not be judgmental about it.”
“He is my blood.” Jennifer retorts back, “You’re incredibly daft if you think you can form a judgment over what the circumstances made me do, and what I could have done!”
“Regardless, your failure is enough to assure me how successful you’ll be with Neal.” He says sardonically.
Jennifer looks at my uncle as if he is insane, “You’re absolutely ignorant of what occurred seventeen years ago! You have no right to form an opinion on the basis of the vague assumptions you’ve made!”
“My nephew is not standing here because of you. He is standing here because of me.” Terry uncle says, pointing at Aakir and stressing on the word, ‘nephew’.
“He is not your nephew.” Jennifer ripostes, glaring at my uncle.
“-He bloody is. He is nothing to you. He has been nothing to you since the day he could have been dead, thanks to your ‘helplessness’ in your ‘dire circumstances’. I think I have enough right to form an opinion, Jennifer.”
“Then go on,” Jennifer challenges, “look at me as condescendingly as you can. But you will never be able to guess how desperate I was at that time. Neither can you imagine the torture I went through at realizing that I have failed my only sister as I accepted James disappearance or when I prevented myself from searching for him, as was dangerous during the circumstances. You know nothing about what I have been through. I don’t care how incessantly I’ll be criticized about this, but Neal,” she looks at Neal, “has always been and still is a higher responsibility for me than my own blood family. You don’t know a thing about the lives of the protectors. So, keep your prejudice with yourself, I don’t need to hear about it.”
“I don’t know how that makes you right.” Father says, stoically staring at Jennifer. Terry uncle is still hatefully looking at Jennifer.
“It makes me wise, if not right.”
“Success is what matters, not contrivance.” Terry uncle snaps back.
“Enough!” my mother suddenly interrupts. Everybody turns towards her, “Just because you all are half animals doesn’t mean you people have to act likewise.” She says in her stern voice. She looks empathetically at Jennifer and my uncle, “Jennifer, Terry, please, the situation has become preposterous as it is, let’s not make this more awkward.” She looks at Jennifer alone then,“None of us are going to force you to do something that you do not approve of, I assure you that. Arguing is not going to achieve anything. We should talk with civility…as I can see a lot needs to be discussed.”
Jennifer looks at Aakir, who has spoken not one word till now. Her expressions are enough to tell me that she is considering my mother’s advice only and only because she has found her long dead nephew.
My mother, as usual working as the middle man, is taken positively by Jennifer. But again, I believe, Aakir’s presence has more to do with it. Jennifer sighs, wiping the betrayed trails of her tears drying on her cheeks.
“I agree with the lady.” David says quietly, breaking the odd silence. He is nodding at my mother, “We all should calmly talk about this.”
What does he mean by ‘this’ is something that I am lost at now. Talk about what? What Neal is? How Neal is to be ‘protected’? Who will take Neal? Or who will take Aakir? And what made them leave Aakir in the woods? My mind hovers all over the place. The fact that I have woken only some time before doesn’t make me the brightest bulb in the living room either.
My mother smiles, her happy mode on, “I’ll show you the restroom, so you guys can freshen up? We can talk afterwards. I assure you again that nobody in this house will force you to do something you do not wish to do. Also, nobody will harm you either.”
Jennifer nods compliantly, though she seems least worried about getting harmed by any of us. My mother asks Jennifer and David to follow her. Jennifer looks at Neal once who is stoically eyeing the floor, standing right next to her. She runs her hand through his hair once but fails at eliciting a response from Neal. Sighing, she looks at David. They both nod to each other and comply with my mother, awkwardly shuffling between us as they make way to follow my mother. As soon as they are out of the living room, a heavy silence endows, thick with weaving tension. Everybody is staring at some thing or the other but nobody is meeting anybody’s eye. Terry uncle has started muttering under his breath, cursing at the sudden development, his words flowing too fast for anybody to grasp. My father, as stoic as ever, yet still not looking pleased, places a hand on his best friend’s shoulder as a gesture of comfort.
