The Woman My Grandmother Loved.

Chapter Twenty-six

Two afternoons later, Anita's father would say, he saw her smile for the first time since Bhuwan's death. As he sat watching as Jha led her out of the house, he smiled as how all those years ago, he had worried that Bhuwan and Jha would be a horrible influence on his daughter. But she had turned out okay, she had turned out finer than what he could have hoped for in a daughter. And he regretted how in his folly, he had been unable to see the good influence that Anita had been on Bhuwan. She had been his family even when his father had been too cowardly to parent a boy who demanded answers.

Jha and Anita walked a long while before they came to their old spot. It had become so different; the unused piece of land, away from prying eyes. This had been their spot on the nights they scaled the walls of their respective homes; sneaking around under the watchful gaze of the guards their high profile parents employed. They were there to give Bhuwan a proper funeral, a send-off fit for that bastard as Jha termed it. And in true Bhuwan fashion, they had foraged for alcohol in Anita's father's cabinet. Finding a bottle of Scotch, they made way with it.

"I half wish we had a tantric with us." Jha joked, his eyes glassy but refusing to remove the smile from his pain.

"I know!" Anita giggled. God, it felt so good to laugh like the old times. But there would never be times like the ones they had known. He would've enjoyed it so much.

"Can you imagine it? The havoc supernatural Bhuwan would be able to cause." Jha laughs, thinking of all the things Bhuwan's ghost would be capable of doing. Imagining such silly things felt so free from the seriousness of life.

"It would be awful for the world but so good for us," Anita says, grinning; feeling lighter than she had felt in weeks.

Opening the bottle of Scotch, Jha took a sip; his face curling up in disgust at the strong taste. "For Bhuwan who made our livers hate us but loved us twice as much in return!" He exclaimed.

Anita smiled appreciatively, taking the bottle from him, and with a sip, she scrunched her own face in disgust as she forced the liquid down her throat, "For Bhuwan because you taught me how to jump from first floor balconies without breaking my legs. I can live in gratitude knowing that I will make a very good thief."

Jha laughed. "God, we used to be crazy. How are we not in wheelchairs already?"

"I used to be." Anita reminded him, making him ruffle her hair as he stood up. Grabbing the bottle, he took a smaller sip this time, "For Bhuwan because you taught me that like stars under the night sky, our kind of friendship is infinite."

"That rhymed". Anita said with a smile, taking another sip from the bottle when Jha passed it to her, "For Bhuwan because you should be here getting drunk with us."

Jha's face hardened as he took the bottle from her and took a large sip, "For Bhuwan because he was a bastard for dying."

Anita took the bottle from him, the alcohol and Jha's anger rubbing off on her. "For Bhuwan because the world was a bastard."

Jha didn't take the bottle but he looked at the sky trying to hide his tears, "For Bhuwan, because are sorry. "

"For Bhuwan, because we're so, so sorry. There will be nobody in the world who is sorrier for your loss than we are." Her voice is breaking as she tugs on Jha's hand, asking him to pull her up.

"For Bhuwan because before he died, he lived," Jha says, wiping his tears with the base of his palm, pulling Anita up with the other hand.

"Because he taught us how to live," Anita said softly, looking at the sky. Searching, for a sign, for anything. For her brother.