The house was in a mess. Urmilla knew it wasn’t her fault. They had shifted into the house only yesterday and no one would expect it to look in tip top shape. Except for her. She would expect that from herself. She huffed out a breath and told herself to calm down. It didn’t help that this was the first house she had bought and her friends would be calling her any moment for their first look.
Urmilla flew through the house when her friends said they’d call her in five minutes. She hid the clothes underneath the bed, put one of the plants she had bought for the balcony in her drawing room and put a tablecloth on the dining table. Her husband noticed everything without batting an eye. They had been married now for seven years and he knew her well enough to know attempting to help, or tell her not to stress, would have zero impact. So, he focussed on making the perfect cold coffee for his wife.
Her attempts were laughable and they looked so out of place, she yanked the tablecloth off the table. It was a nice wooden finish. It looked good without the cloth she told herself firmly. She wished she had had time to put something on the bare walls, she mused. At least the curtains were up so the house didn’t look completely empty.
Her phone echoed from her bedroom and the nerves that stole over her made her want to whack herself upside the head. It was only her friends who had known her for twenty years. If they had not judged her so far, chances of them judging her now were ludicrous.
She accepted the call with a smile and as instructed, took her friends on a virtual tour of her new house.
*
“What did they think?” he asked, throwing a gauntlet to see if it was safe to talk.
He knew it was safe because Urmilla smiled. “They really liked everything I showed them and what we’re going to do with it.”
“Did they approve the man cave I want to put in the basement?”
“They were not so keen on seeing the basement. We have seen too many horror movies. There’s always a death or a monster there.”
“With one bulb which will burst as soon as our actor enters the basement.”
Urmilla laughed, then shivered. She didn’t want to think about it too much. She didn’t want to give herself sleepless nights. And though her husband was deeply supportive, she didn’t think he would appreciate her wanting to change houses simply because she had spooked herself.
“You need my permission too to make that man cave.”
He grinned above his coffee mug. His was black, hers frothy, white and sugary. It was interesting how their coffee matched their personalities. “I know I’ll need theirs as well.”
She finished her coffee with a loud sigh. “This was good, thanks. And yes, don’t worry, they loved the idea. They said they didn’t want me exposed to the basement. In case there are ghosts, they’ll get you first and it’ll give me enough time to run.”
He got up from his stool, went around the kitchen island and hugged her, ruffling her hair. She didn’t like that but she wasn’t averse to hugs, she loved hugs, so tolerated the ruffling.
“Sounds like a good plan.”
Urmilla snuggled closer to him, looking outside the window, at the white world, and the warmth of the hug and the house spread through her like honey. If someone had told her ten years ago that she’d be in another country, snuggled up to a husband, inside a house they had bought, she would have said it was a nice dream, but it wasn’t for her. Yet here she was.
“This is nice,” she said, feeling a kiss on her hair, “this is very nice.”
“And expensive,” he said, “we still have to fill up this house with all your Amazon wishlist items.”
This time when her whine and sigh echoed in the nearly empty house, Urmilla didn’t mind it at all.
Song: Take Me Home, Country Roads by John Denver
Check out the other posts for 2023 here. Written as part of #BlogchatterA2Z
Header image: Photo by Simon Berger
tales of Suchita 
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