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

man. We will find our own place to live. Suzi! Pack your bags and toys and meet me downstairs in the next forty-five minutes. I will come and check up on you in between, if you need any help”, with this firm decision, I started packing her stuff into a suitcase.

After twenty minutes of packing her stuff, I went into my room and picked up my necessary items like clothes, accessories, photos, and study material and packed my luggage to leave the house. I went into Susan’s room to check on her packing, she was struggling to pack her toys into her backpack, she tried to take all her toys and games with her, more than her clothes.

I helped her pack her bags and holding her little hand, I brought her downstairs carrying her luggage. I had to take three rounds of my floor to bring down our luggage in one place. While we were waiting for mom to come outside of her room, I started to dial few calls to brokers for a place to live, so that we can leave this house as soon as possible and start our lives again.

In between the call, that I was having with one of the brokers who agreed to rent his apartment to us on this very short notice, I asked Susan to knock again on mom’s bedroom and look for, what is holding her there for so long. She ran to mom’s room to see what was taking her so long, even after I had already packed her stuff, she only needed to carry her basic items, hand bag and had to come out of the house.

Chapter 10

I was putting the luggage into my car being on call with the broker and was waiting for Susan and mom to come outside. While I was busy managing the space for the luggage, Susan came out of the house, running and repeatedly saying my name being completely terrified, “Elena! Elena! Look! Something happened to mom. She is not waking up and is not responding to me. She is lying on the floor and some kind of foam is continuously coming out of her mouth. Please just come in and check her Elena”. 

I was shaken by what Susan had said, I immediately ran inside her room, she was unconscious and was lying on the floor. She had some bottle gripped in her hands. I opened the grip of her hand and found a sleeping pills name written on that. I was completely shocked and I couldn’t understand what to do. “Mom! Mom, please wake up. Mom! What happened to you. Why did you do this to us”, I tried to wake her up, but no response came from her side.

I immediately hung up on that broker and called for an ambulance. It was feeling like the ambulance was taking too long to reach out to us, with panic in my mind I was moving back and forth continuously and in speed waiting for the ambulance to arrive at our door step. It came to our house after fifteen minutes.

We went to the nearby hospital and the doctor started examining her. I was feeling alone so I called Maria, Mary, Denise & Shane. In the next half an hour, they all were beside me at the hospital. I was crying badly when they came. I hugged them all, when they asked, “Elena! What happened? Where is your dad?” I told them the complete story, as what had happened and how my life was from the start till today, “Dad is not coming back. He left us with a note only that he is leaving us all and would never want to come back to his family”. I told them that whole life I was lying to them about being a happy family, but that secretary of my dad broke our dream.

We were standing near the doctor’s cabin when we overheard their conversation about my mom and one of the doctors was saying that “The patient has taken an extra dosage of sleeping pills and it is really hard to save her life. I think we should tell her daughter that it’s not in our hands now. It’s been too late”. I ran outside the hospital to some alone place, crying even harder and murmuring, “God please, I had lost one of my parents today, I can’t lose the other one. Please save my mom’s life. Please!” I was feeling devastated with what the doctors have said and what might happen in next few minutes to my mom.

I tried calling my dad, and when he didn’t receive my calls, I ran to his new place (about which only I knew apart from my dad) to inform him about mom, with the hope that he will realize what mistake he did and will come back to us. I ran as fast as I could, wiping my tears to look clearly on the road to catch a taxi.

I reached his place, giving a glance inside his house, I noticed that my dad was on the couch with Lisa and they were kissing. I didn’t want him to do more, so I snapped him out of the kissing, with a loud knock on their door. He came rushing to the door and opened it, “Elena! What are you doing here? How do you know about this place?” blocking the doorway so that I couldn’t see Lisa with him.

I found enough of my voice to give him an answer, “I came here to tell you that your wife is in the hospital because of you and that bitch, and here you are with no remorse of what you did to us and how it would impact us all. What I saw today at this place few minutes back, I will never forgive you, Mr. Richard”. I left from there, weak, slowing fading, but still managed to get back to the hospital.

Shane hurriedly came outside to look for me, he was upset and was breathing fast when he found me, “Elena! Your mom! Your mom, she needs you to be there with her. Hurry up!” I ran faster, pushing people away and making my way to mom’s room at the hospital, I ran near to her bed and held her hands, “Mom! Mom, please don’t do this to me and Susan. Please mom!” I could see, she was finding it difficult to breathe, it looked like she had lost the hope to live her life. She was trying hard to gasp out some words, but due to her condition, she wasn’t able to form sentences.

Chapter 11

 I looked up at the ECG monitor, it was showing her heartbeats dipping at a very fast pace and within the next few seconds, the lines went straight. I was shattered when her hands dropped from the grip of my hands, and she closed her eyes in front of me and Susan. Susan couldn’t hold her tears, she ran into the arms of Maria & Denise. Shane & Mary, came near to me to hold me and to console me, “Elena! I am so sorry about your mom”.

They hugged me tightly, but I couldn’t even move an inch. I was numb at that time, it felt like time has stopped there and everything that I had as a family, just got away from me. My friends took me and Susan to Denise’s home in the afternoon. Everything was silent at her place, but still, there was an inner disturbance that I could feel, an emptiness in my heart that will always remain now and forever.

I informed dad about mom, and he came to the venue for her final rituals. There also he came with Lisa and left immediately after the ceremony. I ran behind him and called him by his name, “Richard! As you are here today, I want to get things short and clear from now onwards. You and I don’t belong to a family now. I and Susan would never want to see your face again and don’t even try to contact us. Here are your keys to the house, which used to our home once”.

I looked at Lisa with complete rage in my eyes and slipped out the words, “Lisa! You are the reason my family got spoiled and I will never in my whole life forgive you for what you did to me and my mom. Don’t you ever show us your face again”. By the evening, I and Susan along with my friends performed all the rituals for my mom’s soul peace. May she rest in peace. Susan and I were at Denise’s place only for that night.

Every one of them, Denise, Alex, Maria, Alan, Jenny, Prince, Shane, they all stayed for that night with us to show their support and concern towards me and Susan. Susan fell asleep in the arms of Shane after having dinner. It was very difficult to make her eat something to have her pills for the night. With the help of Shane, she was convinced to have something as her appetite for the day and took her pills. 

All my friends sat near me on the floor in the living room, trying to discuss what I will be doing now, after returning the keys of the home to my dad and after my mom, who left me and Susan all alone for the rest of our lives. Shane came to me and sat beside me with his one hand on my shoulder to provide me the support, which at that time I needed the most, “You have to be strong for Susan and yourself. Look at Susan, she is just ten, and she just has you to call her family. You can’t lose hope and we all are with you by all means”.

I was so disheartened by the loss of my mom, that I was continuously crying keeping in hands my family photo frame tightly. I couldn’t believe that within twenty-four hours, I lost both of my parents. I had no one to call mom and dad now. It was just me and Susan now. I was just a college student with dreams of studying in London for my higher education, and now, I have to take care of Susan and my education, for which I don’t even have money.

I had the car and house and money, just because of my dad and mom. My mom is gone and my dad being selfish, I can’t even ask for his help, because he is the reason why mom took such a big