Life Goes On... - Neha Dua (good beach reads .TXT) 📗

our lunch and went back to our classes for the second half. After college was over at 4 PM, I was driving back home along with Shane, when I got a call from my mom. I answered my phone with enthusiasm, “Hi Mom! What’s up? What happened between you too? When are you and dad coming back home?”. I couldn’t hear her properly due to traffic so I put my phone on speaker. I heard her weeping; she couldn’t say anything, she was murmuring “Elena, your dad never loved me. He cheated on me. I can’t explain to you anything more. Please come here and get me. I can’t deal with all this alone”, and then she hung up the call.

I was shocked, but more than shocked I was embarrassed because Shane was in the car with me and he had heard everything my mom had said on a call to me. I wasn’t able to look him into the eyes, as I had always acted as the strong girl in front of everyone, even my best friends, and now, Shane knows about my family’s secret and my messed-up life. I couldn’t say anything to him for the next five minutes with tears all collected in my eyes and were just waiting to be dropped from my eyes, but I tried to hold back them and myself infront of him. Shane broke the silence by keeping his hand on my right hand and said, “Elena, I think you should go to your mom, she needs you now. I will go by myself and I promise I won’t tell anyone anything. Your secret is safe with me”. Tears started to dribble down from my cheeks, and I couldn’t hold my cry in front of him. I stopped the car at the parking area of a neighbouring park, on our way home. I couldn’t believe that my family was breaking and I couldn’t do anything. Now, Shane knows about my family and I don’t know what he will think of me and my family. He was consoling me this whole time and supported me.

I dropped him there and started the engine of my car to drive as fast as I could to reach home and pick up Susan. She was playing in the garden area of her friend’s house, when I reached there and quickly picked Susan from her friend’s house saying, “Come, Susan, we are going to meet daddy and mommy soon”. She immediately ran into the house to pick up her bag and kept that on the back seat of the car. Susan and I left for our farmhouse outside the town, to meet mom and dad and to know the real issue. 

Chapter 8

We reached the farmhouse by 9 PM, Susan was asleep due to the long drive. I walked into the house with Susan in my arms. It was a two-floored farmhouse with three rooms on each floor. I went to let her sleep in one of the rooms on the ground floor and called out for mom, “Mom, where are you?”. Neither dad nor mom replied to my question, I got worried about, what could have happened here that had left this place so much quiet. I started to look for her and went upstairs. The room was in a mess, and things were scattered on the floor with some pieces of glass lying at the corners of the bed and side table. The cushions and the bed sheet along with bed cover were all crumpled as if someone tried to intentionally destroy the beauty of the bedding.

She was sitting on the floor; her eyes were swelled up and were full of tears. I ran towards her and picked her up. I asked her, “Mom, what happened? Where is Dad? Why are you crying? Why aren’t you guys back home till today? Tell me, mom, what happened here?”. My heart was throbbing with the sensation that I might have to deal with the news that I may never see my father again.

My mom couldn’t even speak as she found it difficult to gasp out words out of her mouth due to crying for, I don’t even know how long. She pulled me closer to her and wrapped me in her arms, trying to fight the internal pain that she was going through right now. Finally, she managed to catch her breath and form words, “Elena, your dad… your dad was cheating on me… he was here not for work… but… but he was here, with her secretary Lisa. They both were in our bedroom when I came back here today morning after completing my novel in the woods. Your dad was with her for the last five years and he didn’t even let us know about her. He just left with her leaving a note. He was with me because I was carrying his child, his first daughter Elena. He felt suffocated in our relationship. He still doesn’t love me and he never loved me”.

She begged softly, her gentle voice tired of his anger & aggressiveness, but still finding hope that everything will be okay, “Elena baby please, bring back your dad. I can’t live without him. I never wanted what he did to me”. She cried out and tears poured out of her eyes.

I didn’t want to hear or understand why he did this to us; I didn’t want to face the fact that he had just brought some stranger into the mess that was their life. I tried to console my mom with my words, “It’s okay mom, I am just glad that I know now about him completely. He hurt you and left, and now he doesn’t matter to me anymore”.

 

I stood up and went near the side table to pick up that note and started reading it.

 

 Page,

 

For so long, I was trying to confront you with this reality and today I have got this chance to tell you that I love Lisa and not you. She has been with me for the last five years and has made me happy and satisfied emotionally, mentally, and physically. I tried to make Lisa part of our family but I think this will not be a good idea to replace you and make her my wife in front of our daughters.

I don’t want to force them to love her like a mom as they love you, so I have decided that I am leaving you and I am going to stay with Lisa from now on. I have tried to love you and to stay connected to you for so long, but I don’t find any real attachment or connection or true feelings for you.

Our daughters are big enough to handle themselves now and you are there for them to keep them safe and happy. I am leaving you some money to take care of our daughters’ education. I have already filed a divorce and it will soon be processed.

Tell Elena and Susan that I will always be in touch with both of them if they want my help and support at any point in time as their dad.

 

Richard

Chapter 9

My mom was right in front of me, she broke into tears, her trembling sobs ringing a painful and heart-breaking melody into my ears, locking that place of despair inside me forever. My mom kept on whispering, “You have done it, Richard, you almost got what you desired, a life for yourself without me and our kids. You never thought about me, our daughters”.

“It’s okay mom, I am here now. Nothing is going to separate us. We are here for each other and will always be together. He didn’t deserve us”, I replied bitterly thinking about dad. I supported mom to stand her up from the floor to get her into the car. She had no strength to even stand on her own without any support. She was completely lost in her own thoughts about her life without dad. It was killing me from the inside to see her like this, and I couldn’t even do anything about it. I went inside the farmhouse again, to bring Susan. She was wide awake till then, but mom and I didn’t show her our broken dreams of a happy family. 

The drive back home took longer than the expected hours of the journey. We all were completely silent in the car during the whole journey. My mom was looking outside the window with tears freeze in her swollen eyes. We reached home by the morning and I parked the car in our driveway. My mom opened the door to the house and rushed inside her room and locked it. Susan looked confused with mom’s reaction and she asked, “Elena, what happened to mommy, why is she so upset since we are back and where is daddy?” I wasn’t sure of how to answer her questions, I couldn’t be weak now when I know I have to handle mom and Susan both.

I gathered my courage to answer her by keeping her hands into my grip, “Susan, there is something I want to tell you, but you have to promise, you will not question mommy about this ever. You will behave like her good daughter. Suzi, daddy is not coming back to us. He is happy with some other Aunt. It will just be you, me, and mommy now. We will always be with you and we will never leave you, no matter what”. 

A tear started to fall from my eye and she noticed that, she tried to wipe those tears from my eyes with her little hands and replied, “Elena, I will never make mommy cry because of me. I will become a good daughter, I promise, I will never tease you also. I love you and mommy”. I held her into a tight hug, feeling a burden in my heart about how we are going to manage mom in this situation.

I knocked on mom’s bedroom door, and when she didn’t answer, Susan and me barged inside her room. She was sitting on her bed and looking at our family picture, kept on the side table. She was lost in her thoughts & was completely broken from inside.

I wasn’t sure how to deal with the situation currently, but I had to somehow manage and had to decide for us, “Get up mom, we got to go from here. We have to pack our bags and leave this place. We can’t stay in this house. This is that man’s house. We will not keep anything that belongs to that