Just because they gave us a home when we needed it doesn’t mean they get to act like we are their slaves and obliged to listen to any bullshit they spew.
“I know she gets too much, but please ignore her for as long as she is here. If it weren’t for my brother, I wouldn’t have let her be here. Besides, you know they have done so much for us already. This is the least we can do for them.”
The same story over and over again. If they didn’t help us out, it is not like we would have died.
“Maa, I am done being obliged to the people who were supposed to help us when we needed them to. What’s the point of having relatives if they won’t help us out?”
I am breathing fire at this point, but I am so exhausted with having such conversations over and over again. I am tired of feeling the weight of this unwanted guilt that we can’t repay them back.
“You really make me wish Dad wasn’t dead,Maa.” I hate the words as I speak them, but sooner or later this was supposed to happen. Her eyes glisten hearing my words, and I know she must be hurt too, but if I won’t speak facts, no one else will. “Do you think we would be treated this way if he was alive? Just because my dad is no more doesn’t mean I will take this bullshit anymore.”
“And what did your dad’s relatives do when we were distraught?” She gets up from her seat and comes near me.
“They abandoned us. At least mine came to us and helped us. Do you think it would have been easier if they didn’t help us?”
“Meher, stop.” Mom comes to stop her, but my mom doesn’t listen. After so long, it seems like we are both letting our frustration and our feelings out. In whatever fucked up, morally wrong way that we are.
“It would have been difficult, but at least I wouldn’t have grown up feeling like I owed them my life. I love them too,Maa. But you pushing me and shoving it in my face that they provided us with basic necessities in the time of need makes me despise them.”
“God forbid, I want you to be grateful.”
I shake my head. She doesn’t get it, does she?
“You know what sucks,Maa,” I say, gulping down my tears. “That you will always pick them over me. They are your family after all, right? And I am just your daughter. What sucks even more is that you don’t see how they treat you as if you are still a guest, and if you do see, you turn a blind eye to that. And it really fucking hurts to see, but if you don’t want it to change, I can’t help you.”
Reyansh comes up to stop me when I pick up the car keys and storm out, but I push him away.
I need to be alone for a few minutes or hours.
“I will come back,” I tell him, and despite the tension running between us, he cares, and that speaks volumes about how shitty my earlier behavior was. “Just give me some space.”
* * *
After driving aimlessly for more than an hour around the city, I return back home. Maybe I said too much, but the words were choking me down. I knew I could have put my point across in a much better way, but fighting with my mom brings out the uglyside of me outside. The one I never want to see, but she knows what triggers me the most, and she goes exactly there. She knows what I said was true. If my dad were alive, I would have never been treated the way they do right now. They would have treated Mom better, and they would have accepted Reyansh way more easily than they did.
Reyansh wouldn’t have had to prove that he was worthy of me in front of them if my dad were here because his word would be final. I remember how on my engagement day I could literally hear all of them gossiping about how I broke my mother’s trust in me by having a love marriage, and that too with a guy who was half-British. I still remember how all of them said I tarnished my father’s reputation, that if he were here he would have been ashamed. But they don’t know shit about my dad.
He would have supported me. He would have been proud of me for going after my heart. He would have been happy simply seeing me happy. But unfortunately, he wasn’t here, and my mother didn’t have it in her to support me when she knew this was wrong.
So, Reyansh did. He stepped in where he didn’t need to, somewhere he could have turned a blind eye too. I know so many of the guys my extended family thought were worthy of me instead of him would have never put in the effort to bond with my mom, to fill in the space my dad left when he died. They would have catered to their family only and would have expected that I do the same, forgetting that I had a mother too.
But Reyansh never did that. He became the son my mom never had; he became the figure in our lives that those said relatives never became. He brought back happiness not only in my life but in my mom’s too. Proving exactly why he was the only one meant for me.
But my mum really didn’t care, and I needed to expect that.
When I open the door of the house, I expect everyone to be asleep. I remove my shoes at the entrance and tiptoe my way inside when someone sitting on the couch speaks up, startling me.
“You took so long, Aisha. We were getting worried,” Mom says, and I calm down my racing heart.
“You scared me,” I say, putting my keys down on the table quietly. “Why are you awake?”
She gives me a look that is similar to how Reyansh looks at me when he is done with me.
“Because you left the house angry,” she says, patting the space beside her for me to sit. I reluctantly walk over there because I don’t want to really talk at the moment. Too many thoughts are running inside my head at the same time, and I just want to crash on my bed and get some sleep.
“Are you okay, Aisha?” she asks, gently running her hand over my head, and I feel my senses relax. “Meher was too harsh on you.”
“You think?” I ask, “I think I was too harsh on her. After all, she is my mom. I shouldn’t have talked to her like that.”
