Holding on and Letting go [Complete]

Epilogue.

Five Years Later!

"Come'n Ayra, please open up your mouth," Ayat pleaded, holding a spoonful of Cerelac in her hand. But her stubborn daughter was no less adamant than her father.

"No. Ayya wants daddy," perched on the small table in the kitchen, Ayra protested in her authoritative tone as she shook her head, the two tails her brunette hair was immaculately cinched into moving along, her small hands folded on her smallish chest.

Ayat heaved a deep sigh. She can do it.

"But daddy won't be home until this evening. Now please eat something. Pretty please?" She tried beguiling her but to no avail as Ayra played with the mauve frills embellished on her small muslin frock she was exotically adorned in.

Ayat's heart suddenly sank at her daughter's sullen face cowered downward, her thick long lashes framing her teal eyes.

Ahid had promised to take Ayra to see the fireworks tonight and she had been waiting all day for him to come home and fulfill his promise like he said.

Ayra had been closer to Ahid since she was an infant. Not that Ayat was complaining. She adored the father-daughter duo with all her heart. Ahid was making sure to give his kids all the love he didn't get as a child.

"AsSalamuAlaikum!" Finally Ahid's voice surrounded the premises as Ayra suddenly perked up, her face beaming with excitement.

"DADDY!" With one jump on the chair and another one on the floor, she exclaimed as she ran out of breaths with her exuberant chirrups while Ayat yelled for her to be careful from behind. But she didn't give Ayat an ear. As long as her daddy was around, she didn't need to be careful at all. She knew that.

She reached to Ahid who was holding a bouquet in his hand. Five years down the road and a day hadn't passed by when he didn't bring flowers for his wife. He could forget to eat but giving Ayat flowers? Never!

Reaching her hands out in the air, Ayra looked up at her daddy, all ready to be picked up and kissed all over, her flabby cheeks turning rogue with happiness and excitement.

"Hey, wifey, catch it." He threw the bouquet towards Ayat with his signature wink and she caught it without a single miss after which he scooped Ayra in his muscular arms and she wrapped around him like a monkey, her small fluffy hands clasped around his bare neck.

So many years had passed but this man was as well shaped as the day Ayat had first met him. He wasn't getting old at all. If possible, he was aging backwards.

Ayat had had multiple petty fights with him to divulge her his secrets. She was in dire need of it after giving birth to twins.

With a radiating warmth in her eyes, Ayat looked at the father daughter-duo from the kitchen island before putting the flowers of the bouquet in a vase.

"We are going tew see the fiyahworks?" Ayra interrogated with her fruity voice and smile etched all over her face.

Ahid shook his head.

Her face suddenly fell at the betrayal, her ruby lips contorted into a saddening pout, bottom one fuller than the upper.

Ahid's eyes crinkled in amusement as he swayed the strands of her brunette hair cascading her porcelain face and tugged them behind her pink ears.

"Just kidding, my baby," he said and her teal eyes sparked up.

During the pregnancy, Ayat and Ahid had quite a lot of banters as to who would get whose eyes. He had bet Ayra would get his but Ayat always told him otherwise. And when both the babies were born, they both were astounded at Allah's miracle. Their eyes were a mix of hazel and cerulean; part hers and part his.