The scent of incense still clung to the curtains, heavy and uninvited. Aanya Roy paused at the threshold of her childhood home, suitcase in hand, as if stepping back into a memory she had spent years trying to forget. The rusted gate behind her squeaked in the wind, like it, too, remembered.
The house hadn't changed. Pale blue paint peeling off the walls, potted plants half-dead on the veranda, the old wind chime above the door—still there, still cracked. Even the doormat that read Welcome was faded and mocking.
She hadn't been here in fifteen years.
The funeral had passed like fog. A blur of pale faces, marigold garlands, murmured condolences, and unspoken questions. People had whispered, as they always did. About her mother. About her. About the silence between them.
Now the silence wrapped itself around her again, thick and suffocating.
Inside, the air was stale with memories. The hallway smelled like mothballs and sandalwood. Photographs lined the walls—her mother smiling stiffly at a school function, Aanya as a child with gap teeth and ponytails, her father long gone from the frames and from their lives.
She stepped into the bedroom. The bed was neatly made, as if expecting company. On the dresser, something stood out: a plain white envelope. Her name written in shaky blue ink across the front.
Aanya.
Her breath caught. Her mother's handwriting—fragile and familiar.
She opened it slowly, the paper trembling in her hands.
Inside was a single sheet. Just one sentence.
> "Forgive me for the truth I made you bury."
She stared at it for a long time. The words blurred, then sharpened, then blurred again.
There were so many things she had buried.
Some with her mother.
Some deeper than that.
And some things—some truths—refused to stay buried forever