Family Ties (Part One)

Posted on | Wednesday, August 31, 2011 | No Comments


Part One 


The phone started ringing as Seth opened his car door. He answered the phone on the third ring.

“Hello?”

“Seth, this is Dr. Krishnan. Are you at work?”

“Not yet, I was just leaving the house. What can I do for you, Doc?”

There was a short pause before the doctor answered. “I'm afraid I have some bad news, Seth. Your uncle passed away this morning. You'd better come over right away,” he said.
“I'll be there in half an hour.” Seth hung up and sat back against the car seat for a minute, trying to process what he had just heard. His uncle. Dead. He was surprised how calm he was, considering his uncle had been his last living relative.
A portly, bespectacled man with greying hair greeted Seth at the front door. He shook Seth's hand and gave it a comforting squeeze before releasing it. “I'm so sorry for your loss, son.”

“Thank you, doctor. Frankly, I still can't believe it.”

The older man nodded. “Neither can I. He came in for a thorough check up last week and his ECG was normal. No sign of a heart condition, same as every year,” he said.

“How did it happen?”
“Your cousin arrived home early from his shift at the hospital and found your uncle slumped over his desk in the study. He tried to revive him, but it was too late.”

“And my aunt?”
“She was visiting her sister for a few days. She blames herself greatly for not being here.”

“Where is she now?” Seth asked.
“Upstairs, sleeping. I gave her a sedative. Ruben is in the living room,” the doctor said carefully.

Seth smiled thinly. There was no love lost between Ruben and him. The former had resented Seth being chosen to head the family business by his own father.
A tall, broad shouldered man in his early thirties was helping himself to a glass of whiskey from a bottle on an oak cabinet next to the television when Seth walked in. His face was drawn and there were dark shadows under his eyes. Seth wondered if the redness of his eyes was due to grief or too much alcohol.
“Well, well, look what the cat dragged in,” Ruben sneered as he slumped onto the sofa. He waved carelessly to the chair opposite.
“Good to see you too, Ruben,” Seth said smoothly as he sat down. “I'm sorry about your father,” he said more kindly.
“I found him at 7.30, dead as a doornail. He was still warm,” he said flatly. Ruben downed the remaining contents of his glass. He rose to refill it. “Want some?” he offered Seth.

“No, thanks. Do you need help with the funeral arrangements?”


“No,” replied Ruben shortly. “I'll make the calls after my drink.”
“Ok, I'll come by later to see Auntie,” Seth said.

“Suit yourself.”
Only a handful of people attended the funeral the next day, namely Mrs. Damodar, Seth, the Damodars' neighbour Mrs. Veloo and the family lawyer, Timothy Chan. Dressed in a white sari, Mrs. Damodar sobbed quietly as her son mechanically performed the funeral rites. Seth stood by silently, feeling a mixture of regret and resentment as he gazed upon his late uncle's corpse. Regret that anger and self-preservation had kept him from contacting his uncle all these years and resentment that by dying, Vikram Damodar had robbed him of any chance of reconciliation.
Afterwards, Seth drove his aunt and cousin back home. The house felt empty and desolate without the presence of his formidable uncle, almost as if it had died with him. Ruben put a comforting arm about his mother and guided her to the sofa in the living room, while Seth made her a cup of tea.

His aunt had stopped crying when he returned to the living room. She was lying on the sofa, propped up by two pillows. She smiled sadly at him.
“Thank you, dear. How you have grown! Your uncle would have been so proud of you,” she said with a heavy sigh, taking the cup from his hands. Seth didn't reply, but squeezed her hand gently. Ruben mumbled something and left the room. A door slammed somewhere upstairs.

“Perhaps I better leave, Auntie. Ruben seems upset that I'm here,” Seth said, rising to his feet.

She sighed again, shaking her head. “He is taking this very hard, that's just his way of expressing his sadness.”
For the next hour, Seth filled in his aunt about his life since leaving the house at eighteen. She listened quietly and even smiled at the funny parts, although he knew she wasn't really listening. Soon she was sleeping soundly on the sofa and didn't even stir when he took the empty cup from her hands.

