Ankita remembered her rage like a best friend she had lost in touch with. She used to rage at Anil and try to fix them but now the rage was gone. It was as if it was surgically removed from her to make enormous room for the bitterness and detachment that has settled in. Rage had made room for both when the divorce proceedings started, she was going through it all like it was happening to someone else, for Ankita that is the only way to cope.  

Anil and Ankita sat opposite to each other, across a large white melamine rectangular table. The attorney’s office that they sat in had a sterile quality to it, everything white and bright. Ankita thought to herself, how poetic? a sterile room to cut apart what was once a union of hearts. She still loved him, she was sure of it, but she hated him too, a hate so powerful that it can only come to existence fueled by the love she felt. The lawyers were talking heatedly, Ankita did not much care, she knew she was getting everything, the house, the car, the kid, the dog, the money and all the memories. She knew he would not fight over anything; the lawyers were there for form, help with legalese to transform 20 years of together-ness into pieces of paper that like a swish of an axe, will make a clean cut through their union. Ankita felt like laughing like a maniac, here she was asking strangers to separate her from Anil, but is that possible? It was all so silly, he will always be part of her life; she did not have a single memory in the last 20 odd years, since adolescence, where he was not a part of it and what is the future if not rich with your past memories. She will never be free of Anil and he of her, but they will carry on this farce which will separate them. But Ankita, composed herself remembered that she needed this, she needed for this to end in some way for her to carry on a life with her son and perhaps find love again.  The comfort of staying alone and suffering far outweighed the reality of staying alone in a marriage and suffering.  Shutting out the chatter, Ankita took a sip of her stale coffee and closed her eyes, remembering their story.

Anil and Ankita met in college (no one including themselves knew when they met). They had no dates to commemorate their relationship, that is, until they got married and then they had a date, like everyone else, to celebrate. They were friends first, but mutual attraction gave way to courtship. Youth has no forethought. They thought they were right for each other, so they stayed together despite gaping holes in their relationship. She had liked him for his stability, and he had liked her for a joyfulness. But neither of them understood that his stability was a lack of passion that contributed to an even temper and her joyfulness was a forceful exercise to hide deep trauma of childhood. They sustained these natures because love had blossomed through it and the traits were necessary to their relationship like oxygen to lungs.

Anil had entered the marriage with a heartful of love as he had an ornament that he could now show-off, she was spectacular and could turn heads when she was happy. Ankita had entered the marriage with a heartful of love as now she had an anchor she could hold onto; her upbringing was so unstable that now she finally had a rock that would not budge or break no matter what she did with it. Its funny how people enter marriages with a notion of romance and a willingness to alter at the altar but when its often about your own selfish visions of the other.  Nevertheless, they got married. Their fights were volcanic when each had an expectation the other could not meet. Coming from an abusive home, Ankita would let her words fly in a state of emotional distress. Coming from an emotionally restrained home, Anil would shut down and take long naps during Ankita’s emotional dance. While each reached their emotional peaks, the other would descend into silence. Things never would get resolved. There were good times and even great times, but all had a tinge of bitterness.

Ankita thought back to a time when during the year of their marriage, it was her birthday and no gift had come. She thought he might give her a ring on her birthday as she had heavily hinted at it, she did want one, a romantic signal that marks the end of bachelorhood and beginning of a new life. The ring had not come. At around 3:00 pm, she had climbed down the stairs to their living room and told him how disappointed she was, and they had fought. He had left her for a drive and came back with a bottle of wine and a diamond ring. Ankita got what she wanted, its just that now the narrative was not a happy one. This was the pattern of their relationship. She would expect and he would deliver it only through a convoluted route of a fight. Their son, Akash was born the same way. Anil feared intimacy; he preferred a platonic relationship. He had never hidden it. He was just not sexual. Even though he did not state it, it was visible right from the beginning of the relationship. Ankita was deeply passionate to the point it scared Anil, she had not hidden it either. Both thought the other would change and both would lose their youth over this, but they did not know it then. Instead of fixing their problem with an expert, their relationship became one of need. He needed her to shut up and she need him to be open. He did not want to get help for their intimacy issues, so they lived with the shame of it. Out of sheer societal pressure Anil decided to have a kid and they did. Ankita would often wonder how a kid from a passionless marriage turn out, there was no spark when they made the kid, it was just an exercise like walking on a treadmill, a forgettable experience.

They had tried to work on their problems, despite everything, they were once best friends and had weathered the breeze of childhood and adulthood together. They had still loved each other and were incredibly co-dependent, so they worked on themselves. She kept listing all the things he needed to change for her, and he did the same. His list was short, he wanted her to be silent and to forgive. Hers on the other hand was very long. She wanted him to be intellectual, well read, physically affectionate, spontaneous etc. Now with hindsight, Ankita realized that they both had watered a sapling of love whose roots were never strong. They had been taken in by cultural expectation of no matter what, if you are in love, you need to stay together without question, that a relationship was an unbreakable contract. They had fallen in love as children and grown up to be widely different adults, yet still tried to make it all work. It was just not meant to be. Theirs became a relationship of shame. Shame of not being enough and afraid their problems would be judged cruelly by society, forced them to be silent and not get help.  Shame is a funny thing though, Ankita’s shame made her dictate the terms of their divorce and Anil’s shame made him agree to all her demands.  

The scraping of chairs made Ankita’s open her eyes. The lawyers were leaving, it was the end. She looked at Anil, He reached for her and she held his hand even though she wanted to slap it away. Love is complicated.