Warm Love|✓

50

"I'm fine."
8:13 PM.

"Don't worry about me. Have your dinner.  9:10 PM.

"Go and sleep. I have work to do."
12:30 AM.

"Have your breakfast on time. I'm fine." 8:30 AM.

Even in our silence, there was reassurance. But last night, his absence left me yearning for his comforting presence.

"Maa, can you tell me about Reyansh?"My question was simple, but it felt to wrong to ask her. The question felt heavy, but the uncertainty gnawed at me. It was as though no one in the house truly knew who Reyansh was, and the realization was almost too painful to bear.

"Would it make me a terrible mother to admit that I hardly know my own son?" She attempted to laugh, but it came out strained. "I've been nothing more than a bystander in his life, watching him struggle for love, while my own grief overshadowed his hopeful eyes."

"What grief, Maa?" I knew about the year-long pain she referred to, but I wanted to understand it from her perspective.

"When Reyansh was three years old, I was pregnant with his brother. We were all so happy, especially my Ray."

"Ray?" I couldn't help but interrupt, my curiosity getting the best of me.

"Yes, Ray, he came as a light in my life, as hope for my motherhood. I still call him that, but the words barely leave my lips." A wistful smile tugged at her lips. "He was like a whirlwind of energy, his small body a mere excuse for his mischievous mind. He was so naughty and liked playing football, we even have to remove some antique peices so it doesn't get destroyed. But something happened, and my son, who used to end my each day with his elluring smile, now I yearns for his lips to curve just once." She brushed a tear from her eye with the edge of her saree, her pain palpable.

She is correct. I nod my head, and she pat my head lovingly.

"After I gave birth to his brother, our house was attacked. That day marked the beginning of our suffering, particularly for my Ray. Our assailants were longstanding rivals, and they abducted my one-month-old son before fleeing. We managed to track them down, only to discover our precious boy's life brutally taken from us. Kiraz, I held my newborn son in one arm and my Ray in the other as I tried to protect them both. I descended into a deep depression, emerging only when Vedika was born. By then, Reyansh had matured far beyond his age. The little boy I used to call Ray was lost somewhere in the process. I lost him. That day, I didn't lose just one son; I lost two."

Tears streamed down her face uncontrollably, a poignant mix of regret, guilt, and sorrow. Her actions had unintentionally cast a shadow over Reyansh's heart, despite her endearing nickname, Ray, for him.

Darkness? Or deepest sin,

Reyansh has always spoken, conveyed himself in that term. Like he has wrapped himself in the blanket of darkness and call it a sin. I always have compared myself with him. and only came with one. I've darkness in the shape of thoughts, to whom I call demons, are just fragment in considering to his.

He is a man built in silence, exposed to darkness, ruined in flames. Still, he stands like a mountain, which his darkness hides, but he is fearless to it to. The fact that he doesn't care if anybody loves him or not, has never stopped him from becoming a canopy of shelter.

As far as I known him, he become darkness because he stopped demanding love. And all while loving me, he doesn't demand the same passion of emotions from me. Maybe because his darkness also swallowed it, and once again made him ignorant, making him believe he doesn't deserve it.