Rewind(Mrunmayee) Richard’s condition was critical. He deserved to be on oxygen. Doctors had already said that only God could save him.
“Mom don’t worry he’ll be fine,” I told her, half wishing that he shall die.
“Madam, he is conscious now. He wants to talk to both of you,” said a nurse who was in haste.
“Yeah, we are coming,” said my mom. I don’t know what else she wanted to talk with him about after what he had tried to do.
“Hey! We are here. Say.”
I just want to apologize for what I did. Please forgive me.”
“Give me one reason to forgive you.”
“I didn’t tell this to you before but now I am. One day when I returned home, there was nobody in the house except Alex who was sleeping. I tried to call Jenifer, but the voice behind said that that number did not exist anymore. I asked the nieghbours. I searched for her one and a half years though I knew it that she had ran away with the money. She had simply abandoned me and her child. I was shattered. I did not want the same thing to happen again. I have been taking out all my anger on you and Laura for the past three years. I.. I.. am real.. really sor.. sorry fo.. what I did.” I could see that he was having trouble in breathing when he reached the last line. “I won’t mind if you don’t forgive me because I know I don’t deserve to be forgiven for what I have sinned.”
“No Richard, we forgive you. It’s enough for us that you have realized your mistakes,” as soon as mom said this, I could see the satisfaction on his face.
With that satisfaction and redemption he took his last breath and said, “Th.. Thank you.”
It is never too late to say sorry or thank you.
It’s only up to us who we die as and how people will remember us after we are dead.



Five months ago…

Congratulations! You’ve made us proud, Laura,” shouted Lily at the top of her voice so that everybody could know that she was a friend of Laura Freeman.
Laura was a kind of celebrity in St. Ann’s School. Laura was good at everything she dedicated herself to. Sports, academics, drawing and painting, dancing, singing, debating –you name it. She was perhaps gifted by the almighty.
“Laura, are you listening?” asked Lily knowing that Laura was again lost in her thoughts.
She asked her again, this time shaking her with her arm, “Hey! Are you listening? Do you even know that you have won eight gold medals this time?”
“Umm, uh, yes. Thanks,” I said recollecting myself.
“Catch you later champ. I want the treat when we meet next time. I got to go... You know where”
“Kay! Enjoy.”

I knew that wherever I would go today, everybody was going to praise me. Some will be happy for me and some jealous of me. The funny part is that sometimes even the jealous people also appreciate you in such a way that you feel they are the best friends you’ll ever get. I, kind of, like being praised for everything that I do. I’ve got used to those fake smiles, bonne chances and encouraging hugs.

But there was one place I did not want to go.
My home.
My parents were almost strangers to me now.
My stepfather, who was not less than a demon, always hit my mum for the smallest of things. My mum, who never protested his physical torture, was always depressed. My stepbrother spoke little to me though we were living under one roof since two years. Home had just become a place for me to come and go and eat and sleep. All of them were so lost in themselves that nobody knew where I was. How had all this…

“Please give me a penny. I beg you,” there was a small child standing in front of me about the age of my brother. He wore torn clothes and hair uncombed. He looked so dirty that I could not guess when he took a bath last. Poor people. What could have this child done that he was given such a punishment?
“I am very hungry. Please. Help.” moaned the child with hunger.
I was very upset to see his condition. I gave him the sandwich I could not eat in the break because my father, may he rest in peace, once said, “That we should never give money to beggars. They may misuse it.” Some people did not eat because their stomach was full and on the other side some unfortunates could not afford food. Great is the almighty!

I saw the child’s face glow. I could see him imagine eating that sandwich. His eyes were shining with the thought of food. He said, “Thank you! You are the best.” And then went away to eat what he had never eaten before. I wonder where he’ll go now. It feels so good to help somebody who really needs your help. A child’s prayers are heard by the God sooner.

Laura went into her room straight. She stood by the window, from where she could see Richard’s swimming pool. His richness just gave him a fake respect. Richard Freeman, her stepfather, was a very narrow minded man. She still remembers when Deborah, her mother, once a Kyler instead of a Freeman, went to meet her brother. Deborah had to earn for her and the children. Richard did not give her enough money. When James, Deborah’s brother, came to know about this he wanted to take Deborah and her children out of Richard’s life but Deborah did not allow it. After Deborah came back home, Richard was furious. His blue eyes stared at her with doubt. Going out and meeting anyone else was forbidden for Deborah. According to him Deborah was having an affair.

When Deborah was young, she was a sight. With her long black silky hair, hazel eyes and thin waist people could not look at her completely in a go.

“I went to meet James”
“So what?”
“He is my brother, how can you think so cheap?”
“It doesn’t matter, he is a man. That ends the argument.”
“Can’t I meet my brother also?”
“You are questioning me, huh?”
Then before Laura could see Richard’s hand lift, from behind the wall, he had slapped Deborah and she was on all fours. Blood was coming out from her lips. Laura and Deborah both could not do anything better than tightening their jaws. They both knew that they had their debts to be cleared.
Richard went out to the club and Deborah as usual sat there moaning, thinking what sin had she done to see these days.

