“No, Rama. I was never deceiving you. I am your mother, and I love you still.”
He turned around. “Don’t lie. You were never a friend to me. How could you be, when you have forsaken the gods? I should have listened, should have taken away your power when I had the chance.”
“Listen to yourself,” I said. “What has happened to you?”
“I was betrayed by my own mother,” he said.
“Betrayed?” I demanded. “I love you. I gave you everything I could. When you cried, I sang to you. I handed you the moon. I played with you, took you to my homeland. And in return, you turned your back on me. You spurned my teachings and put me in danger.”
“Then why are you sending me away?” He looked away, a thick curl falling into his eyes as he blinked rapidly. There was real hurt in his voice, and the knowledge that I was responsible for it stung.
“I am helping you,” I said, my voice thick. “Removing the responsibility that you said burdened you. I asked that you only be sent away for ten years. I believe you can change. You need not spend every hour being crushed by this divine responsibility you feel you are called to carry out. When you were a child and unhappy, I could hold you. Make you feel safe, tell you everything would be all right. I cannot do that anymore. But I can do this.”
“You think I don’t want the responsibility, but I do. It is my duty. And you are attempting to thwart it.” He shook his head. “You think people only agree with me because I have forced them to. But there are so many people in the city whom you have ignored or pushed aside. You asked I be sent away for ten years because you knew you could not get away with exiling me for my whole life.”
“You are a child. Just a child. You do not know what you speak of,” I told him. “Do you not remember how it used to be? Our family was happy.”
Perhaps I imagined it, but I thought for a moment his eyes grew distant, watery. “We were,” he said softly. I wondered which memory he saw playing out before him.
I could remember clearly watching my sons running in the bright Kosala sun, chasing one another, getting stuck in barrels and teasing their father. I remembered too that sense of foreboding that we would be torn apart. How I wished I had been wrong. “We can be happy again,” I said at last, for I had to believe it was true.
We stood there, heads bowed in the early morning light. Mother and son, both wishing for something different than we had. Then he straightened. “I doubt it,” he said.
I stepped back, pushing away the hurt, for this was not a surprise. The pause had given me a moment to think, consider the other person bound up in this besides us two. “At least do not bring Sita with you.”
Rama shook his head. “I see. Even now you did not come for me, your supposed son. You came for Sita.”
I had come to see Rama, to speak to my beloved son before he left, but he would not believe me if I said so now. “How can I convince you to let her stay?” I asked instead. “Surely there must be something.”
“I did not come here to bargain, and yet you insist upon it. Fine. Repent everything, Ma. Support me, and you may keep your seat on the Mantri Parishad. You get to keep your power.”
Maybe once that had been what mattered to me, but now it wasn’t even a choice. I took a deep breath to collect myself, and when I spoke it was with a steady voice. “I am sorry, Rama. I have failed you as a mother. I raised a cruel, callous child. This hurts me too. But I deserve this pain.”
His eyes widened almost imperceptibly, and I could tell I had shocked him. But it was too late. This was not enough.
“I hope your time in the forest serves you well,” I said at last. I turned from him and walked back through the door.
Sita came to see me before she left.
“I am so sorry,” I told her over and over, but she ignored me. Our connection in the Binding Plane still appeared strong, stark against the dearth of bonds. But I wanted to remember her face as it was, not as it looked in the world adjacent, and so I let go of my magic and simply sat by her side. Against her pale and drawn face, her silver strip of hair looked luminescent.
At last, an attendant came to my room to tell Sita it was time to leave. Before she left, the woman gave me a glance filled with pure disgust.
When she was gone, Sita turned to me. “Do you remember our first conversation?” she asked.
“Yes.” How could I forget. I had met a funny, sharp girl and reassured her that her marriage would work out, and that she would be happy. One did not easily forget such sins.