Fourteen poignant stories and a bonus novella explore love, loss, betrayal, desire and second chances through the lives of women navigating midlife and beyond. In The Lotus Blooms Twice: Stories of Love, Life , and Redemption, Monica Saigal takes readers across India and America, offering an intimate look at how life, love and hope can bloom again after heartbreak.
My photo stared back at me, smiling as if she were some other woman, some brighter version of me who had walked straight into a dream and decided to stay there. I remembered the day the article came out. My daughter screaming. My dearest friend rushing to the grocery store for more copies. Me checking the bestseller list three times because I could not quite trust that joy had arrived with my name on it. And now here it was, held in silver and glass. He had taken one of the happiest moments of my life and made it impossible for me to ever doubt it had happened.
“Do you like it?” he asked.
I couldn’t speak. No one had ever honored that side of me. The woman who dreamed of being a famed novelist when literature wasn’t even her major. Who typed stories at 3 a.m.
between her young child’s fevers and freelance work. Who wrote with a fire that came from nowhere and everywhere.
I nodded. “It’s beautiful.”
He stepped closer. “Yes,” he said. “And so are you.” His hands cupped my face. And he kissed me. I had dreamt of this, written about them in so many books. I never imagined it would happen for me. It felt like a promise made lifetimes ago was coming true. I let myself go all in. My gray dress slipped to the floor. I didn’t cover myself to hide my stretch marks or worry about my aging breasts. I didn’t flinch. I had already made the hardest choice: to trust him with myself.
For the first time in years, I did not guard myself. I allowed myself to believe that maybe love had finally found its way into my life.
A basketball thudded against my feet, bringing me back to the smelly gym.
“Sorry!” A boy darted over, grinning sheepishly. Amit called out to the kids that practice was over. His voice rang across the gym. I got up and walked toward the exit, scanning for my daughter. She waved from across the bleachers, chatting with her fellow cheerleaders, twirling her ponytail. When I turned back toward Amit, he was already gone.
Outside, the air had cooled. Dusk wrapped the parking lot in soft light. We walked to the car, my daughter chattering away beside me, still animated from her day.
Then I saw Amit, his daughter skipping beside him, her laughter rising like wind chimes. They got into a waiting car, and I watched him lean in and kiss the smiling driver. His wife.
I froze. Everything slowed. The kiss. The lift of his head. The laughter. The seamless choreography of a family that fit. The reminder crashed into me. I was not the one. I was the other. My daughter stood by the car: why wasn’t I unlocking her door? I focused on her voice. On now. On trying to be present as I started the car. As I was about to back out my phone buzzed.
Can I see you again tonight?
I stared at the message and felt physically queasy. I slipped the phone into my bag.
My daughter’s impatient voice brought me back to the present. As I drove, I focused on the road. The stoplights. I spotted the signs along Maple Avenue: VIVA VIENNA FESTIVAL THIS WEEKEND. White tents were already being set up. This is where I’d foolishly thought Amit and I might go together. My daughter’s voice filled the car, running through her day, her friends, her plans for the weekend.
The enormity of what I had done rose in me like bile. Shame. Regret. Guilt. Envy. All of it. He had been pushing for months, and I had said no. No, because I knew better. No, because I had spent my whole life trying to be the kind of woman my daughter could trust. No, because I had built a life on hard choices and clean hands.
Until last night.
Last night, I had let loneliness speak louder than conscience. I had dressed longing up as love. I had called his attention tenderness, his planning devotion, his desire proof that I still mattered. And I had walked into that room knowing there was another woman somewhere, another life, another child, another home. I had known. That was the part that cut the deepest. I had betrayed myself before he ever had the chance.
My phone buzzed again.
I pulled into an empty parking lot, stepped out of the car, and bent over near the curb as the sickness climbed my throat. Nothing came up except bitterness.
“Mama, are you okay?”
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and forced myself to stand.
“Yes, honey,” I said. “Just something I ate. I’m coming.” I got back into the car and pulled out my phone.
I know you’re upset. You have to learn to compartmentalize.
Or this won’t work.
This? This wasn’t love. This was simply a room I had walked into, knowing it wasn’t mine but hoping so much it could be. Sometimes hope is a fucking bitch. They say it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. But no one tells you what to do when the thing you lose is the woman you believed yourself to be.
Book Excerpt – Pg 40 to 43
