Nothing like the confident man I once married.
“Ananya…” he whispered.
I said nothing.
For several seconds, all I could hear was his breathing.
Then he finally spoke again.
“They’re leaving.”
I frowned.
“Who?”
“My family.”
The silence afterward felt heavy.
“My father transferred most of the money overseas,” Raghav said bitterly. “My mother has moved into her sister’s house in Jaipur. The relatives stopped answering my calls after the hospital bills started coming.”
I closed my eyes.
The same family that once treated sons like kings had started disappearing the moment responsibility arrived.
“What about Shreya?” I asked quietly.
Another long pause.
“She took the baby and moved out yesterday.”
I didn’t know what to say.
Part of me expected satisfaction.
After everything they had done to me… after humiliating me over the possibility of giving birth to a girl…
Maybe I should have felt vindicated watching their world collapse.
But instead…
I just felt tired.
Deeply tired.
Then Raghav said something that completely caught me off guard.
“I found the letter.”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
“What letter?”
“The one my uncle wrote before he died.”
A chill ran through my body.
For years, the family had erased that man’s existence almost completely.
Nobody spoke his name.
No photographs displayed openly.
No stories shared during festivals.
Like he had never existed at all.
“What did it say?” I whispered.
On the other end of the line, I heard Raghav trying not to cry.
“He begged my father to stop hiding the disease.”
My breath caught.
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