FF: A story of hearts part 9 pg47 (23/02) - Page 36

thanks for informing!! the update can wait...

Kirstin...get the personal issue taken care 1st...

it is ok kristin...deal with important matters first...

thanks for letting us know...and take care of yourself xx

Hope your personal problem is sorted out. Your writing skills are really good👏👏

kirstin , take your time ... These days I only have limited time to be on the forum.

take ur time dear ... hope ur problem gets resolved soon...🤗

looking forward to read the next part!

Hi all 😊 thank you again for all the lovely comments and your patience with me and sorry for the long wait. I really had a hard time writing this part. I knew what I wanted to write about and what needed to be happening but didn't know how to do it. But now I have taken up my courage and gave it the best try I could. I hope you will not be disappointed with it.

So please enjoy 😃

Part 9 – Resolution

Hearts are beating a frightened beat, knowing that they are standing on a crossroad crucial for their future. They are beating steadily stronger determined to not be pushed into an unwanted direction this time around. They are beating towards a common rhythm unknown to each other.

There they were, the two persons, who had saved her from falling apart in the last four years and as so often they had one of their small tiffs going on. "I am telling you that you have to mix yellow and blue to make green and not blue and red Sanju. I am an artist I should know don't you think?" Julia was groaning. "I know you are an artist Masi. So why don't you know this. Blue and red make green. I learnt that in Kindergarten." Sanju was saying totally confident in her misbelieve. "Did you now?" Julia asked while slamming her left hand on her head. "Yeah. I can show you" Sanju replied excitedly, thinking she won. "We made a colour wheel." Julia just nodded her head tiredly and of Sanju ran to the other side of the atelier, where her Kindergarten art stuff was being kept. She searched shortly between the things, throwing everything she didn't need carelessly to her left, and right, over her shoulder as well as just in the air. Julia observed this with irritation showing clearly on her face. As an artist she didn't like to see anyone treat art utensils thoughtlessly. For a second it looked like the young woman would scold the little girl but then her already opened mouth shut again and she sighed again in a tiredly fashion.

Dark circles framed Julia's eyes and her face was really pale, looking all in all really knackered. This made Gopi, who was quietly witnessing the scene from the shadows of the hallway feel extremely guilty. She knew how hard it was on her friend to have Sanju around all the time especially at such a stressful time for her. Her new exhibition was going to open soon and she still was in need to make two more pieces. Gopi knew if for a fact, that Julia loved and adored Sanju to pieces and that even though she was mainly arguing with the little girl and calling her things like 'monkey' she would do anything to keep her happy and save. Julia had mastered the art in keeping calm in emotionally stressful situation, which was good because this way she was always able to calm Gopi down, who was not able to stay calm in times like this. At those times however Gopi knew that Julia was distressed as well and if it was only indicated by the uncertainty entering her eyes for the fracture of a second. Sanju loved her Masi fanatically and always enjoyed spending time with her alone. Therefore it wasn't easy to make her understand that her Masi might be busy with important work and didn't have the time to play with her all the time. Unfortunately every try, be it made by her Maa or Masi, to make her understand had been gone to waste so far.

Just then Sanju returned with the colour wheel. She claimed on the seat next to Julia and hold it out to her. Julia, who had just been rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand, took the round piece of sturdy paper and studied it. A smirk played around her lips after a few seconds and she handed the colour wheel back to Sanju while asking her to show her, where she can see that red and blue really made green. Sanju took it in her tiny hands with an exasperated sound. She looked at the colour wheel closely for the first time since finding it today and then her cheeks coloured a little and a sheepish smile stole its way onto her features. Laughing she said that she had been wrong by the looks of it. Julia started to giggle and tousled the little girl's hair affectionately.

An immense amount of love for these two spread within Gopi as she stood outside the door watching them. When she had been left all alone by life, a broken dejected and forlorn young woman they have become her family, her life and reason to live. Without them she couldn't have done what she has done, not achieved what she has achieved but still she knew that their little family would never be wholesome the way it was right now. Again the old dream of returning home to her Ahem ji and her maa ji and their family came back before her. But as tempting this dream was and as possible it seemed right now, she knew that she had to be firm about the terms and conditions Ahem ji would have to fulfil before she could give in to returning with him. She was no longer the innocent and helpless girl she had been four years back, not longer in need of his guidance, protection and support. In the last four years she has learned to live without it and she would go on living without it, if he couldn't prove to her that he had changed for the better as well. That Sanju and her would be trusted, loved and welcomed back into his family and not be in danger of being cast aside by the smallest trouble again. Her resolution to make sure of this grew stronger and stronger while she watched Julia making a small resting place for Sanju on the couch so that she could take her afternoon nap there.