Laura always saw her so called parents fight, her stepfather raising his hands on her helpless mom on the smallest of the things. She remembers the times when her life was nothing like this. She remembers her real father’s face, his voice which she was forgetting day by day, the afternoon when he was taken away from his family. She curses herself for what had happened with them till now. She wished hard that she could rewind her life.
It was she because of whom a wife lost her husband, a mother lost her son, a sister lost her brother and she lost her father.
It was her,
Only her.
Now also, after 4 years, she woke up in the middle of the night getting nightmares about her beloved father being crushed under a train. Yes, a train. If she had let her doll go then, her father could have been there right now with her instead of that freak Richard. She still remembers it exactly how her father died in saving her life. Laura would not have been alive right now if her father had not pushed her away from the tracks and got crushed under the wheels himself. May he rest in peace. She wished if she could rewind and keep her doll back from falling.

I stood there shocked by the message I had just received from Lily.

“1 act of sexual harassment every 59 minutes.
1 act of molestation every 16 minutes.
1 act of torture every 12 minutes.
1 of these crimes done to women every 3 minutes.
1 dowry death case every 77 minutes.
1 case of cruelty by husband and relatives every 9 minutes.
1 suicide every 4 minutes.”

Melancholy with the harshness of this world towards women, I recalled that incident when we were humiliated in an art competition only because we were girls. The manager told us to leave ten rows and sit from the eleventh row because the first ten were reserved for the boys. They instructed us that we would keep our eyes down and not laugh when the head of the institution will come. It was the height of insult.
Why, just because we were girls?
There are only a few places left where girls are given the equal respect as boys.

It was Alexander standing in the hallway. My stepbrother was the cutest child I had ever seen, with a perfectly round face and brown hair set nicely with blue eyes. He was just a five year old kid. I wonder how he had managed to live with his dad. Who had taken his care for the first three years? How he felt seeing his daddy raise his hand so much on his mother? He never spoke too much.
He just stood there.
He looked so adorable at that moment that I just wanted to cuddle him into my arms. I knew that he badly wanted someone to talk to. So I moved towards him but before I could address him he ran away.
I went behind him. I had to talk to him. He was too small for all this. Even I was but situations had made me mature enough.
I entered his room. It was pitching dark. He was sitting on the foot of the bed, sobbing. I went and sat beside him. He let me. I asked him what was wrong though I knew it very well.
“Do you remember the way your father looked?” Alex’s voice was becoming normal again.
“Yes. I do.”
“I have started to forget my mother’s face. I don’t have any of her pictures. Dad burnt all of them.”
“Here, take this. I wanted to give this to you since I saw you crying in isolation. I secretly stole this from your dad’s cupboard when he was away.”
It was a picture of his mother. She had the same blue eyes and brown hair as Alex’s. How could I forget that this little fellow was also as lonely as I was? He also had all the pain and suffering I had. The only difference was that he was so small that he could not identify his feelings.
“Thanks,” he said and again started crying.
I was wiping his tears when mom called “Come on, Laura and Alex, dinner’s ready.“

We went down after five minutes.
We weren’t surprised to find Richard missing. He always was.
Mom acted as if nothing had happened. She didn’t know that we knew.
Something was burning in the kitchen. It was too late before we realized. The rice was burning. Deborah went inside the kitchen in haste and then the door bell rang. I saw that mom was too busy with the rice to open the door so I went to open it. As soon as I touched the knob it rang the second time. I could make out that the person standing within the door’s length was a very impatient one.
I opened the door.
It was Richard.
He looked drunk. No sooner did he get in he held me by my neck and pushed me forward. I made a groan with more irritation and less pain.
“Can’t you open the door quickly? How much time do you idiots need?”
He grabbed a China vase from the side table and threw it on the floor. A piece came flying towards me and made a cut on my right leg. Blood oozed out.
Hearing this cacophony, Deborah rushed to the hall. Alex followed behind but he stayed far from all of us. A stranger could have been closer to him than we all were.
“Alex please go to your room now,” said mom in a stern voice. He went without asking any questions.
Now mom was talking to Richard with an expression of hate, astonishment and confusion, all mixed. For the first time I saw her talk to Richard like that. “You cannot raise a hand on my daughter till I am alive. Whatever you do with me is fine but you cannot touch my daughter. Enough, I have already tolerated too much. I won’t take your assaults anymore.”

This was enough to raise Richards temper. The next moment he was on top of my mom slapping her. He was battering her to death. The huge glass piece was not far away from him. Any moment he could grab it and slice my mother’s throat. I had let my father die but I could not let my mother go. I had lost almost everything and I was not going to lose more. It was not until I noticed nails scratching Richard’s face, until hands pulling his hair, until hands grabbing his arms to throw him away that they were mine. I knew it was useless. He was way too strong.
I took a baseball bat which was resting on the sofa and hit it hard on the back side of his head. Now he turned on me. He was squeezing my wind pipe. I was suffocating. I thought that if this was the price I had to pay for stealing a husband from his wife, a son from his mother, a brother from his sister and a father from his daughter then it was fair enough.

Richard had taken enough from Deborah. She could not watch anymore of her beloved being buried. She doesn’t know from where she got the courage to get the gun.
“Richard, stop then and there.” Blood was coming down from mom’s face. I could see it from my half consciousness. He still did not loosen his grip on my throat.
Deborah saw that her daughter’s face had turned blue.
It was now or never.
She had to do it.
She pulled the trigger.
Richard was awestruck.
He could not collect himself.
Then there was another bullet fired, then another and then another.
He fell down with a thump all covered in blood.
Deborah knew that it was necessary but she could never forgive herself.

I was shocked by this incident. Stunned by the infinite strength god can give us in such situations. How far a human’s cruelty could go?
I want to rewind my past.

May both my fathers rest in peace!


By:
Mrunmayee Das
9th A
Lalji Mehrotra Lions School

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