I sigh, getting tired of the surprising and awkward situations. I look at Aakir who is still looking relatively pale with an equally pale Rufina aunt standing in front of him. More than anybody, it must be the most shocking for them to suddenly encounter Aakir’s long lost blood family. I watch as Rufina aunt turns around and cradles Aakir’s face. She places a chaste kiss on his forehead and departs hastily, probably going towards the kitchen. Aakir is left flabbergasted and ever more pallid at the sudden affection. I clear my throat, making his eerie eyes snap upwards towards me.
“Are you okay?” I ask, making everyone in the living room look at Aakir.
Aakir opens his mouth but no words come out. He fleetingly shakes his head and looks at Neal. Neal is still looking at the floor, his face expressionless. A moment passes and my thoughts center on my partner. I can’t begin to enlist how he must be feeling. From Jennifer’s words, it has become a little obvious that taking care of Neal has been a sort of obligation their whole lives. It suddenly dawns at me that it’s Neal who must be the most shocked, not Aakir. I can’t imagine what he must be thinking. Neal doesn’t have a family of his own to begin with. The only family he supposedly has, has been revealed to be supernatural beings. Furthermore, the said family seems to have Neal as a ‘job’ of theirs since they are ‘protectors’, whatever the hell that means.And suddenly, Neal doesn’t seem to be the center of attention either as everyone is now eyeing Aakir with concern.
“Dude,” I hear Aakir say, stressing on the word. He is looking at Neal. Neal raises his head, followed by the raise of his eyebrows as he sees that Aakir is addressing him. He silently prods Aakir to go on. Aakir shuffles on his feet, still looking very much pale but looking anxious by the thought in his mind. He opens his mouth and begins, “If I weren’t left in the woods that young,” Aakir continues, “we would have been brothers.”
And I don’t know why I am surprised that out of all the things capable of keeping Aakir’s mind busy at the moment, this is the only particular thought revolving in his head.
12.The Vaticinator
“Okay,” Aakir says, “let me get this straight.”
Everybody and I literally mean everybody in the house looks at him as he suddenly gets up and starts pacing the length of our huge kitchen.
“You’re saying,” he says, looking at Jennifer, “that you left me inside the groove of a tree, fearing that the therians following us will kill me. And you didn’t look for me because they were keeping tabs on you?”
“Those therians were specifically looking for you.” Jennifer says, seated at the head of the island and looking at Aakir, “I couldn’t leave you out in the broad daylight at someone’s doorstep, while those therians were lurking around. I had instilled enough repellant in you to keep therians from stumbling upon you. It did take me five days to return-”
“Five days.” Terry uncle deadpans.
“Those therians were keeping track of usand we already had Neal to hide. I couldn’t reveal the identity of my family to those therians by blindly leading my entourage in search of Aakir!”
“Tell me, Jennifer,” Terry uncle begins, “How many members of your family are alive now?”
“Terry.” Father warns.
“You’re going to mock me for my dead family?” Jennifer challenges.
Rufina aunt snaps her head at her, “We are not mocking you for your dead family, Jennifer.” She snaps, “We are mocking you for ignorantly assuming that Aakir’s dead without even putt
ing much effort to look for him. We hadn’t exactly been discreet during reporting the police department about Aakir and formally adopting him.”
Jennifer scoffs, “What part of ‘therians keeping tabs on us’ you don’t understand? My family was literally handicapped for three months straight. Obviously James’s-I mean, Aakir’s mother couldn’t take it. She wanted to look for Aakir. The moment we started taking noticeable steps to look for him, my family died, Rufina. Aakir’s mother died. They died because even our unobtrusive measures like simply asking a fellow citizen about an infant weren’t gone by unnoticed. And though David and I managed to wipe out the clan that was hunting us, we couldn’t risk ourselves more in fear of more therians like them. I have been through hell to keep David and Neal alive in that year, Rufina, and all the following years, for that matter. Ignorantly looking for Aakir could have led to our deaths and that includes Aakir’s too,” her eyes start brimming with unshed tears, “I think my decision to remain alive and keep whatever was left of my family alive was a wise one.”
David, sitting right next to Jennifer, rubs her arm to provide comfort as silence lingers. Jennifer wipes her eyes with a tissue, smears of her kohl slightly spreading around the edges, “Besides,” she goes on, preventing herself from breaking down, “I had left