The passionate dialogue of Gopi's had been followed by a deafening silence in which Gopi had been taking deep breath to calm herself as it seems. Ahem had been too shocked to move or speak at first due to his world being uprooted by this outburst of his wife, which he always had seen as gentle and submissive. Now he couldn't remember clearly what had happened next. He knows that he had tried to say something but that Gopi had stopped him; he knows that she has given him a green heavy box and then sent him out of the shop, and he still remembers that he had done just that in a state of utter shock. But what else happened? His mum! Yes he thought that his mum had stayed inside the shop a little longer. There was this feeling of having stood in front of the shop for quite awhile until his mum had come to him and told him to go back to the hotel. But then... 'Does it matter?' he asked himself after a moment of brooding. 'No it doesn't' he decided shaking his head to clear his thought. Then his eyes fell again on the green box now standing in front of him on the bed. He still hadn't opened it to look what was in it. He felt a sense of dread towards what he will find in it without being able to explain it to himself. Or rather not wanting to admit to the knowledge that whatever was inside it would leave him convinced without a doubt that he had wronged the person, who lived in his heart and the little girl, which had taking his heart captive without even knowing it. For the umpteenth time he reached out his hands to open the lit just to pull them back before touching it. Frustrated he ran his right hand through his hair messing it up quite a lot. Again brooding over what to do, coming up with the only answer available and still not daring to do it; still not able to open this personal Pandora's box of him.

Just then a knock on the door interrupted his thoughts. Relieved not to be forced to think about the box and its contents for the moment he got up from the bed and crossed the room to the door with a few bid straights. Standing before his door was his mother, who looked at him, scrutinizing his appearance with her keen eyes. Then these eyes looked past him into the room fixating on the still closed box on his bed no doubt about this to return to his eyes with a look of reproach in them. Ahem tried to elude her stare but was unable to do so. "Ahem" Kokila started in a serious tone, "This won't do. You will have to face your past and what you have done sooner or later. Squirming around and trying to run away from it or delay the time to deal with it will not make it easier in the end. It most properly will have the opposite effect. I haven't raised you to run away from challenges but to face them head on. You might find that the contents of this box will show you that you made a mistake in the past and have wronged Gopi but running away from it will not make anything better. You will have to face the facts and then try your best to make up for mistakes already committed. Sitting around and feeling sorry or remorseful for you past actions or wishing for them to never have been taken will not achieve anything. We cannot change the past but we can learn from it and change our behaviour now. We can try to make up for them but that will only be possible if we face them head on and not run away from them." His mum was of course right. Ahem had known that all along but it seemed that he still had needed this reminder from her to do what was needed. He nodded his head and said "You are right mum. This will lead to nothing. I will have to open the box and face what awaits me within it." Satisfied Kokila nodded her head and then told him that she had ordered his dinner to his room so that he could use the rest of the day and the evening to do what is needed to be done. Then she left him alone again.

While returning to her own room a smile spread on her lips. Again remembering the small talk she had had with her beloved Gopi vahu after Ahem had left the shop. "Maa ji I am so happy to see you well. I was so worried that you would not recover from the poisoning. The poisoning ..." Gopi had whispered while hugging her tightly but then on the reminder of the poisoning she had let go of her and stepped back a little to look into Kokila's face. "I didn't do it. I-I-I didn't! You have to believe me-me. I-I wo-would never do that! I love you Maa ji and never would hurt you" she had cried out, while big tears had run down her cheeks. "I know you didn't do it" Kokila had said pulling the young woman, who was a daughter to her and which she had missed so much back into her arms. And so they had cried and told each other how much they missed and loved the other. Gopi had also told her what the content of the box was; has told her of all the unsent letters within and the pictures of her and Sanju's life, making Kokila understand that this box was a chance for Ahem to get to know the new Gopi and his daughter and so earn the right to meet his child after all. " 'Oh Krishna Bhagwan please help my children to find back to each other and make my family whole again' Kokila silently prayed.

