Chapter Eight
April 30th, 2012
“And then my coach was like, ‘That’s not how you do a triple axel,’ and I’m just there thinking, ‘I literally just did it perfectly?” Mei complains over FaceTime while Sara works on her engineering problem set.
“Coaches be like that sometimes,” Dylan chimes in from his chat window. The fourteen-year-old entrepreneur was probably multitasking between their conversation and running his successful startup. “My business mentor keeps telling me to ‘think bigger’ when I’m already targeting international markets. How bigger can I think?”
Sara laughs, grateful for her online school friends who understood the pressure of being young prodigies. “At least you guys can show people what you do. Try being homeschooled for ‘advanced engineering studies’ when you can’t even talk about half your projects.”
“Ah, yes. The mysterious life of Sara Raavi,” Zara teases, her violin visible in the background of her screen. “Sometimes I think you’re secretly a spy or something.”
If only they knew the truth.
A notification pops up on her screen – a message from Tony about “urgent lab work.” Sara quickly makes her usual excuses to her friends and heads downstairs where she finds her mother on the phone with Tony.
“...I understand the concerns, Aniruddh, but she’s still a child,” Sandhya says in Telugu, her voice tight with worry.
Sara hangs back to eavesdrop.
“The situation’s escalating,” Tony replies, his voice crackling through the speaker. “If something happens… Sandhya, I need to know she can protect herself.”
“And what about her childhood? Her normalcy?” There was something raw in Sandhya’s voice that made Sara’s chest ache. “Every time she comes back from training with you, she’s different. More… more like–”
“More like me?” Tony’s voice is quiet.
The silence that follows is heavy with unspoken words. Sara could almost see her mother’s expression – the same look she gets whenever Tony’s mentioned, a mixture of guilt, longing, and determination.
“I’ll have her there in twenty minutes,” Sandhya firmly says, switching to English. “But Aniruddh? Be careful with her heart, please?”
When Sara enters the kitchen with her backpack, pretending she hadn’t heard that entire conversation, Sandhya stares at her phone with an expression that Sara couldn’t quite read.
“Are we leaving, Amma?”
Sandhya jumps slightly. “Yes, Sara. Let me get the keys.”
The drive to Stark Tower is quiet. Sara wanted to know about the conversation she’d overheard – the tension she could feel building in the adult world around her. Instead, she watches his mother’s reflection in the window, noting Sandhya’s oddly tightly holding the steering wheel.
Tony’s waiting in the private garage when they arrive. He looked tired, always tired these days, but his eyes lit up when he saw them. “There’s my favorite student!”
“I’m your only student, Tony Uncle,” Sara points out, but she’s already approaching the elevator.
“Sandhya,” Tony’s voice softens slightly. “Do you want to stay? Watch her progress?”
Sara holds her breath. Her mother no longer stays for training sessions.
“I… should get back,” Sandhya hesitates. “Arun’s cooking tonight, and when he does, it usually ends up being a disaster.”
“Oh, yeah,” Tony’s smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Wouldn’t want to worry him.”
Something passes between them then, quick as lightning but heavy as thunder. Sara pretends to be absorbed in her phone as her parents – both of them, though only one knew it – shared one of those loaded looks that seemed to happen more frequently lately.
“You know what?” Sandhya starts suddenly. “Maybe I’ll stay for a bit.”
The training room feels different, with her mother watching. Sara moves through her forms with extra precision, aware of both her parents’ eyes on her. When she successfully creates a complex series of flame patterns without singeing a single target, she hears her mother’s sharp intake of breath.
“She’s amazing,” Tony says softly in Telugu, standing close enough to Sandhya that their shoulders almost touched. “You did that. You raised her to be this strong.”
“We did,” Sandhya whispers back. “Even if… even if she doesn’t know it.”
Sara pretends not to notice how they both step away from each other too quickly when she approaches for water or how their hands brush when Tony passes Sandhya a tissue to wipe her tears.
“Chinna,” Sandhya calls out as Sara prepares for another form. “Show me that defensive move again? The one with the shields?”
For the next hour, Sara demonstrates everything she learned, proud to show her mother how far she’d come. Tony offers technical suggestions while Sandhya asks practical questions, and for a moment, it felt… right. Like maybe this could work, this strange family they’d created.
Then, Sandhya’s phone rings – Arun, checking where they were – and the spell breaks.
“We should go,” she says, already gathering her things. “Arun’s making biryani, and he gets so frustrated when he does.”
“Understandable,” Tony’s smile was brittle. “Same time Thursday, Sara?”
Sara nods, hugging him goodbye while trying not to notice how her mother couldn’t quite meet his eyes anymore. Sandhya was quiet again on the car ride home, but different this time. “You’ve improved so much,” she finally says. “Your control, your focus…”
“Thanks, Amma.” Sara hesitates, then adds. “I wish… I wish it could always be like today. All of us together.”
Sandhya’s hands tighten on the wheel again. “Some things aren’t meant to be, amma. No matter how much we want them.” How ironic.
Later that night, Sara lies in bed, thinking about how Tony and her mother looked at each other when they thought nobody was watching. About secrets and lies and the weight of unspoken words. About her father – her real father, the one who’d raised her – was probably downstairs right now, humming Telugu songs while he cleaned the kitchen, completely unaware that his whole world was built on carefully maintained fiction.
Her phone buzzes with texts from her online friends, asking if she wants to join their late-night study session. Sara sends back a “can’t tonight” and rolls over, watching the city lights dance through her window.
Something is coming. She could feel it in the tension between Tony and her mother, in the increasingly urgent training sessions, in how the adults around her seemed to be holding their breath.
She just hoped they would all survive this. Whatever ‘this’ was.