Months drifted by after her mother's funeral. Leela and Amit seemed to float through each day—working, cooking, trying to fill the silence. The banyan tree outside remained steadfast, a silent confidant. Leela found herself drawn to it, watching the light change and casting shadows on roots like veins through stone.Underlying every day was the question of legacy. Amit struggled with his own family's expectations, contending with constant phone calls about his career, marriage, and failures. Each call reopened wounds from his childhood: his father's outbursts, his mother's withdrawn resignation, his brother's disappearance into drugs and isolation.Leela saw echoes of herself in Amit's pain. She began journaling about the cycles she witnessed—how injuries from long ago replayed in arguments, mistrust, missed opportunities. One night, during an argument about something petty, Amit broke down and revealed how he always felt doomed to repeat his father's violence, even as he struggled to be gentle.Leela reached for his hand. They cried together, sharing the quiet grief of knowing how hard it was to stop those patterns. Still, they resolved: if healing existed at all, it would not come from forgetting but from facing the stories honestly—naming them, holding them, refusing to be crushed by shame.
