The Accidental Wife by Simi K. Rao

water.
    Oftentimes, the restless psyche is driven to find comfort in a favorite distraction and so was Naina’s. But the consolation was tepid at best. She soon found that out while slowly flicking through the slides of the most recent photo essay she had done on the street children of Delhi, which she had submitted to Landscape a few weeks ago. She had yet to hear from them. It was the most ambitious and difficult venture she’d undertaken, and dangerous, too. Investigative journalism for a lone woman is not child’s play, especially when she’s trying to ferret out the merciless exploiters of innocence who operate in underground networks as convoluted and ruthless as any drug cartel. Fortunately she had the sense to reign in her enthusiasm in time or would have paid a dear price for her curiosity.
    “It’d have been a different matter altogether if I was working with some kind of back up; I’d have dragged each and every one of those sniveling bastards to court and put them behind bars forever. No! Cowards like them don’t deserve the dignity of a trial, they should be lynched in public, each one of them!” She said so with vehemence enough to upset her still full cup of cocoa all over the laptop keyboard.
    With a horrified scream, she scrambled to salvage the precious device, when her eyes fell on the date on the desktop calendar.
    A chilling dread settled into her bones. It was that time of year again.
    She’d been trying to ignore it like she did every year, hoping if she did so long enough, it’d just recede and drop out of sight. But no, it always came back—all the pain and hurt she had worked so hard to erase—back in stark Technicolor and with uncanny precision.
    Her gaze shifted to her reflection in the large poster frame that hung over her bed and she cursed the day she was born.
    ***
    It was monsoon in the desert—a time to rejoice and celebrate. The local populace had been parched of good tidings however transient they may be. It was that time of the year when evanescent showers brought temporary relief from the hundred plus degrees of scorching heat. A time when Lord Shiva danced the tandav in the heavens and peacocks strutted proud and arrogant on the ground.
    It was a time of hope—when the desiccated wells glistened with more than a hint of moisture, so the perennially suffering women of the villages could cut a mile or two off their daily treks for water.
    And… It was also a time to rejoice twice over, because almost twenty-three years ago to this day, the Rathod household had welcomed their first and only girl child.
    But the celebrations didn’t last long.
    Naina almost believed in the stories she concocted. They did vary from time to time, albeit slightly. Her most favored was the one she had narrated today—that she was an orphan and didn’t really have much in the form of family. For her, the term felt alien. From what she had seen, family meant unconditional love, trust and support. No member would ever be considered an obligation nor would he or she ever be subject to intentional harm or used as a pawn on a chessboard for another’s personal gains.
    There was once a time when Naina felt she had a real family, when she had felt loved. That had been long ago when her mother was still alive. She passed when Naina was perhaps five or six, but she didn’t recall the circumstances exactly. However, she did remember her mother—her beautiful, wonderful mother. Her revolutionary, trend-setting, modern woman mother. The one who had rebelled against the tradition of parda and refused to restrict herself to the zanana quarters. Indeed, after the death of her in-laws, she had taken it upon herself to abolish the practice altogether, even daring to converse freely with the male guests who visited the house. She was the mother whom Naina’s father had fallen hopelessly in love with and who’s only daughter’s birth had been celebrated like royalty.
    Though several of the memories were