“What a lovely baby!” A low voice came into my ears. Trying to concentrate who that is, I
forcefully open my eyes, feeling dizzy and trying to process where I am. Sharp lights penetrated
through my eyes, beeping sounds of machine coming from nearby and people in white coats
talking and smiling at me. Unable to remember, I asked one of them in a shaky voice, “What is
going on?” A tall thin woman who seemed like in her mid thirties, placed her hand on my
shoulder and replied, “Hello Hira, I am doctor Maheen. You are in the hospital and you have
given birth to a beautiful baby boy. Congratulations!”
Hearing doctor Maheen say that, it suddenly hit me, Imran getting sick, I going to court, waiting
for 6 months and… suddenly a sharp, terrible pain stroked me. Tears rolling down my face, I
looked at my stomach stitches and thought to myself,” The pain of C-sec is quite terrible.”
Looking at my baby boy makes me wonder, how similar he looks just like Imran. I wonder what
Imran would have felt looking at our baby boy.
“He is just like you Imran, we miss you.” thinking to myself, I took my boy to kiss him.
Embracing my child, I got preoccupied in my thoughts…
I got married 3 months ago to Imran, the love of my life. Imran is tall and muscular. He is in his
early thirties with pale complexion and oval face. He is the definition of perfection. Life with him
was perfect till that day. It was a windy morning. I was in the kitchen preparing breakfast while
Imran was getting ready for office.
“Breakfast is ready!” I shouted while setting the dining table. Imran came and said,” let me
guess. Cheese omelet right?”
“Yes! It’s your favorite cheese omelet!” “You are the best!” complemented Imran while taking a
bite of his omelet.
We were having our breakfast when suddenly, Imran felt sick. He got so sick that we ended up
being in hospital emergency. The doctor checked him, ran some tests while I was waiting
anxiously outside the emergency room. The doctor came and what he said made my world fall
apart.
“Your husband is severely ill and he will never be able to walk again.”
His words echoing in my ears, I ran out of the hospital as fast as I could, not knowing where to
go, I stopped and knelt down in the middle of the road, trying to catch my breath and process
whatever happened in the last couple of hours.“No, this cannot happen.” I thought to myself “This cannot be true. He was ill! He did not tell me
before marriage! Why? Why did he do that? What was my fault? What did I do to deserve this?”
Asking myself these questions, I wiped off my tears that were rolling down my face, I
immediately decided what I would do next.
On the way back home, his home, I went to the bedroom to grab all my stuff and packed them,
deciding to never come back, deciding to get divorce! As I was walking out of the house, I saw
him coming. I saw Imran, sitting on the wheelchair, his mother pushing it towards me. I saw it
on his face, the shock, looking at me and my baggage back and forth, he understood everything.
He knew I was going to never return. He looked into my eyes, trying to talk to me but I, ignoring
him, walked straight to my car and without thinking anything further, I drove away. I left him,
forever.
3 weeks passed, I was on the way going back to my home. From the day I left my husband, I
have been going back and forth to the court to file for divorce. Today was the last day at court.
The court has asked me to give my marriage a second chance, to give him a second chance.
They have given 6 months time period to sort out everything and after that, if my decision would
be same, the court will process my divorce.
I already knew my decision. I knew I was never going back to him. He cheated. He did not inform
me about his illness beforehand. What was he thinking? I would never be able to know about
it? Thinking about all of this, I reached home. Parking my car, I took all the important court
stuff, I reached the front door of my home. As I was going to ring the door bell, the door wide
opened. It took me by shock when I saw him, after almost a month. Imran opened the door
sitting on his new remote control wheel chair. Feeling so angry, I rushed into my house, threw
my purse and other stuff on the sofa which landed on the floor, I turned to him and shouted
“What the hell are you doing here?” “I have come to talk to you Hira”, he replied calmly.
“I don’t want to talk to you, get out of my house!” I screamed in anger. “Please listen to me. I
want to tell you about my illness.” He pleaded.
“I don’t want to listen about your illness. You hid it from me. You cheated!” I shouted.
“It’s nothing like that. Let me explain.” “Nothing is going to work now. Please leave.”
Without saying a word again, he began to leave but then, he stopped at the door, took out an
envelope from his pocket and placed it on the table placed beside the front door.
“Whenever you get time, please read it or else it would be too late.” He said as he left the
house, closing door behind.”
Not able to understand, or you might say, not wanting to understand, I went to my room to
freshen up.
Later that day, I went out of my room to grab something to eat as I was starving. Taking a bowl
of cereals, as I was about to sit on the sofa, I saw the envelope. Curious to see what was inside, I
put the bowl on the table and took the envelope. It had a couple of pages, the first one was the
letter in Imran’s handwriting. It stated that he did not know about this disease at all and that he
had not cheated me. This disease occurs suddenly after the age of 30. This disease eventually
leads to death and that there is no cure. The next page was his medical reports which further
confirmed about it. This disease was Huntington’s chorea.
Reading all this made me dizzy and I felt disgusted. How can I be so stupid? How can I not think
of this before? I had known Imran for years. I would have known it before if there was any
illness. Feeling terrible and ashamed of what I did, I thought “How will I face Imran now? Will he
ever forgive me for what I did? For how I behaved?”
As I was thinking, my phone rang. It was Imran. Immediately, I picked the call but couldn’t say a
word.
“You read my letter, didn’t you?” he said, as if he was watching me.
“I can’t believe on my stupidity! I was so wrong!”
“It’s ok. I knew you would feel bad when you will get to know this. But it was important to let
you know. It’s none of us fault.” He reassured me.
“It’s ok? Really? How can you forgive me? I doubted you. I doubted your honesty. You needed
me the most at this time of your life. And I blamed you for everything. I am so sorry.” I said as
tears roll down my face.
“Yes it’s ok. You don’t have to be sorry. I would have reacted the same if God forbid I was on
your place.
Good