You Belong With Me

23. AVYUKTA

Avyukta - 8 years

"Papaaa, when will mumma return from Nana's?" I asked papa.

"She'll be here after two days, champ." He replied to me and made me sit in his lap.

"I miss her and didi so much." I said making puppy eyes.

"I do too."

"Let me talk to her."

"Okay so you're saying that you will disturb her while she must be busy talking to her parents?" He said raising an eyebrow.

"Nooo, I will talk to her for two minutes only."

"Okay." Papa sighed and gave me the phone to call her.

"Hello, mumma?"

"Hello Avi, what happened bache?"

"Nothing I just miss you so much."

"Aww, I miss you too bache."

"When are you and didu returning home?"

"We'll be home soon."

"Will you bring chokis for me?"

"Yes yes I'll bring them for my most favourite boy."

"Yayyy thank you, okay where's krati?"

"She's with na—" her sentence left half completed and a voice of loud bang came from the other side of the line.

"Mumma? Maa?" I said.

"Pass the phone to your papa." Her voice was breathy all of sudden.

"Mumma, are you okay?"

"Give the phone to your father Avi." The seriousness of her tone made me run towards papa and hand him over the phone.

I don't know what they talked about but as papa cut the call, he rushed to somewhere.
I suspected that something was wrong but what?

Papa didn't come home that night. The next day he came home for some hours and talked to badi maa and paa about something important before leaving again.

After two days we went to hospital, I didn't know for what until I saw Nana, Papa and Didu sitting on one of the benches.

"What happened krati?" I asked my didu as I noticed that she was crying. She hugged me and cried more but didn't tell me.

After some minutes two uncles came along with a body on stretcher. They stopped in front of us.

I turned towards papa to ask but saw tears in his eyes and the seriousness in his look told me what was happening.

"Noo noo noooo." I screamed after seeing my mother's lifeless and pale face. I cried for what seemed like some minutes and after that I was dragged away from the body of the woman who gave birth to me by one of my family members.

----

It's been eight months since mumma's death. Both of us i.e. me and krati noticed that everyone was asking papa to marry someone because they thought we were kids, we were young but not that young if it makes some sense.

Krati's mental and physical health was affected severely by our mother's death. She was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder.

Papa married a woman in order to provide us the care and affection which only a mother could provide, he believed that it'd be helpful in my sister's treatment but it never was, it was never the same. It couldn't be.