Kulkarni.
My fingers went numb around the photograph.
Baby Girl Kulkarni.
For five years, that name had lived like a locked room inside my chest.
Dr. Mahesh Kulkarni.
The man who had signed Anjali’s death certificate.
The man who told us her heart had “suddenly failed.”
The man who did not let me see her body properly because, according to him, “some memories are better kept peaceful.”
Peaceful.
My sister had gone into his private care home for one month of therapy and never came back alive.
Now a three-month-old baby in a hidden orphanage file had his surname on her wrist.
Rohan saw my face.
“Naina,” he whispered, “who is that?”
Before I could answer, Mrs. Kapoor stepped into the room.
Her eyes fell on the file.
Then on the photograph.
Then on Meera.
The mask vanished.
“You stupid girl,” she said.
Meera hid behind me.
I had never heard an adult say those words to a child with such poison.
Rohan moved between us and Mrs. Kapoor.
“We are calling the police.”
Mrs. Kapoor laughed.
Not loudly.
That made it worse.
“You think police don’t know this building exists?”
The baby cried again.
Closer this time.
Meera covered her ears.
“Bad uncle coming,” she whispered.
My blood turned cold.
“What bad uncle?”
Mrs. Kapoor’s eyes snapped to her.
“Enough.”
I stepped back, still clutching Tara’s file.
“You are transferring a baby tonight.”
“She is not your concern.”
“She is three months old.”
“She is paperwork,” Mrs. Kapoor said. “And paperwork moves when donors ask.”
Donors.
That word made my stomach twist.
Rohan pulled out his phone.
No signal.
He looked at me.
“My phone too?” I asked.
He checked.
Nothing.
Mrs. Kapoor smiled.
“Old building. Thick walls.”
But the way she said it told me the walls were not the reason.
From the courtyard, a gate creaked.
Then came the sound of a vehicle.
Heavy tires over gravel.
Meera began shaking.
“White van,” she whispered. “They take at night.”
I looked at Mrs. Kapoor.
For the first time in my life, I wanted to hurt another human being.
Not slap.
Not push.
Hurt.
Because she had taken a child who already had to fight the world and made her fight monsters too.
Rohan grabbed my wrist.
“Naina, we need to get out with the file.”
“No,” I said.
He stared at me.
“Tara is still here.”
Another cry came from behind the locked nursery door.
Weak.
Hungry.
Afraid.
Meera pulled my dupatta.
“Baby Tara has red blanket,” she whispered. “She likes finger. She stops crying if hold finger.”
My heart broke in a way I did not know hearts could break.
This little girl was not asking me to adopt her baby sister because she did not want love.
She was offering up her own chance at a home to save someone smaller.
Mrs. Kapoor stepped forward.
“Give me the file.”
Rohan said, “Don’t come closer.”
She looked past him into the corridor and shouted, “Dinesh!”
Footsteps ran toward us.
A large man appeared at the doorway, wearing a security uniform that did not fit his stomach. His eyes went first to Mrs. Kapoor, then to the file in my hand.
“Madam?”
“Take it.”
Rohan pushed me behind him.
Dinesh smiled.
It was the smile of a man who had done terrible things often enough to be bored by them.
“Sir,” he said to Rohan, “don’t create issue. This is not city flat. Nobody will hear shouting.”
Rohan whispered, “Run when I say.”
But I could not run.
Because Meera was holding my kurta.
Because Tara was behind a locked door.
Because Anjali’s photograph was inside my purse, and suddenly I felt like my dead sister had not brought me here to choose a child.
She had brought me here to uncover a grave.
Dinesh lunged.
Rohan caught him.
They crashed into the steel cupboard, files spilling across the floor.
Mrs. Kapoor screamed.
Meera cried out.
I grabbed her hand and ran.
Not toward the exit.
Toward the nursery.
The corridor blurred around me. My sandals slapped the floor. Meera ran beside me, breathing hard, her mismatched shoes making uneven sounds.
