Hello, Mr. Major General (1)

Chapter 168 - Once Deep Love

Rita’s two personal caretakers were called Auntie Yati and Auntie Tejaswi. Shehnaaz remembered their names clearly; she had met them once.

“I don’t know. Why don’t you ask her?” Sidharth did not look up from his fried rice. He was offering Shehnaaz a chance to talk to Rita privately.

Shehnaaz quickly finished her porridge and left the kitchen to look for Rita. She walked about the rooms, and finally found Rita
in a small bedroom.

Rita was wrapped in a large triangular shawl embroidered with the flowers of a Chinese crabapple tree. She stood before the window, staring vacantly at the sky outside.

The bedroom was tiny. The ceiling was low, and the furnishings took up most of the space. Everything looked expensive, but it was simply too much for the senses: the room felt stuffy and oppressive.

It was the same for the human heart: if there were too many things inside, there would be very little space breathe, to turn around, and see things from a different perspective. It would be suffocating.

A tiny, cluttered room was a terrible place for someone suffering from psychological issues to live in.

Shehnaaz had suffered from psychological issues when she was younger, caused by the trauma of her car accident. Back then, she had suffered from frequent night terrors, and had had a mental breakdown whenever she was left alone in
a confined space. Open fires had been a trigger for her, too. She had eventually gotten over her trauma, thanks to the combined efforts of Sandeep and Sidharth.
She was certain that her psychological issues would have
worsened if she had been forced to live in a room as small and oppressive as the one she was now in back then. She would never have recovered.

Shehnaaz’s sympathy for Rita had been borne out of a feeling of kinship—Rita was Sidharth’s
mother, after all—but it now went beyond that: Shehnaaz
remembered her own struggle with mental trauma, and her heart ached for the woman before her.

…

Rita was standing by the window. She had been ill for many years, but she was still startlingly attractive. Her desolate frailness added to her beauty; she was like a precious flower, singularly beautiful, that had bloomed for
many years but was now about to wither. She was the sky during a sunset: a breathtaking sight that eluded description.

Sidharth was just as hauntingly beautiful. It was apparent now that he shared the same quality with his mother.

Shehnaaz sighed wistfully. She walked over to Rita and said, in a gentle voice, “Mrs. Singhania?”

Rita turned to smile at her. “All done? Did you enjoy the food?”

“It was delicious.” Shehnaaz nodded vigorously. “Have you had breakfast?”

“No.” Rita let out a small sigh. “I don’t have the appetite for it.”

A thought occurred to Shehnaaz. She reached out and gently wrapped a hand around Rita’s wrist—she was all skin and bones.

Rita was already laboring under the weight of serious mental and psychological issues. If her physical health were to decline as well, she would turn into a bed-ridden vegetable. It would be a death sentence for her.

Unease bubbled within Shehnaaz. Her intuition had never let her down, and it was now telling her Rita could not be left as she was. Shehnaaz was extremely sympathetic towards Rita, especially since they were both women; it pained Shehnaaz to imagine what it must be like for her.

“Mrs. Singhania, how about we go out for a walk?” Shehnaaz put a hand on Rita’s arm and rocked it coaxingly. “How about the garden? It’s my first time at the Shukla residence—you’re part of the Shukla family, can you show me around?”