Three days before the official launch of Two Days After You, Meera decided to visit Trinity Cancer Centre one last time.
She hadn't been back in nearly a year.
It wasn't avoidance—it was preservation. Some places carried too many echoes, and Trinity was one of them. The corridors still smelled faintly of antiseptic and jasmine, just like the day Aarav had taken his final breath.
The elevator dinged open on the fourth floor.
The palliative wing.
Her footsteps slowed as she passed Room 408—Aarav's room. It had been repainted a soft blue, the door now bearing another patient's name. She didn't stop.
She headed straight to the rooftop garden, the one Aarav called his window to the sky.
To her surprise, the old nurse—Sister Latha—was still there, watering sunflowers that lined the wall.
She looked up, startled.
"Meera?" she asked, recognition blooming in her face. "You've come back!"
Meera smiled warmly. "Hi, Sister. I wasn't sure you'd still be here."
"This garden keeps me breathing," Latha said, patting her chest. "And I still remember that boy who kept asking me if I could sneak mango juice past the diet charts."
They both laughed.
Then Meera's gaze drifted toward the far corner of the garden—the bench where Aarav had once sat with her, too weak to stand, but still determined to watch the sunset.
A single white lily sat there now, in a small, weathered vase.
She frowned. "That wasn't there before."
Latha followed her gaze and gave a knowing nod.
"They've been appearing every Wednesday for almost a year," she said. "Same flower. Same spot."
Meera blinked. "Who brings them?"
"We don't know," she said. "I've tried waiting, but they always come before I arrive. Around 6:00 a.m., it seems."
The information sent a chill down Meera's spine.
A white lily.
Aarav's favorite flower. He used to say, "White lilies look like forgiveness."
"I thought maybe it was you," Latha added.
Meera shook her head slowly. "No. Not me."
That evening, she came back.
Not as a visitor.
But as someone searching.
Wednesday. 5:30 a.m.
The hospital was quiet. The nurses' station was still dimly lit, and the vending machines hummed like half-asleep companions.
Meera slipped into the rooftop garden and hid behind the tool shed near the stairwell. She waited.
The sky grew lighter, soft hues of lavender and gold creeping over the edges of buildings.
Then she heard it.
Footsteps.
Slow. Hesitant.
A woman emerged from the stairwell, holding a single white lily wrapped in tissue paper.
She walked straight to the bench, placed the flower down gently, and sat beside it.
Even from behind, Meera recognized her.
Her heart dropped.
Sunita. Aarav's mother.
She looked older than when Meera had last seen her. A shawl wrapped around her shoulders, a sadness folded deep into her eyes.
Meera stepped out quietly.
Sunita turned, startled.
"Meera…"
Meera said nothing at first.
Then:
"It was you."
Sunita nodded, guilt softening her features. "I couldn't come when he was dying. I couldn't sit in that room. But I… I couldn't stay away either."
"So you came here."
"Every week."
Meera looked at the flower.
"Why lilies?"
Sunita's voice cracked. "When Aarav was ten, he brought me one on Mother's Day. He said, 'You don't need roses. These are prettier.' I hated them back then. Thought they looked like funerals."
"And now?" Meera asked softly.
"Now they look like him."
They stood in silence for a while, the wind brushing past them like a whispered apology.
"I wanted to say I'm sorry," Sunita said finally. "Not just for the past. But for letting you grieve alone."
Meera's throat tightened.
There had been so much between them—abandonment, resentment, silence.
But here they were.
Two women.
One lost love.
And a white lily between them.
"He forgave you," Meera whispered. "I think… he always hoped you'd find a way back."
Sunita blinked fast. "I didn't deserve it."
"None of us did," Meera said. "But he loved anyway."
She looked up at the sunrise.
Aarav's favorite time of day.
The sky was wide open. Endless.
They sat side by side for an hour, watching the sun paint the hospital walls orange.
When they stood to leave, Sunita placed another lily in Meera's hand.
"For your book launch," she said. "He'd be so proud of you."
Meera smiled through tears. "I hope so."
That night, Meera placed the lily in a glass vase beside her manuscript.
Not just as a tribute.
But as a symbol.
Of forgiveness.
Of healing.
And of the people who keep loving us—quietly, faithfully—even from afar.
To be continued…