Chapter 7: Preparing for Departure

The next day, I was ordered to prepare their passports and buy tickets. I took a day off work—even if I lost my job at the LIC office, I was determined to prepare their graves myself.

I hesitated for a moment, glancing at my mother’s faded wedding photo on the old shelf by the door. Duty and revenge warred in my chest, but I pressed on.

Soon, all three passports were ready. The tickets were expensive; I’d have to live on poha and chai for half a year. But it was worth it.

When I got home and was about to go upstairs, I saw my stepmother bragging to our neighbour.

“Old Sharma next door got taken north by his kids? What’s so great about the north? I’ve already been there.”

“My daughter is taking me to Dubai soon.”

“Do you know where Dubai is? It’s the richest country in the world.”

The neighbour’s face changed. “I just heard yesterday that some people disappeared in Dubai, all tricked into scams and had their kidneys stolen.”

My stepmother’s face darkened. She pouted, “Aunty Kamala, I thought you were honest, but you’re just jealous. You can’t stand others doing well, so you scare people with rumours. How vicious.”

“And you used to be a teacher? Pfft! No wonder your husband died early—you’re a jinx!”

The neighbour was so angry she nearly fainted.

Seeing things escalate, I hurried over—I couldn’t let Aunty Kamala keep talking.

I shoved the passports into my stepmother’s hand and found an excuse to pull her home, making sure to step around the leaking water from the last night’s power cut.

But as soon as we got inside, her face darkened and she started cursing me:

“Ritika, what’s your problem? I saw it too—scams are everywhere in Dubai. Women who go there get shipped off.”

“You told me before that scams were wiped out!”

She was so loud that Neha and dad both came out.

“Rajeev, look at your daughter! She wants us dead, trying to send us straight into a scam!”

My dad curled his lip and tried to hit me, wanting to use this as an excuse to shatter their dreams and keep them by his side.

Luckily, Neha reacted quickly, yelling at him to stop.

“What are you doing? I already checked—Emir really is a Dubai prince. Why are you freaking out?”

Seeing her daughter like this, my stepmother quickly tried to persuade her, even showing her news articles on her phone, saying Dubai is dangerous.

I suddenly felt things were going wrong. In my last life, Neha hated me, but I’d still managed to stop her with real-life examples. Now it was her mom’s turn—wouldn’t it be even easier for her to stop at the edge of the cliff?

Outside, the sky rumbled with another thunderstorm. The neighbourhood dogs barked, and Aunty Kamala’s radio, always tuned to old Bollywood hits, drifted through the open window. I remembered how, as a child, I would listen to the rain with hope; now I heard only warning. The way my stepmother spat out her accusations, the way Neha rolled her eyes, felt so painfully familiar that I almost laughed. Our house was a theatre, and we were all playing the same roles—except this time, I was ready to let the curtain fall.