The dread that settled in my heart as night fell was a cold, physical thing. It wasn’t the fear of a nightmare. It was the fear of a reality more terrible than any dream. Katha’s words echoed in my mind. Her sins and yours are tangled together.
As if summoned by my fear, the soft, pearlescent light filled my bedroom. Katha was there. But she didn’t ask if I was ready. She looked at me with those ancient eyes, and I felt like a specimen under a microscope.
“You weep for Maya’s sin of suicide,” she said, her voice a calm, cutting whisper. “It is a great sin. But it was one act, born of despair. Shall we speak of your sins, Dimple? The ones committed every day, born of pride and carelessness?”
I opened my mouth to protest, but no sound came out.
“Let’s talk about your husband,” Katha continued, drifting closer. “You showed the world the image of a perfect marriage. But you betrayed him, didn’t you? Not with your body, but with your words, which can be so much crueler. You held up your phone like a shield, but it was also your weapon.
You complained about him to your friends in private messages. You shared his vulnerabilities, his struggles, painting him as a man who was holding you back from the career you deserved. With every tap of your thumbs, you chipped away at his honor. You made him small in the eyes of others so you could feel big.”
The memory of those conversations, the casual, gossipy betrayals, flooded me. The shame was a hot flush that spread across my soul.
“And your children,” Katha went on, her voice relentless. “You loved them. But you loved your ambition more. You missed school plays for meetings. You answered emails during bedtime stories. You provided them with things, Dimple, but you starved them of what they truly needed: your time, your undivided attention. You were a ghost in your own home long before you became a grieving mother.”
You were so busy posting pictures of your ‘perfect life’ that you didn’t have time to actually live it.
You chased promotions, deadlines, and the approval of strangers on a screen, and in doing so, you forgot the sacred duty you had to the souls entrusted to your care.”
“I… I did my best,” I stammered, the words feeble even to my own ears.
“Your best was not good enough,” Katha stated, her voice devoid of malice but full of terrifying certainty. “Your life has been a series of small, comfortable betrayals. You think you are just the witness to this journey? You are wrong. You are a patient, and this is your therapy. You will feel Maya’s pain because her despair was watered by the seeds of your neglect. Her sins and yours are tangled together. That is the law.”
She reached out her hand. “Now, are you ready to truly begin? Are you ready to feel the consequences of a life lived… like yours?”
My choice was gone. This wasn’t a bargain. It was a sentence. And my testimony was not just about my daughter’s hell. It was about my own. I nodded, my body trembling, and took her hand.
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