And if it was happiness that I achieved, then why is it accompanied with so much guilt? How do I explain to her what companionship means at this stage in my life?” She should ask her eldest sister how
“She wished she could
she got through this phase.
go back to that place,
Mrunal looked up from the newspaper
where being
she had been reading and looked at the happy family spread out in front of her. As the eldest of the group, she was not ex-
dependent on others was taken for granted”
pected to participate much, yet she wished they would make her. She wanted to feel that sense of inclusion again. Although she had been ready for it for years, the hollow feeling that her husband’s demise had left behind, would always resurface at family gatherings like these. She had kept herself busy, yes. She had not let herself be idle even after retirement, and she quite enjoyed doing the things that she loved to do, and doing them all day. But she wished her nowgrown-up kids would realize how the fear of dependency haunted her. She looked at little Maitreyi stumbling along in heeled shoes too large to be her own size, and she wished she could go back to that place, where being dependent on others was taken for granted. Page 7