Chapter 200 - How Things Fell Apart (4)

(Flashback Continues)

|Innaya|

Fortune's barking disrupted the awkward moment, turning it into an angry one. I could feel the anger emitting from my mother-in-law's body language.

"Fortune, calm down. She's no stranger." I caressed Fortune's head as I slightly blocked him from approaching further.

"What's this dog doing here? Get rid of it. Throw him out of here." Mother-in-law's words were baffling.

'Get rid of it.' What kind of statement was this? How could she detest any animal, and even referring to that animal as 'it'? I did not understand it. And, her tone was quite sharp.

"I'll leave him in the garden, wait a moment. Come inside, please. I'll be quick."

I did not want to leave Fortune out, but I had no other option. I could not disrespect her. She might as well have fear of dogs for all I knew. 

"Let's go." I led Fortune out in the garden through the back door. While on my way out, I took his bowls of water and dog food. Once I settled him outside, I returned.

My mother-in-law sat in one of the sofa chairs in the living room. She looked pretty uninterested. Her mood also seemed awfully off. My heart started pounding heavily in my chest. I did not know how I was supposed to behave around her. This was my first time being in the company of hers- alone. It kind of scared me a little.

"Sign this." Her cold words startled me. Instead of asking me about my well-being or Eshan's, for that matter, she wanted me to sign something. This was completely unexpected.

"What is this mother-in-law?" I asked with a little caution. The situation was scaring me.

"Don't call me that. After you sign this, we won't have any relationship between us."

Her words shook the very ground beneath my feet. What did she mean by it? With trembling fingers, I picked up the file she had thrown on the coffee table.

Flipping the cover, my eyes found the words written in the bold letters. 

"DIVORCE AGREEMENT." I thought I had read it wrongly. It was until the moment I found that it had Eshan's and my name. 

"What's the meaning of this?" The legal doc.u.ment had shaken my whole composure. Colour drained from my face as I could not believe what I was seeing before my eyes. The tears gathering in my eyes made it difficult for me to see the expressions of the woman who was my husband's mother.

"I don't want a woman like you to stay in my son's life. I know you wouldn't be willing to leave him just like that, so here is the check. Put any amount you want and free my son from shackles of your madness."

"W-what are you saying? I-I love—" The words of professing my love for Eshan were on tip of my tongue. Those words were interrupted by a new voice as I was about to reason with my mother-in-law.

"Oh, please. Just shut up. Don't play this sympathy card with us. We're not him. We won't be fooled by this pretense of yours. We had made a mistake by allowing our Eshan to marry you, but now we're going to make things right. Just sign on it and leave right at this moment. We don't want your cursed fate to ruin our Eshan's life," a shrill voice rang out from the door. 

My head flipped in the direction of the voice. A woman in her mid-forties, wearing a black gown with her slightly fat figure sauntered inside with her shoulder-length brown hair flipping behind her. I did not know her. Her words were too sharp; she berated me without any break. 

I turned to face the woman seating silently on the chair. She had not said any word to stop the woman from spouting nonsense. She allowed her daughter-in-law to get insulted. "Mother—"    

"Are you deaf? Did you not listen to what I just said? Sign on the divorce papers, pack your bags, and leave." The woman shouted again. She walked inside and sat beside my mother-in-law, glancing coldly at me. 

"Don't make us throw you out of here. Prerna, I know such kind of girls. I'll handle them well," she said to my mother-in-law, who had no intention of stopping or explaining what was going on.

Such kind of girls? What does that even mean? Exactly what kind of girl was I in their eyes? 

I mustered all my courage. If I did not take a stand for myself, I would never be able to forgive myself. What was the meaning of this? Suddenly my mother-in-law entered the picture after six long months only to ask me to leave her son. She even came when Eshan was not at home. If Eshan came to know about this, I wonder how he would react.

"I-I won't divorce Eshan." Thinking about Eshan's loving face gave me the courage to hold on.

"YOU—"

The other woman wanted to scold me, but my mother-in-law raised her hand stopping her. She then stood up and walked before me. Eshan's eyes resembled hers a lot. I now knew from where my husband had gotten his deep eyes. However, her eyes lacked warmth and were colder than ice glaciers.

"You won't divorce him? Hmm, let's talk about what you have given him so far. Do you know how much effort he took after he married you and before that? He exhausted himself to no end by working days and nights. Forget that. Tell me. In the last six months have you ever thought about us? Have you ever tried to contact us? To know us? You even snatched my son. He forgot about us. I could have borne it. 

But, tell me why did my son cut off himself for more than two months? Where was he? You were being here all alone in this house with another man, and where was my son? What were you doing behind his back? Huh? I don't want to spoil my language by recounting what you did. I don't want you to implicate my son. Today, I caught the wind of it. What if the media gets hold of this? I don't want my son to lose his dignity because his wife could not stay in her limits."

My ears felt as if someone poured hot oil in them. Another man? She directly accused me of being an unfaithful woman. I could not hear the rest of her words as my mind started blocking down all the noises around me with her accusation playing in my ears.