A never ending wait

Marco left the thought of being betrayed.

As they had often quarreled and patched up, every time this voice would speak out loud, you know what this time it is not a quarrel but a major breach in your family and love and life. She was wronged and she won’t be here today so leave the idea of meeting him.

 At the same time another voice spoke inside his mind.She loved you and if she really did then she will be here today even if for a second. Go go…..she’ll come and see you and introduce you to him.

With this thought in his mind he did something he hadn’t done in years. He prayed, prayed to be forgiven of the sin that he had committed without knowing the consequences. He prayed for her to love him enough to do him that favor. He prayed that she would keep her promise.

As he descended the stairs he thought of taking Aunt Murray’s blessing but then changed his mind. He wanted to give her a surprise in case she turned up. “Would be back soon, there’s a surprise waiting for you, Aunt. Stay well and eat what you want.” She had a tendency to starve until he offered her food himself, and loved being fed though she was almost 70 years and was hale and healthy.

He drove towards the same coffee shop where they had both met for the first and the last time. She did never ask anything from him neither did she ask him to change himself. She was free and intended to let all others be free. The only thing that she had asked him the day they had first known about their marriage, a birthday surprise from her family and Marco was, “I’ll just ask one thing and this going to be the last thing I will ask. Please be honest and faithful don’t leave me for someone else. I know you won’t, I just wanted to start with something true.” It was easier to answer that question that day, not knowing what a fool he was. He had failed to see the blessing that was in disguise of her, he did never attempt to remove the disguise and glance at the actual approval that she was.

Marco had been blaming himself for the last 6 years for all that he missed in his life. It was all his fault after all, he was the reason she had left, left him alone and never ever called him once. It was his fault that he had seen something in someone else that he was supposed to see in Julia. She had been the most extraordinary person but he had never even noticed the things that made her unique and had always been drawn towards someone who had her eyes on his money. He had made the mistake of choosing a show-off in place of a jewel, for which he had been contrite all his life.

The sun was above his head and it was shining directly on the table he had intended to book, on the desk she would often sit and write. Still he didn’t mind taking the seat at the far corner, her favorite seat, she would be glad to see that I still acknowledge her desires and her………..Beauty.

Anyone else in his place would be as excited as heaven, all the same he was sweating and was short of breath and feared that he would have a heart attack if she didn’t show up. Since her departure his heart had become quite weak and was beating extremely fast at the thought of meeting them. At the same time he knew that he had to wait a long time to meet the pleasure of his life and was sure that the pleasure would be more than satisfying due the wait.

It had been noon when he had arrived at the café, but it had turned late evening and she was still not there and he was starting to give up as the feel of meeting them had died a long time ago. It was their special day and she had promised to meet him at the shop and decide about the future together. He felt embarrassed to be sitting there for the past 8 hours waiting for someone and not even ordering anything and lost in a dream about something impossible. He had been thinking of leaving the coffee shop but was not able to.

He forced himself to stand and walked up to the exit. Marco stopped there and looked back for the last time. He pondered over the idea whether to wait for another hour but then thought otherwise as there was his aunt, alone at home. All the same he was moving on. He will move on whether with her or not. The only regret was that he never got to meet him. He never got to tell her how much he loved her. he never gt to live a happily-married-life. He had been so confident that she was and would be kind enough to come.

He came out and drove towards his house with a stone implanted on his heart. He didn’t bother crying as he knew that it was he who had let all these lives shatter. May be he knew about all this, but that didn’t matter anymore as she had decided not to come.

He came to an abrupt stop at a throng that had covered the whole road. He asked them to get away however his voice didn’t seem to reach them at all. He walked over to the center pushing his way in and gasped. His breath caught in his throat as he moved the body to face him.

He could no longer suppress his motions so he let the tears fall. He moved both the bodies and realized why they were never at the coffee shop. People all around him started asking thousands of unnecessary questions that he thought better to ignore and proceeded with his sulking. After all they were his family. Besides she had kept her promise.

They had met an accident; the woman was still beautiful under the makeup of heavy blood and dust. Someone said that they were just crossing the street when a bus crashed into them. He was sitting in that café when they had met this accident. He felt like trashing himself as once again he was the reason they were dead. If it was not for him they won’t be there, they wouldn’t cross the road and wouldn’t get under that bus.

The one thing that hurt him most was that he had never got the chance to look at his son, without all the blood on, never saw how beautiful he was and never compared him with his mother or himself. He had never heard him cry, speak or shout, never saw him walk.

The day that she had found out about his affair with a foreign woman in his office, the day she heard him talk to the foreigner about their time together, she decided to leave him. After all she was an independent woman and would never ask for something she wouldn’t get willingly. She was gone for 3 weeks when she came back and handed him a divorce paper. She had already signed on the paper and he was left with no choice. Even if he signed in it he wouldn’t be able to live a better life, not even if he didn’t.

That day she gave him the news that she was 2 months pregnant and had intended to give him a surprise but that day she found out something, she had never imagined in her wildest dreams. That was when she had promised, “Don’t worry, you might not love me but I do. And you know what this baby does, too. I’ll let you see him or whoever this baby is, no matter with whom you live. I’ll come here, on our 10^th anniversary. By that time he would be able to take his own decision” That was the last he had heard from her, until she gave him the news of the baby being a boy. All the same she refused to show any picture or tell anything about him.

She thought it to be a great punishment and it truly was. besides that punishment would never end, after all he never got to see him.