The Forbidden Path

Chapter 5

A week and gone by and as the McGuire family stood in the immigration line of the Suvarnabhumi Airport of Thailand, Racheal felt the emptiness creeping back. She was tired and needed rest. The huge airport was packed with people.She wasn't just tired as the physically tired.. she was tired from within.She was emotionally tired too. She dreaded going back to the same old life, the same old problems and the same old lifestyle where she was existing more than living.

Her life had come to a halt and she was just 27 years old. 27 years meant she was just an adult who should have been enjoying life. But Racheal had already lived an entire life time in her short life. She had just crossed her teenage years when she had got married.She was the happiest girl and it felt like she had met her Prince Charming. Getting kissed and getting married meant she had been blessed with a ticket to happily forever and after. Every fairytale ended with a "and they lived happily forever and after..."So getting married meant she was heading for a "lived forever happily.." path which had been paved by her preconceived notion.

Like any young girl who had grown up reading fairytales, she had grown up looking forward to meeting her Prince Charming and starting a new life. And not to forget that, at that age, even a mule looks handsome and attractive due to the raging hormones.So it wasn't a surprise that Alex had easily persuaded Racheal into believing that he was the Prince Charming of their fairytale. And that she was sealing the fairytale chapter of her life with a kiss and entering into a new chapter which had never been mentioned in her fairytales.

The only thing, the fairytale forgot to mention was that the happily forever meant that she was stepping out of her fairytales and entering into the reality. A 19 year old who had met her knight in the shining armor was being thrown into arena of life to face the harsh realities of life. Racheal shuddered and pulled her cardigan closer to her body stretching it to overlap the two sides. She did it often as it made her feel safer and invisible. She had deformed a lot of her cardigans while doing so. Alex gave her a light push beckoning her to move forward as the gap between her and Alia increased. With a sigh, she looked at Alia and smiled. Alia was swinging her pink purse and looking around with her back to the emigration counter. "Are everyone returning home?" She asked inquisitively. "Maybe I don't know Alia." "How many aeroplanes do they have?" "I don't know." Racheal smiled at her.

Alia looked at her wide eyed and smiled flashing her toothless gum. She had lost two teeth - one canine and one incisor. She looked cute.And she was happy that the tooth fairy had listened to her wish and given her what she wanted.Sometimes Racheal felt that Alia could read minds and knew things instinctively. She behaved like a old lady at times. And Racheal knew for sure that she was an old soul like herself. Racheal believed in the unbelievable like the old soul, consciousness, the quantum physics and all the random stories which were baseless and sprouted from the magical realism.

She loved to read and understand the empty spaces in between the lines. She had a knack for decoding the facts to read between the lines and understand the silence... the unspoken, the unseen and the things that were generally left unnoticed. So it wasn't a surprise that she knew her husband was having an affair. Not that it made any difference to her anymore. It was obvious that Racheal had fallen out of love or maybe she was never in love. It was the same with her husband, she assumed. That might have been the reason he kept having little flings now and then.

"Mom"Alia pulled her forward as it was their turn. She walked slowly towards the counter, with the two passports in her hand and a mindful of random thoughts."A stamp on the paper can change a lot of things." She thought to herself as she remembered her court marriage with a feeble smile and a sting in her heart. Racheal walked towards the counter and handed the passports to the old man. The emigration officer looked up with his glasses, perched delicately on his nose.She had checked in her luggage and was just carrying a light handbag.He looked up from his glasses and smiled at her, handing her the passports. She smiled and nodded a silent thank you. "Next" Racheal could hear him, as she shoved Alia and moved forward. But for her, it sounded more like,"Next.. hurry up do something about your life. Jump to the next chapter. Hurry up before time flies away." Racheal smiled and walked past the counter without turning to look at Alex.

"Mom, wait for papa." Little Alia pulled her hand. She looked annoyed at the way her mom was behaving. Children have a way of stashing all the blame of everyone's mistakes and faults on their mom because they know they are the ones who love them the most and believe they are ones who should be protecting them. And use them as a punching bag for every frustration and pain. Papa is just an another child for them and are more formal with them.Most children believe that their moms are supposed to be super, duper Wonder Woman. They tend to forget that moms are just the most worked up and tired being who actually hide everything inside to protect the emotional health of their children. Racheal smiled at Alia and turned back, waiting for her husband.

The plane was on time and they still had 45 minutes. So after checking in Alia and Racheal loitered around the lounge, walking in and out of duty free shops. Alia picked a few random stuffs and Racheal picked a book so that she could read it on her return flight.