Reviving Her

Chapter 28: Up Up and Away

Be careful my darlings,
There are people out there that taste like fireworks and bliss,
But leave ashes and warnings in the aftertaste of their kiss.
-Nikita Gill
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'Smile's visitor timings are from four?' Maaz questions from across the hall.

'Yeah, that's what Aylin said the last time.'

'Then let's go meet the children today. It has been a while.' I am surprised at his request. The children have been important to me but him accepting them as a part of his life too, shifts something within me. Though I once knew him I realize there are parts of him that are still new to me.

'Sure.'

We are at the door at exactly four p.m. I hold my head high and walk into Smile, Maaz is close behind me. Though I have plastered a smile on my face my spine is rigid. Warmth seeps in when he places his hand on my back and I relax.

'We are here to meet the kids.' States Maaz.

'Sure.' Aylin has the courtesy to look embarrassed. I glare at her.

She takes us inside. Lisa comes running to me from the throng of kids, I laugh at the intensity of her hug. Maaz weaves across the hall with his bag of goodies dropping biscuits, chocolates and high fives to waiting hands.

'It's story time now!' Declares Maaz once he is finished. All the kids chatter excitedly. Ashar rushes to him and sits beside him, his hands fisted under his face, waiting to listen. Tom takes his other side. A circle forms around him, Kate sits hand in hand with a younger girl, Rose.

'I am going to read and you all have to enact what I read, okay?' Maaz instructs.

'If I say drinking all of you should raise your hands and drink like this.' He curls his hands and lifts them to his mouth and emits slurping noises, the kids giggle and nod excitedly.

'Once upon a time there were two little children, Hansel and Gretal. One morning Hansel and Gretal decided to take a walk in the woods...'

I stare at Maaz in awe, with such simplicity he had avoided hurting the crowd of happy, smiling faces around us. Instead of reading as the book says, that the children had been left in the woods by their parents he had modified the story in a subtle way.

He catches me gaping at him and winks at me. The kids around us are picking imaginary pebbles from their hand and throwing them.

'The next day they go for a walk again, but this time Hansel forgets the pebbles at home. So Gretal says let us leave these bits of bread...' Continues Maaz.

'But that's not how the story goes.' Lisa whispers to me, she is curled into my side and I drape my hand around her smiling.

'Maybe this is the correct story?' I tell her though I know it wouldn't be long before she figured out our lies. But until then if lying would keep her safe from the harsh truths of the world then let all that we speak be lies.

I catch Tom looking suspiciously at the candy in his hand when Maaz narrates the witch's house being made of gingerbread and candies and I hide a smile.