House help opened the door for her. Paritosh was sitting on the carpet beside a crying Meenal. His head was buried in his hands. It looked like he had tried everything possible to calm his daughter down and had failed. Rupali looked at the clock. It was forty five minutes past eleven. If Meenal was crying since nine ‘o clock…

“Dr. Khanna.”

A distressed face looked up at her, and brightened up in a moment.

“Meenu,” he turned to her daughter and drew her attention to Rupali.

She indeed stopped crying.

“Mamma…. Mamma…”

Rupali smiled at her and stretched her hands out. Meenal got up, walked up to her and held her hand.

“Mamma… Mamma…” she rocked herself.

“Thank you,” Paritosh’ eyes were enough to express how grateful he felt.

“It’s all right, Sir,” she replied politely.

Both of them stayed around while Meenal became absorbed in her toys. Paritosh didn’t let Rupali bring Meenal’s food or do anything else that day. “I like doing it. Unfortunately I can’t do it every day,” he explained.

“I am afraid,” he spoke hesitatingly after feeding some milk to Meenal, “You might have to come tomorrow as well. Earlier, she had never done this. When I was around, she wasn’t bothered if the caretaker went away. But for some reason…”

Rupali had anticipated this. Yet her heart sank. It had been only one week into this job. Despite her bravado before her brothers, she was finding it tiring to do both the jobs, apart from the housework. Soumitra and Sugata helped at home, but they also needed time for their tuitions and studies and she didn’t want them to compromise on that. She had been looking forward to catching up on her sleep over the weekend. Pharmacy had to be attended every day. It was only the day time that she could have used to take rest. Apart from getting no time to sleep, coming here would mean she won’t get any time with her brothers either. But she couldn’t leave this little girl crying and distressed. What had she gotten herself into? She hoped that things would settle down. This week she would have to manage. By next weekend, hopefully, she would have thought of some solution.

“I will come, Sir,” she assured him.

“I will pay you for this…”

“That’s not needed, Dr. Khanna.” Taking money would have meant committing permanently to it. She didn’t want to do that.

The doorbell rang. The house help was still around. Rupali figured that she stayed longer on weekends to finish weekly tasks of dusting and cleaning up. On weekdays, she left at about the same time that Rupali came. She got the door.

“Somebody is here to see you, Ma’am,” she came back and informed.

“Who?” a surprised Rupali asked.

“He says he is your brother.”

“My brother? Here?”

“Bring him in,” Paritosh said.

—

“Soumitra. What’s up? Is everything all right?” Rupali got worried.

“Yes. Yes. I am going for Sugata’s cricket match. We just… You hadn’t eaten. So, we made some pooris for you. They didn’t turn out that well. So, we also packed some rice you had made for lunch.” He handed her a tiffin box hesitatingly. He was uncomfortable in Partitosh’ presence.

“You… you didn’t need to… ” She felt like she would choke on her voice. “Thank you,” she finally said. Her eyes were almost moist. “Dr. Khanna. This is my brother, Soumitra,” she introduced them.

Paritosh was looking guilty on realizing that Rupali had come away without eating. “Hi Soumitra. I am sorry for calling your sister like that…”

“It’s okay, Dr. Khanna,” Soumitra replied awkwardly. Rupali realized that he was uncomfortable in the posh surroundings.

“You have packed your lunch?” she asked. Thankfully she had made the lunch before starting on the breakfast. They were all planning to go for the cricket match and had to pack the lunch.

“Yes. I will leave now.”

Rupali nodded.

—

“You hadn’t eaten? Why didn’t you tell me?” Paritosh asked as soon as Soumitra left. As if, he wasn’t already feeling sufficiently guilty about spoiling her weekend.

“It’s okay, Dr. Khanna. I wasn’t hungry. I would have, if…”

“I should have taken care of it. Anyway, please have your breakfast first. I will check on lunch. There might be some chicken. Do you eat chicken?”

“Yes. I eat everything, Sir. Don’t worry about me.”

He nodded and walked off to the kitchen to check up on the cook.

—

She reached at Paritosh’ house fifteen minutes past nine on Wednesday. As she feared, Meenal was already crying.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized.

“It’s okay,” Paritosh was irritated, but knew better than to say anything to her for a mere fifteen minutes delay. It was the first time she had been late. He kept his calm.

But things took a different turn when for some reason he came home in the afternoon and found Rupali asleep. On Meenal’s bed, beside her. He looked at the clock. It was the time when Meenal woke up from her afternoon nap. Meenal woke up and poked Rupali gently. “Mamma… Mamma…”

Just then, an alarm went off in Rupali’s mobile. The sound of alarm frightened Meenal. Rupali woke up with a start and switched off the alarm before anything happened. Meenal calmed down immediately on seeing her awake.

Paritosh lost it, however. “What do you think you were doing?” he asked in a chilly voice.

“I… I am sorry, Sir. Meenal was sleeping. I just…”

“Meenal was sleeping, but she could have woken up. There was no one else in the house. Anything could have happened.” His voice was rising.

“I am really sorry, Sir. It won’t happen again. I…”

“No. It won’t happen again. Because you will leave right away. You are fired.”

“Sir!” Rupali wasn’t expecting such cold-hearted behavior from him. She thought she had gained his trust. Even if he didn’t find it professional for her to take a nap while Meenal was sleeping, firing her for that was a little too extreme. Nothing had gone wrong!

“Leave now. Did you hear me, or are you still sleepy?”

Tears welled up in her eyes at the insult. How could he? She looked at Meenal. She could probably not comprehend what was going on. Or if she could, and had an opinion about it, she could not voice it. Rupali felt angry. She won’t let this ungrateful man see her tears. She blinked those back. She got down from the bed, picked up her purse, wore her shoes, and left without a word.

—

To be continued