An Arranged Affair

deep dark secrets

The cup of hot chocolate warmed my hands and the few delicious mouthfuls warmed my stomach.

 I regretted how much wine I had drunk last night, constantly reminded by the lingering nagging headache that followed me around the whole day, so tonight I vowed to keep off the wine. Who knew 3 glasses could get me so drunk? Of course  glasses was almost ¾ of the bottle.

It had been a pleasantly uneventful day at the hospital.

The doctors had begun the slow wean of Papa’s medication. It was a long drawn out process designed to put as minimum stress to his heart and not to shock his body.

Every now and again his foot would twitch, or his fingers would move, it was unnerving to watch, especially since the doctors had told is   not to expect anything for at least 24 hours.

But even so, with every movement, we hoped, we held our breaths and hoped that he would open his eyes, even though we had been told not to expect him to.

But now as if sat on the couch, I felt like a prisoner under interrogation, with Phillips and Bhaiya’s eyes staring me down and I wondered how we had come to this point?

‘ Well, my dear sister, “ Bhaiya asked again, ‘are you going to tell me what happened? You know dad was so proud of this one. He would find any excuse to take her pigeon shooting. Directing his words to Phillip.  “ she could bring home a dozen at least in one trip. Kept the hotel pigeon problem in check and delicious pigeon on our table! So when I heard she froze I didn’t believe it.”

‘I'd also like to hear what happened. There were news articles about how you could be a future Olympian representative and then you bombed out. It didn't seem like you! ’ Phillip chimed in, before looking at his vibrating phone and cancelling the obviously incoming call.

“but you didn’t know me!”  I spat the words out like venom. I didn't like being cornered and these two were doing it very well. I didn't want to lie to the man I loved, and I couldn't lie to the first real friend I had ever had. apart from Simmi.

“ But I know you!” my brother said in a tone that was harsher than I had expected from him. “ You  are a perfectionist,  almost to the point of being OCD about everything and you hate to lose. So what happened?”

I sat there staring into my cup, into the dark milky goodness that waited for me , steam still rose from the surface and I considered dropping it just to get myself out of my awful situation, but it would only buy me time, and not for long.

“ I  didn't freeze.” I whispered , finally admitting the one deep dark secret i had held in my heart for so long.

“ what do you mean?” Philip asked me after looking at my brother.

“ I didn't freeze at the shooting tournament.” I said louder and took a deep breath, looking first and my brother and then at Phillip. The memories of those days still hut me and I often wondered what my life would have turned out to be if I had just been brave.

I took a deep breath.
 
This was something I thought I had buried a long time ago and I wasn’t sure if I was ready to deal with it again, but looking at the earnest face of my brother and knowing what faith he had had in me to share his own secret, I knew I could no longer hide this.

“ Everything changed after you left for medical school, Mumma would wait by the phone every day waiting for your calls, hanging off your every word, and as time went on and you called less she started to turn her attention to me.

Don’t get me wrong – i loved the extra attention, but after a lifetime of being in the shadow of my glory child older brother  and getting away with so much , the restrictions she started to put on me where awful, unbearable.