BETREYAL(Completed)

chapter 4

Mumbai

Shivani just came back from work as she had to work during the weekend but now she was home and found arnav sleeping in the couch and he looked like he was having a nightmare and she decided to wake him up before he falls dawn as he was screaming and moving around.

Arnav wake up, see your sweating a lot, is everything okay are you having a nightmare?

Arnav woke up and looked at were he was and realised that he was sleeping in the couch, and he saw his Di lookingat him with a worried face. "Di" did you return long?

Yes; I saw you sleeping here and thought not to disturb you but you started screaming and sweating that's why I woke you up, are you okay arnav?

Yeh di, I was just having a nightmare.

Was it about amma " arnav looked at her " I am asking because you were screaming her name.

Mhh, I was in a room playing with amma and she was very happy and was laughing and all of sudden, someone came and was dragging her away from me and I was crying but the person did not stop he just continue dragging her and she was trying to get away from him but could not and I was left in a dark room calling for her but she never answered me.

Shivani comforted her brother and allowed him to lay in her lap and was stroking his hair. It looks like you were having a nightmare, you do miss her right?

Sometimes I do but then I think of what she went through and i realise that she is resting wherever she is, even though we do not now everything that happened in the past but it still hurts that dad did that to her and choose them over us and even dadi was no different.

You right but it is not bed to remember her ,you just need to focus on how she was before all the problems started. I had only saw her when I was 12 when she came and stayed for only few months and  left, i always wanted to know how she was as a mother arnav?

She was a good mother and she was also my friend but what I can say is that she loved us a lot, you know she used to love gardening especially planting flowers. I remember when i was 4 or 5 she taught me how to do it and she would say "you know arnav gardening helps me with stress, when I came here I relax with my plants".

but then after a few years amma changed she was no longer the mother i knew, she would always cry and walk around the house like a zombie and she was also pale like she was sick but she still took care of me and you can see that she has lost the will to leave and her smile was not like before.

I tried to ask her if she was okay but amma knew how to hide her sorrows, that's when I found out dad had left and was staying somewhere else but he used to come during weekends and they would end up fighting, thought I never knew what they were fighting about but it looked serious and you can see that whatever was the problem it was eating mom alive and dadi cared less of what was happening, a few months later she left me with dadi and come to Mumbai and I wanted to come with her but she refused even dadu could not do anything because he was sick that time.

she had no one to support her and she was falling apart so I thought maybe she needed time and that's why she left.

When she came here nani found out she was pregnant and that she came here to give birth to the twins but she looked pale and had lost a lot of weight you could see that by just looking at her eyes, nani was the one who took care of her I did not see her much because she would lock the door of her room and sleept the whole day and only wakeup to eat food, i could see that she had lost the will to leave and the only thing that was holding her back was her pregnancy.

Did nani not ask her the reason?

Yes she did but amma kept it to herself as you said she knew how to keep her sorrows to herself and nani did not compel her and finally when she was ready to talk she spoke. I didn't understand what she was saying as I was still young but I can still remember the way she cried that day and said things like " amma arvind deceived me, the Raizada deceived me" and she would cry saying the same thing.