Love At Last Sight ✔

Chapter Twenty-One

Manik Malhotra

"Ahona." The first ray of the sun. The name slips my tongue as I keep staring at her sleeping form cradled in my arms. She looks so much like me, given I've inherited many of my mother's features. Her tiny nose replicates mine and her lip curve is like Raj's. Her chubby cheeks are tinged with red, just like her remaining body. She's so tiny, so beautiful and so fragile.

Although, her eyes are closed, I'm sure they are not like mine. It's something I've inherited from my father, another reason why I hate my eyes. I give a slight shake to my head. I don't want to think about it. I don't even want his shadow on our lives.

A tear slips my eye. It's not of happiness but certainly not of sadness either. It's an overwhelming feeling, a mixture of both. If there exists one moment when you truly can't decide how you feel, this is that one moment for me.  When I think about Nandini's condition, my heart fills with pain and when I look at my little sister, my heart swells with hope, a hope for a better future.

I hold her more close to me and give her a peck on the forehead, my tears escaping freely. As I look up at Raj, realization swarms me to real world. His face clearly shows that he's longing to hold his daughter, his first child. He smiles at me, tears layering the corner of his eyes. "It's a beautiful name, just like her."

His hands shiver as he gently takes Ahona in his fatherly warmth. A trace of discomfort flashes across Ahona's face as she furrows her eyebrows, still deep in her sleep, when Raj takes her from me. But once she settles in her father's arms, her expressions go back to that same content and comfort.

Is this how a fatherly embrace feels like? I've never known and I no longer wish to know. All my life, I had craved to meet my father, I had longed to feel what my peers experienced, and tossed it away as something worthless, but my wishes had just been that. Mere wishes. And now that I know of him, I wish that my childhood wishes should have remained wishes only. It took me too long to understand why my mother never talked about that man.

Tears hit the back of my eyes again and I bite the insides of my cheek to not let them fall. I'm never going to cry for him again. He never deserved my tears, neither he did Mom's. All the affection I ever had for him is now just rage and disgust. I refuse to give him the title of my father. I am the son of Nyonika Malhotra and hers alone.

"She's so very beautiful and so similar to Nyo," Raj's shivering voice breaks my horrid thoughts. After admiring his daughter for more than a minute longer, a teardrop leaves Raj's eyes. I can already see a great father blooming in him.

"She is," I smile before averting my eyes back at the nurse. "When can we meet Mom?"

She looks at me strangely for a second longer as if debating with herself that I and Ahona are indeed real brother-sister. Okay, not real but half siblings. I can't blame her. Anyone will be left flabbergasted for a moment after figuring out our age gap. She recovers quickly and, though nervous, smiles back at me. "She will gain consciousness soon. We're shifting the mother in the private ward and then, you can meet her. We'll inform you shortly,"

"Okay. Thank you," she leaves towards the direction of the ICU wing. A pang makes my heart ache. Nandini. Will she be okay? Has she gained consciousness? If not, then when she'll do so? Although, her eyes never stare back at me, I want to gaze into those beautiful browns again. I want to be there, holding her hand, when she wakes up. 

My heart tells me, she's going to be okay. I know she'll be. We've a life ahead. This incident is just going to remain as a bad memory in both our hearts. Both, I may emphasize. I can't even think of the other possibility. Because I know, she's a fighter and she's going to wake up soon. But, on a different tangent altogether, I feel, I may just be being optimistic.