Grandmother, Who, Me?

Grandmother, Who, Me?

Chapter 18: Three Voices, One Family

Shreya’s POV

The waiting area of the maternity clinic smelled of disinfectant and the faint sweetness of the rose milk someone was drinking in the corner. I sat on the plastic chair with my mother-in-law beside me, our sarees almost the same shade of soft green. Across from us, Rajan, my father-in-law, sat with his arms folded, looking every bit the quiet, respectable husband.

I leaned closer to Lakshmi Attai and kept my voice low, almost playful.

“So… how’s married life treating you, Attai?” I asked, the corner of my mouth curling. “The bed? Is maama treating you properly at night?”

I watched her ears turn pink under the soft lighting. The thali nestled deep in her cleavage rose and fell a little faster. I knew I was being cruel. I also knew I couldn’t stop. The more real this family felt, the more I wanted to push the edges.

When the nurse called my name, we all stood. Inside the consultation room the doctor looked at the three of us and smiled the usual polite smile.

“Father can sign here,” she said, sliding the consent form across the table.

Rajan took the pen without hesitation and signed his new name in steady letters. I watched Satish, no, Lakshmi, standing quietly to the side in her saree, hands folded, the real husband reduced to the mother-in-law who had no signature to give. The absurdity of it made my chest tighten with something between guilt and dark satisfaction.

Lakshmi’s POV (Satish)

I sat beside Shreya in the waiting hall, the green cotton saree already sticking to my back from the hospital’s imperfect air-conditioning. Every time she leaned in and asked those soft, sarcastic questions about “married life” and “the bed,” the locked cage between my legs gave a helpless, aching pulse.

I answered in the mature voice that still did not feel like mine. “Everything is fine, ma.”

Inside the consultation room I watched Rajan sign the papers that should have carried my old signature. The doctor never once looked at me as anything except the supportive mother-in-law. My real name, my real role, my real body, none of it existed in that room. Only Lakshmi Rajan, wife of Rajan, mother of the man who was no longer present.

Afterwards Shreya decided we needed new underclothes. In the small women’s section of the textile shop I stood silently while she held up bras and panties against my chest, discussing cup size and fabric with the salesgirl as if I were not even there. I left the shop carrying two plastic bags filled with soft, feminine things that would soon press against skin that used to belong to a man.

Rajan’s POV

On the drive back I sat in the front passenger seat. My wife sat behind me. I could see her reflection in the side mirror, the soft face, the heavy breasts shifting whenever the car turned, the thali resting exactly where a husband’s claim should sit.

I still barely knew her. She spoke little. She avoided my eyes. Yet every document in the house said she had been mine for twenty-two years. After the hospital and the shopping, something quiet and possessive settled deeper in my chest. The role I was paid for was starting to feel less like a role.

When we reached the villa I held the door open for her, the way Jessica had taught me a husband should. She stepped past me with a small nod, the anklets chiming. For a moment our arms brushed. The faint rose-and-skin scent of her reached me again.

Lakshmi’s POV – Night

The guest-room door closed behind us once more. Rajan switched off the main light and lay down on his side of the bed with the same calm certainty as every previous night. I changed into a fresh cotton nighty in the dark, the new bra and panty still folded unused on the chair. My body felt heavy, oversensitive, locked.

Sleep would not come.

I lay on my back staring at the ceiling fan, the soft fabric of the nighty brushing over nipples that refused to stay calm. Between my legs the cage kept everything tight and useless. The more I tried not to think about the day, the hospital signatures, the shopping, the way Shreya had smiled while asking about the bed, the harder the frustration became. Even looking down at the soft rise of my own breasts in the dim light made the ache worse.

I turned my face into the pillow and whispered into the dark, so quietly that even I could barely hear it.

“Tomorrow. I confront her tomorrow. Pakka.”

Outside, the house was silent. Inside my chest, something that still remembered being Satish was reaching its limit.