Sheila sat with a crumpled white saree on the floor. With her kohl lined eyes and supple skin, she seemed beautiful as ever. Her mind was filled with a volcano of thoughts. She looked around at her room. The ebony wardrobe they had bought on their first anniversary, the digital photo album that her daughter had gifted on their 16th anniversary earlier this month. The pillow whose covers smelled of the jasmine oil her husband applied everyday. The curtains that she had purchased from the last sale at Marks & Spencers.

The room was silent ..eeriengly silent. Sheila was lost in her thoughts. Shrill cries in the adjoining room brought her back. Wearingly she got up and wore the saree she was clutching and went out.

Looking at her, her sister and mother came and hugged her and started wailing. Her husband ‘s lifeless body lie on the floor. His mother and relatives were crying near it . She went and sat down on the floor next to his body. Her mother-in-law clutched both her hands and broke the glass bangles she had been wearing. Dozens of relatives hugged her, sympthaized , cried, praised her husband and left. She sat there motionless. Not a single tear could be seen in her eyes. Relatives wailed loudly in an attempt to make her cry. Her sister and mother shook her in an attempt to pull her out of the self imposed trans. But there was no change. She didn’t cry.

She looked at her husbands dead body one last time and kept staring till the male relatives took it away. The female relatives followed the funeral procession to a distance and came back. She didn’t move.

When they all came back, she got up and locked herself in the same room.

Several thousand memories came gushing to her.

Theirs was a love marriage. They had met 20 years back, in college, in India Everyone knew that they were destined to be with each other, they were just so compatible. She was the college beauty queen. He was the class champion, the know it all. She was articulate, he was the elocutionist. Soon after college, he completed his MBA and was placed in a top audit firm . They got married soon.

The marriage was grandeur, she being the daughter of the most prominent lawyers in the city. Immediately after marriage they flew to Europe where they spent the most beautiful 15 days of their life.

Immediately after marriage, they went to London where he was working on an international assignment. He got a offer soon and they made London their home. The first year of their marriage passed in no time. Everything was so perfect. She didn’t wish to work so she became a full time home maker and he with her support, kept steadily climbing the ladders of corporate success. She delivered a baby girl in their second year of marriage. He doted on their little princess.

With the love and support of their parents, life was a bed of roses, roses without thorns. That was then…

As Sheila thought this, Her silky hair was falling over her face. She lifted her hands to brush aside the hair when a large burn mark on her hand caught her attention.

She remembered the faithful night when she went to his office hoping to give him a surprise as he was busy in quarter endings. She tip toed in his cabin, only to find him and his female colleague together in the office. The same colleague who had been a good friend to her. Who had offered to baby sit her daughter on late Saturday night parties. She threw the food she has painstakingly cooked for her husband and rushed back home.

She waited, hoping that he would have a valid explanation for his deed. She waited, hoping that what she saw was false and nothing but a figment of her imagination.

He came home after an hour and his colleague was by his side. He came closer to her with a sympathetic look and walked inside with his colleague closing the door on her face.

She sat their unable to move. She cried for days, months unable to believe what she just saw. She couldn’t understand what went wrong. She thought she will accept him if he apologies , but he didn’t.

After two months, she decided to walk out on the relationship. As she walked, her daughter’s cries pulled her back. She remembered her father who had suffered a paralytic stroke and died a few months back. Her mother was at the mercy of her brother who cared for nothing more than his father’s money. No she could not return to India.

Sheila knew the colleague was married . Thinking that telling her husband could end all this, she went to her house and spilled the beans. It worked and her husband forced her to quit her job. They changed the city.

Her husband took it to alcohol and that was the first night he beat her black and blue. Her ordeal didn’t end there. She was subjected to marital rape and beaten every time she tried to stop him.

As her daughter grew older, she tried to explain him. He changed for a bit , but soon resorted to his old self. Alcohol had changed him. Money and power had changed him.
This was 12 years back.

Today as she looked at her wound, she thought of the money that will automatically be hers as her husband left no will. She thought of the education she could give her daughter. She thought of the nights she will spend without being tortured and beaten by her husband. And the first time in 12 years, she smiled…….

This story has been contributed by Ms. Komal Gupta, from India. Shortstorybook.net is thankful to her for this contribution and as she prepares for her wedding scheduled for Dec 2009, we take this opportunity to wish her a happy married life.