SaHil FF: A Tangled Love- pt11 pg 39 (*new) - Page 22

Chapter 10: Burning bridges

Aahil and Sanam woke up to the sound of screeching outside their door. Begum Sahiba was screeching his name as though she was possessed by the devil.

What a bloodcurdling sound, Sanam thought, having been startled awake. She tried to turn but found herself trapped by Aahil's arms around her waist. He was asleep, his face relaxed, and buried in her pillow.

She turned within his arms to face him. There was cacophonic music to be faced today, that much he had warned her before he made love to her again that last time. She felt loath to wake him, but the screeching was bound to get louder VERY soon.

"Aahil..." she whispered.

"Hmmm...?" he mumbled slumberously. He tightened his embrace and threw a leg over hers. Sanam giggled and poked his chest with a finger.

"Wake up sleepy head... Your Ammi is summoning you..."

He lifted his head to hear for the sounds outside and groaned. "I want to stay here with you.."

Sanam was lifting his arm of her so she could get up and get dressed.

"Hey, where are you going?"

"Aahil ! The shouting party is going to come outside our door if we don't get up soon. I, for one don't want to be caught like this.."

"Why not, If we go on a honeymoon, I'd ban all clothes altogether..!"

"Don't be silly Aahil! Let me go!" Sanam scooted off giggling as Aahil made grabs for her.

"AAHIL BABA !! AAHIL BABA !! " Lateef knocked urgently. "Begum Sahiba needs you now! Please, hurry, The police are here!!!"

Sanam and Aahil exchanged a look. Police? he mimed as Sanam shrugged in denial.

Aahil dressed and strode quickly out the door and came upon Begum Sahiba throwing a royal tantrum, crying and yelling melodramatically for him to save her.

"AAHIL!! Beta! Look these men are here to take me to jail! Please don't let them take me there again!? I can't bear to go back there, Aahil. PLEASE!! " SHe clung to him desperately and he held her.

"Inspector! WHat is the meaning of this? Why do you intrude our home like this?! Explain yourselves!You dare disgrace my mother by dragging her to your precinct?"

"Mr. Aahil. Do treat us with some courtesy and respect. We have come with a warrant seeking her presence at our station, and Begum Tanveer is resisting! Please cooperate or we have to take drastic measures!"

"But Inspector, what are the charges against my mother??"

"It's her, Aahil !! Sanam! She did this! She's behind all of this!!" Tanveer screeched at Sanam, who appeared in the room. Sanam gaped incredulously and shook her head at Aahil.

"Sanam? What do you know about this? Did you make a report? Could you withdraw it please? Let's talk about things sensibly without making a spectacle of it?" Aahil persuaded, as Sanam negated her involvement in the fiasco.

The inspector cleared his throat and said, " Excuse me, Mrs Ibrahim is not the complainant here. Another person has come forward as a witness for an old case and filed a report. If you don't come cooperatively we will have to make an arrest. Simple as that..."

With a loud gasp and cry, Tanveer dissolved into a faint at Aahil's feet. Everyone gasped aloud and jumped around her. She had collapsed in a dead faint and Aahil was beside himself with worry. Within minutes he had picked her up and ran to his car and drove to their doctor's office. Police car in tow...

Tanveer couldn't stay in the hospital for long and by the next day she was arrested and taken to a holding cell. She was charged with the murder of Dilshaad Ahmed Khan's husband Rashid Ahmed Khan, her children Asad and Najma, Sanam's grandfather Gafur Siddiqui. Additional charges were arson and causing death of Seher Ahmed Khan. Main witness was Dilshaad , with additional witnesses Razia Siddiqui and Imran Qureshi.

Within a week of the police report, Imran Qureshi came forward to seek out his children, Rehan and Haya. He was forced into silence by Tanveer, as he had no proof that his wife Najma was murdered. But as soon as Dilshaad emerged and made a stand, nothing could hold him back.

It was an emotional reunion of a father and his lost children. A first meeting of siblings, who thought they had no really close family. Rehan and Haya, similar in temperament, formed a close bond almost immediately. Finally Rehan had a family, a true one, of his own.

After a few weeks, the whole case unfolded in the courtroom. Dilshaad Khan, got her day in court. Every single one of Tanveer's past transgressions were spoken aloud, as she sat stone faced in the accused stand, face pale without her expensive makeup. Witness after witness came with damning evidence. As much as the lawyers fought, it was a lone man's perception that was irrevocably changed.

Seated in the family area, Aahil's mind reeled from shock, to disgust, to disbelief to utter rage, at what his Ammi truly was. As the crimes heaped in a huge pile, he knew it was a losing battle. This was way beyond his relationship with her. Too many people have lost too much.

The best lawyers the Begum Sahiba could buy, tried connivingly to paint the Khan family as bitter and jealous enemies of Tanveer, but the judges weren't buying it. Witnesses of Tanveer's habit of making people "disappear" also came forward, making the case almost impossible to win.

In the end, it was her attempt to buy off the judge that was the final nail in her coffin. He took particular exception to that and brought down the full force of the law upon her. She was sentenced to life in prison.

As Dilshaad walked out of the courtroom with her family, she said a prayer.

"Ya Maula, please give my family peace. Please keep Asad, Zoya, Najma, Seher and Rashid among your Beloved. And please bestow your Rahmat upon those living in their legacy. Alhamdulillah..."

****

After 2 weeks in prison, Tanveer attempted suicide. Aahil was so traumatized by this event that he started to blame Sanam for bringing this upon them. He knew it was unfair, but seeing his Ammi in such a broken state made him a little resentful.

