Both my husband’s mistress and I were pregnant.

She deserved mourning too.

The DNA report came a week later.

And when it did, the shock was complete.

Raghav was not the father.

The baby belonged to another man.

No

one outside the immediate family knew at first, but in tightly woven

upper-middle-class circles, secrets move faster when those guarding them

are panicking. Within twenty-four hours, everyone knew some version of

it.

Some said the father was a former boyfriend from Gurgaon.

 

Some claimed it was a businessman Shreya had been seeing for gifts.

 

One particularly vicious aunt whispered that Shreya had targeted wealthy

households the way a practiced con artist targets old men.

I did not know what was true.

And unlike everyone else, I no longer cared enough to investigate.

But what I did care about—what quietly unsettled me even amid the cosmic justice of it all—was the baby.

That child had been born into a room full of greed, lies, and transactional love. Just like mine could have been.

The difference between his life and Tara’s had come down to one choice:

I left.

The thought haunted me more than I expected.

Two weeks later, Ritu came to visit.

She

arrived carrying jalebis, gossip, and an expression so animated my

mother refused to let her start talking until she had washed her hands

and sat down properly.

Once settled, she leaned in and said, “You will not believe what happened next.”

“I probably will,” I replied.

“No, really. Savitri Devi threw Shreya out.”

I blinked.

“That fast?”

“Not

exactly. First she spent three days pretending the report must be

wrong. Then she accused the lab of incompetence. Then she accused Shreya

of witchcraft—yes, actual witchcraft, don’t laugh—because apparently

that was less embarrassing than admitting they’d all behaved like fools.

Finally, when Shreya refused to leave quietly and demanded money for

her ‘suffering,’ all hell broke loose.”

I almost choked on my tea.

“Money?”

“Oh

yes,” Ritu said eagerly. “Shreya apparently told them that if they

wanted her gone without scandal, they would have to ‘settle’ her future.

She threatened to speak to the media. Or maybe to the community elders.

Depends which version you believe.”

My father let out a delighted grunt from behind the newspaper.

“So the mistress tried to blackmail them?” I asked.

“Something like that.”

My

mother, who had endured enough in her own married life to despise women

who side with patriarchy until it turns on them, said flatly, “Good.”

And in a way, it was.

Not because I found joy in other women’s ruin.

But

because women like Shreya often imagine they are outsmarting the system

when really they are merely volunteering to be used by it—until the day

the system finds a better vessel.

For months, Shreya had accepted

being treated like a sacred incubator because the attention, status,

and comfort suited her. She had watched them demean me, and she had

remained. Maybe she even enjoyed winning.

But a game built on male heirs and family pride eventually devours every player.

That was the lesson none of us could escape.

A month later, Raghav came to Kanpur.

He did not warn me.

I

was returning from Tara’s vaccination appointment, tired and sticky and

carrying three bags plus a half-asleep baby, when I saw him standing

outside my parents’ gate.

For a second, I genuinely thought I was imagining him.

He looked thinner.

Less polished.

His shirt was wrinkled, his beard uneven, his eyes ringed with exhaustion.

The old me—the me from a year earlier—would have seen pain and rushed to understand it.

The new me saw consequences.

He took one step forward.

“Ananya…”

I shifted Tara higher on my shoulder.

“What are you doing here?”

“I needed to see you.”

“No, you wanted to see me. Very different thing.”

His face flinched.

“Can we talk?”

“About what? Your mistress? Your mother? The family heir who wasn’t? Or the wife you discarded until everything else collapsed?”

He lowered his eyes.

The gesture would once have softened me.

Now it only reminded me of that family meeting in Lucknow—when he lowered his head instead of defending me.

“I deserve that,” he said.

“You keep saying that as if it earns you something.”

A flicker of pain crossed his face.

I unlocked the gate but didn’t invite him in.

From

the veranda, my mother had already appeared, arms crossed, lips thin,

clearly ready to use the broom as a constitutional weapon if necessary.

Raghav looked at Tara.

“May I… see her?”

I hesitated.

Not because I feared he would hurt her.

Because I feared my own heart would tremble at the sight of him looking at his child.

I did not want any trembling left where he was concerned.

Still, Tara was his daughter.

And unlike his mother, I would not make parenthood conditional on sex, pride, or revenge.

I adjusted the blanket and turned her slightly so he could see her face.

He stared.

For a moment, all his words disappeared.

Tara yawned in her sleep, her tiny mouth making a perfect O, then frowned dramatically as if already judging the world.

Something in his expression cracked.

“She looks like you,” he whispered.

“Yes,” I said. “Lucky for her.”