Amar casually dropped the Baccarat crystal vase on the lush Aubusson carpet. The flying shards left an angry stain on the cheek of the woman kneeling in front of him. He walked across the room to the Chesterfield couch and sprawled on it and examined his fingertips.
"Please help me, I have two young kids. I know you bought this home and my family’s debts for some strange reason." Isha pleaded.
Amar raised his eyebrows.
"So, you need this million-dollar mansion and that fleet of servants to raise your kids? Do you know how my mother raised me? In one room with my three cousins and an invalid grandfather."
"I-I-I just need my home. I have nowhere to go."
Amar kneeled in front of her and looked her in the eye.
"Work."
"Work?"
"Never heard of it?"
"How can I work? Who'll look after the kids? I don’t even have any skills. Why are you doing this? What have I ever done to you?
"You didn't do it to me. It was your father that did it to my mother. Do you remember Tarabai?"
"Um I-"
"So, you don't even remember her? A short middle-aged woman with pre-mature grey hair who always had bruises on her wrists. There was always a small boy trailing behind her and holding onto her threadbare saree. I saw your father kicking her every day as if she was an object. "
Isha cocked her head to one side.
"Do you know where Tarabai is?"
"All I know is one day my mother did not come home. Someone from your house came and gave me an envelope of cash and my mother's old saree. How easy must it have been for your father to kill her and bury the truth. He did not care that her maid's child will suffer. Now he has to watch her child suffer. It must be galling for him that I used that money to study and got myself out of that hellhole. I wanted to avenge my mother’s death. "
"Your mother didn't die. On that day my father passed away. He was a habitual domestic abuser. He was beating my mother so badly that she was about to die. Tarabai came into the room, pleaded with him to stop. When he didn't, she just pushed him, and he hit his head against a marble shelf and died on the spot. The police were on their way and my mother gave her some of her clothes and sent her away to Lakshadweep. Tarabai could never contact you for fear of getting caught but she is a hero to us. We are not the villains you made us out to be."
Amar held his head in his hands.
He dropped a pair of keys in Isha's hands and said, " Tell her I love her, and I made something of myself."