His name was Imran.
He used to wait for her outside her tailoring class with a bottle of mango juice and that crooked smile that made everything feel less heavy. In those days, life hadn’t happened to her yet. It had still felt like something she could make—like stitching patterns into fabric, guiding the needle where she wanted it to go.
They married young, against a backdrop of borrowed garlands and whispered prayers. She’d worn a sky-blue saree, because it made her feel like she belonged to something larger than her own story. They didn’t have much. But they had plans. A little tailoring shop, maybe. A child. Sunday walks.
But dreams are fragile things. And Imran was even more so.
It started slowly. Long hours away. Excuses wrapped in tired sighs. A short temper. Missed meals.
Then, the nights alone grew longer.
The job in the next town that never quite paid. The debts she hadn’t seen coming. The drinking she’d pretended not to notice.
He was gone before Ayaan turned five.
No note. No forwarding address. Just the echo of a slammed door and the aching throb of what could never be stitched back together.
Now, Meera worked at Narmada Textiles, in the outskirts of the city. Line 7. Second bench from the end.
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Her fingers knew the rhythm by heart—feed the cloth, hold the seam, guide the foot. Zrrrrr-zzr.
A thousand collars. A thousand cuffs.
No one asked her name.
They called her “Aunty,” even though she was only thirty-eight.
She never complained.
The iron heat burned through her palms, but she welcomed it—it reminded her she was still present, still alive, still useful. Her spine ached from the stool. Her knees creaked from the cold cement floor. But it was honest work.
Between the noise of sewing machines and the hiss of the press, Meera often let her thoughts drift back to the life she had imagined. She tried not to blame Imran. She tried not to hate him for disappearing.
But some days, when Ayaan looked at her like she was just someone filling space in his life, she caught herself wondering:
What did I do wrong?
That evening, the factory manager announced cuts.
Four women let go. No warnings. No severance.
“Production targets down,” he said, sipping tea.
Meera’s hands trembled as she stitched. She kept her eyes low. She had no savings. No backup plan. No second parent to lean on.
Only Ayaan.
When she came home that night, her hands smelled of steam and starch. She tucked a few twenty-rupee notes into the shoe envelope. Ayaan had already eaten—instant noodles again, it seemed.
“How was work?” he asked, barely looking up from his phone.
Meera blinked, surprised.
“Busy,” she said, forcing a smile.
She didn’t tell him about the layoffs. Or about the burning in her chest that hadn’t gone away all week.
There were things a mother did not speak aloud. Not to a boy still figuring out who he wanted to become.
She watched him, noticing how tall he was getting. How much like his father he looked now.
But gentler, still. Softer around the edges.
She prayed silently that he’d stay that way.
That night, Meera stitched a torn pocket from her own kurta by candlelight.
The power had gone out again. But her hands moved with purpose.
She wasn’t fixing the pocket.
She was fixing the pieces of herself that no one else remembered were broken.