S26: "A Boomerang"

‘You can’t do that’, she heard a husky female voice from the other room.

‘I don’t want to take the risk’, another familiar voice replied.

‘But that’s not possible’, said the same female voice again.

She took a few steps forward to hear the murmurings. She stood at the other side of the door and now she can hear the voices more clearly.

‘Are you sure you are going to do this?’, the female voice asked.

She can recognize the voice now. It’s her sister-in-law’s voice.

‘We can’t take her to the hospital then’, the other voice replied. The voice caused a chill in her spine; it’s her husband’s voice.

‘So what are you trying to say? We have to make her delivery in the house?’, she said in a much little tone.

‘Probably, there is no other way. I can’t afford a girl’, he said.

‘What if it is a girl?’

‘She will die’, he whispered bluntly.

By hearing the word ‘die’, her heart busted like a volcano and her nerves stood still.

She bent her head downwards; her bewildered eyes looked down at her feet but in between there was a bump, a nest of her baby, a safest place for her baby from this vicious world.

For a moment, she couldn’t trust her own ears. Her own husband plotting to kill their baby, the words were still echoing in her head.

She wanted to slap her husband for thinking like that and her sister-in-law, being a girl who is taking his side. But she couldn’t. She was not strong enough. Any moment, the baby will be out and now she can’t cosplay a lawyer and talk about what’s right and wrong.

She had no idea what to do. She decided to leave him and that house which was no more safe for her baby.

She wiped the sweat on her face and tears which were dribbling over her cheek.

She can barely walk. She held her stomach with her hands and tried taking baby steps without making any voice.

Now she was standing outside her house drenched in tears and not knowing where to go.

Suddenly, she closed her eyes tightly and held her stomach with both hands, that moment she realized that her water broke.

She pulled herself to the next lane. She held her stomach tight with her shivering hands. She realized she had very less time, she can feel the blood through her legs.

She knocked the door of the first house. She knew that any moment her baby will be out. Someone opened the door.

‘Oh my god’, the woman shouted seeing her on the doormat shivering in pain.

‘Help me please’, she begged.

The other woman pulled her inside the house.

‘Don’t worry, I am a doctor. I can help you, just breathe and push’, the doctor said.

She can feel her every muscle tearing out and her bones shattering into pieces. Her eyes were barely open.

‘Just push’, she shouted.

There was no strength in her. She was losing her breath. She was actually experiencing death.

The words she heard from her husband were eating her from inside.

‘It’s a baby girl’, the doctor shrilled in happiness.

She saw the baby and said, ’Asha’

She smiled and left her last breath. The doctor tried to save her but she couldn’t make it.

She found a photo and note in her hands. It says:

‘If it is a boy,

Tell him not to look up to his father

And he is alive just because he is a boy

Make him a better person

If it is a girl

And if she could make it to this world

Never tell her who her father is

But tell her why

Keep her away from him’

She had tears in her eyes from reading that note. She hugged the baby tightly to her bosom.

Someone knocked her door but she didn’t open. She had a hunch of who it can be.

--After years and years--

‘Ma, I am going to the hospital. Are you coming with me?’

‘Yes, wait a minute Asha’, she said.

As soon as they entered into the hospital, they crossed a person on the stretcher who had met with a terrific accident and is being admitted into the hospital.

‘An accident case doctor, he need to be operated immediately’, the nurse came rushing.

‘Okay I am coming, take him to the ICU’, Asha said.

The doctor saw him and she realized that he was Asha’s father. She could never forget that devil’s face.

‘I want to say something before you could go and operate him Asha’, she said and stopped her.

‘He is your father’, she said.

‘What?’, Asha got petrified.

‘Did he cheated on you and left us alone. Is that the reason why you never told me about him?’, Asha asked the unanswered questions which are locked up in her brain since her childhood.

‘He broke your mother’s heart and she died because of him’, she said in a wrathful tone.

‘She?’, Asha got collapsed.

‘That night your mother died just to save you because your father didn’t want a girl and I couldn’t save her’, she said.

‘And you didn’t marry because of me?’, Asha stammered.

‘Yes since then you are my life and my first priority and I was scared to bring someone else between us’, she said and hugged her.

‘I will go and operate him Ma’, Asha wiped her tears.

‘You don’t have to. Let him die’

‘I am a doctor’, Asha said and left.

--In the ICU--

‘Hi, do you know who am I?’, she asked her father who was laying helplessly on the bed soaked in blood and pain.

‘Doctor’, he said with difficulty.

‘Your daughter’, Asha said looking straight into his eyes.

His eyes busted out. Though he couldn’t make larger movements, he had a mini heart-attack.

She sat on the chair and kept watching him.

‘My mother died just to save me and my other mother never married because of me. Two women sacrificed their lives for me’

‘Why are you having a conversation now? I am dying’, he said unable to move.

She took a pair of scissors and pierced on his wound.

‘Argghh’, he shouted in pain.

‘Oops! Is it paining?’, she asked innocently.

‘Yes’, he said with terrific pain.

‘Okay then, I won’t touch you at all’, she said.

‘Please save me, we will go to our home’, he begged.

‘Our? Remember you didn’t want a girl. Let’s pretend that you killed me after my birth and technically I won’t exist now’, she said sitting on the chair playing with the scissors.

‘Please’

‘You are a doctor’, he tried to shout.

‘Before that I am a daughter’, she said and left the ICU.