by Marisha Pink
FOURTEEN
CONFUSED by the sudden uplift in the excitable young man’s mood, Aaron stared past him to where a petite young woman in a navy sari flecked with tiny gold squares had appeared in the doorway to the house. She looked hot and bothered, seemingly agitated at being called away from whatever it was that she had been doing inside. Like the young man, she too bore a striking facial resemblance to Aaron, but the black stud in her nose and the thick mass of long raven hair that fell dramatically about her face gave her a much sterner and more serious appearance. She remained in the doorway, hand on hip and head cocked to one side, glaring at the young man expectantly.
Unfazed by her hostility, the smiling young man gestured towards Aaron animatedly.
‘Hanara, look,’ he cried, ‘it is Aaron. He has come to us finally.’
Hanara turned her attention to Aaron and on catching sight of him fully, her face immediately softened and her jaw dropped open in disbelief. She stood gaping, open-mouthed, for several minutes, her lips unable to form words and denying her the power of speech.
‘Can you believe it, Hanara? I told you he would come. I told you so!’ the young man boasted, looking to Aaron again with shiny eyes of admiration.
Aaron looked from Hanara to the young man and back again, uncertain how to behave. He recognised the girl’s name from the letters that he had found; Hanara was his sister and since the smiling young man so closely resembled them both, there was no doubt in his mind that this was his brother.
‘Are you … are you Lakshin?’ he asked tentatively.
‘Yes, I –’
‘What do you want?’ snapped Hanara sharply, suddenly finding her voice.
She was small, but both hands were now menacingly on her hips while she scowled at Aaron unpleasantly from the doorway.
‘Hanara!’ shouted the young man reproachfully, before turning to face Aaron once more. ‘I am Lakshin, yes, but everybody is calling me Lucky … and this is Hanara. We are Kalpana’s children, your brother and sister. Oh Aaron it is so wonderful to be meeting you finally; we are waiting such a very long time indeed,’ he beamed, extending his hand warmly in welcome.
Aaron shook Lucky’s hand weakly, allowing the words to sink in. Things were slowly starting to make sense, but one big question remained unanswered.
‘It’s nice to meet you both. I really had no idea that I had a brother or a sister until very recently. I … I know that you have both been taking care of Kalpana; that’s right, isn’t it?’
A dark look crossed Lucky’s face once more and he looked to his sister for assistance while he searched for the right words.
‘We were taking care of her, yes. But the thing is –’
‘She’s dead,’ interrupted Hanara abruptly.
‘HANARA,’ cried Lucky, but it was too late.
The shock of the unexpected news sent Aaron staggering back several paces and he clutched at his neck, desperately gasping for air as his throat closed in on itself. The blood drained away from his face and, wounded by the acidity of Hanara’s harsh tongue, a searing pain tore across his abdomen; he was too late. Lucky immediately raced to his brother's side. He wrapped his hands reassuringly around Aaron’s forearm and peered into his face sympathetically. Aaron stared numbly into the soft hazel eyes that were so like his own, wishing and willing Hanara’s statement not to be true, but Lucky closed his eyes and nodded silently, confirming Aaron’s worst fears.
The trio remained sombre and silent in the rapidly escalating heat of the day. Aaron was too shocked to speak and Hanara’s cruel tongue had been silenced by admonishing looks from Lucky, who himself could not find the words to console his brother for losing something that he had never really had. They stayed that way for some time, and only once Aaron’s breathing started to regulate itself once more, did he have the wherewithal to process the hailstorm of thoughts thundering through his mind. He had come all that way and been fortunate enough to find his way to Kalpana’s house, but for the second time in as many months he was too late, and the irony of the situation was not lost on him.
He released himself from Lucky’s grip and sat down in the middle of the path, burying his head in his hands in defeat. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the way that the universe ruthlessly mocked his every effort to salvage what little he could of a normal family life. Lucky stared down at him, apparently unsure of what he could say or do to alleviate the situation, but Hanara only picked at the dirt beneath her fingernails absent-mindedly, seemingly disinterested in the whole sorry episode.
‘When … when did she die?’ croaked Aaron at last, blinking up at Lucky with sad eyes.
‘About six weeks ago.’
Aaron felt a sharp stab of pain across his chest.
‘What happened? I mean, I know that she was sick, but what exactly happened?’
‘Why don’t you come inside the house? Hanara will make us all chai and we can talk about everything properly.’
‘Hanara will not make us all chai,’ cried his sister incredulously from the doorway.
‘Hanara,’ Lucky warned firmly.
‘No, Lucky! He has no business being here.’
‘Hanara!’
‘I mean it,’ she shouted back, before turning to Aaron to continue with her tirade. ‘You have come to find Kalpana, isn’t it? Well, Kalpana isn’t here, so really there is no need for you to be staying longer, is there?’
‘HANARA THAT’S ENOUGH,’ screeched Lucky, silencing his sister in one forcefully delivered sentence that left her sulking and pouting like a petulant child. ‘I’m so sorry, Aaron. Please, don’t listen to a word she is saying. Mata-ji was always wishing it that you would come back home; she would have been so happy to see you. You are our family, isn’t it? Of course she would want us to welcome you,’ he insisted, emphasising the last few words for Hanara’s benefit.
Aaron was touched and surprised by Lucky’s heartfelt words and they went some way to compensating for Hanara’s hostility. He was family, even though he hadn’t thought of himself that way until Lucky had verbalised it, and for the first time in his life he shared the same flesh and blood with not one, but two other people. He wasn’t sure that this automatically granted him the right to enter their home, and he was certain that Arthur wouldn’t have been quite so accommodating if a stranger had turned up outside their house in London claiming to be related to his mother, but it had to count for something.
He looked up at the house where Kalpana had lived, still half-hoping that everything would be as he had imagined it would be when they met for the first time. It was nothing more than an impossible dream now, yet an insatiable desire to venture inside began to burn in his chest and he knew that he would not be able to ignore it. He wanted to explore the place where his birth mother, his brother and his sister had lived without him for so long. He wanted to know, in detail, what had happened to Kalpana in her final days. And more than anything else, he wanted to understand how and why he had been the one that she had let go. Despite Hanara’s frosty reception, Lucky’s smiling enthusiasm was infectious, and it filled Aaron with a sense of warmth, hope and belonging that he had not felt since his adoptive mother had passed away.
‘Okay, I’ll come inside, just for a little bit.’
Hanara huffed loudly, throwing her head back in contempt, and in an overly dramatic whirl of raven tresses stalked bitterly back into the house.
Ignoring his sister’s mock-distress, Lucky beamed down at Aaron and outstretched his hand to help pull him to his feet. When he was upright once more, Aaron dusted the dirt from his shorts and the pair walked the short distance across the yard towards the house. He didn’t know what awaited him inside, but when they reached the veranda, Lucky snaked his arm around Aaron’s shoulders protectively and the reassuring squeeze he received filled him with confidence.
‘Welcome home, brother.’
