Ishq Kinara[Love Ashore] Complete

29. Decisions

Irma was always careless about duvets. Whenever she'd sleep her comforter would be at its place, without any crease. That is how Farwa would find her and shaking her head would cover her, sometimes muttering about this weird habit of hers and sometimes without saying anything but always with a smile.

But tonight, as Farwa pulled the comforter over her, a tear had gotten lost somewhere inside the covers. Irma was asleep, the morning was right there somewhere at the horizon but for their family it held little to no meaning because what they had come to know in the past few hours was enough to make them forget the mundane happenings of everyday life. Starting of the day, ending of it. It was all the same, a dark and bleak mist looming over, its shadows getting bigger with each passing second.

Making sure that Irma was comfortable, as comfortable as you can be with a troubled mind, Farwa came out of the room and stood silently on the couch Nauman was sitting on. Sarim was standing leaning against the wall with his lips pursed and his jaw set as if he was holding himself back from saying something which he'd regret later but his eyes were narrowed in Nauman's direction.

"We will ask Sajjad to visit us with his family and talk about this matter."

"There's still something to talk about?"

Sarim's venom filled voice boomed in the silent lounge. Nauman didn't flinch, didn't give him any acknowledgement which enraged Sarim some more.

"Are you hearing yourself, Baba? You still want to talk about matters with that family? What do we even know? Maybe they knew about all this? They were accomplices in it? What if that scumbag was so confident because he knew his family approved of it all?"

He was trying his best not to swear in front of his parents. Not that it would make much difference but he had never used any vile words in the confinement of this house, even his anger was always laced with carefully uttered words. He never lost his composure even when his father was being unreasonable most of the time but now, he wanted to let his father know how unacceptable this was. Even after hearing Irma he was still going with the elders doing damage control policy.

He couldn't shake the chill he felt in his bones when Irma had clutched onto him for dear life, when he was asking her again and again what was wrong and she was just shaking her head hugging him tightly as if he was the only pillar she could hold onto in the midst of a lethal storm.

He took her inside, the commotion had made Nauman and Farwa to get out of their rooms as well. Sarim made Irma sit on the couch. His eyes weren't leaving her face, her pale face, the hollow eyes and the chapped lips. And he couldn't erase the hiss that left her mouth when he had touched her upper arm just to make her look at him.

It was not rocket science. Any person with a receptive mind would be able to join the dots and tell what had happened here even if Irma chose to stay silent. But Irma didn't choose that. Even when she was physically battered and mentally exhausted, she mustered up the courage to tell them the morbid tale of the almost a year long married life of her. The nightmare she had been living for the past few months. She didn't hiccupped, she didn't flinch, there was a nonchalance to her demeanor, as if she were talking about someone else, and maybe she was, this Irma sitting in front of them felt someone else, a shell of her former self, feelings buried deep within some recess of her heart and emotions cold as ice.

But the same couldn't be said about the people around her. In a matter of mere minutes, their world had turned upside down. Even Nauman's normally impassive face was covered in deep contemplation. But Irma wasn't looking at him. Not once she glanced in his way. Sarim was sitting in front of her on his knees and Farwa was holding her from her side to give her as much support as she needed. Nauman was standing away from this picture and that was somehow so telling of the life in this house. In every chaos, the three people huddled around would always be there for each other while Nauman would just watch from the sidelines as an outsider.