Aahil began staying back late at work, spending whatever free time he had visiting Ammi in prison. She remained in the jail infirmary due to her frail mental state. She continued to rain poisonous words about Sanam, and at times Aahil felt like he couldn't reconcile the fact that his wife is the enemy of his mother. Whatever his Ammi was to others, she was always loving to him.

Sanam had retreated into respectful distance, thinking of allowing him space. But inside she was restless with the distance, the increasingly irritable way he spoke to her. He brushed off all attempts at talking, preferring to stay in his study till 1 am every night. She tried to force him but that only made it worse.

For the first time, she felt at a loss at dealing with this. He promised to never turn away from me... She was desperate to get him to talk, because day by day she felt more and more hollow. Every step she took toward him, he took two steps away.

One day, in her blunt guileless way, she cornered him in his study. She stood by the door of his study and faced him. Aahil looked up, a faint frown marring his features at the intrusion.

"What is it?"

Sanam swallowed and stared at him silently. She had so many things to tell him, and his demeanour was making her nervous.

"Spit it out Sanam, I have work to do." Dismissively curt he was.

"What's happening to us Aahil?" she spoke in a low voice. He looked up in surprise at the sadness in her low voice. Hours of crying at night and more hours of worrying in the day gave that sentence a loaded meaning. He noticed belatedly the rings around her eyes, the gauntness of her cheeks.

"What is happening? I have no time for this Sanam. Come to the point."

"Why are you like this?"

"Like wh-.."

"Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. This was what was telling you about when I first left this house! This is my worst fear coming true! Your Ammi's truth has come in between us."

Aahil slammed the table impatiently, angered by the implied wrongdoing on his part. Sanam jumped at the sudden violent sound, anxiety increasing steadily.

"What now? What are you trying to say? That this is all my fault? I am the cause of all this upheaval ? ME? I came back and systematically plotted revenge upon my mother? Dragged an old woman and humiliated her in court and sent her to prison for what's left of her life? And then have the gall of expecting some kind of happily ever after type ending?? REALLY?"

Sanam winced at every accusation he threw cruelly at her, hurting because he twisted all the true facts of the situation and made her look guilty. She felt betrayed with his accusations, so disappointed that he appeared to have never thought of the situation in her position.

All he saw was his Ammi was suffering, and he couldn't bear it.

"It's all YOU! YOU! You ruined my life ! You took away the one thing I treasured. My Ammi! I thought we could have a happy life, but you weren't happy with just me. You had to break apart my family ! Now my Ammi is so depressed, she is suicidal. And she blames me ! She says I was so selfish to want love, YOUR love, that I forsaken her life and happiness. That I brought this on us! And you expect some kind of gratification do you? Congratulations Sanam! You exacted your revenge for the death of your parents! " Aahil clapped mockingly , as Sanam paled further before him.

"Congratulations Sanam! Welcome to your happily ever after!? Where I'm not supposed to care that my mother is suicidal in prison for life and blaming me for it! And I must pretend with you that all is well! Come on Sanam? Let's dance around in happiness over this wonderful victory!"

He pulled her angrily into his arms and tried to manoeuvre a wooden Sanam in dance. She cried out and pulled her hand back, crying heartbrokenly. "Stop it Aahil! Please! Just stop!"

"What should I do now? Kiss you? Make love to you? Sleep in your arms? Live happily with you now? How am I supposed to do that? Huh?!"

Sanam looked up, startled. Was there a decision to be made in that statement somewhere? Her skin pricked with gooseflesh at the gravity of the situation.

Undaunted, she asked. "What are you saying Aahil? Tell me clearly!!"

Aahil paused to look into her terrified eyes, her pupils enlarged with fear, her every sense waiting for his answer.

"If you are saying what I think you are saying Aahil... be a man about it ! But make no mistake. The second I feel unwelcome here, you won't see me anymore. Think carefully...!!" Her voice was shaking in its finality.

Aahil went quiet. He was furious with her, his stubbornness making him unseeing of the veiled ultimatum he was given. He mutinously kept silent, thinking of ignoring her demand for answers. Answers he didn't have.

He turned away, " Think whatever you want, Sanam. Our marriage was a huge mistake, doomed to fail...I don't know if we'll survive this."

"Are you telling me to leave, Aahil?" Her voice tremulous. Asking for confirmation.

"You can leave if you want to Sanam. Do whatever you like, I don't care!!"

He didn't see her silent open mouthed cry behind him. She clutched at her abdomen and one hand stifled the wail of grief from the mouth. If he had turned around and seen her, he would have seen the effect of his words.

But he didn't. After a long pause, he turned to find Sanam had left the room. Feeling justified in his anger, he stamped down that inner voice that screamed at him to go after her. He stalked out of the house and went out for a drive. Let her stew on that for a while, he thought viciously.

But when he came back, 2 hours later, he found the bedroom vacant of her presence. Everything of hers was gone. His feverish eyes sought her out, but everything was gone; her clothes, her things, her photos, every sign of her wiped clean from the room.

Nervously he rushed to the kitchen and the guest rooms, the garden, the terrace,everywhere, but there wasn't any sign of Sanam. She just vanished.

No, she couldn't have...

He took out his phone and rang her number and found the phone ringing in their bedroom. She had left it, with all the things he had gifted her. Jewelry, property papers, everything. And then he noticed how something was arranged prominently on the bed.

It was the model dream house. The one they had built together all those months ago. It was placed upon the bed, with what looked like some papers slotted in side. He pulled the papers out and found a letter from her; and the other, complete ownership papers of his company. Sanam was the Farooqui Trust, who had bought up all 51% shares of his company. And she had gifted them all to him, sole ownership.

Shock, made his eyes water, as he turned to the letter she had written.

Thankfully, the house was quiet in the wee hours of the morning. For the awful sound of a grown man crying could be heard so audibly.

To be continued.

Part 11