𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐥𝐲𝐳𝐞𝐝 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭 ✔︎

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He came, Husna's father.

With a rough face, strict eyes with some hollowness fluttering there. The motion of his tone was plain as sky chest, in places there were shrugs, disagreements, and dry coughs like clouds. He looked to inspect me about every bits and pieces of how I went recklessly, how I betrayed them, made their daughter go under hard times and so on. Among all of the accusations, was my irresponsibility which I couldn't deny. With his outrageous looks, it was clear that he didn't know about my efforts,my systemization. He only knew the one side of the coin, how her daughter was handed to a delinquent man.

“We had trusted you,for our daughter's happiness” He had said. This accusing tone was digging a pore in my heart.

Indeed.

They had trusted me, and I broke.

No matter how many clarifications I had put,the truth was it : I didn't keep my promise,I didn't prove myself as a good husband and lastly,I came back with a rightful face.

That must have been unbearable for any parents to see their daughter suffer. Only if they knew she was doing it for her family,for her mother-in-law. The same thing Husna worded, taking care of her crying tone to sound paceful and steady.

“ If it was my own mother,in the place of mother-in-law, wouldn't have you let me stay? Serve her? As a child?” was how she put it.

“ Husna—there's a sky and ground distance between your mother-in-law and mother! The mother who gave you birth,the mother who raised you and what have your mother-in-law done to you other than treating you as a servant? ” I was astonished by the truth of his statement. But Husna wasn't,her lips quievered for an answer,as if there was already an answer made-up in the tip of her lips.

“ But my mother-in-law raised my husband,she gave birth to him,and whatever is my Husband's duty happens to be mine too.” there were calmness in her words,as calm as ocean in night. Like the voices of waves,I heard the thudding of her heartbeat.

“ You have become—mad! You were notb born to sell your kindness and rot in this house with an oldy for the rest of your life! ” his voice kept heightening,like hills touching sky.

I watched the daughter-father conversation keeping an expressionless face. My nervousness kept abating,like clouds of monsoon drifting apart.

The next thing we all witnessed was the vulnerable state of our eyes to our hearts. Ma on a sudden moaned,I hurried my footsteps near her room,she had been shifted from the secret room to the guest room. Husna was the one who suggested that first,in a short while. Her father followed me to the room, and his face was suddenly deciphering. There was a pause in his glib,an intense glance at Ma.

Husna stood at the door in silence. We all did. Ma was suddenly apprehending the new smell,of a stranger.

“ Look at her Baba,just look at her!” she worded in a half sobbing tone,as if she would burst into tears any moment. But she managed to be stronger. My stomach kept wrenching.

“ Could you leave her if you were in my place? Tell me how can I leave this lady here,alone?”

“ She's not alone. She has her son,of course you can. How had they managed before you came? Didn't she lived ? ” Her father murmured,his gaze not leaving Ma. I felt a ting of discomfort,then again looked at Husna.

Why was I so negligible?

Why couldn't I say anything? It should have been I,who would face the knives of questions from Husna's father. But like a unsettling existence,I was frozen at my place, wordless. That was wrong,I considered. I must have told something,any plead, any consolation or anything that would fit me there,unlike a statue.

Why didn't I speak?