Brihannala

The broom continued moving across the floor.
Slowly.
Quietly.
Archana didn't look toward them.
Kavitha watched her for several seconds before turning toward her mother.
"Amma."
Lakshmi wiped her tears.
"What?"
"I don't want anything else."
Lakshmi looked at her.
"I just want to speak to him."
She glanced toward the hall.
"To my brother."
Her voice trembled.
"I don't care if he wears pants or saree."
"I don't care whether everyone calls him Archana."
"I don't care whether people think he's a man or a woman."
She swallowed.
"He's my Anna."
Lakshmi closed her eyes.
"I just want to talk to him like I used to."
Kavitha began crying again.
"I want to tell him I'm sorry."
"But I don't know how."
She looked toward Archana.
"Every time I try, he turns it into this."
She gestured helplessly.
"'Yes, Chinnama.'"
"'Anything else, Chinnama?'"
"'Sorry, Chinnama.'"
"He doesn't talk to me anymore."
Lakshmi sat down.
"Because we hurt him."
Kavitha shook her head.
"We only had a doubt."
Lakshmi looked at her daughter.
"No."
Kavitha stopped.
"We did have a doubt."
"Having a doubt isn't the worst part."
She took a slow breath.
"It's how we asked."
"It's how we accused."
"And what we accused him of."
Kavitha's eyes filled.
Lakshmi continued.
"We may have punished your brother far beyond what we ever intended."
She looked toward the hall.
"Look at him."
"He doesn't behave as though this is his home anymore."
"He behaves as though this is his workplace."
Kavitha nodded.
"He thinks he has to earn his place here."
Lakshmi's voice broke.
"He thinks he's a worker living in somebody else's house."
She wiped her eyes.
"We created that."
Kavitha whispered:
"Can we fix it?"
Lakshmi shook her head slowly.
"Not immediately."
"Why?"
"Because you can't repair something like this by saying one sentence."
She looked toward the staircase.
"Time may."
"We have to let him breathe."
"And we have to stop pushing."
Kavitha looked confused.
"So we just wait?"
"We wait."
Lakshmi reached for her daughter's hand.
"And hope."
"Hope for what?"
Lakshmi's eyes remained fixed on the hall.
"That one day he'll feel safe enough to come back to us."
Kavitha was silent.
Then she asked:
"Amma..."
"What?"
"What exactly did we do?"
Lakshmi looked at her.
"We had a doubt."
Kavitha nodded.
"That's all, isn't it?"
"No."
Lakshmi's answer came immediately.
"That's not all."
Kavitha waited.
"Was it wrong to ask?"
"Yes."
Kavitha looked surprised.
"Just asking?"
"Not simply asking."
Lakshmi's voice was heavy.
"The way we asked."
"The way we looked at him."
"The way we treated his silence as proof."
"And then..."
She struggled to finish.
"The crime we accused him of."
Kavitha lowered her eyes.
Lakshmi continued.
"Even if we had asked a girl that question, she might never forget it."
"She might never forgive us."
She looked at Kavitha.
"But we asked your brother."
"We raised him as a boy."
"He knows exactly what that accusation means."
"And after everything the college has already made him endure..."
She stopped.
"I don't know how deeply it has gone inside him."
Kavitha started crying again.
Lakshmi pulled her close.
"I don't know whether we'll get our old Arjun back."
Kavitha whispered:
"Amma..."
"I don't even know if we've lost him."
She looked toward the hall.
Archana was still sweeping.
Quietly.
Methodically.
Without looking at them.
Lakshmi's voice became barely audible.
"Maybe he's still there."
"Maybe he's just waiting to find out whether this house is still his home."
Kavitha held her mother tightly.
Neither of them spoke again.
Across the hall, Archana finished sweeping.
She folded the broom neatly back into its place.
Then walked into the kitchen to begin the next task.
She didn't look toward them.
And neither mother nor daughter stopped her.
For now, they understood that the first thing they had to give her was the one thing they had taken away without realizing it—space to decide whether she still belonged to them.