’ve always been my compass, Rahul.”

He took her hand and tugged her up to standing. “And currently the compass is pointing toward the airport. Now that we know we were looking for your donor in the wrong place, we’ve got to go look in the right place.” She knew that expression. Nothing would stop DCP Savant from getting to the bottom of the case.

They had a few hours before they had to head back to the airport. She had to get something straight first. She sat back on the bed and looked up at him with all the fierceness in her heart. “The heart attack would have happened anyway. It had nothing to do with me following you or with us making love. My heart was basically done. I’d been in congestive heart failure for two years. It wasn’t your fault.”

He didn’t respond to that, but he bent down and kissed her again, with a touch more desperation than before.

“Maybe we don’t need to know where my heart came from,” she said, completely surprising herself. “Maybe Papa is right—if my donor wanted anonymity, maybe we should respect their rights. Maybe that’s why he was calling Dr. Gokhale—because he knew I’d drag you here after he went through all this to protect the donor’s rights.” Because Papa would never have lied without good reason. Without a right reason.

“What about Asif Khan?” Rahul said so gently that she knew he didn’t agree with her. “What about the person who aided him? What about the person who put Nikhil and Nikki through hell? What about Jen and her baby?”

But what could that possibly have to do with Papa lying to her about her transplant? “Maybe I was wrong. What if Asif was only messing with my head the way Papa said he was? What if my heart has nothing to do with Asif Khan?”

If Kimi knew anything she knew that she could sense when something terrible was coming. She pushed it away, this feeling that rose inside her out of nowhere. The past few hours had been idyllic. The idea of going back into the world where these secrets waited to destroy everything made her want to burrow back under the sheets. A madman’s gun was pointed at her. Worse yet, pointed at Rahul, because he was standing in wait to get between that gun and her. She jumped out of bed, dragging the sheets with her, and wrapped her arms around him.

“Hey, it’s going to be okay.” He held her tight. “I’m here.”

“Are you?” she wanted to ask. Suddenly, everything was shaky again. He had told her they weren’t possible the last time she had laid herself bare in front of him.

She wanted to ask him how he felt now. But she couldn’t. Her need to hold on was too strong, even if it was lies she was holding on to. Suddenly, that’s how she felt about her heart too. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know where it had come from. The truth didn’t feel as important anymore. There’s this desperation that takes over when you taste joy after waiting a lifetime for it, and it’s a very powerful thing.

* * *

The last time Kimi had been on a plane going to Mumbai from Hong Kong, she had thought she was going home to Rahul. Unlike her flight into Hong Kong, she remembered everything about her flight back to Mumbai. She hadn’t had a single doubt in her mind that he would be waiting for her with open arms.

Not quite how things had turned out.

Now here he was reaching across the armrest from the seat next to her, unable to stop touching her, fingers interlaced, his breath on her cheek as he spoke in her ear. It was all so normal that her entire being felt right with it. She kept wanting to kiss him. But they were in public. Still, when the flight attendant turned the lights down, Kimi reached out and touched his lips. He grabbed her and kissed her and kissed her as though he’d been waiting too.

“Is this normal?” she asked him, wanting to climb into his lap and keep on kissing him. “Is this healthy? This feeling of being obsessed with you. Like if I close my eyes you’ll disappear.”

He stiffened, all the heat in his eyes disappearing in a flash. He pulled away and sank back in his seat.

What? What had she said?

She placed a hand on his chest. It was the slightest movement, but he flinched. How could someone who had kissed her like that moments ago flinch at her touch? She was about to ask him what was wrong when his eyes softened again. He dropped a quick kiss on her lips—as much a peace offering as a plea for understanding. Their feelings and their silences had tangled up inside them for so long it was going to take time to sort through them, to learn to navigate them.

“A movie?” he asked, which translated to him not wanting to have that conversation. But he didn’t withdraw from her, and that was everything.

A movie was exactly what they needed. It was such a part of them. They had watched a total of fifty-eight movies together over the years, some across a plastic curtain, some not. And that was not counting the fact that they had watched The Great Escape eight times. This was no mean feat, because for a long time Rahul hadn’t wanted her to watch it.

But that title was so perfect, she had pushed and pushed. Prison escape movies were their favorite, naturally. And prisoner of war movies she especially loved, because the prisoners had done nothing to deserve being imprisoned, except be brave.

It was her favorite line from the movie. It was her sworn duty to get out of her room, and she was perpetually digging tunnels and shoring them up. And when one tunnel didn’t work she used another. The metaphors were delicious and she loved them.

“The escape ends in disaster,” Rahul had warned her, ruining it for her before she’d ever watched it. She had still sobbed through that ending, as he’d known she would. Which is why he’d told her—to soften the blow. He’d been right. Somehow, knowing beforehand had made it less painful when the moment of truth came.

“But three escaped,” she loved to say. Those felt exactly like her odds. Three in sixty-five.

“Let’s watch Tangled,” she said as they went through the list of movies on the plane’s entertainment system.

