Page 3 of Since You Stole My Heart

His dark eyes made her stomach drop.

She spoke too fast, too high. ‘Nothing, I didn’t hear anything.’

‘Don’t lie to me, Kashvi!’ he shouted loud enough to make her jerk.

She blurted out, ‘I heard you fighting with Maa.’

Karthik closed his eyes and sighed. ‘I wish you hadn’t.’

Why wasn’t he shouting?

The question sat quietly in her mind, making her uneasy.

He looked so different from the man she’d heard a few minutes ago. Kashvi sat up, hesitantly reaching out to touch his shoulder. ‘Papa, what’s wrong? I’m here.’

‘You’re such a sweet girl, always trying to make things better. You deserve a better father than me,’ he murmured.

Kashvi insistently shook her head as she tried to fix whatever was making him sad. ‘You’re the best. You say good night to me,you bring me chocolates, and you tell funny stories. You’re the best daddy ever.’

Karthik gave her hand a light tap. ‘I’m going to miss you. Spending time with you made my day and I can’t believe I’m never getting it again.’

A spike of fear pierced through her heart. ‘Are you going somewhere, Papa?’

‘Yes.’

After a beat of silence, she asked, ‘When will you come back home?’

‘It doesn’t matter. You won’t be here when I get back,’ Karthik said.

‘Why not?’ she asked, sitting up straight in bed.

‘Because your mother has decided to take you and Siya both away from me.’

‘No! Why would she do that?’ she asked, her voice rising as panic crept in.

‘Because she wants to punish me,’ he said quietly.

‘But it sounded like… like you were punishing Maa,’ she said, bracing herself for his cutting, scolding tone she knew so well, but it didn’t come.

‘Kashvi, you’re only six, and too young to understand how it works between adults. Besides, don’t you know how much I love her?’

‘I…’ she stammered, uncertainty settling in her chest as she tried to piece together what she had heard.

‘Tell me, did you see me punishing her?’ he asked, studying her intently.

She shook her head, her unruly hair brushing against her cheeks.

‘Then maybe you shouldn’t believe everything you hear,’ Karthik said, looking away. ‘You know, it breaks my heart that you could think of me this way.’

Guilt pricked at her skin, and she began to think maybe she had heard wrong.

‘Though it’s a good thing you didn’t see anything. I don’t want you to see your mother like that when she’s angry.’

‘But Maa only gets mad at us when we do something wrong. Did you…?’ she trailed off, scared that she’d said too much.

‘Yes, I made a mistake,’ he said. His easy admission caught her off guard, but fragile relief rushed through her. She knew how to fix this.

‘Di says everyone makes mistakes, and Maa says if you say sorry honestly, fix it and don’t do it again, everything will be alright. If you do the same, she won’t be mad at you anymore, and we’ll be okay again.’