Free The Secret wish List by Preeti Shenoy

childhood mistake by doing all I can to please and placate my parents all through my adult life. Really, I have led my entire life as they have wanted me to lead it.
    For, it is as though they have constantly judged me for that one mistake, never allowing me to even raise my head for anything I wanted. It is hard for me to now reassure my mother and so I just say an okay and keep listening to her till she hangs up.
    ‘What happened?’ asks Sandeep.
    ‘Vibha’s husband passed away. Cardiac arrest. I don’t know the details. My parents aren’t coming for the funeral, but Rohan is. I have to fly to Hyderabad tomorrow,’ I say.
    ‘Oh,’ he says, the news slowly sinking in.
    I expect him to offer to come along with me. I wait for him to say that we will fly to Hyderabad together.
    Instead he says, ‘I have a presentation tomorrow. You know the team from Korea is coming. I cannot take leave. What are you going to do about Abhay?’
    I feel angry. The person closest to me, someone who is almost like my sister, has lost her husband and he is more bothered about his presentation and about Abhay. But this is no time to pick a fight with him or point out his insensitivity. Besides, years of marriage has already conditioned me to his black and white approach to most things.
    ‘Well, your mother can look after Abhay, surely? I will be gone for just a day. I will be back after the funeral. I simply have to go,’ I say.
    ‘Yes, yes. I will ask her tomorrow morning. You book your tickets now,’ he says to my relief. Then I stare in disbelief as he rolls over once more, adjusts his blanket and is snoring within seconds.
    I am in shock. I badly want to talk to someone about it. The only ‘friends’ I have are the mothers of the children in Abhay’s class. And I am not that close to them that I can call them late in the night for a chat. I have always been too busy raising Abhay and catering to Sandeep to make any deep friendships. Vibha is the closest friend I have and, of course, she is in no state to talk.
    I book my tickets to Hyderabad using my add-on credit card which Sandeep has made for me. I never use it except in emergencies like this one. I usually pay for all the groceries in cash. In the early days of marriage, I had been excited about a credit card. I had shopped like crazy. But at the end of the month, when the credit-card statement had arrived, Sandeep had given me a pasting for overspending and lectured me on the value of money. Somehow after that, I had never ever spent money on myself, preferring to use cash whenever I shopped. The cash too was ‘rationed’ and strictly governed by Sandeep. There was a designated amount which he had calculated as ‘fair spending’ and all the household expenditure had to be within this limit. He also insisted that I maintain accounts for everything I spent. I found it all very stifling. Sometimes, when I could not for the life of me remember what I had spent on, I would make up stuff to write in the account book. Once, when that had happened, I had put down: ‘Five packets of sanitary napkins’ and filled in the amount to match the money I had remaining. Sandeep’s reaction had been typical and hilarious.
    ‘ Five packets?’ he had bellowed. ‘Why?’
    ‘I have a rather heavy flow. Maybe I have cysts. I might have to go to the gynaecologist,’ I had lied.
    He had quickly closed the topic after that, his mind perhaps calculating the doctor’s fee. And I had giggled later at the cheap thrills I got in getting back at him this way.
    Today is not the day to wonder if plane tickets to Hyderabad amounts to ‘fair spending’ in Sandeep’s books or not. All I know is that Vibha needs me and I will move heaven and earth to get there.
    I toss and turn and am unable to sleep. Scenes from Vibha’s marriage keep playing out in front of my eyes. The trip we made together to Darjeeling—Vibha, Mohan, Sandeep and I—when Abhay was a baby, barely eight months old, flashes