Echoes Of Silence - An Arshi FF

🎇Winds of Change🎇

Ratna sat silently, watching her children embrace, her heart overwhelmed with emotions she couldn't yet name. Happiness, yes—because Arnav and Sheetal had found each other again. Relief—because the years of distance and pain were finally dissolving. But beneath it all, there was something else. A deep, unshakable disappointment.

Not in her children. No, never in them.

In herself.

She had allowed this to happen. She had let them become pawns in this twisted household where love was overshadowed by power and control. She had failed as a mother—not because her love was lacking, but because she had let it blind her. Her son, the one she had cradled in her arms, had been forced into silence. He had stood helplessly, bound by a promise she had made him keep, a promise that had turned him into an offender in his own home. And Khushi—her daughter-in-law, her child in every way—had suffered in these past six months, the time that should have been filled with love, laughter, and the deepening of a bond newly formed. Instead, Khushi had spent it under a cloud of tension, navigating an environment poisoned by cruelty and indifference.

Khushi never complained. Not once. But Ratna knew.

She knew that she was guilty. They all were.

But not anymore.

Something inside Ratna shifted in that moment. A quiet yet unyielding resolve settled in her heart. She would not let herself be broken any longer. She would not let her love for her children turn her into a woman who forgot her own worth.

She had already destroyed her self-respect once.

Now, she would stand up again.

For herself.

For Arnav.

For Khushi.

For Sheetal.

Ratna looked at Sheetal, her daughter—the child she had raised with all the love in her heart. The same child who had humiliated her, rejected her, and treated her worse than a stranger. Sheetal was guilty. There was no denying that. But how could Ratna bring herself to punish someone who was already drowning in guilt and pain?

Sheetal had just discovered that the woman she had revered as her savior, her protector, had only used her for her own selfish gains. The betrayal had shattered her, leaving her lost and broken. No punishment Ratna could give would be harsher than the torment Sheetal was already putting herself through.

Ratna knew pain—she had lived with it for years, silently bearing the weight of every insult, every humiliation. And now, she saw the same pain reflected in Sheetal's tear-filled eyes. She could see the regret, the self-loathing, the desperate need for redemption.

Punishment wouldn't heal Sheetal. But love might.

She had always loved her daughter, despite everything. And now, she would do what a mother does best—guide her, help her rise from her mistakes, and show her the path forward. Because while mistakes could not be erased, they could be learned from.

Ratna wiped her tears and took a deep breath. It was time to move forward. Not just for herself, but for all of them.

She would no longer agree to things that harmed her, no longer sacrifice her dignity in the name of love. Because true love—whether for a child, a husband, or a family—should never demand that a person destroy themselves.

She wiped the tears from her face and took a deep breath.

Ratna Raizada had spent years fading into the background.

That ended today.

...

Arvind gave his verdict, his tone left no room for further argument.