Infidelity

Who is she ?

A question that bugged her from the first and that was ..who was she. That she was the reason of what had started happening was not the question. She knew she was a reason , if not the reason.

Nothing of her was the honest her. But her mind knew the reason of this lied in the depths of the night when her father had killed her mother and she along with her siblings had watched. There was only the baby who had spoken up , they had all been hungry and wanted pizzas. Nothing much has changed for she still liked everything life can give her and she wouldnadjust, mould, manage to get it. The hunger of childhood never went away even if you were fed many a delicacies worth King's ransom. But she also knew she was not a devil. Within human flaws she was still a human. She would only kill if attacked, hurt if she was badly hurt and mostly not take revenge because life took its own revenge.

That night she and her siblings were seperated. She was taken in by a couple who had become estranged from their entire family as they had been begging everyone for a baby. From the moment they met her in the orphanage and it was only the second day they marvelled at her similarity with themselves. Her eyes was just like the one she would call Mummy. Her hair was just like that of the father , the man she would call Daddy. Only thing was they were estranged for five years and she was six.

She became four, she did look a four with all the malnutrition and hunger. Her name was changed. They worked on her accent and then coloured her hair. Then they started a reconciliation with the family. She was introduced as their miracl baby. At the first meeting she felt completely out of place but the family looked at her and fell in love. She suddenly had cousins , aunts, grand parents, uncles, gifts and everything. She had everything she never imagined she could have. Only children who were good and their mothers were good had those. Her only regret was food was never ordered. Pizza was a rare. But there was a lot of food. Her Mummy had to coach her to stop eating. She would then pass on an odd candy or a biscuit the whole day. Her father was more generous. Laughing and saying, "My four year old is a true ranch girl like her daddy. She could eat a horse.

It's not that she never got reprimanded. She did and it was not often, no one hit her and the table was always full of food and the air was free. Yet she missed her .. siblings. A bond formed for survival can not be broken so easily. There was once she tried to find them. She reached the police stations by herself. But once there she just could not remember anything, even the number of siblings she had. She just cried and cried, till someone noted her eye colour and linked it to her mother's family. They came running. Her aunts and cousins and parents. They pampered and protected. Only in the dead of the night she heard her parents whisper .. "Did she run away ? We did not even notice. Was this a mistake..?"

The answer came ," I do not know but if she does it another time, we will just let her get lost. I do not like ungrateful children."

She did not repeat it. She acted afraid , though she was not. She wanted to see the trust in her parents' eyes. It did not come easily. But it did. Later years later, her mother joked and shared that she had thought she had run away. The young girl in her wanted to say, "Yes I know. But who was the other lady with you ..whom you were kissing in the dead of the night. Who had wanted me lost?"

It took her years to realise that their beautiful family of three and regrets and sighs of having only one child was an elaborate ruse for her mother. She liked women and regularly had women partners at home, when her husband was not there. She knew that if she said she knew, it may not end well for her. There was a kind of madness in her eyes and a need to be accepted in the society. She did not know why her father never said anything. It could not be that he was not aware. He grew stricter with her as she grew up. Never raising her voice but making it very clear that somethings were never to be accepted. She was punished when she rebelled and the cold of the extreme winter reminded her of the hunger of her childhood and she made it a point to never require one more. But at the end, she believed that her parents were happy with her. A responsible, beautiful young woman .. she would be referred to as. Her cousins marvelled at her long legs and long neck and said, we thought you would be like Aunty Gee, but you have taken all the stunning genes from everyone and turned into a swan. Yes she was a swan. A swan who had never learnt to fly. Bt a swan nevertheless. May benot just a white swan..a black one.

Now she had one moto in her life, to find her siblings and to expand her wings. Twisted wings, twisted desires, twisted dreams that were part of her and her legacy.. she claimed them now. But all she had were memory of few names . Names that have been changed, altered.. were they alive? And she wanted to know the truth about Aline even if it made her a prime suspect.. or a prime person of interest..

She opened her cupboard and in there sat a pair of dark red velvet handcuffs. Her partner may think she was good at wearing them and bowing to him during their games or his demands , and accepting his dominance, but she knew that the way to light was through darkness. Make the devil your friend and then you will have nothing to fear. The devil is always attracted to light. Just like herself.. now who was the player and who got played..would be a matter of discussion for future time scales. For now she survived.