The remedy for most marital stress is not in divorce. It is in repentance and forgiveness.

One shiny moonlight night, tossing stares between the glowing black sky and her weary husband who was by now deep in sleep, Advika wondered why Anant never touched her after their second child was born. She only knew how she persuaded Anant to have children who always seemed ignorant at the thought of doing anything physical with her. Were the salon treatments not showing any results, was her skin too dry for all those expensive creams to work upon or was it finally time when she had to accept that she had indeed turned old and uninteresting for her own husband.

Anant was literally hogging onto his breakfast and was gulping his poha instead of chewing it. He knew he couldn’t risk getting late for the inter- departmental presentation. He picked up his file and his suitcase and rushed towards the car igniting its engine in full force. Advika had just come out from the room after waking up Tushar to get ready to go to school when she saw Anant’s blackberry buzzing on the dining table. “How careless! Anant has got to take less work stress” she thought. She picked up the phone and a message popped up, “Morning sweetheart! Hope your presentation goes well. Meet me for lunch at Corner Side cafe at 1. Can’t wait to see you love!”

The house bell rang at 12:20. Advika put aside the apron and turned the gas down. The aroma of hot pooris filled the air. She opened the door to find Anant coming inside in a jolly mood and humming to the tunes of his favourite Salman Khan Song. Advika made out at once that his presentation had gone exceedingly well and he was indeed up for a promotion. He signalled towards the dining table where his phone was kept.

“I came home to pick up my cell phone but since my wife is such a great cook, I might as well leave the house after eating those tempting pooris rather than stepping out with an empty stomach.”, Said Anant while taking his usual seat on the neatly set table.

While Advika was setting her husband’s plate whole heartedly, she heard him say that he had to leave right away as he had a lunch meeting with his boss and some foreign buyers.

He shut the door behind him sending chills not only inside the house but inside Advika’s body making it shudder.

There was a meeting she was sure, but not with the boss and buyers. Who was it with then? Was their marriage in trouble? Had her husband found a new love interest? A girl much taller and slimmer than her? Was he not touching her because he had his share of love with someone else? The wall clock read 12:35 and she still had 2 hours before the children came home. She fed the location of the cafe in the GPS and set out to fish some hidden secrets.

There she saw Anant’s red swift desire parked in the parking zone of the Corner Side cafe. She put on her shades and her scarf and like a spy, more rather like an insecure wife, entered the white walled high ceiling cafe whose ambience smelled of melted chocolate and coffee. Turning to her right, she saw Anant sitting in the private area of the cafe but could not make out who the other person was as the curtains were drawn. She couldn’t  go back home like this. She wanted answers and wanted to be sure of her husband cheating on her before putting up any allegations on him. So she marched straight to the glass door, slid it open only to find out a stunned Anant and another tall, lean man sitting beside him who had his hand on her husband’s lap.

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