The week that followed felt like a reunion Saravanan hadn't expected to host.
Thamizharasan, ever the thread between past and present, had taken it upon himself to arrange a series of gatherings. No fanfare. No speeches. Just small meetings in tea shops, verandahs, temple halls, and once, even in a closed classroom at Subramaniyan's old school.
They came. Some with hesitation. Some with flowers.
All with memories. First, it was the schoolfriends.
They were now parents, retirees, their faces lined with time and responsibility. But when they spoke of Subramaniyan, something softened in them — a boyhood re-emerged.
"He was the quietest," one said, nervously adjusting his spectacles.
"But we were cruel," another admitted, voice cracking. "We called him 'useless calculator.' I think... I think we were scared of how calm he was. He didn't fight back."
A former classmate stared at the floor for a long time, then whispered,
"Tell him sorry… if he's still listening."
Saravanan didn't speak much. He didn't need to. The diary had already done the talking. When he opened it, and showed them their names in the margins — not as enemies, but as characters in his father's story — something changed in the room.
"Guilt turned into respect. Nostalgia turned into healing."
One man sobbed openly. He ran a provision store now, had children of his own.
"I hit him once," he said. "During lunch. For no reason. I still see his face. He didn't even cry. Just said, 'It's okay.' Why would he say that?"
Saravanan touched his shoulder and replied quietly,
"Because he had already forgiven you."
Later, it was the college friends.
They were more vibrant, more chaotic. Engineers, poets, auto-shop owners, businessmen, and one man who now wrote film lyrics in Kodambakkam. Their voices were louder, their emotions sharper.
"Subbu was our backbone," said Vasanth, who had flown in from Coimbatore.
"He didn't drink. Didn't flirt. But he remembered every birthday. Every exam date. And he once pawned his watch to pay for my hostel fee."
The poet among them — a lean, bearded man named Sathish — pulled out an old photograph: six young men on Marina Beach, grinning, drenched in seawater. In the corner stood Subramaniyan, smiling faintly, half-turned away.
"I always thought he lived small," Sathish said. "Now I know he was just... carrying the weight alone."
When Saravanan read out the Goa entry from the diary — the trip they had dreamed of, planned for, but never took — silence fell.
For a long time, no one said a word.
Then, Vasanth looked up, eyes glistening.
"We should go."
"To remember him?" Sathish asked.
"No," Vasanth replied. "To forgive ourselves."
They didn't go immediately. But something was set in motion.
By the end of the week, Saravanan had filled two notebooks of his own. Not with diary entries, but with stories. The kind that don't die when a man does. The kind that ripple through years, changing even those who once turned away.
He realized something else: This journey was not just about knowing his father. It was about redeeming him in the eyes of those who misunderstood him — and perhaps, redeeming those people, too.
Because sometimes, the most powerful inheritance isn't land or money — it's truth, spoken finally, when it matters most.
That night, sitting beside Thamizharasan on the same rooftop where this all began, Saravanan whispered:
"He was never alone."
Thamizharasan smiled through tears.
"No, thambi. But now... everyone knows it."