Back in Ahem's hotel room the dark haired man had resumed his place on the bed before the box. His hands were reaching yet again for the box but for the first time since placing it there on the bed they touched it again. Slowly and with a last deep breath he took the lid of and looked inside. In a need row letters were placed within it. He could see that some where thicker than others and out of a few he could see the corner of pictures. With shaky hands he brushed genteelly over them to then search for the first one; finding that they were ordered chronologically with the eldest at the back. This letter he took in his hands not knowing that Gopi had sat in her little office at home only a few weeks back holding and reading just this exact letter. He carefully took the letter out of it's envelop and opened it. He immediately noticed the familiar handwriting of Gopi and saw the blurry spots, which her tears had left on it. Only seeing these spots he had set there for sometime while a massive feeling of self-loathing befell him. Only seeing them had made him feel like the lowliest of creature, cruel, gruesome and heartless. Then after sometime, which felt like a centaury to him, he had started to read the letter.

Dear Ahemji,

I know you never want to see my face again and I remember clearly you saying that this fact will never change. Doesn't matter if I die, if I am in trouble, ill, pregnant or sorry I shall never come in front of your face again. I know how angry you were and that you might not have meant every word you said. But I am too afraid and to hurt to come before you again. Still I feel as if I have to tell you that I am pregnant, that we are going to be parents. You said you don't want to have anything to do with me and nothing that comes from me. But still I hope that you were not serious..

'How could I do this? How could I say these unfeeling, brutal words to her? How could I ever deny her and my child the right to be with me? What have I done?' These and other self tormenting questions went through Ahem's head without him being able to find another. He hands had clenched around the paper making it crease and some more spots have blurred the ink, which were made by the hot tears dripping from his eyes. It was unbelievable painful for Ahem to think back on how he had wronged his love and his child and to discover what a disgusting person he had been and still was. With only reading this first of so many letters he had finally understood how wrong he had been to dement her to come with him; to think that she was in the wrong. No it had always been him, who was wrong and now that he knew and was sorry for it, it seemed to be too late. Again he remembered the view of his Gopi in the arms of another man. It still made him boil with jealousy and anger but he also understood that this might be right, even though everything in him screamed 'wrong', that he has brought this upon him himself.

After awhile he had gone on to read the next letter and the next. He had felt how his respect and love for Gopi and the strength she had shown had grown; how he has started to fall in love with this woman, who was so oddly familiar but then again so strange to him at the same time. He had on to read about the birth of his daughter, his beloved child and had been shocked to know how near he had come to lose her without knowing it. He had raged against the doctor's inability to say what was going to happen to his daughter, fearing for her life, even though he knew that she would survive, having seen her now nearly four years later. Ahem had felt so incredible grateful to this Julia, who had stepped up to a stranger and held out her hand to help her and her child; to this person, which had gone on to become a part of his wife's and daughter's family and part of his own without him knowing or guessing. Hours upon hours Ahem had set on his bed and on the floor reading the letters and looking at the pictures. In between he must have been eating but he did not remember when or what. He was too occupied with the life of his family that he has missed; the feelings and emotions that caused havoc within him, to remember anything. And so still holding on to his favourite picture, which showed Sanju safely within her mother's arms and them smiling lovingly at each other, he fell into a deep sleep. Still feeling the self loathing as badly as when he first laid eyes on the tear blurred page of the first letter but also filled with his love for Gopi and his daughter and the resolution to make up for his past mistakes and to do anything to reunited his family; willing to do whatever Gopi wished him to do.

And so the resolutions were formed, which had the potential to reunited, what should never have been split in the past but ended up separated all the same. However life is never as easy as we wished it would be and more troubles and misunderstandings lie ahead. Will these destroy the last hope of a reunion or will they be the starting point for it?

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Please leave your comments and suggestions below. I would be really happy to read them 😊

Res

I'm sorry to reply u late, kristin

OMG...what an update...Thank u so much that u let Ahem suffer as we wished. I wonder what he will do next to make up for the past. Will Gopi let him meet Sanju???

By the way, Superb update from u...
Update soon, darling.