As he passed the study on his way to the kitchen, a wave of nostalgia overcame Seth. The door was slightly ajar, he pushed it open and turned on the light. The air in the room was still, almost as if time itself had stopped with the demise of his uncle. This was where his uncle had spent most of his waking hours. Seth remembered how, as a child of eight, he'd wandered into the study and began playing with his toy trucks on the floor. His uncle had walked in suddenly and Seth had froze, terrified that he would get a lashing for being there. But his uncle had simply patted him on the head and gone to his desk to work.
Seth sighed as he recalled his last conversation with his uncle. The older man had seethed with rage when Seth expressed his intent to accept a prestigious law scholarship in England instead of helping his uncle run the family business. His late father had wanted Seth to take over his place as vice president of the company; Seth hadn't the courage to to tell his father that his real dream was to become a human rights' lawyer. And then his father died. Seth had hoped that his uncle would be more understanding. The next thing he knew, his uncle was shouting at him to leave and never set foot in his house again. That was the last time he saw his uncle alive.

Everything in the room appeared to be just as Vikram Damodar had left it. One window was slightly ajar, he would leave it open to let fresh air in instead of wasting the air conditioning. The desk was empty, save a few scattered papers and an envelope. A letter opener lay across the left side of the envelope, a coffee mug and pen on the right. The coffee mug had been washed clean; his aunt must have cleaned it after the body was taken to the hospital, Seth thought.

Seth was about to leave when he spotted a small dark stain under the handle of the open window. It appeared to be a spot of dried mud. For reasons unknown to himself, he took out his cell phone and snapped a few photos of the stain. He took another look at the desk. The envelope on it was A3-sized, whereas the papers were standard A4-size. He removed the pen from his shirt pocket and flipped through the papers. They were the business accounts and from what he saw, the family business was clearly thriving. The envelope however, was empty.
He opened the desk drawers. One had two files in it full of account statements and invoices. The other drawer held stationery and a stack of empty envelopes. So where were the contents of the envelope on the desk? Something was amiss; Seth felt it in his very bones.

There were a few pieces of crumpled paper in the waste paper basket. Seth picked them up and smoothed them out on the desk surface. His eyebrows rose when he saw that there were horse race betting tickets. His late uncle had been a deeply religious man who abhorred gambling. Ruben, on the other hand, had been known to sneak off to the horse races since he was sixteen. Seth took pictures of the tickets and replaced them.
“What are you doing here?” Ruben’s cross voice interrupted his musings.
“Just reminiscing. I remembered how we used to play hide and seek in here when Uncle wasn’t at home,” Seth said easily.

Ruben’s expression softened. “That was a long time ago. I’m surprised you still remember, especially after all that’s happened.”

Seth shrugged. “That’s life. Right, I’d better go then I have a couple of things to work on for tomorrow. I’ll drop by to see Auntie after work tomorrow.”

The frown returned to Ruben’s face and he started to say something, but the phone in the study rang suddenly, interrupting him. He gave Seth a slight nod, giving him a chance to make his exit.

Outside, Seth went around to the side of the house until he reached the spot beneath the study’s open window. He crouched down as low as he could among the flower bushes, eyes keenly scanning the earth. A pair of large footprints was imprinted in the earth just beneath the window sill. Seth bent down to have a closer look. The footprints were fresh, likely made by men’s worker boots. They were deep set, indicating that the wearer of the boots was above average height and build. Ruben was barely five feet seven and he wore a size nine. These prints were at least a size 10, Seth guessed.

He mulled over the day’s events during the drive home. The horse betting ticket stubs bothered him. Ruben and his father could have had an argument over his gambling habit. Ruben lost his temper and killed the old man, making it look like a heart attack. It wasn’t impossible, Seth mused. Ruben did have a temper, and who knew what his financial state was? There was no doubt that he would inherit his father’s estate, including the family business. Maybe Ruben had gotten tired of waiting.
There were a few hours yet before the work day ended. Seth voice dialed Kim, his paralegal. “Hello, Kim? It’s Seth. Listen, I need you to run a full credit check on a Ruben Kumar Damodar. Find out if he has any outstanding debts and how much,” he said. “And Kim, I have a lot to do tomorrow so cancel my morning appointments,” he added.

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