In the Quiet, Truth Waits

The art room had never felt this still.

It was Saturday morning. The sunlight slipped across the floor in golden strips, and the windows were open just wide enough to let the breeze stir the edges of the displayed sketches.

Aanya walked slowly along the display board, her fingers gently smoothing the corners of each pinned piece. One bookmark held a silhouette of a girl under an umbrella, standing alone. Another showed a pair of hands—one fading into dust, the other reaching after it.

“You sure about this?” Nisha asked, stepping in from the side with a box of thumbtacks.

“No,” Aanya said softly. “But I’m not hiding anymore.”

They worked in silence after that. The kind of silence where grief and hope sit beside each other, not fighting, just… waiting.

In the centre of the wall, Aanya placed the final sketch.

Her mother. Smiling gently, hand outstretched—as though reaching toward the viewer.

She stepped back.

It was ready.

Elsewhere, at Rajeev’s home…

The phone buzzed on the table. Rajeev reached for it absentmindedly.

Mitali Rajkonwar’s name flashed on the screen.

“If you truly care about your daughter,” she said as soon as he answered, “you’ll come.”

“Not to speak. Not to argue. Just… to look.”

He started to reply, but she kept going.

“And after that, open the envelope in your drawer. Play the audio file she sent. Then decide whether you’re ready to see the child who’s been screaming in silence under your roof.”

“You think Rhea saved your life. Maybe she did.”

“But don’t forget—her mother made it her mission to ruin our mother’s legacy. And Rhea… she picked up the torch.”

He froze. “What are you talking about?”

Years ago…

Two young women walked the campus lawns of Lady Irwin College.

Kamini Sharma—headstrong, graceful, always a step ahead—and Neela, her coursemate, who burned silently with ambition no one noticed.

Kamini was loved by students, teachers, and the community.

Neela? Overlooked.

Their rivalry began as small things—Kamini earning top honours, Kamini being elected to lead the cultural fest, and Kamini marrying well into a respected Delhi family.

But it deepened when Neela’s engagement fell apart, because the boy’s family preferred Kamini’s cousin instead.

And when Neela’s parents lost land due to a legal dispute—overseen by Kamini’s father-in-law, a bureaucrat—bitterness turned to venom.

And it worsened even further when Kamini, choosing a bride for her only son Rajeev, did not choose Neela’s daughter Rhea, despite her polished degrees and social standing.

Instead, Kamini chose a quiet, soft-spoken girl, Aparna Rajkonwar, from a not-so-well-to-do but honest and hardworking family in Dibrugarh—whose mother, Aarohi Chetia, had been in the same batch as her.

Kamini believed in integrity over appearance.

And that decision, made with love, planted the final thorn of resentment in Neela’s side.

They didn’t speak for years.

But Neela’s grudge festered like a wound that never healed.

When Kamini passed away after a quiet battle with illness, Neela barely offered condolences.

She told her daughter, Rhea, “That family takes what they want. If life offers you a way to take it back—do it.”

Back to the present

Rajeev sat frozen, the pieces falling into place.

“Rhea married me because she wanted comfort… but she hurt my daughter because her mother raised her to believe our family didn’t deserve happiness.”

Mitali’s voice cracked slightly.

“Don’t fail Aanya now.”

Later, at the school…

He wasn’t sure why he came.

He had seen the email, flagged it to read later, then… forgot.

Until this morning, when Mitali called him.

And now here he was.

He entered the art room quietly, unsure if he belonged.

Aanya stood at the far end, her back to him, rearranging a single sketch again and again.

Mitali sat beside the teacher in the corner, her eyes calm but firm.

Nisha gave him a small nod and stepped aside.

The silence wrapped around him.

Then, he looked.

He saw sketches of eyes that looked away, afraid to meet his.

Bookmarks curled with quotes about invisible pain.

A page filled with the word “Enough”—written over and over until the ink bled.

He saw his daughter.

Not the version filtered through Rhea’s words.

Not the quiet, obedient girl he thought he understood.

But this… raw, hurting, brave child who had been screaming into her sketchbook because no one else had listened.

Then he reached the centre.

And stopped.

Her mother’s sketch.

He blinked once.

Twice.

“I remember that saree,” he whispered.

Mitali stood up beside him.

“She remembers more than you think,” she said. “And you forgot more than you should’ve.”

He turned to her, eyes glassy. “Why didn’t she tell me—?”

“She did,” she interrupted. “She wrote to you. She left a letter. And an audio file. Both untouched. Still untouched.”

Rajeev opened his mouth, closed it.

Shame moved like slow ink through his spine.

“Open them,” she said. “And then decide if you still want your daughter to eat dinner across from you like a stranger. Or look you in the eyes again.”

He didn’t say a word.

Just stood there a little longer.

Looking.

And finally—seeing.