Page 66 of Scars and Crowns

She takes her time answering. Long enough that I wonder if she will at all.

Finally she looks at our sleeping daughter again then whispers, "No." Another quiet pause. "It didn't." Her fingers absentmindedly smooth a strand of hair away from Sara's forehead. When she finally speaks again, her voice is barely louder than breathing. "It never felt . . . enough."

Enough.

Not rich.

Not perfect.

Not easy.

Just . . . Enough.

Enough people. Enough love. Enough warmth. Enough safety. Enough home.

I don't think she realises how much she's just told me. Or maybe she does. Either way . . . I understand. We sit quietly after that. Neither of us trying to fill the silence. Sara shifts in her sleep, nestling closer without waking. Minutes pass.

Eventually Anamika speaks again. "Thank you." I glance toward her. "For the bookshop." Her fingers tighten slightly around the edge of the blanket. "And . . . " She hesitates. " . . . for today."

I know immediately what she means. The man in the shop.

"I don't think I thanked you properly."

A dozen responses rush into my mind. You never have to thank me. Protecting you isn't a favour. I'd do it again tomorrow. And the day after that. And every day after that if that's what it takes. None of them leave my mouth. Because I know her. If I make too much of it . . . She'll retreat again. She'll start apologising. She'll begin trying to repay something that was never meant to become a debt.

So instead . . . I simply nod.

Once.

Quietly.

Letting the silence say everything my words don't. She looks at me for another moment. Like there's something else she wants to tell me. Her lips part. Then close again. I don't ask. I've learned something about Anamika since she came back. The important truths never arrive quickly. They come carefully. Slowly. Offered one piece at a time, only after she's convinced herself the ground beneath her won't disappear. I'd rather wait months . . . Years, if I have to . . . Then rush her into giving me something she isn't ready to carry out loud.

So we stay exactly where we are. Sara asleep between us. The bedside lamp burning low. The room wrapped in an easy, peaceful quiet. And I let myself sit inside this moment without wishing it were anything else. Not everything has been healed. Not every answer has been given. There are still stories she hasn't told me. Wounds I haven't yet learned how to hold. But tonight . . . Looking at the two of them beside me . . . Listening to the soft rhythm of Sara's breathing . . . Watching Anamika finally look a little less tired than she did the day she walked back into my study . . . I realise something. For years, I mistook loneliness for normal. I convinced myself silence was enough. That a title, a palace and duty could somehow fill the spaces people were supposed to occupy.

They never did.

This does.

Maybe not perfectly.

Maybe not completely.

But enough.

More than enough.

Far more than I ever dared hope for on the countless nights I spent alone in a palace that never once felt like home until they walked back into it.

THE FALL

ANAMIKA

Some of my earliest memories of this palace begin at the edge of the polo ground. Not inside it. Not among the guests seated beneath white shamianas with silver tea sets and polite applause. At the edges.

Behind neatly trimmed hedges, where the staff children gathered because that was where we belonged—close enough to watch, far enough not to be noticed.

Twice every year, the entire estate seemed to come alive. Cars lined the long driveway, guests arrived dressed in crisp linen and sunglasses, and the late Maharaja Anand Jadeja would ride onto the field atop his favourite grey mare as though the whole afternoon belonged to him.