Hiraeth

38

SITARA was silent. She looked down on her lap, completely devoid of any words. From whatever that she had seen and heard, Aira seemed someone whom she could never comprehend. Her decisions, her actions often reflected a sense of rebellion. From what she had read, she understood that the idea of leaving her career behind for him and then also being tied to the duties of a mother didn't end up well with her. 

Every word of hers seethed in regret and anger, but she somehow could never forget what she had said about her daughter. That had pricked her the most, she could never imagine a mother ever resorting to say such things about her child. That too, a vulnerable newborn. 

She would have said that he was lying. She could have believed that very well, but with the way that he had shared this detail with her had made her pause. The way his voice became heavy and his eyes turned hollow and dark just like they would be during the initial days of their marriage, indicated that there was some honesty to it. 

He shared a detail with her that must have been very intimate. He was having a hard time at recalling his wife's last moments and she could understand that. She had unknowingly pushed him into a space that was nothing but a blackhole of doom and regret. 

"I'm sorry." She gulped, touching his shoulders and let out a sigh of exhaustion as her hands rubbed against the surface of his shirt. 

"Please don't ever bring this up again, especially in front of Ayla." He sounded hurt. 

"I won't. I promise you." Worry lines formed on her forehead but she tried to bring her lips to smile, putting on a calm expression for him. Out of nowhere, everything seemed to have changed in the room. The air around them became thick and each and every word froze on their tongues, preventing itself from escaping no matter how much they tried. 

"But if there's something that is bothering you, not only now but at any other time as well, you can share that with me." She offered, brining a certain pleasantness in her tone. She knew that he smoked out of stress and resorted to antidepressants too when things would grow worse. She had seen him sink into a secretive loneliness which wasn't visible to many, but ceased to exist for him. 

"Kaise kar leti ho tum yeh sab?" 

"Kya?"

He shook his head and took in a reserved breath. The way his heart was at unrest inside his chest, overwhelming to a certain degree which eventually resulted in him wanting to tell her things. It wasn't the first time when someone had asked him if he felt alright or was in need of some help, people did that and at many stages of his grief. His own mother would approach him with nothing but genuine concern, but somehow he could never. 

He didn't know if he could open up to Sitara too. He wouldn't, but there was something within her that reflected through her eyes sometimes. It brought him an unknown comfort, but also struck those chords of his heart that were better left untouched. 

"You scare me sometimes, I'm not even a good enough person for you to offer your everything in vain." It was said as nothing but a casual comment and he had treated it like that as well, but only she could assess the weight of those words and that silent impact that they may have created within him when he told her that. 

"In vain?" She smiled in disbelief, as if showing him that he sounded like nothing but a fool. 

He could do nothing except stare at the woman before him, who seemed to have this raw and unshaken faith in him. Even for a moment, he didn't find her words shake or her demeanour falter when she did that. 

For someone like her, who had never been through as easy marriage before, she was putting in a lot of affection and care. He had never expected that. He didn't know what drove her to be this way, but he knew that a part of Sitara had already put its whole trust in him.