The Promises Unfulfilled✅

35. Complications

~ Flowers need time to bloom, so do you.

Shehzad

We all just stared in surprise while Amyrah and her family left. Just as quickly, Zameer, Zehra and Aahil left too, noticing that we wanted some time for ourselves.

Unbelievable, was the only thought that roamed in my head. If what mom said was true, then... Amyrah is my... cousin? Huh!

Oh my---

"Mom, what's happening?" My older sister, Shazara asked, nodding at Shahla to take Hania elsewhere. I scooted closer to her with the same questioning look.

"You remember once I said that I had a brother who died long timd back?" Mom asked to which we nodded.

"Amyrah is his daughter."
Shazara and I shared a look, not knowing what to make out of it.

Mom spoke softly, more to herself. "The day he told he wanted to marry a sick woman, our family broke. My father didn't want my brother to marry her, and my mother valued family status much more than her own son. So he left and never came back. It was around the time Shahid had passed away. As we were very poor at that time, we used to depend mostly on my father's money. And so I couldn't do anything to help my younger brother."

She paused, tears cascading down her cheeks. "Though my parents were against their marriage, they paid for a fancy wedding, but after that they never spoke to Rasheed, never bothered to contact him. He tried pleading for months, but they turned against him. He used to speak with me everyday, and after his wife became pregnant, he left the city with her."

"I was happy, thinking that he can start their new family in a different home. He worked every day and night, paying less attention to his family. After nine months, one night he called me and plainly said that his wife passed away. It was as if he didn't care about life or death, about being poor, like he had no essence of living. From that day onwards he never spoke with any of us. He never came back. Those were his last words spoken with me. Even now, my parents live every moment of their life in guilt."

The entire house turned quiet. Few minutes later, Shazara asked, "After Amyrah's mother passed away, where did her father go?"

"I don't know. He changed his... his... everything after that. He became an unknown person," she said.

"Then mom, where is he now?" I couldn't help but ask.

"Five years after his wife passed away, he met with an accident. Our family was informed after a week, that he had gone. It was then I wanted to find his child, but no one knew about him. Later I realized he had changed his name to Rasheed Afran, my grand father's name. That was why there was no Rasheed Arshad living. That was how I never found my neice either.

"I was able to know that his daughter is living, only because two years back I found two letters in our old home. The letters he had written a day before his death. He had told me to love his daughter like my own, but I was too late. Too late to read that. Too late for everything. And now, after all these years I've found her... but what's the need for that now?" She sobbed. "It's of no use now."

Her sniffs were becoming ragged, tears flowing down her cheeks.

I wanted to say, that it'll be okay, instead I just gave her a side hug.

Will reminiscing the past be always painful?

Complicated?

Is this life?