“A cartoon film?” he asked, incredulous.

“It’s Rapunzel,” she said. “But this Rapunzel is all happy and chirpy and her prince is a thief.”

So they watched a magical princess take on the world after being locked up for an eternity, as a starry-eyed boy followed her around. Then it was time to take on reality again.

* * *

The huge teakwood Ganesh carved into Dr. Girija’s front door beamed a welcome at them. For all the years Dr. Girija had been Kimi’s doctor, she had never visited the doctor’s home. Amazingly enough, this was exactly the kind of front door she would have expected to find.

“Kimaya, Rahul, how nice to see you!” Dr. Girija said, letting them in and looking only mildly surprised. If Kimi didn’t know better she would have thought her doctor had been expecting them.

Dr. Girija had one of those doctor personalities that instantly put you at ease but never let you forget that you were sick. She seemed eager enough to answer questions, and yet you felt like you had no questions when you were around her.

Kimi had considered calling Papa and questioning him directly. Even after she’d had time to process the fact that he had lied, she couldn’t go to him with an accusation. What would she even accuse him of? Each time she tried to think about why he might have lied, her mind hit a wall.

“We’ll get to the bottom of it,” Rahul had said on their drive to Dr. Girija’s home. He had insisted that they not call Dr. Girija before they showed up at her door.

Naturally, he had made sure she was home by having someone stake out her location.

Kimi had pulled on one of Rahul’s shirts before getting off the plane and tucked her hair into a baseball hat they bought at the airport. “Do you also want me to wear a fake mustache?” she had asked, making him smile. She was already so used to him smiling at her like that again, it was as if he had never stopped.

As soon as she settled into the sofa, Kimi pulled off the hat and untucked her ponytail so it swung down her back. She hated wearing hats or anything on her head. Something about the pressure made her head hurt.

“Girija Auntie, please don’t bother with tea,” she said because the doctor had rushed into the kitchen as soon as they arrived and she was supposedly making tea—although a maidservant was pottering about with her inside the kitchen.

Rahul held up his phone and tapped it.

Kimi glared at him. “What did you do?” she mouthed.

“Is your phone working, Kimi?” Girija asked, coming out of the kitchen. “I can’t seem to get a signal on my cell phone and my landline is also dead.” She picked up the remote and turned on the flat screen covering an entire wall. “At least the TV is working.”

“I forgot my cell phone at home, sorry,” Kimi said as an image of some bodies being carried into an ambulance flashed on the screen with the headline: “Still no arrests in Colaba Killings.”

“All this violence in the city is terrible,” Girija said directly to Rahul. “Did you know the two cops who died?”

“No.” Rahul took a cup of tea from the tray a maid brought in and handed it to Kimi.

Wasn’t Colaba where the safe house they were supposed to go to was located? Kimi tried to catch Rahul’s eye, but he avoided her gaze and turned off the TV. Which probably meant these Colaba Killings had something to do with the safehouse and he hadn’t bothered to mention it to her.

He held up his cell phone. “Mine’s working fine. Let me take a look.” He took the phone from Girija’s hands and pressed a few buttons and handed it back. “Don’t know what’s wrong with it. Try powering it off.”

Girija gave him a tight smile and turned to Kimi. “Everything okay with you two?” She gave Kimi a wink. “Did you need a contraceptive prescription, then? Are congratulations in order?”

She had always been so nice to Kimi. She felt horrible being here. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something. I’ve been thinking about writing a book on my transplant experience. I was wondering if you would help me.”

Girija’s smile faltered for a second. “That’s a great idea, Kimaya. I’m happy to help.”

She was about to sit down when Kimi said, “Thank you. Do you think the transplant surgeon would speak with me as well?”

Girija stood back up before her bottom touched the sofa. “Sure. Why not? I’ll put a call in to Dr. Gokhale tomorrow. I’m sure he won’t mind.”

The cup of tea shook in Kimi’s saucer and she put it down.

“So Dr. Gokhale was Kimi’s transplant surgeon in Hong Kong?” Rahul said with impressive calm.

Girija looked from Kimi to Rahul and then at her watch. “Kimi knows Dr. Gokhale treated her. Listen, I’m late to pick up my daughter. Come to the office tomorrow and we can talk then.”

“Sure,” Rahul said, and Kimi stood. “Thanks so much for your help.”

Then just as Girija was walking them to her front door he added, “Does Dr. Bhansal still fly in from New York to do surgeries at Lilavati?”

“What?” Girija stopped in her tracks.

“Dr. Bhansal—I’ve heard he’s one of the best transplant surgeons in the world and that he consulted on Kimi’s case.”

“Who told you that?” A sheen of sweat broke out across Girija’s upper lip. “Listen,” she said a little more aggressively. “As far as I know, Kimaya was taken to Hong Kong for her surgery and recovery. I’m just her cardiologist. You’re going to have to call Dr. Gokhale for details. But I really have to go.”

With that she pushed them out the door and pulled it shut.