The Missing Solitaire Part IV

Back to that fateful morning of 2015. Pam drove mechanically for twenty-five minutes. She wasn’t much aware of her coordinates until she found herself in the basement carpark of her condo. Her reflexes had safely brought her home. She parked her car. She worked on a similar drill she tried in the gym earlier on. Head down, she walked up to the lift lobby and then back to the car. Thrice. Rock or no rock, the procedure had to be followed. She came up, pressed the bell and took a deep breath. The younger sister was visiting the elder for an indefinite period (to be by her side until the storm subsided leaving behind her own family and home). Rock or no rock, her sister Ruby had to be protected from the after effect of the bad news.

Ruby opened the door and asked Pam, why so late?

-Have the maids arrived yet?

-No. (Oh dear God, thanks a zillion)

-I have a small news to share. I didn’t want to call you.

-What, tell me.

-You go sit first.

-What happened to you? Why should I sit? Why is your face ashened?

Ruby sat. Pam showed to Ruby her left middle finger.

Ruby turned hysteric. No no no no, now not this!!

Pam walked up to the black sofa removed all cushions one by one. Scanned all the seats meticulously. Rock or no rock.

Pam plonked herself on the sofa.

Ruby started to interrogate.

-You checked this, you checked that? But how’s it possible? When did you last look at the stone? Last night?

-I think so, not sure. How to plan a search for a miniature stone in this big house.

-We have to go in sequence. Let’s do a rewind. Leave the rooms you didn’t go to this morning. Let’s first check the places you set foot in. Tell me where all you went before leaving home. And here, drink some water first.

-We have to be careful during the search. If we upset the order of things the search will be meaningless. It anyways is!

Pam went to the prayer room and made a wish.

Pam, in her mind, was zeroing in on one spot. Her last pit stop in this treasure hunt. Games people play. She could neither mention it to Ruby nor could she drag herself to go there …out of fear that if she looked there and didn’t find anything, the mind game she was playing with herself would be over. There were two players in her game. It was to be seen who had the trump card. The winner or the loser.

They began the search, briskly looked around the kitchen, the washroom and the closet room.

Ruby said, didibhai what if the stone came off the ring while you were asleep? Okay, so Ruby now has read Pam’s mind and zeroed in on the last pit stop. Let’s go and search the bedroom, Pam declared. Together they went to her unkempt bed. A south-east facing room. The bed was flooded with sunlight. It was not difficult to comb the bed without displacing anything. Nah nothing. They were both afraid to move anything.

Shall we check under the pillows? Ruby suggested.

Not possible. You know how I sleep. I never take my hands under the pillow when I sleep. How can it get under the pillow? Pam lifted the pillow as she spoke.

On the crumpled bedsheet under the pillow was resting Pam’s most prized possession. The Solitaire.

The sisters sat on the bed, looked at each other holding hands. Their facial expressions, priceless. It should have been captured in camera that day.

Epilogue:

# Our protagonist realized after a week that the thought of tying a knot on a piece of cloth did not occur to her during the entire solitaire episode.

# Somewhere along the line without realizing, she had overcome her inhibitions and embraced her City of Joy, hate got replaced by love.

# That day the separated conjoined twins went to live in a different home. Mortals called them lockers. A year later they flew to Singapore. Their doctor operated on them and fused them as one, again.